The Poems of Felicia Hemans

by Mrs. Hemans

SONGS FOR SUMMER HOURS.

AND I TOO IN ARCADIA.

[A celebrated picture of Poussin represents a band of shepherd-youths and maidens suddenly checked in their wanderings, and affected with various emotions, by the sight of a tomb which bears this inscription—“Et in Arcadia ego.”]

They have wander’d in their glee

With the butterfly and bee;

They have climb’d o’er heathery swells,

They have wound through forest dells;

Mountain-moss hath felt their tread,

Woodland streams their way have led;

Flowers, in deepest shadowy nooks,

Nurslings of the loneliest brooks,

Unto them have yielded up

Fragrant bell and starry cup:

Chaplets are on every brow—

What hath staid the wanderers now?

Lo! a gray and rustic tomb,

Bower’d amidst the rich wood-gloom;

Whence these words their stricken spirits melt,

—“I too, Shepherds! in Arcadia dwelt.”

There is many a summer sound

That pale sepulchre around;

Through the shade young birds are glancing,

Insect-wings in sun-streaks dancing;

Glimpses of blue festal skies

Pouring in when soft winds rise;

Violets o’er the turf below

Shedding out their warmest glow;

Yet a spirit not its own

O’er the greenwood now is thrown!

Something of an under-note

Through its music seems to float,

Something of a stillness gray

Creeps across the laughing day:

Something dimly from those old words felt,

—“I too, Shepherds! in Arcadia dwelt.”

Was some gentle kindred maid

In that grave with dirges laid?

Some fair creature, with the tone

Of whose voice a joy is gone,

Leaving melody and mirth

Poorer on this alter’d earth?

Is it thus? that so they stand,

Dropping flowers from every hand—

Flowers, and lyres, and gather’d store

Of red wild-fruit prized no more?

—No! from that bright band of morn

Not one link hath yet been torn:

’Tis the shadow of the tomb

Falling o’er the summer-bloom—

O’er the flush of love and life

Passing with a sudden strife;

’Tis the low prophetic breath

Murmuring from that house of death,

Whose faint whisper thus their hearts can melt,

—“I too, Shepherds! in Arcadia dwelt.”

THE WANDERING WIND.

The Wind, the wandering Wind

Of the golden summer eves—

Whence is the thrilling magic

Of its tones among the leaves?

Oh! is it from the waters,

Or from the long tall grass?

Or is it from the hollow rocks

Through which its breathings pass?

Or is it from the voices

Of all in one combined,

That it wins the tone of mastery?

The Wind, the wandering Wind!

No, no! the strange, sweet accents

That with it come and go,

They are not from the osiers,

Nor the fir-trees whispering low;

They are not of the waters,

Nor of the cavern’d hill:

’Tis the human love within us

That gives them power to thrill.

They touch the links of memory

Around our spirits twined,

And we start, and weep, and tremble,

To the Wind, the wandering Wind!

YE ARE NOT MISS’D, FAIR FLOWERS!

Ye are not miss’d, fair flowers, that late were spreading

The summer’s glow by fount and breezy grot;

There falls the dew, its fairy favours shedding—

The leaves dance on, the young birds miss you not.

Still plays the sparkle o’er the rippling water,

O lily! whence thy cup of pearl is gone;

The bright wave mourns not for its loveliest daughter,

There is no sorrow in the wind’s low tone.

And thou, meek hyacinth! afar is roving

The bee that oft thy trembling bells hath kiss’d.

Cradled ye were, fair flowers! ’midst all things loving,

A joy to all—yet, yet, ye are not miss’d!

Ye, that were born to lend the sunbeam gladness,

And the winds fragrance, wandering where they list,

Oh! it were breathing words too deep in sadness,

To say earth’s human flowers not more are miss’d.

THE WILLOW SONG.

Willow! in thy breezy moan,

I can hear a deeper tone;

Through thy leaves come whispering low,

Faint, sweet sounds of long ago.

Willow, sighing willow!

Many a mournful tale of old

Heart-sick love to thee hath told,

Gathering from thy golden bough

Leaves to cool his burning brow.

Willow! sighing willow!

Many a swan-like song to thee

Hath been sung, thou gentle tree!

Many a lute its last lament

Down thy moonlight stream hath sent.

Willow! sighing willow!

Therefore, wave and murmur on!

Sigh for sweet affections gone,

And for tuneful voices fled,

And for love, whose heart hath bled,

Ever, willow! willow!

LEAVE ME NOT YET.

Leave me not yet! through rosy skies from far,

But now the song-birds to their nests return;

The quivering image of the first pale star

On the dim lake scarce yet begins to burn:

Leave me not yet!

Not yet! oh, hark! low tones from hidden streams,

Piercing the shivery leaves, even now arise;

Their voices mingle not with daylight dreams,

They are of vesper’s hymns and harmonies:

Leave me not yet!

My thoughts are like those gentle sounds, dear love!

By day shut up in their own still recess;

They wait for dews on earth, for stars above,

Then to breathe out their soul of tenderness:

Leave me not yet!

THE ORANGE BOUGH.

Oh! bring me one sweet orange-bough,

To fan my cheek, to cool my brow;

One bough, with pearly blossoms drest,

And bind it, mother! on my breast!

Go, seek the grove along the shore,

Whose odours I must breathe no more;

The grove where every scented tree

Thrills to the deep voice of the sea.

Oh! Love’s fond sighs, and fervent prayer,

And wild farewell, are lingering there:

Each leaf’s light whisper hath a tone

My faint heart, even in death, would own.

Then bear me thence one bough, to shed

Life’s parting sweetness round my head;

And bind it, mother! on my breast

When I am laid in lonely rest.

THE STREAM SET FREE.

Flow on, rejoice, make music,

Bright living stream set free!

The troubled haunts of care and strife

Were not for thee!

The woodland is thy country,

Thou art all its own again;

The wild birds are thy kindred race,

That fear no chain.

Flow on, rejoice, make music

Unto the glistening leaves!

Thou, the beloved of balmy winds

And golden eaves!

Once more the holy starlight

Sleeps calm upon thy breast,

Whose brightness bears no token more

Of man’s unrest.

Flow, and let freeborn music

Flow with thy wavy line,

While the stock-dove’s lingering, loving voice

Comes blent with thine.

And the green reeds quivering o’er thee,

Strings of the forest-lyre,

All fill’d with answering spirit-sounds,

In joy respire.

Yet, midst thy song’s glad changes,

Oh! keep one pitying tone

For gentle hearts, that bear to thee

Their sadness lone.

One sound, of all the deepest,

To bring, like healing dew,

A sense that nature ne’er forsakes

The meek and true.

Then, then, rejoice, make music,

Thou stream, thou glad and free!

The shadows of all glorious flowers

Be set in thee!

THE SUMMER’S CALL.[410]

Come away! The sunny hours

Woo thee far to founts and bowers!

O’er the very waters now,

In their play,

Flowers are shedding beauty’s glow—

Come away!

Where the lily’s tender gleam

Quivers on the glancing stream,

Come away!

All the air is fill’d with sound,

Soft, and sultry, and profound;

Murmurs through the shadowy grass

Lightly stray;

Faint winds whisper as they pass—

Come away!

Where the bee’s deep music swells

From the trembling foxglove bells,

Come away!

In the skies the sapphire blue

Now hath won its richest hue;

In the woods the breath of song

Night and day

Floats with leafy scents along—

Come away!

Where the boughs with dewy gloom

Darken each thick bed of bloom,

Come away!

In the deep heart of the rose

Now the crimson love-hue glows;

Now the glow-worm’s lamp by night

Sheds a ray,

Dreamy, starry, greenly bright—

Come away!

Where the fairy cup-moss lies,

With the wild-wood strawberries,

Come away!

Now each tree by summer crown’d,

Sheds its own rich twilight round;

Glancing there from sun to shade,

Bright wings play;

There the deer its couch hath made—

Come away!

Where the smooth leaves of the lime

Glisten in their honey-time,

Come away—away![411]

[ [410] “The Summer’s Call.”—This faculty for realising images of the distant and the beautiful, amidst outward circumstances of apparently the most adverse influence, is thus gracefully illustrated by Washington Irving in the “Royal Poet” of his Sketch-Book:—“Some minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty; others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to become tender and imaginative in the loneliness of confinement. He banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul in melody.

‘Have you not seen the nightingale,

A pilgrim cooped into a cage,

How doth she chant her wonted tale

In that her lonely hermitage?

Even there her charming melody doth prove,

That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.’”

Roger L’Estrange.

Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is irrepressible, unconfinable; and that, when the real world is shut out, it can create a world for itself, and with a necromantic power can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and irradiate the gloom of the dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and pageant that lived ’round Tasso in his dismal cell at Ferrara, when he conceived the splendid scenes of his Jerusalem; and we may consider The King’s Quair, composed by James of Scotland during his captivity at Windsor, as another of those beautiful breakings forth of the soul from the restraint and gloom of the prison-house.”

[411] “In my literary pursuits,” wrote Mrs Hemans at this time to a friend, “I fear I shall be obliged to look out for an amanuensis. I sometimes retain a piece of poetry several weeks in my memory, from actual dread of writing it down.... I was so glad you liked my little summer breathing strain, (‘The Summer’s Call.’) I assure you it quite consoled me for the want of natural objects of beauty around, to heap up their remembered images in one wild strain.”

OH! SKYLARK, FOR THY WING.

Oh! Skylark, for thy wing!

Thou bird of joy and light,

That I might soar and sing

At heaven’s empyreal height!

With the heathery hills beneath me,

Whence the streams in glory spring,

And the pearly clouds to wreathe me,

O Skylark! on thy wing!

Free, free, from earth-born fear,

I would range the blessed skies,

Through the blue divinely clear,

Where the low mists cannot rise!

And a thousand joyous measures

From my chainless heart should spring,

Like the bright rain’s vernal treasures,

As I wander’d on thy wing.

But oh! the silver cords

That around the heart are spun,

From gentle tones and words,

And kind eyes that make our sun!

To some low, sweet nest returning,

How soon my love would bring

There, there the dews of morning,

O Skylark! on thy wing!