TROUBADOUR SONG.
The warrior cross’d the ocean’s foam
For the stormy fields of war;
The maid was left in a smiling home
And a sunny land afar.
His voice was heard where javelin showers
Pour’d on the steel-clad line;
Her step was midst the summer flowers,
Her seat beneath the vine.
His shield was cleft, his lance was riven,
And the red blood stain’d his crest;
While she—the gentlest wind of heaven
Might scarcely fan her breast!
Yet a thousand arrows pass’d him by,
And again he cross’d the seas;
But she had died as roses die
That perish with a breeze—
As roses die, when the blast is come
For all things bright and fair:
There was death within the smiling home—
How had death found her there?
THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP.[325]
What hidest thou in thy treasure caves and cells,
Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious main?—
Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-colour’d shells
Bright things which gleam unreck’d of, and in vain.
Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea!
We ask not such from thee.
Yet more, the depths have more! What wealth untold,
Far down, and shining through their stillness lies!
Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,
Won from ten thousand royal Argosies.—
Sweep o’er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful main!
Earth claims not these again.
Yet more, the depths have more! Thy waves have roll’d
Above the cities of a world gone by!
Sand hath fill’d up the palaces of old,
Sea-weed o’ergrown the halls of revelry.—
Dash o’er them, ocean! in thy scornful play:
Man yields them to decay.
Yet more! the billows and the depths have more!
High hearts and brave are gather’d to thy breast!
They hear not now the booming waters roar,
The battle-thunders will not break their rest.—
Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave!
Give back the true and brave!
Give back the lost and lovely!—those for whom
The place was kept at board and hearth so long,
The prayer went up through midnight’s breathless gloom,
And the vain yearning woke midst festal song!
Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o’erthrown—
But all is not thine own.
To thee the love of woman hath gone down,
Dark flow thy tides o’er manhood’s noble head,
O’er youth’s bright locks, and beauty’s flowery crown:
Yet must thou hear a voice—Restore the dead!
Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee!—
Restore the dead, thou sea!
[325] Originally introduced in the “Forest Sanctuary.”
[“The only public mention that I have made of Mrs Hemans,” says Mr Montgomery of Sheffield, in a letter regarding her, with which we have been favoured by that excellent man and distinguished poet, “was in a series of lectures on the principal British Poets, delivered at the Royal Institution from ten to twelve years ago. In one of these, having to notice very briefly the ‘Female Poets,’ I said, ‘Mrs Hemans, in many of her lyrics, has struck out a new and attractive style of mingling the picturesque and the sentimental with such grace and beauty that, in her best pieces, she is better than almost any poet of either sex in that sprightly, yet pathetic vein, which she has exercised.’ I gave ‘The Treasures of the Deep’ as an example; and, indeed, I know nothing in our language—of the kind and the character I mean—comparable with it, either in conception or execution, for wealth of thought, felicity of diction, and commanding address:—The Ocean summoned to give an account of all that it has been doing through six thousand years, and the answers dictated by the questioner, till all the secrets of the abyss are revealed in the light by which poetry alone, of the purest order, can discover them. The last stanza is a crown of glory to the perfect whole.”
We beg to remind the author of “The World before the Flood,” and “The Pelican Island,” that the lectures to which he alludes have never been published. They were flatteringly successful, both when delivered at the Royal Institution, and before the literary societies of several of the principal provincial towns of England; and could not fail being acceptable to the great reading public, as the recorded opinions concerning the leading poets of Great Britain of past and present times, deliberately formed by one of their own number, who has himself written so much and so well, and who, in popularity as a lyrist, has no superior among contemporaries.]