Most beautiful, most gentle! Yet how lost
To all that gladdens the fair earth; the eye
That watched her being; the maternal care
That kept and nourished her; and the calm light
That steals from our own thoughts, and softly rests
On youth’s green valleys and smooth-sliding waters.
Alas! few suns of life, and fewer winds,
Had withered or had wasted the fresh rose
That bloomed upon her cheek; but one chill frost
Came in that early Autumn, when ripe thought
Is rich and beautiful,—and blighted it;
And the fair stalk grew languid day by day,
And drooped,—and drooped, and shed its many leaves.
’Tis said that some have died of love, and some,
That once from beauty’s high romance had caught
Love’s passionate feelings and heart-wasting cares,
Have spurned life’s threshold with a desperate foot:
And others have gone mad,—and she was one!—
Her lover died at sea; and they had felt
A coldness for each other when they parted;
But love returned again, and to her ear
Came tidings, that the ship which bore her lover
Had suddenly gone down at sea, and all were lost.
I saw her in her native vale, when high
The aspiring lark up from the reedy river
Mounted, on cheerful pinion; and she sat
Casting smooth pebbles into a clear fountain,
And marking how they sank; and oft she sighed
For him that perished thus in the vast deep.
She had a sea-shell, that her lover brought
From the far-distant ocean, and she pressed
Its smooth cold lips unto her ear, and thought
It whispered tidings of the dark blue sea;
And sad, she cried: “The tides are out!—and now
I see his corse upon the stormy beach!”
Around her neck a string of rose-lipped shells,
And coral, and white pearl, was loosely hung,
And close beside her lay a delicate fan,
Made of the halcyon’s blue wing; and when
She looked upon it, it would calm her thoughts
As that bird calms the ocean,—for it gave
Mournful, yet pleasant memory. Once I marked,
When through the mountain hollows and green woods,
That bent beneath its footsteps, the loud wind
Came with a voice as of the restless deep,
She raised her head, and on her pale cold cheek
A beauty of diviner seeming came:
And then she spread her hands, and smiled, as if
She welcomed a long-absent friend,—and then
Shrank timorously back again, and wept.
I turned away: a multitude of thoughts,
Mournful and dark, were crowding on my mind;
And as I left that lost and ruined one,
A living monument that still on earth
There is warm love and deep sincerity,—
She gazed upon the west, where the blue sky
Held, like an ocean, in its wide embrace
Those fairy islands of bright cloud, that lay
So calm and quietly in the thin ether.
And then she pointed where, alone and high,
One little cloud sailed onward, like a lost
And wandering bark, and fainter grew, and fainter,
And soon was swallowed up in the blue depths.
And when it sank away, she turned again
With sad despondency and tears to earth.
Three long and weary months,—yet not a whisper
Of stern reproach for that cold parting! Then
She sat no longer by her favourite fountain!—
She was at rest for ever.
THE VENETIAN GONDOLIER.
Here rest the weary oar!—soft airs
Breathe out in the o’erarching sky;
And Night!—sweet Night—serenely wears
A smile of peace;—her noon is nigh.
Where the tall fir in quiet stands,
And waves, embracing the chaste shores,
Move over sea-shells and bright sands,—
Is heard the sound of dipping oars.
Swift o’er the wave the light bark springs,
Love’s midnight hour draws lingering near:
And list!—his tuneful viol strings
The young Venetian Gondolier.
Lo! on the silver-mirrored deep,
On earth, and her embosomed lakes,
And where the silent rivers swept,—
From the thin cloud fair moonlight breaks.
Soft music breathes around, and dies
On the calm bosom of the sea;
Whilst in her cell the novice sighs
Her vespers to her rosary.
At their dim altars bow fair forms,
In tender charity for those,
That, helpless left to life’s rude storms,
Have never found this calm repose.
The bell swings to its midnight chime,
Relieved against the deep blue sky!
Haste!—dip the oar again!—’tis time
To seek Genevra’s balcony.
DIRGE OVER A NAMELESS GRAVE.
By yon still river, where the wave
Is winding slow at evening’s close,
The beech, upon a nameless grave,
Its sadly-moving shadow throws.
O’er the fair woods the sun looks down
Upon the many-twinkling leaves,
And twilight’s mellow shades are brown,
Where darkly the green turf upheaves.
The river glides in silence there,
And hardly waves the sapling tree:
Sweet flowers are springing, and the air
Is full of balm,—but where is she!
They bade her wed a son of pride,
And leave the hopes she cherished long:
She loved but one,—and would not hide
A love which knew no wrong.
And months went sadly on,—and years:—
And she was wasting day by day:
At length she died,—and many tears
Were shed, that she should pass away.
Then came a grey old man, and knelt
With bitter weeping by her tomb:—
And others mourned for him, who felt
That he had sealed a daughter’s doom.
The funeral train has long passed on,
And time wiped dry the father’s tear!
Farewell,—lost maiden!—there is one
That mourns thee yet,—and he is here.
A SONG OF SAVOY.
As the dim twilight shrouds
The mountain’s purple crest,
And summer’s white and folded clouds
Are glowing in the west,
Loud shouts come up the rocky dell,
And voices hail the evening-bell.
Faint is the goatherd’s song,
And sighing comes the breeze:
The silent river sweeps along,
Amid its bended trees,—
And the full moon shines faintly there,
And music fills the evening air.
Beneath the waving firs
The tinkling cymbals sound;
And as the wind the foliage stirs,
I see the dancers bound
Where the green branches, arched above,
Bend over this fair scene of love.
And he is there, that sought
My young heart long ago!
But he has left me,—though I thought
He ne’er could leave me so.
Ah! lovers’ vows—how frail are they!
And his—were made but yesterday.
Why comes he not? I call
In tears upon him yet;—
’Twere better ne’er to love at all,
Than love and then forget!
Why comes he not? Alas! I should
Reclaim him still, if weeping could.
But see,—he leaves the glade,
And beckons me away:
He comes to seek his mountain maid!—
I cannot chide his stay.
Glad sounds along the valley swell,
And voices hail the evening-bell.
JECKOYVA.
The Indian chief, Jeckoyva, as tradition says, perished alone on the
mountain which now bears his name. Night overtook him whilst hunting
among the cliffs, and he was not heard of till after a long time, when
his corpse was found at the foot of a high rock, over which he must
have fallen. Mount Jeckoyva is near the White Hills.
They made the warrior’s grave beside
The dashing of his native tide:
And there was mourning in the glen—
The strong wail of a thousand men—
O’er him thus fallen in his pride,
Ere mist of age—or blight or blast
Had o’er his mighty spirit past.
They made the warrior’s grave beneath
The bending of the wild elm’s wreath,
When the dark hunter’s piercing eye
Had found that mountain rest on high,
Where, scattered by the sharp wind’s breath,
Beneath the rugged cliff were thrown
The strong belt and the mouldering bone.
Where was the warrior’s foot, when first
The red sun on the mountain burst?—
Where—when the sultry noon-time came
On the green vales with scorching flame,
And made the woodlands faint with thirst?
’Twas where the wind is keen and loud,
And the grey eagle breasts the cloud.
Where was the warrior’s foot, when night
Veiled in thick cloud the mountain-height?
None heard the loud and sudden crash,—
None saw the fallen warrior dash
Down the bare rock so high and white!—
But he that drooped not in the chase
Made on the hills his burial-place.
They found him there, when the long day
Of cold desertion passed away,
And traces on that barren cleft
Of struggling hard with death were left—
Deep marks and footprints in the clay!
And they have laid his feathery helm
By the dark river and green elm.
MUSINGS.
I sat by my window one night,
And watched how the stars grew high;
And the earth and skies were a splendid sight
To a sober and musing eye.
From heaven the silver moon shone down
With gentle and mellow ray,
And beneath the crowded roofs of the town
In broad light and shadow lay.
A glory was on the silent sea,
And mainland and island too,
Till a haze came over the lowland lea,
And shrouded that beautiful blue.
Bright in the moon the autumn wood
Its crimson scarf unrolled,
And the trees like a splendid army stood
In a panoply of gold!
I saw them waving their banners high,
As their crests to the night wind bowed,
And a distant sound on the air went by,
Like the whispering of a crowd.
Then I watched from my window how fast
The lights all around me fled,
As the wearied man to his slumber passed,
And the sick one to his bed.
All faded save one, that burned
With distant and steady light;
But that, too, went out,—and I turned
Where my own lamp within shone bright!
Thus, thought I, our joys must die,
Yes—the brightest from earth we win:
Till each turns away, with a sigh,
To the lamp that burns brightly within.
SONG.
Where, from the eye of day,
The dark and silent river
Pursues through tangled woods a way
O’er which the tall trees quiver;
The silver mist, that breaks
From out that woodland cover,
Betrays the hidden path it takes
And hangs the current over!
So oft the thoughts that burst
From hidden springs of feeling,
Like silent streams, unseen at first,
From our cold hearts are stealing:
But soon the clouds that veil
The eye of Love, when glowing,
Betray the long unwhispered tale
Of thoughts in darkness flowing.