"One struggle more and I am free."
LEAVE me, oh! leave me !-unto all below
Thy presence binds me with too deep a spell;
Thou makest those mortal regions, whence I go,
Too mighty in their loveliness-farewell,
That I may part in peace!
Leave me !-thy footstep, with its lightest sound,
The very shadow of thy waving hair,
Wakes in my soul a feeling too profound,
Too strong for aught that loves and dies, to bear-
Oh! bid the conflict cease!
I hear thy whisper-and the warm tears gush
Into mine eyes, the quick pulse thrills my heart;
Thou biddest the peace, the reverential hush,
The still submission, from my thoughts depart;
Dear one! this must not be.
The past looks on me from thy mournful eye,
The beauty of our free and vernal days,
Our communings with sea, and hill, and sky-
Oh! take that bright world from my spirit's gaze.
Thou art all earth to me !
Shut out the sunshine from my dying room,
The jasmine's breath, the murmur of the bee;
Let not the joy of bird-notes pierce the gloom!
They speak of love, of summer, and of thee,
Too much-and death is here!
Doth our own spring make happy music now,
From the old beech-roots flashing into day?
Are the pure lilies imaged in its flow?
Alas! vain thoughts! that fondly thus can stray
From the dread hour so near!
If I could but draw courage from the light
Of thy clear eye, that ever shone to bless!-
Not now! 'twill not be now!-my aching sight
Drinks from that fount a flood of tenderness,
Bearing all strength away!
Leave me!-thou comest between my heart and Heaven;
I would be still, in voiceless prayer to die!
Why must our souls thus love, and then be riven !
Return! thy parting wakes mine agony !
THE MESSAGE TO THE DEAD.1
THOU'RT passing hence, my brother!
Oh my earliest friend, farewell!
Thou'rt leaving me, without thy voice,
In a lonely home to dwell;
And from the hills, and from the hearth,
And from the household tree,
With thee departs the lingering mirth,
The brightness goes with thee.
But thou, my friend, my brother!
Thou'rt speeding to the shore
Where the dirge-like tone of parting words
Shall smite the soul no more!
And thou wilt see our holy dead,
The lost on earth and main :
Into the sheaf of kindred hearts
Thou wilt be bound again!
Tell, then, our friend of boyhood,
That yet his name is heard
On the blue mountains, whence his youth
Passed like a swift bright bird.
The light of his exulting brow,
The vision of his glee,
Are on me still-Oh! still I trust
That smile again to see.
And tell our fair young sister,
The rose cut down in spring,
That yet my gushing soul is filled
With lays she loved to sing.
Her soft deep eyes look through my dreams,
Tender and sadly sweet ;-
Tell her my heart within me burns
Once more that gaze to meet.
And tell our white-haired father,
That in the paths he trode,
The child he loved, the last on earth,
Yet walks and worships God.
Say, that his last fond blessing yet
Rests on my soul like dew,
And by its hallowing might I trust
Once more his face to view.
And tell our gentle mother,
That on her grave I pour
1 "Messages from the living to the dead are not uncommon iu the Highlands. The Gaels have such a ceaseless consciousness of immortality, that their departed friends are considered as merely absent for a time, and permitted to relieve the hours of separation by occasional intercourse with the objects of their earliest affections."--See the notes to Mrs. Brunton's Works.
The sorrows of my spirit forth,
As on her breast of yore.
Happy thou art that soon, how soon,
Our good and bright will see !-
Oh! brother, brother! may I dwell,
Ere long, with them and thee!
"Oh! if the soul immortal be,
Is not its love immortal too?"
SEE'ST thou my home?-'tis where yon woods are waving, In their dark richness, to the summer air,
Where yon blue stream, a thousand flower-banks laving, Leads down the hill a vein of light,—'tis there!
'Midst those green wilds how many a fount lies gleaming, Fringed with the violet, coloured with the skies!
My boyhood's haunt, through days of summer dreaming, Under young leaves that shook with melodies.
My home! the spirit of its love is breathing
In every wind that plays across my track;
From its white walls the very tendrils wreathing,
Seem with soft links to draw the wanderer back.
There am I loved-there prayed for-there my mother
Sits by the hearth with meekly thoughtful eye;
There my young sisters watch to greet their brother;
Soon their glad footsteps down the path will fly.
There, in sweet strains of kindred music blending,
All the home-voices meet at day's decline;
One are those tones, as from one heart ascending,-
There laughs my home-sad stranger! where is thine?
Askest thou of mine ?-In solemn peace 'tis lying,
Far o'er the deserts and the tombs away;
'Tis where I, too, am loved with love undying,
And fond hearts wait my step-But where are they?
Ask where the earth's departed have their dwelling,
Ask of the clouds, the stars, the trackless air!
I know it not, yet trust the whisper, telling
My lonely heart that love unchanged is there.
And what is home, and where, but with the loving?
Happy thou art that so canst gaze on thine!
My spirit feels but, in its weary roving,
That with the dead, where'er they be, is mine.
Go to thy home, rejoicing son and brother!
Bear in fresh gladness to the household scene!
For me, too, watch the sister and the mother,
I well believe-but dark seas roll between.
"Wie herrlich die Sonne dort untergeht! da ich noch ein Bube war-war's mein Lieblingsgedanke, wie sie zu leben, wie sie zu sterben!"
Like thee to die, thou sun!-My boyhood's dream
Was this; and now my spirit, with thy beam,
Ebbs from a field of victory!--yet the hour
Bears back upon me, with a torrent's power,
Nature's deep longings :-Oh! for some kind eye,
Wherein to meet love's fervent farewell gaze;
Some breast to pillow life's last agony,
Some voice, to speak of hope and brighter days,
Beyond the pass of shadows! But I go,
I that have been so loved, go hence alone;
And ye, now gathering round my own hearth's glow,
Sweet friends! it may be that a softer tone,
Even in this moment, with your laughing glee,
Mingles its cadence while you speak of me:
Of me, your soldier, 'midst the mountains lying,
On the red banner of his battles dying,
Far, far away!-and oh! your parting prayer-
Will not his name be fondly murmured there?
It will! A blessing on that holy hearth!
Though clouds are darkening to o'ercast its mirth.
Mother! I may not hear thy voice again;
Sisters! ye watch to greet my step in vain;
Young brother, fare thee well !-on each dear head
Blessing and love a thousandfold be shed,
My soul's last earthly breathings! May your home
Smile for you ever! May no winter come,
No world, between your hearts! May even your tears,
For my sake, full of long-remembered years,
Quicken the true affections that entwine
Your lives in one bright bond! I may not sleep
Amidst our fathers, where those tears might shine
Over my slumbers; yet your love will keep
My memory living in the ancestral halls,
Where shame hath never trod :-the dark night falls,
And I depart. The brave are gone to rest,
The brothers of my combats, on the breast
Of the red field they reaped:-their work is done-
Thou, too, art set !-farewell, farewell, thou sun!
The last lone watcher of the bloody sod,
Offers a trusting spirit up to God.
That they whom death has hidden from our sight,
Are worthiest of the mind's regard; with them
The future cannot contradict the past-
Mortality's last exercise and proof
"The love where death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow."
BYRON.
I CALL thee blessed!--though now the voice be fled
Which to thy soul brought dayspring with its tone,
And o'er the gentle eyes though dust be spread,
Eyes that ne'er looked on thine but light was thrown
Far through thy breast:
And though the music of thy life be broken,
Or changed in every chord, since he is gone,
Feeling all this, even yet, by many a token,
O thou, the deeply, but the brightly lone!
I call thee blessed!
For in thy heart there is a holy spot,
As 'mid the waste an Isle of fount and palm,
For ever green!-the world's breath enters not,
The passion-tempests may not break its calm;
'Tis thine, all thine!
Thither, in trust unbaffled, mayest thou turn
From bitter words, cold greetings, heartless eyes,
Quenching thy soul's thirst at the hidden urn
That, filled with waters of sweet memory, lies
In its own shrine.
Thou hast thy home!—there is no power in change
To reach that temple of the past; no sway,
In all time brings of sudden, dark, or strange,
To sweep the still transparent peace away
From its hushed air!
And oh! that glorious image of the dead!
Sole thing whereon a deathless love may rest,
And in deep faith and dreamy worship shed
Its high gifts fearlessly!-I call thee blessed,
If only there.
Blessed for the beautiful within thee dwelling
Never to fade !-a refuge from distrust,
A spring of purer life, still freshly welling,
To clothe the barrenness of earthly dust
With flowers divine.
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