HALLOWED GROUND.
What’s hallowed ground? Has earth a clod
Its Maker meant not should be trod
By man, the image of his God,
Erect and free,
Unscourged by superstition’s rod
To bow the knee?
That’s hallowed ground—where mourned and missed
The lips repose our love has kissed;—
But where’s their memory’s mansion? Is’t
Yon churchyard’s bowers?
No! in ourselves their souls exist,
A part of ours.
A kiss can consecrate the ground
Where mated hearts are mutual bound:
The spot where love’s first links were wound,
That ne’er are riven,
Is hallowed down to earth’s profound,
And up to Heaven!
For time makes all but true love old;
The burning thoughts that then were told
Run molten still in memory’s mould;
And will not cool,
Until the heart itself be cold
In Lethe’s pool.
What hallows ground where heroes sleep?
’Tis not the sculptured piles you heap!
In dews that heavens far distant weep
Their turf may bloom;
Or Genii twine beneath the deep
Their coral tomb.
But strew his ashes to the wind
Whose sword or voice has served mankind—
And is he dead, whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?—
To live in hearts we leave behind,
Is not to die.
Is’t death to fall for Freedom’s right?
He’s dead alone that lacks her light!
And murder sullies in Heaven’s sight
The sword he draws:—
What can alone ennoble fight?
A noble cause!
Give that! and welcome war to brace
Her drums! and rend Heaven’s reeking space!
The colours planted face to face,
The charging cheer,
Though Death’s pale horse lead on the chase,
Shall still be dear.
And place our trophies where men kneel
To Heaven!—but Heaven rebukes my zeal!
The cause of Truth and Human weal,
O God above!
Transfer it from the sword’s appeal
To Peace and Love.
Peace, Love! the cherubim that join
Their spread wings o’er Devotion’s shrine—
Prayers sound in vain, and temples shine,
Where they are not—
The heart alone can make divine
Religion’s spot.
To incantations dost thou trust,
And pompous rites in domes august?
See mouldering stones and metal’s rust
Belie the vaunt,
That man can bless one pile of dust
With chime or chaunt.
The ticking wood-worm mocks thee, man!
Thy temples—creeds themselves grow wan!
But there’s a dome of nobler span,
A temple given
Thy faith, that bigots dare not ban—
Its space is Heaven!
Its roof star-pictured Nature’s ceiling,
Where trancing the rapt spirit’s feeling,
And God himself to man revealing
The harmonious spheres
Make music, though unheard their pealing
By mortal ears.
Fair stars! are not your beings pure?
Can sin, can death your worlds obscure?
Else why so swell the thoughts at your
Aspect above?
Ye must be Heaven’s that make us sure
Of heavenly love!
And in your harmony sublime
I read the doom of distant time;
That man’s regenerate soul from crime
Shall yet be drawn,
And reason on his mortal clime
Immortal dawn.
What’s hallowed ground? ’Tis what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth!—
Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth
Earth’s compass round;
And your high priesthood shall make earth
All hallowed ground.
CAROLINE.
PART I.
I’ll bid the hyacinth to blow,
I’ll teach my grotto green to be;
And sing my true love all below
The holly bower and myrtle tree.
There all his wild-wood sweets to bring,
The sweet South wind shall wander by,
And with the music of his wing
Delight my rustling canopy.
Come to my close and clustering bower
Thou spirit of a milder clime,
Fresh with the dews of fruit and flower,
Of mountain heath, and moory thyme.
With all thy rural echoes come,
Sweet comrade of the rosy day,
Wafting the wild bee’s gentle hum,
Or cuckoo’s plaintive roundelay.
Where’er thy morning breath has played,
Whatever isles of ocean fanned,
Come to my blossom-woven shade,
Thou wandering wind of fairy-land.
For sure from some enchanted isle,
Where Heaven and Love their sabbath hold,
Where pure and happy spirits smile,
Of beauty’s fairest, brightest mould:
From some green Eden of the deep,
Where Pleasure’s sigh alone is heaved,
Where tears of rapture lovers weep,
Endeared, undoubting, undeceived;
From some sweet paradise afar,
Thy music wanders, distant, lost—
Where Nature lights her leading star,
And love is never, never crossed.
Oh gentle gale of Eden bowers,
If back thy rosy feet should roam,
To revel with the cloudless Hours
In Nature’s more propitious home.
Name to thy loved Elysian groves,
That o’er enchanted spirits twine,
A fairer form than cherub loves,
And let the name be Caroline.
CAROLINE.
PART II.
TO THE EVENING STAR.
Gem of the crimson-coloured Even,
Companion of retiring day,
Why at the closing gates of Heaven,
Belovèd star dost thou delay?
So fair thy pensile beauty burns,
When soft the tear of twilight flows;
So due thy plighted love returns,
To chambers brighter than the rose,
To Peace, to Pleasure, and to Love,
So kind a star thou seem’st to be,
Sure some enamoured orb above
Descends and burns to meet with thee.
Thine is the breathing, blushing hour,
When all unheavenly passions fly,
Chased by the soul-subduing power
Of Love’s delicious witchery.
O! sacred to the fall of day,
Queen of propitious stars appear,
And early rise and long delay,
When Caroline herself is here!
Shine on her chosen green resort,
Whose trees the sunward summit crown,
And wanton flowers that well may court
An angel’s feet to tread them down.
Shine on her sweetly-scented road,
Thou star of evening’s purple dome,
That lead’st the nightingale abroad,
And guid’st the pilgrim to his home.
Shine, where my charmer’s sweeter breath
Embalms the soft exhaling dew,
Where dying winds a sigh bequeath
To kiss the cheek of rosy hue.
Where, winnowed by the gentle air,
Her silken tresses darkly flow,
And fall upon her brow so fair,
Like shadows on the mountain snow.
Thus, ever thus, at day’s decline,
In converse sweet, to wander far,
O bring with thee my Caroline,
And thou shalt be my ruling star!