THE TRAVELLER AT THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.
In sunset’s light, o’er Afric thrown,
A wanderer proudly stood
Beside the well-spring, deep and lone,
Of Egypt’s awful flood—
The cradle of that mighty birth,
So long a hidden thing to earth!
He heard its life’s first murmuring sound,
A low mysterious tone—
A music sought, but never found
By kings and warriors gone.
He listen’d—and his heart beat high:
That was the song of victory!
The rapture of a conqueror’s mood
Rush’d burning through his frame,—
The depths of that green solitude
Its torrents could not tame;
Though stillness lay, with eve’s last smile,
Round those far fountains of the Nile.
Night came with stars. Across his soul
There swept a sudden change:
E’en at the pilgrim’s glorious goal,
A shadow dark and strange
Breathed from the thought, so swift to fall
O’er triumph’s hour—and is this all?[328]
No more than this! What seem’d it now
First by that spring to stand?
A thousand streams of lovelier flow
Bathed his own mountain-land!
Whence, far o’er waste and ocean track,
Their wild, sweet voices, call’d him back.
They call’d him back to many a glade,
His childhood’s haunt of play,
Where brightly through the beechen shade
Their waters glanced away;
They call’d him, with their sounding waves,
Back to his father’s hills and graves.
But, darkly mingling with the thought
Of each familiar scene,
Rose up a fearful vision, fraught
With all that lay between—
The Arab’s lance, the desert’s gloom,
The whirling sands, the red simoom!
Where was the glow of power and pride?
The spirit born to roam?
His alter’d heart within him died
With yearnings for his home!
All vainly struggling to repress
That gush of painful tenderness.
He wept! The stars of Afric’s heaven
Beheld his bursting tears,
E’en on that spot where fate had given
The meed of toiling years!—
O Happiness! how far we flee
Thine own sweet paths in search of thee!
[328] Bruce’s mingled feelings on arriving at the source of the Nile, are thus portrayed by him:—“I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had for many years been the principal object of my ambition and wishes; indifference, which, from the usual infirmity of human nature, follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The marsh and the fountains of the Nile, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan, rise in one hill. I began, in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered fancy.”
CASABIANCA.[329]
The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm—
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though child-like form.
The flames roll’d on—he would not go
Without his father’s word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He call’d aloud:—“Say, father! say
If yet my task is done!”
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
“Speak, father!” once again he cried,
“If I may yet be gone!”
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll’d on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And look’d from that lone post of death
In still yet brave despair;
And shouted but once more aloud,
“My father! must I stay?”
While o’er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.
They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream’d above the gallant child
Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder-sound—
The boy—oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strew’d the sea!—
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part;
But the noblest thing which perish’d there
Was that young faithful heart!
[329] Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the Admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile) after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.
THE DIAL OF FLOWERS.[330]
’Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours,
As they floated in light away,
By the opening and the folding flowers,
That laugh to the summer’s day.
Thus had each moment its own rich hue,
And its graceful cup and bell,
In whose colour’d vase might sleep the dew,
Like a pearl in an ocean-shell.
To such sweet signs might the time have flow’d
In a golden current on,
Ere from the garden, man’s first abode,
The glorious guests were gone.
So might the days have been brightly told—
Those days of song and dreams—
When shepherds gather’d their flocks of old
By the blue Arcadian streams.
So in those isles of delight, that rest
Far off in a breezeless main,
Which many a bark, with a weary quest,
Has sought, but still in vain.
Yet is not life, in its real flight,
Mark’d thus—even thus—on earth,
By the closing of one hope’s delight,
And another’s gentle birth?
Oh! let us live, so that flower by flower,
Shutting in turn, may leave
A lingerer still for the sunset hour,
A charm for the shaded eve.
[330] This dial was, I believe, formed by Linnæus, and marked the hours by the opening and closing, at regular intervals, of the flowers arranged in it.
OUR DAILY PATHS.[331]
“Naught shall prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.” Wordsworth.
There’s beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes
Can trace it midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise;
We may find it where a hedgerow showers its blossoms o’er our way,
Or a cottage window sparkles forth in the last red light of day.
We may find it where a spring shines clear beneath an aged tree,
With the foxglove o’er the water’s glass, borne downwards by the bee;
Or where a swift and sunny gleam on the birchen stems is thrown,
As a soft wind playing parts the leaves, in copses green and lone.
We may find it in the winter boughs, as they cross the cold blue sky,
While soft on icy pool and stream their pencil’d shadows lie,
When we look upon their tracery, by the fairy frost-work bound,
Whence the flitting redbreast shakes a shower of crystals to the ground.
Yes! beauty dwells in all our paths—but sorrow too is there:
How oft some cloud within us dims the bright, still summer air!
When we carry our sick hearts abroad amidst the joyous things,
That through the leafy places glance on many-colour’d wings,
With shadows from the past we fill the happy woodland shades,
And a mournful memory of the dead is with us in the glades;
And our dream-like fancies lend the wind an echo’s plaintive tone
Of voices, and of melodies, and of silvery laughter gone.
But are we free to do even thus—to wander as we will,
Bearing sad visions through the grove, and o’er the breezy hill?
No! in our daily paths lie cares, that ofttimes bind us fast,
While from their narrow round we see the golden day fleet past.
They hold us from the woodlark’s haunts, and violet dingles, back,
And from all the lovely sounds and gleams in the shining river’s track;
They bar us from our heritage of spring-time, hope, and mirth,
And weigh our burden’d spirits down with the cumbering dust of earth.
Yet should this be? Too much, too soon, despondingly we yield!
A better lesson we are taught by the lilies of the field!
A sweeter by the birds of heaven—which tell us, in their flight,
Of One that through the desert air for ever guides them right.
Shall not this knowledge calm our hearts, and bid vain conflicts cease?
Ay, when they commune with themselves in holy hours of peace,
And feel that by the lights and clouds through which our pathway lies,
By the beauty and the grief alike, we are training for the skies!
[331] This little poem derives an additional interest from being affectingly associated with a name no less distinguished than that of the late Mr Dugald Stewart. The admiration he always expressed for Mrs Hemans’s poetry, was mingled with regret that she so generally made choice of melancholy subjects; and on one occasion, he sent her, through a mutual friend, a message suggestive of his wish that she would employ her fine talents in giving more consolatory views of the ways of Providence, thus infusing comfort and cheer into the bosoms of her readers, in a spirit of Christian philosophy, which, he thought, would be more consonant with the pious mind and loving heart displayed in every line she wrote, than dwelling on what was painful and depressing, however beautifully and touchingly such subjects might be treated of. This message was faithfully transmitted, and almost by return of post, Mrs Hemans (who was then residing in Wales) sent to the kind friend to whom it had been forwarded, the poem of “Our Daily Paths,” requesting it might be given to Mr Stewart, with an assurance of her gratitude for the interest he took in her writings, and alleging as the reason of the mournful strain which pervaded them, “that a cloud hung over her life which she could not always rise above.”
The letter reached Mr Stewart just as he was stepping into the carriage, to leave his country residence (Kinneil House, the property of the Duke of Hamilton) for Edinburgh—the last time, alas! his presence was ever to gladden that happy home, as his valuable life was closed very shortly afterwards. The poem was read to him by his daughter, on his way to Edinburgh, and he expressed himself in the highest degree charmed and gratified with the result of his suggestions; and some of the lines which pleased him more particularly were often repeated to him during the few remaining weeks of his life.