Vignettes in Verse

by Matilda Betham

XXVI.

ELEGY ON EDWARD BETHAM,

Lost in the Duchess of Gordon East Indiaman, off the Cape of Good Hope.

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Lovely as are the wide and sudden calms Upon a lake, when all the waters rise, To smooth each undulation, and present A plain of molten silver—is the hope, Dear Edward, of thy safety—which now comes To fill, expand, and elevate my heart— String every nerve, and give to every vein, A warmer and a sweeter sense of life! Welcome, oh! welcome, that most healing hope, Pouring abroad an efficacious ray Into the aching bosom!—Tidings sweet Those of such prompt return, with wisdom gain'd By suffering, but with all thy innocence, All thy accustomed gaiety of heart, And all thy deep, quick sensibilities! Those gems of virtue, which concentre still In narrow limits, stores of moral wealth Beyond all estimate—whose value known, The dealer sells his other merchandize; His ivory and curious workmanship, The silkworm's product and the cloth of gold, To purchase that imperishable store, More highly prized than all!—Possessing all The properties, most precious of the rest, In a superior measure and degree, Without alloy, sparkling with inward light! Unseen, untraced the process of his growth!— No aid from any human hand or care!—- No nourishment from any earthly dews! No ripening from our bright, material sun! But secretly supplied by Providence With some more pure, diviner aliment, And with more heavenly, searching radiance fill'd; For the superior comfort, higher bliss Of that in-drinking eye the soul of man! Thus sang I, when fallacious hopes were rais'd Of his dear safety—whom, howe'er belov'd— However strong in health, and firmly built Like a fine statue of the antique world, As if he might have reach'd a century Without decrepitude, we ne'er again— Nor we alone, no other human eye— Can e'er behold! Then had I painted him Returning, as he lately left our shores, With all the fairness and the bloom of youth— The light brown hair, and its soft yellow gleams, Brightened with silver; thickening into shade, Now with a dove-like, now a chesnut hue! The smile of Peace and Love and joyful Hope! And those blue eyes, through whose dark lash the soul, Rejoicing, from its kind and happy home, Look'd forth with rapture, artless, and uncheck'd! Eyes, where Delight in careless luxury Lay nestling and indulging blissful thoughts; With every day-dream, for whose food the world Offers magnificence and loveliness; All graceful motions, and all graceful forms. The ripened nectar of delicious sounds, The social haunt—the lonely quiet hour; The Hopes embodying innocent and gay As those of Childhood, whose soft footstep past Not long before, not yet forgotten, by! The letter, dearest, blotted with thy tears, In answer to a caution—fear—express'd By much too strongly—often gives my heart A secret pang—but of remorse for nought But paining thee—too tender to endure The thought that self-indulgence, or neglect, Causing increas'd disquietude and care, Might, by increased disquietude and care, Open the grave for him who gave thee birth! How often and how warmly did'st thou ask, With epithets of fondness, how I dar'd Imagine such a horror, and to one Present, who would have died, or borne extremes Of any hard endurance, not to give The slightest anguish to a parent's breast! Alas! the cruel rashness of reproof— The busy vigilance of human pride— Like a too eager partizan, may strike, To ward off danger from his chieftain's head, A fellow soldier zealous in the cause! As of this world, this visible, wide world, This earth, with all its forests, all its plants, All its deep mines, its rivers, and its seas, Yea! all that breathes, and moves, and clings to life By any subtler impulse, which eludes Our blunted observation:—as of this, All that appears and all that is, so much Remains, in scorn of science, unexplor'd; So, in the not less wond'rous moral world, The innermost recesses of the mind, We see as little; save, Phoenician like, By petty trade and parley on its coasts, Talk by interpreters, impatient guess, Or careless resting in incertitude, At meanings in a tongue almost unknown; Or so corrupted by this intercourse, That all its native harmony is lost, Its irresistible persuasions o'er! The clearness and the sweetness of its tones, Its loftiness, simplicity and truth. All that we hear is coarse and limited, And yet we sail along and search no more, And look no farther, though the ear is pall'd With the vile din of tame monotony, The taste perverted, judgment led astray, By soul-annihilating idleness, By universal, strengthless poverty, Which leans upon its neighbour for support, And lifts the eye for sanction, or assent, To weakness still more helpless than its own! Two thousand years the sanctuary's veil Has now been rent asunder, shewing all That, to the patient and unsandall'd foot, Egress and regress freely are allowed Through that most glorious temple, where abstract, And long a stranger to the vulgar eye, Thought held her silent rule, and mission'd forth Her sealed and unquestion'd messengers. Yet those who follow nature when the track Is finer than a hair—those who can cleave The subtile and combined elements That form a drop of water—those can shrink From the more holy alchemy enjoin'd, Call'd for by that disgust the heart conceives At the usurping empire of pretence; At all those useless and disgraceful chains, Which tie us down, and imp with aptest wings, Falsehood and selfishness, who ought to creep In their own reptile slime, and dart away When eyes perceiv'd their presence. Oh! could those Adventure in too perilous a path, If without other guide than the bright stars, The love of what is lofty and divine, Or the desire of gaining for mankind, Now fettered and held down to poison'd food, Its unpolluted birth-right —they dared on, Plunging at once into untravelled realms, And bringing, as the harvest of their toil, Arms which will make each potent talisman, Each charm, and spell, and dire enchantment sink In endless infamy—without a hope To trick their bloated, and their wither'd limbs, In any Proteus vestment of disguise, Again to awe and ruinate the world. Oh! my dear brother, little did I think These lines would be prophetic, yet to me They seem so; for I since have felt deep woe, And passed through seas of anguish to attain A view of mysteries wonderful and sad— Since they are rivetted, through every clime, With shame, and guilt, and wretchedness on all That bear what only is the curse of life, Whilst they remain, which have confronted time, Wearing the semblance, sporting with the names Of truth and valour, liberty and God, Successfully, through each recorded age, But yet may fall, and will, I trust and hope!

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FINIS.