SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward
far away,
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican
array,
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or
come they near?
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the
storm we hear.
Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of
battle rolls;
Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy
on their souls!
"Who is losing? who is winning?" Over hill
and over plain,
I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the
mountain rain.
Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena,
look once more.
"Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly
as before,
Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman,
foot and horse,
Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping
down its mountain course."
Look forth once more, Ximena! "Ah! the smoke
has rolled away;
And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the
ranks of gray.
Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop
of Minon wheels;
There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon
at their heels.
"Jesu, pity I how it thickens I now retreat and
now advance!
Bight against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's
charging lance!
Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and
foot together fall;
Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them
ploughs the Northern ball."
Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and
frightful on!
Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost,
and who has won?
Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together
fall,
O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters,
for them all!
"Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting. Blessed
Mother, save my brain!
I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from
heaps of slain.
Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they
fall, and strive to rise;
Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die
before our eyes!
"O my hearts love! O my dear one! lay thy
poor head on my knee;
Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst
thou hear me? canst thou see?
O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal,
look once more
On the blessed cross before thee! Mercy!
all is o'er!"
Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one
down to rest;
Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon
his breast;
Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral
masses said;
To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy
aid.
Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young,
a soldier lay,
Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding
slow his life away;
But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt,
She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-
belt.
With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned
away her head;
With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon
her dead;
But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his
struggling breath of pain,
And she raised the cooling water to his parching
lips again.
Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand
and faintly smiled;
Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch
beside her child?
All his stranger words with meaning her woman's
heart supplied;
With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother!"
murmured he, and died!
"A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee
forth,
From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely,
in the North!"
Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him
with her dead,
And turned to soothe the living, and bind the
wounds which bled.
"Look forth once more, Ximena!" Like a cloud
before the wind
Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood
and death behind;
Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the
wounded strive;
"Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of
God, forgive!"
Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool,
gray shadows fall;
Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain
over all!
Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart
the battle rolled,
In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's
lips grew cold.
But the noble Mexic women still their holy task
pursued,
Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and
faint and lacking food.
Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender
care they hung,
And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange
and Northern tongue.
Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of
ours;
Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh
the Eden flowers;
From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity
send their prayer,
And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in
our air!
1847.
THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK.
"This legend (to which my attention was called by my friend Charles Sumner), is the subject of a celebrated picture by Tintoretto, of which Mr. Rogers possesses the original sketch. The slave lies on the ground, amid a crowd of spectators, who look on, animated by all the various emotions of sympathy, rage, terror; a woman, in front, with a child in her arms, has always been admired for the lifelike vivacity of her attitude and expression. The executioner holds up the broken implements; St. Mark, with a headlong movement, seems to rush down from heaven in haste to save his worshipper. The dramatic grouping in this picture is wonderful; the coloring, in its gorgeous depth and harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers's sketch, finer than in the picture."—MRS. JAMESON'S Sacred and Legendary Art, I. 154.
THE day is closing dark and cold,
With roaring blast and sleety showers;
And through the dusk the lilacs wear
The bloom of snow, instead of flowers.
I turn me from the gloom without,
To ponder o'er a tale of old;
A legend of the age of Faith,
By dreaming monk or abbess told.
On Tintoretto's canvas lives
That fancy of a loving heart,
In graceful lines and shapes of power,
And hues immortal as his art.
In Provence (so the story runs)
There lived a lord, to whom, as slave,
A peasant-boy of tender years
The chance of trade or conquest gave.
Forth-looking from the castle tower,
Beyond the hills with almonds dark,
The straining eye could scarce discern
The chapel of the good St. Mark.
And there, when bitter word or fare
The service of the youth repaid,
By stealth, before that holy shrine,
For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed.
The steed stamped at the castle gate,
The boar-hunt sounded on the hill;
Why stayed the Baron from the chase,
With looks so stern, and words so ill?
"Go, bind yon slave! and let him learn,
By scath of fire and strain of cord,
How ill they speed who give dead saints
The homage due their living lord!"
They bound him on the fearful rack,
When, through the dungeon's vaulted dark,
He saw the light of shining robes,
And knew the face of good St. Mark.
Then sank the iron rack apart,
The cords released their cruel clasp,
The pincers, with their teeth of fire,
Fell broken from the torturer's grasp.
And lo! before the Youth and Saint,
Barred door and wall of stone gave way;
And up from bondage and the night
They passed to freedom and the day!
O dreaming monk! thy tale is true;
O painter! true thy pencil's art;
in tones of hope and prophecy,
Ye whisper to my listening heart!
Unheard no burdened heart's appeal
Moans up to God's inclining ear;
Unheeded by his tender eye,
Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear.
For still the Lord alone is God
The pomp and power of tyrant man
Are scattered at his lightest breath,
Like chaff before the winnower's fan.
Not always shall the slave uplift
His heavy hands to Heaven in vain.
God's angel, like the good St. Mark,
Comes shining down to break his chain!
O weary ones! ye may not see
Your helpers in their downward flight;
Nor hear the sound of silver wings
Slow beating through the hush of night!
But not the less gray Dothan shone,
With sunbright watchers bending low,
That Fear's dim eye beheld alone
The spear-heads of the Syrian foe.
There are, who, like the Seer of old,
Can see the helpers God has sent,
And how life's rugged mountain-side
Is white with many an angel tent!
They hear the heralds whom our Lord
Sends down his pathway to prepare;
And light, from others hidden, shines
On their high place of faith and prayer.
Let such, for earth's despairing ones,
Hopeless, yet longing to be free,
Breathe once again the Prophet's prayer
"Lord, ope their eyes, that they may see!"
1849.
KATHLEEN.
This ballad was originally published in my prose work, Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal, as the song of a wandering Milesian schoolmaster. In the seventeenth century, slavery in the New World was by no means confined to the natives of Africa. Political offenders and criminals were transported by the British government to the plantations of Barbadoes and Virginia, where they were sold like cattle in the market. Kidnapping of free and innocent white persons was practised to a considerable extent in the seaports of the United Kingdom.
O NORAH, lay your basket down,
And rest your weary hand,
And come and hear me sing a song
Of our old Ireland.
There was a lord of Galaway,
A mighty lord was he;
And he did wed a second wife,
A maid of low degree.
But he was old, and she was young,
And so, in evil spite,
She baked the black bread for his kin,
And fed her own with white.
She whipped the maids and starved the kern,
And drove away the poor;
"Ah, woe is me!" the old lord said,
"I rue my bargain sore!"
This lord he had a daughter fair,
Beloved of old and young,
And nightly round the shealing-fires
Of her the gleeman sung.
"As sweet and good is young Kathleen
As Eve before her fall;"
So sang the harper at the fair,
So harped he in the hall.
"Oh, come to me, my daughter dear!
Come sit upon my knee,
For looking in your face, Kathleen,
Your mother's own I see!"
He smoothed and smoothed her hair away,
He kissed her forehead fair;
"It is my darling Mary's brow,
It is my darling's hair!"
Oh, then spake up the angry dame,
"Get up, get up," quoth she,
"I'll sell ye over Ireland,
I'll sell ye o'er the sea!"
She clipped her glossy hair away,
That none her rank might know;
She took away her gown of silk,
And gave her one of tow,
And sent her down to Limerick town
And to a seaman sold
This daughter of an Irish lord
For ten good pounds in gold.
The lord he smote upon his breast,
And tore his beard so gray;
But he was old, and she was young,
And so she had her way.
Sure that same night the Banshee howled
To fright the evil dame,
And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen,
With funeral torches came.
She watched them glancing through the trees,
And glimmering down the hill;
They crept before the dead-vault door,
And there they all stood still!
"Get up, old man! the wake-lights shine!"
"Ye murthering witch," quoth he,
"So I'm rid of your tongue, I little care
If they shine for you or me."
"Oh, whoso brings my daughter back,
My gold and land shall have!"
Oh, then spake up his handsome page,
"No gold nor land I crave!
"But give to me your daughter dear,
Give sweet Kathleen to me,
Be she on sea or be she on land,
I'll bring her back to thee."
"My daughter is a lady born,
And you of low degree,
But she shall be your bride the day
You bring her back to me."
He sailed east, he sailed west,
And far and long sailed he,
Until he came to Boston town,
Across the great salt sea.
"Oh, have ye seen the young Kathleen,
The flower of Ireland?
Ye'll know her by her eyes so blue,
And by her snow-white hand!"
Out spake an ancient man, "I know
The maiden whom ye mean;
I bought her of a Limerick man,
And she is called Kathleen.
"No skill hath she in household work,
Her hands are soft and white,
Yet well by loving looks and ways
She doth her cost requite."
So up they walked through Boston town,
And met a maiden fair,
A little basket on her arm
So snowy-white and bare.
"Come hither, child, and say hast thou
This young man ever seen?"
They wept within each other's arms,
The page and young Kathleen.
"Oh give to me this darling child,
And take my purse of gold."
"Nay, not by me," her master said,
"Shall sweet Kathleen be sold.
"We loved her in the place of one
The Lord hath early ta'en;
But, since her heart's in Ireland,
We give her back again!"
Oh, for that same the saints in heaven
For his poor soul shall pray,
And Mary Mother wash with tears
His heresies away.
Sure now they dwell in Ireland;
As you go up Claremore
Ye'll see their castle looking down
The pleasant Galway shore.
And the old lord's wife is dead and gone,
And a happy man is he,
For he sits beside his own Kathleen,
With her darling on his knee.
1849.