Бренуэлл Бронте, как и его сёстры, с детства пристрастился к сочинительству. Сохранились наброски обширного повествования о вымышленной стране Ангрии, написанного совместно со старшей сестрой Шарлоттой. Это были истории о вымышленных английских колониях в Африке, центром которых являлась великолепная столица — Стеклянный город (впоследствии — Витрополь).

В юности Бренуэлл Бронте учился портретной живописи в Хоэрте; в 1838 и 1839 годах работал художником в Брадфорде. Одна из самых известных его работ — автопортрет в окружении сестёр (позднее Бренуэлл стёр собственное изображение).

Параллельно он работал над переводами «Од» Горация. Его переводы снискали похвалу Кольдриджа и Водсворта. К поэтам «озёрной школы» мальчик обратился с письмами и просьбой оценить его переводы.

В 1840 году Бронте стал преподавать в богатой семье, но после полугода работы там был уволен. Год спустя был принят на работу на железнодорожную станцию, однако через год его обвинили в растрате (при нём была обнаружена недостача в размере 11 фунтов). В течение всего периода работы в семье и на станции Бренуэлл писал для йоркширских газет под всевозможными псевдонимами. В 1843 году Бронте поступил на новое место работы — преподавателем у сына священника Эдмунда Робинсона. Эту работу он получил благодаря сестре Энн, служившей гувернанткой в семье Робинсон у двух старших дочерей. Во время пребывания в семье он страстно увлёкся женой мистера Робинсона — Лидией. Миссис Робинсон была неосторожна в общении со своим любовником, неоднократно передавала ему деньги через прислугу. В 1845 году её муж раскрыл измену и уволил Бренуэлла.

После возвращения в Хоэрт Бренуэлл стал злоупотреблять алкоголем и опиумом. Одной из причин пристрастия к опиуму стали острые ревматические боли. Вследствие пагубной привычки он впадал в гнев и истерики; уничтожал свои рисунки, бредил, портил вещи, а как то даже поджег свою кровать. Держал семью в постоянном нервном напряжении. Часто бродил по пустошам в окрестностях Хоэрта, в надежде зарисовать вересковый ветер. Постепенно поступки Бренуэлла становились опасными и непредсказуемыми, нередко случались приступы белой горячки.

Серьёзная наркотическая и алкогольная зависимость Бренуэлла повлекла за собой ослабление здоровья, после чего он заразился ещё и туберкулёзом. Но семья Бронте не догадывалась о том, насколько серьёзно он болен; местный доктор поставил диагноз уже на последней стадии болезни.

24 сентября 1848 года Патрик Бренуэлл Бронте скончался. Перед смертью он попросил свою сестру Эмили помочь ему встать с кровати, и умер стоя, как любимые им герои од Горация, что он так любил переводить. После его смерти не осталось почти никаких вещей. Лишь десятка два рисунков и большое количество стихотворений: сентиментальных, утончённых баллад, в духе философских, нежно-печальных размышлений о жизни, смерти и любви.

На русский язык из всего творческого наследия Бренуэлла Бронте были переведены лишь три рассказа из совместного с Шарлоттой цикла об Ангрии — «Пират» (в переводе М. Лахути), «Политика в Витрополе» и «Разоблачённый лжец» (оба в переводе Е. Доброхотовой-Майковой). Все три рассказа впервые вышли на русском языке лишь в 2012 г. в сборнике «Секрет» издательства АСТ. Впоследствии данный сборник переиздан в 2023 г. под названием «Соперницы» издательством «Азбука».

Что касается поэтических произведений, то на русский язык было переведено всего лишь одно стихотворение. В 2007 г. Евгений Фельдман стал автором перевода стихотворения «Торп-Грин» («Семь веков английской поэзии. Англия. Шотладния. Ирландия. Уэльс». М.: Водолей Паблишерз», 2007. С. 806).

Во время работы над составлением данного сборника были использованы следующие издания:

1. «Brontë poems. Selection from the poetry of Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell Brontë» (1915, Нью-Йорк — Лондон, издательство «G.P. Putnam’s Sons»).

2. « The poems of Patrick Branwell Brontë: a new annotated and enlarged edition of the Shakespeare Head Brontë» (1983, Нью-Йорк, издательство « New York: New York University Press»).

В настоящем сборнике собраны практически все стихотворения Патрика Бренуэлла Бронте, расположенные в хронологическом порядке. К сожалению, не удалось найти текст трёх стихотворений: *** («Ere old Euphrates’ willowed waters…”), *** («Twas when the Traitorous Shepherd bore…”) и *** («Tis only Afternoon, yet midnights gloom…”).

При наличии публикаций стихов Бренуэлла Бронте на русском языке в сносках указаны имена переводчиков, а также названия изданий, где они были опубликованы. В случае отсутствия переводов стихотворений на русский язык, сноски не приводятся.

В. Щербаков

Poems by Patrick Branwell Brontë

Poetry

Oh May America

Yeild to our Monarchs sway —

And No more contend &

May they their interest see

With England to agree

And from oppression fire —

All that ammend

1829

Dirge of the Genii

Thus I begin my song —

The Genii all are gone —

Theyre gone gone gone —

Gone for ever gone —

The sky is blackning —

Its rain pours down —

Its tears for the Genii —

while we are dancing rond

<while> we are dancing <rond>

tonite the merry bagpips <sound>

answer to our triping feet

above below around —

So hurra O ye Genii —

Ye have got your maches now

Alas once to your Feiry eye

all all the earth did bow —

but now O ye Genii —

ye are laid in your graves

& above below around you

do dance the merry knaves

thus I do end my song —

the Genii all are gone —

there gone gone gone —

gone for ever gone —

1829

Interior of a Pothouse

The cheerful fire is blazing bright

And casts a ruddy glare,

On beams and rafters all in sight

And on the sanded floor.

The scoured pewter on the shelf

Glitters like silver cups,

And all the ware of stony delf

Doth like to gold allure.

And where this fire so magical

Doth spread its light around,

Sure many scenes most magical

Are acted in that ground.

About that oaken table,

In the middle of the floor,

Are sat those who are able

To play one card or more.

And now behold the stakes are set,

Now watch the anxious faces

Of all who have laid down a bet,

Scarce can they keep their places.

But see the teller holds the card

Above the silent crowd,

Look at his meagre visage hard

And list his accents loud.

He says the card is number one,

Look at that fellow there,

I think he has his business done,

Behold his ghastly stare.

Now he has drawn his sword

And plunged it in his side;

Look at his dying struggle,

While gushes forth the tide.

Of red and streaming blood.

The current of his life,

Pouring a crimson flood,

While all within the strife

Of racking pain of body

And torturing pain of mind,

Doth rend his heart in pieces;

And will no friend most kind,

Wipe from his brow the clammy sweat

And cheer his dying hour,

Promise to aid his orphans dear

With all within his power?

No, there they’ll always let him lay

And pass unheeding by,

Unless they find him in their way

When they’ll kick him all awry.

Or bearing up a flag

In the neathly sanded floor,

They’ll throw him in and leave him there

And think of him no more.

And now I’ve done my verses,

You may read them if you choose,

Or throw them in the fire,

As I’ve nought to gain or lose.

1829

Ode to the cheif Genius BANY

O thou mighty Genius

Thou ruler of the world

Take care lest from thy power

Thou shouldest soon be hurled

Thou ridest on the Thunder cloud

above all here below

Take care lest from thy height so proud

Thou art humbled low

O look at the planets

look at the bloody moon

and then thou wilt see

that thy time will come soon

O look at the storm clouds

hear thunder rumbling slow

O look at the Dreadful

starry Archers bow

O thou mighty Genius

Thou Ruler of the world

Take care lest from thy Power

Thou shouldest soon be hurld

1829

On seeing the ruins of the tower of Babylon…

Ah what is that peeping above the hill

Towering to the sky

it is reflected in this rill

which far from it doth lie —

whichever way I turn my eyes

No mortal can I see

For in this Mighty Desart

There is No one but me

To gaze upon this tower —

Raised by the hand of Man

which Defieth the Genius power

For down with it who can

Thy name great Towe is Babylon

Once the abode of kings

Ah now the Vulture doth not deign

In thee to spread her wings

Thou risest in lone grandeur

Above the Desart Plain

thou seest the sun roll oer thee

but no king thee doth claim

But now to other scens I turn

And leave thee desolate

My heart doth for my country burn

And for her pending fate

1829

Ode to Napoleon

O great Napoleon son of storms —

Whose Heart in Dreadful Battle warm

Mild in peace

Just when War

Raises her Death shout from afar

To thee I raise

my tuneful lays

Ruond me play the glorys of thy star

how many victorys thou hast won

My mind cannot take nor yet my pen

Thy star flew

Through the span

Of the blue arches to meet the man

who is the one

that thee has Done

Because all of thy Followers ran

At Austerlitz Bright Laurels crowned

thy head and round thy Temples bound

Swords were Red

victims hair

was dyed with blood by sabers bare

and the wild cries

from soldiers rise

that Victry Victry crowns our Emprair

Russia Russia was the cry —

and to it all thy Liegones fly —

but the Ice

made them cold

And they sore mangled left their hold

but Empruair

you did stare

and of you ran through Poland old

Then to Elba Frances Eagle flew

And Ah Napoleon if thou knew

thy dire fate

thou would not fly

to Waterloo wheron to Dye

the field with blood

Thy soldiers stood

strong gainst th [e] opposing Eneimy —

1829

Address to the Genius &c

Onward thou rushest in glory and might

Onward thou rushest all men to affright

Onward thou rushest black clouds are lowering

Onward thou rushest lightning is pouring

and far of stands that mighty tower

Over whose top the cloud doth lower

lightning steams upon its side

which but for it the storm would hide

Thou ridest on terrific clouds

and beneath thee are firghtend crowds

fleeing like sheep arcross the plain

but ah thoult soon upon them gain

Onward thou rushest a flood & a storm

Onward thou rushest a Terrible form

while low at thy feet hunderds do lie —

Or else afar from thee the cowards do fly

Onward thou rushest Destruction thy name

Onward thou rushest companion of fame

Onward thou rushest ally of war

Onward thou rushest of famine the star

1829

The shipwrecked mans comoplaint

We ride upon the rageing sea

And soon from our view fair land

Thoult Die

we go to make all nations free

Over the stormy waves we fly

Soon will the world in Darkness be

For the glorious sun is going Down

his gold rays glimmer oer the sea

and on thy palaces O town-

On our vessell a flood of light

comes beaming from the sky

tis a sign that we shall conquer

and make the rebels fly

well emulate those heroes

who for their country died

over the billowy ocean

well like an arrow glide

O now the trump is sounding

Of glory & renown-

Over the sea were bounding

Far from our Native town

1829

Song 1

W [h] ose that who ridest on the storm

Swiftly oer the sky he glides

it is a genius hideous form

but in his hieousness he prides

See now he strides upon a cloud

and blows his trumpet strong

Ah tis the dreadful note of war

Tis loud impetuos — long —

He says ye Nations listen

A war is coming on —

Already Deaths bright met [e] ors glisten

And dance the sky along —

See there they are in clusters

dancing around the sky

See there they are their bright green forms

are leaping shooting high

Around around me meteors

Around around me fly

My name is wars dread messenger

I am a genius high —

When the Genius had said these word [s]

He flew into the air

And I bid you O Nations —

For a dread war prepare

1829

Song 2

O those Days wich are long gone by

Which have fled like a morning beam

O those glorious days whe [n] I

Did hear the Falcon scre [a] m

Did climb up those rocks towering grand

to take the Hawks nest which stood there

And when I in my own Native land

Did rouse the Moor cock from his lair

And when when the storms blew around

And lo [u] d thunder rolld through the air

homeward oer the Heath I Did bound

As gaily as if [i] t. had been fair

Those days of my childhood are past

They are fled forever away

Ah now on a shore I am cast

where Despair must end my day

Im cast on a land where th [e] keen

and Pitiless winter winds blow

where the gay summer never is seen

& where nought but the Iceisles grow

O those days they have long gone by

They are fled like a morning beam

Those glorious days when I

lived by brawling Carrils stream

1829

Address to the Genius of War

Roll Roll o ye Thunders

And you ye Lightnings fly

Rush on Rush on ye black cloud [s]

And Deluge the sky

while on the Bleak Mountain

I am sitting fo [r] lorn

looking on this Tempest

with deris [i] on & scorn

in the glens & plains below m [e]

There hunderds do lie

benumbed & child with horror

unable to fly —

while the rolling Darting rushing

Thunder lightning rain

Are around me around me

but to me they give no pain

Rocks & mountains are tumbling

From the Tempest riven Sky

And the people wild are screaming

At the wrack which is on high

Roll Roll o ye Thunders

And you ye lightnings fly

Rush on Rush on ye torrents

And Deluge the sky

1829

Ode to the Polar Star

Lord of the Northern fields of heaven,

May light like thine to me be given

While I thy praises sing.

Let sordid flatterns cringe and wait

Before the rich man’s open gate,

And bow beneath the glare of state,

And there their offerings bring.

But on some rock’s tremendous steep,

High hanging o’er the hoary deep,

Let me be seated lone,

And while the tempests round me fly,

Howling across a midnight sky,

Behold thee shining bright and high,

And silent and alone.

Star of the Pole, amid the sea

How many now may look on thee,

And bless thy light divine;

How often doth the sailor pray,

When tossed by tempests far astray,

That thou wouldst guide his wandering way,

And on his vessel shine?

How often from the abyss of air

Hast thou heard the sailor’s prayer?

Lo! yon tall vessel lab’ring amid the storm,

But vainly struggling ’gainst his giant arm,

With shattered masts, with sails all rent and riven,

Tossed from the gulphs beneath the black clouds of heaven.

Lo! the night increasing shrouds the sky,

While upward burst the waves on high;

O’er unseen rocks they rage and roar,

Whit’ning with surf the shaken shore,

High o’er the ship’s tall bows they break away,

And fill the air with showers of spray;

Black clouds vast billows drive along,

And as they drive she hurries on.

Now on the secret quicksands dashed

And girdled round with foam;

Then from her rocky harbour washed,

And hurled upon the main, ’mid its huge waves to roam;

Then, then how droops the sailor’s soul,

Hopeless he gazes toward the pole,

For tossing on an unknown sea

How may he hope to look on thee?

But lo! the clouds all rent and riven

Have to the winds a passage given.

Forth breaks upon his upward sight

The dark blue concave of the night,

Its thousand stars all fixed on high,

And twinkling in the silent sky,

High throned in heaven he sees thee shine;

Well known to him thy light divine,

He sees thee and adores.

Unheeded now may rage the sea,

Secure in thy directing ray

He learns to avoid the rocky way,

And sees his native shores.

But not alone to him,

Who doth a wanderer o’er the ocean roam,

Withou bestow thy beam,

And guide him toward his home.

The traveler o’er the desert drear

Gazes on thee his heart to cheer;

Though waste on waste expand before,

Not can his eye a bound explore,

Though far behind his native valley lies,

Though unknown scenes his ’wildered sight surprise,

Yet, as he folds his mantle fast

To guard him from the bitter blast

Swept from the inclement sky,

Unmindful of the gathering night,

Upward to thee he strains his sight

Where he beholds the shining bright —

His Guardian in the sky.

Blesser of Mortals! Glorious Guide!

Nor turning ever from thy course aside,

Eternal pilot, while Time passes by,

While earthly guides decay and die,

Thou hold’st thy throne,

Fixed and alone,

In the vast concave of the nightly sky.

Kingdoms and states may droop and fail,

Nor ever still abide;

The mighty moon may wax and vane,

But thou dost silent there remain, —

An everlasting guide!

1832

Thermopylae

Now morning rises broad and bright

Above the Egean sea,

And gives to heaven returning light,

While hill and valley, plain and height

Roll off the iron shroud of night,

And welcome in the day.

Awake Egea, wake from sleep!

Behold the sunlight dawn!

Come, join thy waves in glittering light

To hail the rising morn!

All Grecia’s shores beneath the sun

With golden lustre glow,

And heaven reflects a dazzling light

From thy wild waves below.

High o’er, the vapours curling off

The Argolic Mountains rise,

And Attica her arid ridge

Rears far amid the skies.

Now all around this smiling sea

One swelling champaign sweeps away,

Shewn in this early morning light

With streams and trees and temples bright.

Beyond its eastern bbound

Rise the dark hills of Thessaly,

Above it beetling awfully,

As proud its guardian walls to be

They gird the champaign round.

Rise up, Oh hills, still sterner rise!

Still blacker frown against the skies.

This morning dawns how fair and gay!

How shore and ocean seem in play

To hail returning life!

But has not oft an outside fair,

A forehead seeming smoothed from care,

Striven to conceal a heart’s despair,

And inward burning strife?

III

A gnawing worm hath Grecia now,

Though summer-like all round her lie,

Beneath Thessalia’s frowning brow,

The soft vales smiling on the sky.

Behold! far outward round the plain

You mighty host of moving men;

Slow as they wheel in line on line

Their helms and arms and armour shine,

Still pressing on each trodden place,

Still closing round each vacant space,

And still, as farther on the sight

Forth flashes up this newborn light,

For mile on mile across the plain

Moves on this mighty warrior train.

Behold thm joined, one glittering mass,

Thermopylae’s tremendous pass

Above them beetling lone,

While neath it, village, field or tree

The eyesight strives in vain to see,

All calmer scenes of nature flee

As that huge host rolls on.

The sudden shout, the long-drawn hum,

The Trumpet’s blast, the thundering drum,

Like smoke o’er mountains rolling come

With mixed and murmuring tone.

Now far and wide the Ensighns fly

Like thousand flashes mid the sky,

Their silken folds all fluttering bright

Make wide heaven quiver with varying light.

Behold yon broad, bright crimson shown,

In gold emblazed its gilded sun.

Great Mithras with a borrowed glow

Blazes along the closing row.

A thousand suns this fated day

In Ocean’s breezes glance and play,

And snowy helm and sun-tipped spear

Above each mountain gorge appear.

Greece! let me drop one tear for thee,

Where hath thy light of freedom gone?

I know thy sons will perish free,

Yet what avails a glory flown!

And when thy children all are gone

Where will that light of Freedom be?

Where! Thou struck, blasted, lying alone,

Must feel this huge host’s tread, and wither ’neath its throne.

I said a mountain’s stormy height

Hung beetling o’er that Army bright.

Yes! there thou frown’st, Thermopylae,

Stern standard of the brave and free —

High o’er rough Peneus’ roaring flood,

O’er swelling hill and shadowed wood,

Thy huge rocks, starting to the sky,

Swell forth a barrier broad and high,

And seems as rent by thunder’s stroke

Between the ribbed and frowning rock

That path which upward from the shore

Winds high above the torrent’s roar.

Now all beneath that bulwark high

The whole wide champaign sound with joy.

And Oh! in what unnumbered lines

Yon mighty army shades and shines!

First breaks the spearlight o’er the hill,

Then seems its flash the vale to fill,

And still o’er all that wide expanse

One broad, bright sunbeam seems to glance.

Hark to the roar of revelry!

Hark to the ceaseless shouts of joy!

See! how the rising morning wind

Swells up each banner’s glorious fold.

See! how, before, around, behind,

Flames forth in crimson and in gold!

Yon long, long ranks of war unfold;

So now they crowd in burnished ring

Around the standard of their king!

VII

That King upon his golden throne

High o’er the tumult shines alone;

Their Xerxes, with insatiate eye,

Roams o’er the hosts which round him lie —

Parthians and Medians beneath him stand

Glittering in purple and kinglike band;

Aye many a monarch is in yon train,

Doomed to the sun his beams to wane.

Where far mid the desert the Nile flows on

Egypt hath given her shaven son;

The sunscorched Arabian stands haughtily there,

The Parthian lifts his wandering spear,

And glorious India’s climes unknown

Sends her dark hostage round that throne.

Aye there they crowd, a jeweled throng,

Loud notes of triumph on each tongue;

Yet all in thrice redoubled ring

Prone kneeling ’neath their lord, the King!

He, rising, lord of glory stands,

And spreads toward heaven his sceptered hands.

VIII

Ha! Mithras thou in glory now

May’st shed thy halo round my brow.

To thee I vow a sacrifice

Such as hath never to the skies

Blazed in accepting flame.

To thee yon Grecian army dies,

To thee I vow its obsequies, —

A Hecatomb, ye favouring skies!

Accept the whole Grecian name!

Gods, have a band of traitorous men

Thus braved the lion in his den?

Do twice ten thousand Persians lie

To stiffen ’neath a Grecian sky?

And yet, Achaia’s evil star

Can shine ascendant through the air.

Well, twice I have seen my warriors fall

Beneath yon heaven-erected wall.

Twice have my troops in vain assayed

To force yon rock’s tremendous shade.

But not a third time, never more

Shall we roll backward on the shore!

Thou said’st a Goatherd’s step might find

A path which up yon dark hill’s brow

High toward Thermopylae may wind,

To o’erlook the traitor host below.

«Tiss well, now Persian strike your blow!

Mardonius, seize thy trustiest brand!

Thou boastest oft, head thou the band

To storm yon heaven-built wall.

Let all our choicest troops advance,

Take Parthian javelin, Persian lance,

And heaven for Xerxes call

Vengeance on Greece! aye, let them know

That what hath stayed the coming blow

Shall only force it on our foe

With heavier dint to fall.

The meanest cloud which spots the sky

May hide even Mithras’ light on high,

Yet, when again breaks out the day,

How those vain vapours fade away.

Now thou who hast betrayed to me

Thy country and Thy home,

«Tis meet that I should show to thee

Thy own reward to come.

Ha! base Trachinian deem’st thou, then,

Because I seize thy way,

That I will weigh three hundred men

Against thy craven clay?

Go, slave, and know a Persian eye,

Though it accept the treachery,

The traitor casts away.

Thou hast shown my way to victory

O’er the dead corses of the free,

And death, base slave, I shew to thee.

The traitor wretch is born away —

He casts a wild glance round the sea,

But dares not face Thermopylae;

On thy betrayed brow,

He, who, to the proud spoiler’s hand,

Hath given the bravest of his land,

Beneath the glad receiver’s hand

Rolls headless, breathless now.

Just then, the sun with sudden light

Burst full on yon far fronting height,

And flashing back in golden lines

Clear o’er the champaign streams and shines.

So all along yon brazen sea

How flame the bright arms gallantly!

See how they spread from side to side,

Forth streaming o’er the champaign wide!

And what a cloud of standards stare,

Lighten and darken through the air.

«For Victory, for victory!»

Roars high above the living sea.

Aye, ye may shout proud Persians now,

For all hope’s garlands bind your blow.

Aye, ye shall gain yon mighty height,

And fight and conquer in that fight.

Oh Greece! in this dark hour of gloom,

When round thee yawns yon bloody tomb,

Think, through destruction’s dreariest day

Freedom can shine with brightest ray, —

That in the Tyrant’s mightiest hour

One God-given sword may shake his power.

Now bid thy armed children see

On thy huge heights, Thermopylae,

Three hundred fight ’gainst millions three.

1834

The Pass of Thermopylae

Thermopyla [e] ’s tremendous hight

Has lost the Evenings fading light

And each tremendous mountain round

Seems blackning in the shades profound

Alike wild waste and ocean wild

Dark as those hills around them piled

Lie gloomy as they neer had worn

The sunshine of a summer morn

Above the moonbeams fitful light

Breaks shivering through the heavy night

And as the stormy rack sweeps by

Fades lost amid the troubled sky

At times that moon so sadly now

Glints on Thermopyla [e] ’s stern brow

Where bloody grass and trampled heath

Lie soaked beneath their loads of death

Where shattered rocks with mossy head

Form many a warriors dying bed

And many a dim and darkning eye

Now gazes on this stormy sky

Sleep Noble Soldier sleep alone

The whistling wind your burial moan

The bloody rock your bed of death

Your shroud grey grass and tangled heath

The Mountains lofty brow ye have

At once your monument and grave

O Glorious dead sleep peacfully

Your name your fame shall never die

By you your country saved from chains

Still, free, unconquered Greece, remains

And not one drop of all that blood

Which curdles now in Peneus flood

No Not one drop is lost in vain

For every drop dissolves a chain

And each cold hand and nerveless arm

Which never more that blood can warm

Have while they slew their meanest foe

Given Susa’s domes a fatal blow

There may proud Persias legions stay

For darkness clouds her future way

Thermopyla [e] thy conquered dead

Have bent to earth even Xerxes head

Arise ye Spartan heroes rise

Come seize your spectres in the skys

There from your everlasting throne

Behold the wonders you have done

Not Phocias mountains dark and hoar

Not all you Grecias classic shore

Not distant Persias sorrowing reign

Not Alpine hill or Roman plain

Shall limit your great leaders name

Or eer confine your lasting fame

Never did Trumpets loudest voice

Rouse the fierce soldier to rejoice

As now will yon ensanguined pass

And that one word Leonidas!..

1834

To the horse black Eagle which I rode at the battle of Zamorna

[Fallen asleep is the battle blast

It is hushed on each war trampled plain]

Swart steed of night, thou hast charged thy last

O’er the red war-trampled plain

Now fallen asleep is the battle blast

It is stilled above the slain

Now hushed is the clang of armour bright

thou willt never bear me more

to the deadliest press of the gathering fight

through seas of noble gore

And the cold eyes of midnight skies shall

Shall not pour their light on thee

When the wearied host of the conqueror lies

On a field of victory

Rest now in thy glory noble steed

Rest all thy wars are done

True is the love & high the meed

Thou from thy lord hast won

In daisied lawns sleep peacefully

Dwell by the quiet wave

Till death shall sound his signal cry

And call thee to thy grave.

1834

***

Sing for the power of thy foeman hath gone

Quenched in the sun beam that smiles round thy throne

Raise higher and louder your voices to sing

Angria Our Country Zamoma our King

River whose waves through the wide desart winding

Bearest thy streams to the home of our pride

Each weary waste of thy glory reminding

Rise and spread round thee thy glittering tide

O All ye proud Mountains which high from afar

Crown your blue brows with the wandering star

Tell you your torrents and deep shadowed plain

Zamoma hath triumphed oer Angria to reign

Aye tell ye the North with its storms and its snow

Tell ye the South where the ocean gales blow

Tell ye the East in its Summer Sun glow

Angria and Arthur are shining again

Mid night and tempest may darken in vain

Foes may arise

& Fate may surprise

Dust on a mountain and drops in the main

Sing for the sun hath arisen on creation

Sound ye the Trumpet to herald its dawn

Rise Man and Monarch and City and Nation

Away with your Darkness and hail to your Mom

Sound the Loud Trumpet oer land and oer sea

Join tongues hearts and v [o] ices rejoicing to sing

Afric hath risen hath sworn to be free

Glory to Angria and GOD SAVE OUR KING

1834

Song

Son of Heaven, in heavenly musing

Gaze beyond the clouds of time,

Future glory rather choosing

Than a present world of crime.

Thou whose heart that world caressing

Bows, its bubbles to adore,

On and hunt each fleeting blessing,

Still in sight but still before!

Christian, Worldling, hence and leave me,

Here with thee, my love, alone;

Things to come shall ne’er deceive me

While I hold Thee now my own!

Earth of bliss shall ne’er bereave me,

While we two continue one!

1835

Song

Thou art gone, but I am here,

Left behind and mourning on,

Doomed in Dreams to deem thee near,

But to awake and find thee gone!

Ever parted! Broken hearted!

Weary, wandering all alone!

Looks and smiles that once were thine

Rise before me night and day,

Telling me that thou wert mine,

But art dead and passed away.

Beauty banished — Feelings vanished

From thy dark and dull decay,

No returning! Naught but mourning,

O’er thy cold and coffined clay!

1835

Song

Frozen fast is my heart at last,

And unmoved by thy beams divine,

For wild o’er the waste the wintery blast

Has withered and weakened thy shine.

The pulse that once beat to each look, each word

Is congealed by the frosts of care.

And thine eyes are ungazed on, thy voice is unheard,

For love ever flies from despair.

Farewell then, farewell then, for parted for ever

The blooming and blighted should be,

So soon shall the Ocean eternally sever

My Heart from my country and thee.

1835

Lines

Now then I am alone,

And there’s none to trouble me,

So I will hasten on

From present scenes to flee.

The Land where I have lived,

The Hall where I was born,

Whatever hath survived

Through my wild life unworn.

The outline of those Mountains

Which still have towered the same,

The brooks whose rushing fountains

Can still supply their stream.

Each token and each trace

Of life time passed away,

I’ll from my spirit chase

Through every future day.

The waters of the Ocean

Shall drown that life gone by,

Shall give a Lethean potion

To banish memory.

1835

The Spirit of Poetry

List to the sound that swells alone

Shrilly and sweet with trembling tone!

Why should such music strike my ear

In thoughtful silence seated here?

The sky is ebon black tonight,

But the stars are fixed on high,

Each glorious planet twinkling bright

Or smiling silently.

Dreary and dark the mountains rise,

All underneath those starlit skies.

And far beyond the gloomy moor

Hear how the Loch’s low waters roar,

While wearied with his wandering wide

The Goodman by his ingle side

Stirs up the fire that glows afar

In yonder reddened mountain star.

The midnight hills are passing by,

And gone the black and starlight sky

That music thrills in the rising morn

Upon the blasts of Ocean born.

It mixes its notes with the rising gale,

And sounds in the cords of the flowing sail.

It rises and falls as the waters flow.

Oh, why does that Music haunt me so?

It is not the night on the Higland moor,

It is not the Cot on Loch Maris’s shore,

It is not the Ocean so boundless and drear

That wakens around me the notes that I hear,

For gone is the cot and the moor and the main,

Yet I hear those wild notes and they’re rising again.

Vanished those visions of skies unknown,

But present that changing Eolian tone!

«Tis a chord of the Heart, «Tis the music of mind

From Earth and its cares for a moment refined,

«Tis a sound caught by it as it soars toward the sky

Wafted down from the Heaven of bright Poetry!

1835

The Doubters Hymn

Life is a passing sleep,

Its deeds a troubled dream,

And death the dread awakening

To daylight’s dawning beam.

We sleep without a thought

Of what is past and o’er,

Without a glimpse of consciousness

Of aught that lies before.

We dream, and on our sight

A thousand visions rise,

Some dark as Hell, some heavenly bright,

But all are phantasies.

We wake, and, oh, how fast

These mortal visions fly,

Forgot amid the wonders vast

Of immortality!

And oh! when we arise,

With ’wildered gaze to see

The aspect of those morning skies,

Where will that waking be?

How will that Future seem?

What is Eternity?

Is Death the sleep? — Is Heaven the Dream?

Life the reality?

1835

Misery

Part I

How fast that courser fleeted by,

His arched neck backward tossed on high,

His snorting nostrils opened wide,

His foam-flecked chest and gory side.

I saw his Rider’s darkened form

As on they hurried throught the storm.

Forward he pressed, his plume behind

Flew whistling in the wintry wind,

But his clenched teeth and angry eye

Seemed wind and tempest to defy,

And eagerly he bent his sight

To pierce the darkness of the night,

And oft he gazed and gazed again

Through the rough blast and driving rain.

Look up and see the midnight heaven

Where mass o’er mass continual driven

The wild black storm clouds fleet and change;

Like formless phantoms vast and strange

They bend their gloomy brows from high

To pass in midnight darkness by;

And still they pass and still they come

Without a flash to break the gloom.

I cannot see the foam and spray

That mark that raging torrent’s way,

But well I hear the ceaseless roar

Where swollen and chafed its waters pour.

There, where yon blackened oaks on high

Blend wildly with the midnight sky,

Tossing their bare and groaning boughs

Like some dread fight of Giant foes; —

There, where that glimpse of Moonlight shines,

From the wild wrack of heaven sent down,

And spreads its silver trembling lines

Amid the darkness, then is gone; —

There stays the Horseman — wide before,

Deep and dark the waters roar,

But down the lone vale far away

Glances one solitary ray.

The sound of winds and waters rise,

And sweeps the sleet-shower o’er the skies,

While dreariest darkness all around

Makes still more drear each sight or sound.

But heeds not such that Cavalier:

Reining his trembling Charger there,

He halts upon the river’s brink,

Where all its wild waves surge and sink,

Shades with his hand his anxious eye

And through the night looks eagerly.

Why smiled he when that far off light

Again broke twinkling on his sight?

Why frowned he when it sunk again

«Mid the rough wrack of stormy rain?

Till brightly flashing forth once more,

It streams and twinkles far before.

«Oh throught the tempests of this life

However loud they sound,

However wild their storms and strife

May burst and thunder round,

Though reft and riven each aid or prop,

There must be Heaven! — There must be Hope!

I thought just now that Life or Death

Could never trouble me,

That I should draw my future breath

In silent apathy,

That o’er the pathway of my fate

Though steady beat the storm,

As I walked alone and desolate

I’d to that path conform.

Affection should not cherish me,

Or Sorrow hold me down,

But Despair itself sustain me,

Whom itself had overthrown.

I knew that fame and glory

Were names for shame and woe,

That Life’s deceitful story

I had finished long ago,

That all its novelty was gone,

And that thus to read again

The same dull page in the same sad tone

Was not even change to pain.

Defeat had crushed me into dust,

But only laid my head

Where head and heart and spirit must

Be soon for ever laid.

My fearless followers all were slain,

My power and glory gone,

My followers met that fate of man

And Power –! I am now alone!

Not so! — I thought it — till that light

Glanced glittering down the glen,

And on my spirit’s dreary night

Flashed brighter back again.

Yes! I had thought I had stood alone,

That I need sigh or weep for none,

Had quenched my love in apathy,

Since none could sigh or weep for me.

Yes! But that single silver beam

Which flashes in my eye

Hath waked me from my dreary dream

And bade my darkness fly;

But pardon that the storms of woe

Have whelmed me in a drifting sea,

With death and dangers struggling so

That I — a while — forgot even Thee.

The moment that I gained the shore,

And clouds began to disappear,

Even steadier, brighter than before

Thou shinest, my own — my Guardian Star!»

«Oh could I speak the long lost feeling,

The inward joy its Power revealing,

The glimpse of something yet to come

Which yet shall give a happy Home.

Oh should I speak my thoughts of thee

Whom soon again my eyes shall see.

The dove that bore the Olive leaf

Could never bring such glad relief

To wanderers o’er the shoreless main

As in my weariess and pain

That single light hath given to me.

My gallant horse, speed swiftly thou,

Soon shall a hand caress thee now,

Grateful that thou hast borne me on

Through deadliest deeds and dangers gone,

A touch thou mayest be proud to own

Thought thou so oft hast felt my own!

Oh that fair hand and faithful heart

From mine what power can ever part?

What Power? — Ha! well indeed I know

The very fire that burns me now,

The very energy of soul

That to thine arms impels me on,

When once I have gained that heavenly goal

Will — like a comet from the sun,

Hurl me with power that scorns control

Far from thy beams of Happiness,

Into the expance of mad distress

Where passion’s lightnigs burst and battles’ thunders roll’

Impetuous then that Horseman sprung

Down the deep bank — His armour rung

«Mid the wild water’s roar,

And dashing through the old oak trees,

His Courser’s hoofs upon the breeze

Their reckless rattle swiftly cease

In that dark night before!

Who that hath felt the feeling wild

Which struck upon the excited mind

When, perhaps, long since — while yet a child,

In awful mystery undefined,

Old tales and legends darkly told,

While winter nights fell long and drear,

Have made his heart’s blood curdle cold

Their dreary tales to hear,

Of Ancient Halls where Destiny

Had brooded with its raven wing;

Of castles stern whose riotry

Hid not the gloomy crimes within;

Of Death beds, where the sick man lying

«Mid anxious list’ners standing by,

Ere he had told the secret, dying,

And left a sealed mystery;

Of Heirs who to some fearful doom

Succeeded with their ancient Hall;

Of Marriage Feasts where ghosts would come

The new-made Bride to call; —

He that hath still in memory

Kept fast those dreams of childhood’s hours,

Who these fat visions yet may see

Of Castle halls and feudal Towers, —

To him I show this stormy Night

That seems to darken on my sight!

Far above their forest trees

These dreary turrets rise,

And round their walls the midnight breeze

Comes shrieking from the skies.

Scarce ca I note the central tower

A mid the impetuous storm,

Till shimmering through the pelting shower

The moonbeams mark its form.

Far downward to the raving stream

The woody banks decline,

Where waters flashing in the gleam

Through densest darkness shine.

Those giant oaks their boughs are tossing

As wild winds wilder moan,

Trunks and leaves confusedly crossing

With a ceaseless groan.

And over all the castle walls

Rise blacker than the night,

No sign of man around their Halls

Save that lone turret light.

The upward path is wild and steep,

Yet hear that horseman come,

Not toiling up, with cautious creep,

But hotly hasting home.

The steed is to his stables led,

But where’s the Rider gone?

Up the high turret staircase sped

With gladdened haste alone.

The Ante Room looks hushed and still

With lattice curtained close,

The tempests sweeping round the hill

Disturb not its repose.

All’s soft and calm, a holy balm

Seems sleeping in the air,

But what on earth has power to charm

A spirit chafed by care?

The warrior hastes to seek that power,

He knows the only one

Whose love can soothe his lonely hour

Or hush his rising groan;

And where that soft and solemn light

Shines chequering o’er the floor,

He hastens in with armed tread

Towards the opened door;

And entering — Though a sacred stream

Of radiance round him fell,

It could not with its silent beam

His eager spirit quell.

«Maria!» — But the silence round

Would give him no reply,

And straightway did that single sound

Without an echo die.

«Where hath my Gentle Lady gone?

I do not find her here.»

Lo, on that stately couch alone

Reclines thy Lady fair.

But — cold and pale is her marble brow,

Dishevelled her sunny hair.

Oh! is it in peaceful slumber now

That she lieth so silent there?

«Heaven bless thy dreams!» Lord Albert cried,

But his heart beat impetuously,

And as he hasted to her side

He scarce had power to see.

All wildly the scenes of his former life

Flashed back upon his eyes,

And at once a cloud of despair and strife

Before him seems to arise!

But as the sailor to his ship

Clings with more frenzied power

As louder thundering o’er the deep

Fresh billows whelm it o’er,

So madly on his only prop

This war-worn man reclined,

He could not, would not deem his hope

Delivered to the wind!

Yet then why is this start of bewildered fright?

And whence can arise this fear?

Is it not now the depth of night?

And sleeps not thy Lady there?

And art not thou on the Castle height

From war’s alarms afar?

See — is that sleep? —

— With open eyes

Chilly white and cold she lies!

Sunk her cheeks and blanched her lip

That trembles as with suffering —

She sleeps not till the eternal sleep

Its dreamless rest shall bring!

Heaven had occupied her mind

To onward hasting Death resigned,

But ’mid those strange uncertainties

That crowd their ghastly phantoms round,

When all our Reason’s guiding ties

Are from the parting soul unbound,

She thought when first she heard that tread

That Death himself was hasting near,

The conjured vision of his form

Obeyed her ready fancies’ fear,

And to her dim eyes seemed to appear,

Till — that one word — and all was clear!

Then — sinking Reason rose again,

Then — joined the links of memory’s chain,

Then — spite of all her dying pain,

She felt — she knew her Lord was there!

Oh! when across that dreary sea

The light broke forth so suddenly,

What soul can feel, what tongue express

The burst of raptured happiness

That from her spirit chased its care,

For — She was dying! But — He was near!

Ah! surely, swiftly art thou gliding

Over Death’s unfathomed sea,

Dark and dread the waves dividing

Thee from earth and earth from thee!

Life, thy own, thy native land

Parting far on either hand,

As the mighty waters widen

Onward to Eternity!

Shores of life, farewell for ever,

Where thy happiness has lain,

Lost for ever! Death must sever

All thy hopes and joys and pain!

Yet, how blest that sound must be

Which strikes upon thy dying ear

From off the dim departing shore,

Although its landmarks disappear,

Still sounding o’er the eternal roar

The voice of Him thou hold’st so dear!

«Tis as when the Mariner,

Just parted from his native home,

After a night of dread and fear

Whose storms have riven the waves to foam,

When night’s dark hours have wrapt away

All save the sounding of the sea,

Morn breaks where all looks new and strange, —

But Hark! — a sweet and sudden change,

For on his ear strikes soft from far

In Sabbath chime his native bells;

He starts, and bursts the joyful tear

For things unutterably dear

That farewell music tells!

Yet stay — why do I wander so

To wile me from that scene of woe?

There stood the armed man,

The very madness of Despair

In his red eyeballs’ stricken glare,

His cheek so ghostly wan!

And on her couch his Lady lying

Still and slow and surely dying,

Yet, with an enraptured smile

And glittering in her glassy eye,

And her weak arms she would the while

Have stretched to clasp him standing by;

But they would not her will obey,

And motionless beside her lay.

Then her white lips moved to speak,

But nothing could she say!

This was Death’s triumphant hour,

Grasped by his tremendous power

She must pass away!

«Speak Maria! — speak, my love!

Let me hear thy voice.

Nought on earth or Heaven above

Could make me so rejoice!

Speak, O speak, and say to me

I am not come too late to thee!

Oh tell me that my arm can save

Thy spirit from the hideous grave!

Maria! O my only love

Tell me thou will not die,

And nought below me or above

Shall feel so blast as I!

O would that I were far away

Alone upon the stormy sea!

Might I awake on yonder plain

Where I have left my soldiers slain,

So I could wake and rise and know

That this was but a frightful dream,

That thou at least wert living now

In love and life and beauty’s beam!

But here’s the truth which now I know!

My God, My God, I cannot bear Thy blow!»

All was vain! she moved not, spoke not,

Speech or sound the silence broke not,

But he flung him o’er her lying

As he would catch her spirit, dying.

All was vain! — That spirit flies

To God, Who gave it, in the skies!

That within his arms which lay

Was but a lifeless form of clay,

No return to his embrace,

Nought of feeling in that face,

Not a wish or power to save

Its own cold members from the grave.

Go, Lord Albert, go again,

Drown thought amid a world of storms.

Go — For thy Despair is vain

And thy Hope lies flood for worms!

Part II

Wide I hear the wild wings sighing

O’er the hills and far away,

Heaven in clouds before them flying

Through the drear December day,

Dull and dark its evening ray,

As o’er the waste the ceaseless rain,

Drives past, is gone, and then again

Sweeps cold and drenching by, in showers of sleety spray.

And now the watery mountains rise

All dimly mingling with the skies,

At times some black brow darkening forth

Cleaved by the tempest from the North,

And then, as fast the clouds sail on,

All its crags and health knolls gone;

The changing veil of sleet drives o’er the waste alone.

Alone I list to hear the sigh

Of the wild blast passing by;

Far away with mournful moan

It bends the heath on the old gray stone,

The rising in the ashgrove’s bough

Scattersthe withered leaves below;

Blackens the wall with pelting spray

And wails and wanders far away.

Oh when I hear that wintery sound,

The very vales of a mountain land,

A thousand feelings crowding round

Start up and rise on every hand,

And wake to life as the wild winds wake,

And pass with them away,

Sunbeams that o’er the spirit break

Amid the dreariest day;

But hush! — And hark, that solemn wail,

«Tis past — and yet — ’tis on my ear,

Shrill, piercing through the misty veil

Like rain of the departing year!

Oh, hush! –Again and yet again

Bursts forth that loud and longdrawn strain,

Soldiers! attend! it calls you back

From the pursuers’ bloody track,

And wildly o’er your foeman’s fall

Resounds your evening bugle call!

The battle is done with the setting sun,

The struggle is lost and the victory won,

«Tis over, no sighs, no anguished cries,

From the wild wreck of conflict rise.

The senseless corse on earth reclining

Nor feels defeat nor knows repining,

And they who survive in their agony

Now stiff and spent and speechless lie,

With dim eyes wandering toward the sky,

Yet look and seek no comfort there,

For here upon this storm-tost heath

The labored faintless of the breath,

The chill approach of Iron Death,

Demands a sterner care;

And well I know that life’s last light

Just bordering on Eternal night,

When all these souls shall take their flight,

Must crush these souls with fear.

There they lie and wildly o’er them

Howls the wind with hollow tone,

While between its banks before them

Hear the torrent chafe and groan

Heavily with sullen tone,

Yet still advancing swiftly on;

And torn with shot, a shattered tree

Shakes its bare arms in the bitter gale,

O’er the blood-red eddies that rapidly

Down the swollen streamlet curling sail;

And the blackened stones of a fallen wall

Dashed down by the iron-hail of war

With their earty bank above them thrown

Obstructs the torrent’s passage there,

Till angrily its waters roar

All white with froth and red with gore;

And — There! — a shattered carcase lies

Without the power to look or rise.

«Tis He! — the Conquered Chieftain — he

Whose look could once give victory,

But sightless now —

The shot has torn his eyes away,

And his slashed face is dashed with clay

Cast backward in the eddying Flood

That washes off his bursting blood,

The stones across his body thrown

Which as he fell drove following down.

Oh scarce we know the human form

In this chief victim of the storm.

Yet — though thus crushed and torn he be,

Though hence he never more shall rise,

Though just as now still streams shall wash

From the crushed bones the wasting flesh,

There shall he lie, as now he lies.

Yet still! oh still! look down and see

How vast may mortal misery be,

For in that bloody battered cell

Still Life and Soul and Memory dwell.

Never when he was fair and young

Did feeling thrill more stern and strong,

Never the Hell-hounds of despair

Had wilder power to worry there.

«O could I untormented lie

Without this gnawing agony

That wrings my heart so –!

Heavily and slow

The blood ebbs forth, but parts not so the soul:

Hither I came with plain, hence must I go

Still, still in pain! — Is such my changeless doom?

God! shall such destiny unroll, —

Its agonies beyond the tomb?

All Dark without, All Fire within,

Can Hell have mightier hold on sin?

But yet, through all, my dying mind

From such a present turns behind

To — what has been — and then looks o’er

The dark, dark void of things before,

The land of souls beyond the sable shore!

Oh how my eyes have stretched to see that land!

How even when sunk in life’s bewildering roar

All my strained thoughts have striven to reach its strand,

Have striven its mysteries to understand,

Though dark indeed the unreturning sea

That separates what lies beyond from me;

Though those vast waves which bear such thousands thither

Have never brought again one spirit hither,

If spirits those who pass may truly be,

Those fearful passengers, whose sightless eyes

And blanched lips and tongues which cannot move,

May either see the expanse which round them lies,

Or tell the scenes which open where they rove.

Oh might I send across yon sea that Dove

Which bore the Olive branch! Oh might it bear

From hence some token, reward my hovering here,

Even though it were the fruit of bitterness,

So I might cease this doubt and fearfulness

While I embark to sail — I know not where,

I scarce know whence — or how — but such distress,

Vain is the hope that it will end! — and then

How vain the wish to know where lies my pain!

Oh, it lies here — and if my mind

Survives, it will not lag behind,

And if indeed — I really die,

Lost — in the abyss of vacancy,

Why then the sum of all will be

That I on earth have lived to see

Twice twenty winters beat on me,

Not one whole day of happiness

And year on year of mad distress!

«They say when on the bed of death

The wasted sick man lingering lies,

His breast scarce heaving with his breath,

And cold his hand and quenched his eyes,

See! how resignedly he dies.

Aye! what a look of peace and love

That glazed eye casts to heaven above:

Even those white lips will scarcely quiver

Though he must leave this world for ever,

And though his children around him stand

«Tis not for them that outstretched hand.

Angels shall press those clay cold fingers

In the unknown void round which he lingers.

«Ha! does the victim reason so

When bound beneath that fatal blow?

No! There indeed he lies inert,

For death’s cold frost congeals his heart,

Yet while that dim and dazing eye

Can wander o’er one standert by,

While those mute lips, that silent tongue

Can one short broken gasp prolong,

While in that whirled and burning brain

Reason’s last spark can wax and wane,

So long across that parting soul

Umixed — unmingled — tormentos roll;

Ha — look on death with smiling eye,

Ha — content and peaceful die,

Ha — no, like fire one burning strife

Convulses each riven string of life,

And could those lips be moved to say,

Could those stiff hands be clasped to pray,

That only voice and prayer would be,

«Oh save me from that fatal sea

Where Hell and Death join agony!»

«I am dying, and what a rayless gloom

Seemed dark’ning round my dreary tomb.

I know no hope — I see no ray

To light me on my heavenly way.

There was a light — but it is gone.

There was a Hope — but all is o’er,

And friendless, sightless, left alone,

I go where thou hast gone before,

And yet I shall not see thee more.

Ha! say not that the dying man

Can only think of present pain,

Oh no! Oh no! it is not so,

For where, Maria, where art thou!

O do I seem to see thee now?

Thy smiling eyes and shining brow,

Thy sunny cheek and golden hair,

In all thy beauty beaming there?

All through the noontide of my years

How thou didst enter all my fears

And hopes of joy, and smiles and tears!

How often have thy bright blue eyes

Driven sorrow shrinking from its shrine,

And banished all my misery

Before one heavenly look of thine!

How often has that look divine

Roused up this heart from bitterness,

Or bowed it in its worst distress

To kneel before thy shrine!

Oh, once we thought to pass together

Through stormiest change of wind and weather,

And thou wouldst never shrink from me,

And I could never part with thee

I clasped within my arms, and thou,

Lying on my breast thine ivory brow,

Unthought, uncared for storm or shine

While I was thine and thou wert mine.

When troubles hastened thickening on,

When every hope of rest seemed gone,

When ’mid the blight of hating eyes

I stood bewildered, sick with woe,

What was the star which seemed to rise

To light me on and guide me through?

What was that form so heavenly fair,

Untouched by time, unmarked with care,

To whose fond heart I clung to save

My sinking spirit from its grave?

Maria! hadst thou never been,

This hour I should not living be,

But while I strove with fate, between

The strife thou camest to set me free,

And wildly did I cling to thee.

I could not, would not, dared not part,

Lest hell again should seize my heart.

«Can I forget how toward my eye

Still ever gazed, for guidance, thine,

As if I were thy star on high,

Though well I knew ’twas thou wert mine.

That azure eye, that softened smile,

That heavenly voice whose tones to me

The weariest wintriest hours could wile,

And make me think that still might be

Some years of happiness with thee;

That thou, amid my life to come,

Shouldst be my hope, my heaven, my home,

But — we are sundered — thee, thy grave,

And me, this dreary wild will have.

Whate’er the world to come may be

I must never look on thee.

If there’s no God, no Heaven, no Hell,

Thou within thy grave must dwell —

I, left black’ning in the storm —

Both a banquet for the worm.

If there is a heaven above,

Thou in bliss art shining there

At the wondrous throne of love,

Angel bright and angel fair:

From Heaven thou wanderest like the Dove

To the wild world of waters here,

But nevermore o’er it to rove,

Thou hast left this site of sin and care,

Back to thine Ark, while I said where

The vilest mass of carnage lay,

A Raven rushing on the prey

And Hell’s dread night must close my day!

*******

«Why, why will the parted return to our heart

When the sods have grown green on their tomb?

Oh, why will the twilight be first to depart

When it only gives depth to the gloom?

Oh why, in the snow and storms of December,

When the branches lie scattered and strewn,

Do we oftest and clearest and brightest remember

The sunshine and summer of June?

Oh why, mid the hungry and cottageless waste

Do we dream of the goblet filled high?

Why will our spirits when famishing taste

Such visionlike revelry?

Morarlist, speak! — is’t in life’s deepest sorrow

That these gleams of the past which hath vanished away,

Though misery and mourning await on the morrow,

May strengthen to bear throughthe shades of to-day?

Since we have had our sunshine, we must have our storm

First with the angel, and last with the worm.

Christian, speak — dost thou point to the sea

And show me the mariner drifting away,

Behind him the shores of his desolate home,

Around him the billows all crested with foam.

Yet he casts not a look upon ocean or shore,

But fixes his eyes on his haven before.

Sayest then, thou should now smile on his joy and his sorrow,

And press toward Heaven, his Heaven of to-morrow?

Aye Man! on let him press till that heaven shall break

In lightnings and thunders and tempest and gloom.

Then let the Spirit in safety speak!

Where is the rest beyond the tomb?

Where are the joys of this heavenly home?

Then let the moralist seek for his strength

And smile on the past in its visionlike form.

Then let the Christian, anchored at length,

See light in the darkness and sun through the storm.

Away with all this false disguise,

View midnight truth with noonday eyes,

The past has had a single joy,

But when the past is long gone by,

When cares have driven cares away,

When general darkness clouds the day,

That single star amid the sky

Will shed a brighter light on high,

And in the horizon only one

Is yet the all that can be shewn.

Well o’er me shining let it be

That thus one glimmering I may see

Fixed far above to show my gloom,

And light my spirit to its Tomb!

«Yet how I wander! grasping now

At the glorious dream of a world to come,

Then recalling back, I scarce know how

Upon that hideous, hopeless gloom,

The nothingness within the tomb.

Thinking of thee, and then again

Shrinking within my present pain.

All wide, all wandering –This is death,

And I would calmly meet him now,

As then I’d feel my shivering breath

As I have felt my life blood flow,

But for the thought —

Oh, what’s to come!

God, if there be a God, look down,

Compassionate my call!

Oh, clear away thine awful frown,

Oh, hearken to my call!

Nay — all is lost — I cannot bear

In mouldering dust to disappear,

And Heaven will not the gloom dispel,

Since were there one, my home were Hell —

No Hope, no Hope, and Oh, farewell.

The form so long kept treasured here

Must thou then ever disappear?

Gone, nay but kept in memory’s shrine,

Now dying again as memory dies.

First passes from earth my star divine,

And now’tis passing from the skies.

Thou art alone and Heaven is gone,

And sights and sounds and all are gone.

«Oh, what a state is life — I am dying,

And how like a dream is existence flying.»

See through the shadows of the night,

Burst hotly, hasting onward there,

A wounded charger vast and white

All wild with pain and mad with fear.

With hoofs of thunder on he flies

Shaking his white mane to the skies,

Till on his huge knees tumbling down,

Across the fallen chieftain thrown,

With a single plunge of dying force

His vast limbs cover Albert’s corse.

1835—1836

Elrington

The sunshine of a summer sun

On the proud domes of Elrington

Glows with a beam divinely bright

In one unquenched, unvaried light,

And high its arched windows rise,

As if to invite the smiling skies;

And proud its mighty columns show

Between them ranked in haughty row;

And sweet and soft the solemn shade

By the o’erarching portals made.

The stately halls of Elrington

May fitly meet that glorious sun,

For fêtes and feasts are given to-day

To noble Lords and Ladies gay;

And that vast city of the sea

Which round us lies so endlessly

Has hither poured its proudest train

To worship mirth and fly from pain.

The sunshine of a summer’s sun

Glows o’er the graves of Elrington,

Where, city-girt spreads wide around

The flower and foliage-laden ground.

All round the hot and glaring sky

Bespeaks a mighty city nigh;

And through each opening in the shade

Palace and temple crown the glade.

So here, as an oasis stands

«Mid the wide waste of Egypt’s sands,

This glorious vision of a grove,

With flowers beneath and fruits above,

Lies in that city’s human sea

Whose streets stretch round so ceaselessly.

Oh! who could pass unnoticed by

This scene of nature’s royalty?

Instead of birds to warble there,

Ethereal music fills the air,

Breathed from these halls thrown open wide

To admit the ever-changing tide

Of Earth and Afric’s hope and pride.

1836

***

My Ancient ship upon my Ancient sea

Begins another voyage — Nay thou’rt gone,

But whither pending? who is gone with thee?

Since parted from thee I am left alone,

Unknowing what my Rover’s fate may be,

Into its native world of tempest thrown,

Lost like a speck from my diverted eye

Which wilder, mightier visions must survey;

Lost, and unnoticed — far away the roar

Of southern waters breaking to the wind,

With restless thunder rolling still before

As the wild gale sweeps wilder on behind,

And every vision of old Afric’s shore

As much forgot and vanished out of mind

As the wild track thou markedst so long ago

From those eternal waves which surge below.

Gone — ’tis a word which through life’s troubled waste

Seems always coming, and the only one

Which can be called the present. Hope is past

But hate and strife and love and peace are gone

Before we think them, for their rapid haste

Scarce gives us time for one short smile or groan

Ere that thought dies, and new ones come between

It and our heart with some as fleeting scene.

And yet there is, or seems at least to be,

A general base of thought that colours all,

So though each one be different, all agree

In the same melancholy shade-like pall,

Even as the shadows look the same to me

Though cast I know, from many a varying wall

In this vast city — Hut and Temple sharing

In the same light, and the same darkness wearing.

Not that I deem all life a course of shade,

Nor all the world a waste of streets like these:

From youth to age a mighty change is made,

As from this city to the Southern seas:

For years through youthful hope our course is laid,

For years in sloth, a sea without a breeze,

For years amid the stir of civil jar,

For years within some silent sleepless care:

Changing, and still the same, yet swiftly passing,

«Tis here, ’tis there, ’tis nowhere, oh! my soul,

Is there no rest from such a fruitless chasing

Of the wild dreams that ever round thee roll!

Each as it comes the parting thought defacing,

Yet all still hurrying to the self-same goal —

Gone ere I catch them, but their path alone

Stretching afar toward one for ever gone!

What have I written — nothing, for ’tis over,

And seems as nothing in the single cloud

That shadows it, and long has seemed to hover

O’er all the crossing thoughts that overflowed

In this wrecked spirit. Oh, my ocean Rover1

Well may’st thou plough the deep so free and proud.

Thou bear’st the uniting tie of ceaseless dreams,

The fount, the confluence of a thousand streams.

I do not see myself again

A wanderer o’er the Atlantic main.

I do not backward turn my eye

Toward sleepless sea and stormy sky.

Oh, no! these banished visions rest

In far woodlands of the west,

And there let Hesperus arise

To watch my treasure where it lies.

The present scenes, the present clime

Forbid the Dreams of olden time.

The present thoughts, the present hour

Are rife with deeds of sterner power,

And who shall be my leading star

Amid the howling storm of war?

Hark! Listen to the distant gun

From the battlefield of Edwardston.

It breaks upon the awful roar

Which stuns my ears around,

And on their shout of Victory

Strikes with a hollow sound

My struggles all are crowned with power

And fortune gives a glorious hour.

Men who hate me kneel before me;

Men who kneel are forced to adore me;

My name is on a million tongues,

The million babbles of my wrongs,

And twenty years of tyrant pride

Which strove this modern God to hide

At last have vanished in the rays

Of his unquenched, unclouded blaze.

Oh! Is not Jesus come again

Over his thousand saints to reign!

To free the world from error’s chain,

While sin and Satan vainly spit

Their venomed fury from the pit

Where they may lie…

Till Heaven descends…

Their reign is past, their power is gone,

For fallen is Mighty Babylon.

1836

Memory

Memory! how thy magic fingers,

With a wild and passing thrill,

Wake the chord whose spirit lingers,

Sleeping silently and still,

Fast asleep and almost dying,

Through my days of changeless pain,

Till I deem those strings are lying,

Never to be waked again.

Winds have blown, but all unknown;

Nothing could arouse a tone

In that heart which like a stone

Senselessly has lain.

All seemed over — friend and lover

Strove to waken music there;

Flow the strings their fingers over,

Still in silence slept the air.

Memory! Memory comes at last,

Memory of feelings past,

And with an Æolian blast

Strikes the strings resistlessly.

1836

***

Still and bright, in twilight shining,

Glitters forth the evening star;

Closing rosebuds, round me twining,

Shed their fragrance through the air;

Slow the river pales its glancing,

Soft its waters cease their dancing,

Calm and cool the shades advancing

Speak the hours of slumber near!

Why this solemn silence given

To the close of fading day?

Feels the earth the hush of heaven?

Can the expanse of nature pray?

And when daylight’s toil is done,

Grateful for summer sunshine gone,

Can it before the Almighty’s throne

Its glad obeisance pay?

Such a hush of sacred sadness

Wide around the weary wild,

O’er the whirl of human madness

Spreads the slumbers of a child

These surrounding sweeps of trees

Swaying to the evening breeze

With a voice like distant seas

Making music mild.

Percy Hall above them lowering,

Darker than the dark’ning sky,

With its halls and turrets towering

Wakes the wind in passing by.

Round that scene of wondrous story

In their old ancestral glory

All its oaks so huge and hoary

Wave their boughs on high.

Among these Turrets there is one

The soonest dark when day is done,

And when Autumn’s winds are strongest

Moans the most and echoes longest.

So — on the steps that lie before

A solitary arched door,

In that lone gable far away

From sights and sounds of social joy,

Fronting the expanse so dim and grey

There sits a lonely boy.

One hand is in his curling hair

To part it from his brow,

And that youg face so soft and fair

Is lifted heavenward now.

On the cold stone he has laid him down

To watch that silver line

Beneath the power of twilight’s frown

In the wide west decline.

For heaven still guides his azure eyes

Toward its expanse so wild,

As veiled in darkness there he lies,

A little Angel Child!

Oh who has known, or who can tell

The Fountain of those feelings high

Which, while in this wild world we dwell,

At times will lift us up on high,

In a celestial sympathy

With yon lone vault, yon starry dome,

As if the spirit deemed the sky

Was even on earth its only home,

And while the eye is dim with tears,

The feelings wrapt in dreams sublime,

How dead seem earthly hopes and fears,

How all forgot the soul to time!

And yet the soul can never say

What are the thoughts which make it glow.

We feel they are, but what are they?

«Tis this which we must never know

While lingering in this world of woe.

Yet did man’s soul descend from heaven

With feelings by its Maker given

All high, all glorious, all divine,

And from his hand perfected gone

With such a bright reflected shine

As the full moon bears from the sun.

But then — the soul was clothed in clay,

So straight its beauty passed away,

And through a whirl of misery driven

Earth’s shadow came ’tween it and heaven.

A darkened orb the moon became,

Lost all its lustre, quenched its flame!

Or entering on this morbid life,

The clouds of war, the storms of strife,

Continual passing, veil it round

With gloomy wreaths of shade profound.

So, only shining fitfully,

A single gleam of light we see,

As pass the clouds on either hand

To show the clear calm heaven beyond.

Yet at one moment soars our soul

Into those wayward dreams divine,

Till back again the darkness roll

And hide the uncertain shine.

Yet shall a time come rapid on

When all these clouds that round us frown,

From Heaven’s vast vault all past and gone,

Leave the full moon in glory there,

To shine for ever bright and fair.

When this dull clay is cast away

These thoughts shall shine with cloudless ray

And we shall understand what now

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In yon lone child’s uplifted eyes

Such dreams can scarce be dim,

So late upon those morbid skies

The moon has risen to him;

So late his soul has passed from heaven

That it can scarce forget

The visions bright whose hallowed light

Is round its musings yet.

Silent he sits on the darkened stone,

With night around him rolling,

As if to him that hollow moan

From the old tree tops were calling.

He listens to the eerie wind

Around his Father’s dwelling,

Till later following on his mind

More glorious thoughts seem swelling.

For both his little hands were stretched

In rapture to the sky,

When wilder from the wilderness

Each blast came howling by

Toward clouds all southward resting wid

Above the Atlatic sea,

While o’er them far the darksome air

Is haloed lustrously.

He fears some wondrous sight

To him were opening soon,

Till, lo! — that sudden shining light,

«The Moon, the glorious Moon!»

Oh, soft and sweet is the silver beam

That floods the turret high,

While fairy woodlands round it seem

All shining gloriously.

Each window glitters cold and clear

Upon the southern tower,

And — though the shade is darker made

Around his lonely bower —

Yet o’er his face a solemn light

Comes smiling from the sky,

And shows to light th lustre bright

Of his uplifted eye.

The dimless, heedless carelessness

Of happy Infancy,

Yet such a solemn tearfulness

Commingling with his glee,

The parted lips, the shining hair

Cast backward from his brow,

Without a single shade of care,

But bathed amid that moonlight air,

Oh, who so blest as thou!

The moon in glory o’er the grove

Majestic marches on,

With all the vault of heaven above

To canopy her throne;

And from her own celestial rest,

Upon the dark wood’s waving crest

Serenely she looks down,

Yet beaming still, as if she smiled,

Most brightly on that beauteous child.

But what thought he as there he lay

Beneath the arched door,

Amid the ever trembling play

Of moonshine through the bower,

Gazing with blue eyes dimmed with tears

To that vast vault of shining spheres,

Till its mysterious power

Makes the bright drops unnoticed break

In dewy lustre o’er his cheek?

«Oh, how I could wish to fly

Far away through yonder sky,

O’er those trees upon the breeze

To a paradise on high!

Why am I so bound below

That I must not, cannot go,

Lingering here for year on year

So long before I die?

Now how glorious seems to be

Heaven’s huge concave stretched o’er me.

But — Every star is hung so far

Away from where I lie.

I love to see that Moon arise —

It suits so well the silent skies.

I love it well, but cannot tell

Why it should make me cry.

It’s that it brings before me now

Those wondrous times gone long ago,

When Angels used from Heaven to come

And make this earth their happy home?

When Moses brought from Egypt’s strand

God’s favoured tribes through seas and sand

Victorious to the promised land!

When Salem rose, her Judah’s pride,

Where David lived and Jesus died!

Is’t that I know this very moon

Those vanished wonders gazed upon,

«When Shepherds watched their flocks by night,

All seated on the ground,

And angels of the Lord came down,

And glory shone around?»

Is’t that I think upon the sea,

Just now lit beaming beauteously,

Where I so oft have longed to be,

But never yet have been?

Is’t that it shines so far away

On Lands beyond that Ocean’s spray,

Mong lonely Scotland’s hills of grey

And England’s groves of green!

Or is’t that through yon deep blue dome

It seems so solemnly to roam,

As if upon some unknown Sea,

A vessel’s stately form,

It o’er the waves was wandering free

Through calm and cloud and storm!

I cannot tell but it’s in heaven,

And though I view it here

Till I am mouldering dust to dust,

My parted spirit never must

Behold its brightness near.

I am crying to think that mighty throng

Of Glorious Stars to heaven belong,

That they can never, never see

A little earthly child like me;

Still rolling on, still beamig down,

And I unnoticed and unknown,

Though Jesus once in ages gone

Called children to his knee.

So, where He reigns in glory bright

Above these starry skies of night,

Amid his paradise of light,

Oh, why might I not be!

Oft, when awake on Christmas mom,

In sleepless twilight laid forlorn,

Strang thoughts have o’er my mind been borne

How he has died for me;

And oft, within my chamber lying,

Have I awaked myself with crying

From dreams where I beheld him dying

Upon the accursed tree;

And often has my mother said,

While on her lap I laid my head,

She feared for time I was not made,

But for Eternity!

So I can read my title clear

To mansions in the skies,

And let me bid farewell to fear

And wipe my weeping eyes.

I’ll lay me down on this marble stone

And set the world aside,

To see upon its ebon throne

Yon moon in glory ride.

I’ll strive to pierce that midnight vault

Beyond its farthest star,

Not let my spirit’s wanderings halt

«Neath Eden’s crystal bar;

For sure that wind is calling me

To a land beyond the grave,

And I must not shrink upon the brink

Of Jordan’s heavenly wave;

But I’ll fall asleep in its waters deep,

And wake on that blest shore

Where I shall neither want or weep

Or sigh or sorrow more.

Oh, Angels come! Oh, Angels come!

And guide me to my Heavenly Home!»

Guide thee to heaven! — Oh, lovely child,

Little knowest thou the tempests wild

Now gathering for thy future years

Their blighting floods of bitter tears.

Little thou knowest how long and dread

Must be thy path ere thou art laid

Within thy dark and narrow bed,

Or how, then, thou wilt shrink to be

Launched out upon Eternity,

All those celestial visions flown,

All Hope of Heaven for ever gone!

This passionate desire for Heaven

Is but the beam of brightness given

Around thy spirit at its birth,

And not yet quenched in clouds of earth, —

The inward yearnings of the soul

Toward its original sad goal,

Before that goal is hid from sight

Amid the gloom of mortal night.

To that just entering into Time

This world is like a stranger clime,

Where — nothing kindred — nothing known —

Leaves thy young spirit all alone

To spend its hours in thinking on

The native home whence it has gone.

But — Oh! at last a time will come

When Heaven is lost, and earth is home;

Where pleasures glimmering on thy sight

As soon as seen shall sink in night,

Whilst thou pursuest them through the gloom,

Sinking like willows to the tomb.

This light shall change to lightning then,

This love of Heaven to Hell of men.

So if thou sleekest a glorious name

Thy path shall lead through blood and flame,

From crime to crime, imparting healing,

Blessed thyself and others blessing;

For that which from on high is thrown

Will always fall most rapid down,

And sink the deepest — So with thee,

Thy quick and passionate heart shall be

But farther plunged in misery.

Then those around thee oft may find

Earth and its joys to suit their mind, —

For dust to dust, the sons of earth

Will love the land that gave them birth,

Yet never thou, or if thou dost

Full quickly thou shalt find it Dust!

He sleeps! — in slumber calm and deep,

An infant’s blest and balmy sleep,

Dreaming of heaven those closed eyes,

And glorious visions of the skies,

And tremblingly their fringes lie

On the young cheek of infancy;

The softened curls of golden hair

Just moving in the moonlight air;

But his white brow so sweetly still,

So free from every shade of ill,

Shall it be so for ever? — No!

Who in this world would wish it so.

Yon is the image of a man

Destined to lead the foremost van

Of coming time, and in his hand

The future chooses to command.

«Tis he whose never dying name

Shall see a future world of flame,

Percy! Awake thee from thy sleep.

Awake! to bid thy country weep.

1836

An Angrian Battle Song

Storms are waking to inspire us,

Storms upon our morning sky.

Wildly wailing tempests fire us

With their loud and God given cry.

Winds our trumpets howling come,

Thundering waves our deeper drum.

Wild woods o’er us

Swell the chorus,

Bursting through the stormy gloom.

What’s their Omen? Whence its doom?

Loud those voices, stern their pealing,

Yet what is it those voices say?

Well we feel, when, God revealing

All his wrath, their powers display,

Trembles every child of clay.

Still we know

That blow on blow

O’er us bursting day by day

Shews that wrath as well as they.

But ’tis not a common call

That wakes such mighty melody.

Crowns and kingdoms rise or fall,

Man and nations chained or free,

Living death or liberty,

Such their terrible decree.

And yonder skies

Whose voices rise

In that unearthly harmony,

Through Angria round

Shall wake a sound,

A voice of victory,

A thundering o’er the sea,

Whose swelling waves

And howling caves

Shall hear the prophecy.

Storms are waking,

Earth is shaking,

Banners wave and bugles wail.

While beneath the tempest breaking

Some must quench and some must quail.

Hark the artillery’s iron hail

Battles through the ranks of war,

Who beneath its force shall fail.

Must the sun of Angria pale

Upon the Calabar?

Or yonder bloody star

O’er Afric’ main

With fiery train

That wanders from afar?

No, O God! our sun its brightness

Draws from thine eternal throne,

And come what will, through good or ill,

We know that thou wilt guard thine own!

«Tis not ’gainst us that thunder’s tone

But, risen from hell

With radiance fell,

«Tis the wanderer of the west whose powers shall be o’erthrown!

Tempest, blow thy mightiest blast,

Wild wind, wail thy wildest strain.

From God’s right hand

O’er his chosen land

Your music shall waken its fires again.

And over the earth now and over the ocean,

Wherever shall shadow these storm covered skies,

The louder through battle may burst your commotion,

«Twill only sound stronger, O Angria Arise!

1836

The Battle Eve

Alone upon Zamorna’s plain,

With twilight o’er me falling,

And once again the bugle’s strain

To troubled slumber calling.

Alone with thousands round me laid

In dizzy torments dying,

All stretched upon their bloody bed

In sleep eternal lying.

So not alone, yet all alone,

For these sad wrecks of slaughter

Are senseless thrown as forms of stone

Or dead to all but torture.

I stand, and see the silent Moon

Drive wildly through the sky

«Mong clouds that, gathering up since noon,

Commence their march on high.

It is not night — it is not day,

So she can hardly shine,

And dull and dead and cold and grey

Behold the eve decline.

A Battle Eve, a victory,

A day of deathless fame,

For which the Muse of history

Must seek a noble name.

A Monarch’s and a Nation’s fall,

The Grave of Glories cherished,

That Hope proclaimed with trumpet call,

Now silent sunk and perished,

A Day of far extended power,

Which changes smiles to tears,

But from this lonely twilight hour

O’erlooks a hundred years!

That casts its shadows o’er the things,

Which lately seemed to shine,

As night to gloom and darkness brings

The evening skies divine.

Oh soon again this natural night

In happy morn shall rise,

But never more returning light

May gladden Adrian’s eyes.

That Sun of Angria rose in red

To chase the clouds away,

That sun has sunk, his light has fled,

His power has passed for aye.

How like a Star from upper air

I see Zamorna fall,

Archangel once and throned so far

Above this earthly ball.

But vast thine hopes and high thy pride,

Thou man of shining crime,

Till Pride has perished, Hope has died,

All withering ere their time.

Come, listen to the distant gun

That thunders on the wind,

The awful voice of Victory won

That seems to say Thy race is run

And vanished out of mind.

Better for thee that thou hadst died

Than thus to see thy new born pride

In this wild warfare scattered wide

And Thou a wretched Captive left alone behind!

1836

Ashworths Hymn

Before Jehovah’s awful Throne

Now let us trembling kneel in prayer,

And Mercy ask and Justice own,

For we must pray that he may hear.

And deep, O Lord, be our despair,

And clear our consciousness of sin,

Lest from thine eyes our outside fair

Should strive to hide the crimes within.

We know that we are formed in crime,

And through our lives that crimes we form,

Yet madly dreaming all the time

Thy Mercy shields us from the storm.

Or, as long since in Shinar’s plain

Rebellious men their tower of pride

Raised up in hope, by labours vain,

That thus thy power might be defied,

So we by impious moral code,

And creeds of ever changing faith,

Think we may climb the heavenly road

And shun thine arm and vanquish death.

But, oh, when once we reach thy gate

In hopes the eternal crown to win,

Long must we knock and lingering wait

Ere yon bright Spirit lets us in.

«Hast thou repented of thy sin?»

And who, O God, can answer then?

«Go back, thy path again begin,

And weep and watch and wait again!»

But, if returning be denied,

By Death’s grim portal closed behind,

Where flies our Heaven and hope and pride?

Vanished like chaff before the wind!

Lord, may we know our treacherous mind,

Even though that knowledge bring despair,

Since wandering thus, accursed and blind,

We cannot hope that Thou wilt hear!

1836

Lucifer

Star of the West, whose beams arise

To brighten up o’er Afric’s shore,

While coming clouds and changing skies

Bring on the shades of twilight’s hour;

Who, as our day sinks fast away,

While flowers of pleasure close their bloom,

Send’st down from Heaven thy flashing ray

And shinest to dazzle — not to illume;

Who, as upon our sunken sun

The storm clouds gather from the sea,

So far above goest wandering on,

As if our hopes were naught to thee.

And gathering glory while the night

Comes deeper, darker, drearier down,

And shining still with brighter light

When every beam save thine is gone.

Star of the West, we see thee shine,

We know thy glory from afar,

But we have seen our sun decline,

As if it sunk for thee to appear.

We have seen our sun of happiness

«Mid coming clouds of conflict fall,

Nor can thy lustre beam in place

Of that which blessed and brightened all.

We know that in our time of pride

«Mid summer suns and noonday skies

Though Heaven were cloudless, calm and wide,

Such lights as thine dared never rise.

We know thou art an Orb divine

Within thine own celestial sphere,

But still a storm-portending sign

To us who gaze in wonder here.

Star of the West, though storm and night

Gave birth and beauty to thy blaze,

Still that which kindled up thy light

May in a moment quench its rays.

As darker grow the clouds of woe,

As day declines, as empires fall,

Brighter and brighter bursts thy glow,

Till thou seem’st soaring lord of all.

But westward clouds are rolling on,

And louder thunders swell the wind.

The tempest comes, and thou art gone

Past like the sunshine out of mind.

Percy — amid the coming hour,

When peace and pleasures disappear,

Those storms and strifes which gave thee power

May darken Afric’s «Western Star’!

1836

Lines composed at day break before the Revolution of June 26, 1836 by Percy

Now heavily in clouds comes on the day,

The great, the important day,

That gathering all is gloom shall roll our foes away.

Come life, come death, or conquest or defeat,

I who am called my Judgement here must meet,

With my own arm must carve my road to power,

With my own deeds must fill my fated hour,

With my own lips proclaim what is to be,

And then in my own self meet my own destiny.

«Tis man must struggle — man must fight

And stigmatise his wrong and name his right,

But fate or chance the question will decide,

His hopes and fears and plans all scattering far and wide.

Here I will crown a life of war

With power which long has lured me from afar,

With vengeance taken on my slaughtered foes,

Contempt repaid with hate and hatred soothed with blows,

Kings, crowns and armies fallen and all to be

A bloody footstood of ascent for me,

The wings of conquest folded o’er my head,

Supporters kneeling on opponents dead,

What I hate lowest — next what I despise,

So who dare speak to me of miseries?

Chance will — or fate, with still small voice it cries

«Man, though thou hast seized the lamp, its light is gone

And blindly still thy steps must wander on!

She is gone! The last bright link which bound thy mind,

To years of paradise left behind,

Treasure of hopes stored up in happier years,

To feed thy famine in this vale of tears!

And she is gone whom in thy worst distress

Thou found’st, a fountain in the wilderness!

And He is gone who glorious used to shine

With radiance steadier, brighter far than thine,

Yet such as shewed on earth there still might be

Communion with a soul so like to thee.

All these are gone whom thou hast left to gain,

A flying hope, a meteor light and vain!

They sun has sunk and left the darkening air

To seek enlightening from that wandering star.

Thy flower deprived of warmth will withering die,

Thy store is squandered and thy well run dry,

While He whose glory chased the clouds of woe,

Thy Dearest friend, thou’st made thy Deadliest foe!»

1836

Percy’s Musings upon the Battle of Edwardston

Through the hoarse howlings of the storm

I saw — but did I truly see —

One glimpse of that unearthly form,

Whose very name was — Victory.

«Twas but a glimpse — and all seems past,

For cares like clouds again return,

And I’ll forget him till the blast

For ever from my soul has torn

That vision of a Mighty Man

Crushed into dust!

Forget him! — Lo, the cannon’s smoke,

How dense it thickens, till on high

By the wild storm blast roughly broke

It parts in volumes through the sky,

With dying thunder drifting by,

Till the dread burst breaks forth once more,

And loud and louder peals the cry,

Sent up with that tremendous roar

Where — as it lightens broad before

The thick of battle rends in twain

With roughened ranks of bristling steel,

Flashing afar while armed men

In mighty masses bend and reel

Like the wild waters of the main

Lashed into foam! — Where, there again

Behold him! as with sudden wheel.

At bay, against a thousand foes,

He turns upon their serried rows,

All heedless round him though they close,

With such a bloodhound glare.

That eye with inward fires so bright

Pierces the tempest of the fight,

And lightens with the joyless light

Of terrible despair!

He sees his soldiers round him falling

In vain to heaven for vengeance calling,

He sees those noble friends whom he

Had called from happy, happy Home

For a vain prize of victory

Over the eastern world to roam.

He sees them lie with glaring eye,

Turned up to him, that wandering star,

Who led them still from good to ill

In hopes of power to meet with war,

And fall from noontide dreams of glory

To this strange rest so grim and gory! —

When rolling on those friends o’erthrown

War’s wildest wrack breaks thundering down.

Zamorna’s pale and ghastly brow

Darkens with anguish — all in vain

To stern the tide of battle now,

For every rood of that wide plain

Is heaped with thousands of his dead,

Or shakes beneath the approaching tread

Of foes who conquer o’er the slain.

No! never must he hope again,

Though still abroad that banner streams

On whose proud folds the sun of glory beams,

Though still, unslaughtered, round their lord

His chosen chiefs may grasp the unvanquished sword,

Still, all is Hopeless! — and he knows it so,

18+

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