Cornell University Library 
 PR 5649.T62A9 
 
 Autumnal leaves; elegiac and other poems, 
 
 3 1924 013 563 402 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3563402 
 
AUTUMNAL LEAYES. 
 
AUTUMNAL LEAVES. 
 
 ^kgiat anir tii\tx ipoems. 
 
 CN.'VV-t- 
 
 MRS. E-^W^R-D THOMAS, 
 
 ATJTHOB OP "TBAKQFIL HOTJHS," *' SIR EEDMOND," "THE MEBCHAHT'S DAUGHTEE 
 OP TOULOlf," ETC., ETC., ETC. 
 
 ' To onr places in the vineyard of our God return we now. 
 With kindled eye, with onward step, with hand upon the plough; 
 Our hearts are safer anchored, our hopes have richer store : 
 One treasure more in Heaven is ours, one bright example more." 
 
 Th£ Bev. Eeitbt Alvobs, Dean op CAiriEBBirBT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 "W. WALKEE AND CO., 196, STRAND. 
 
LONDOS" : 
 
 "WILLIAM STEVENS, PEIlfTEE, 37, BELL YARD, 
 
 XEUPLE^^BAB. 
 
TO 
 
 tS.ije fHernDtg 
 
 op 
 
 A BELOVED AND ONLY CHILD, 
 
 AEE INSCBIBED BY HIS WIDOWED AND SOKEOWING MOTHEK, 
 
 IN THE BAENEST AND HUMBLE HOPE 
 
 THAT THEY DO NOT CONTAIN ONE SENTIMENT THAT CAN BE 
 
 EEPUGNANT TO THE INNATE PUEITY, 
 
 WHICH IS NOW MADE PEEPECT IN HEAVEN. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 " On the 29tli ult., at EoUeston Hall, in this county, 
 to the inexpressible grief of his widowed mother, and 
 the deep regret of all who knew him, Ebwakd Harry 
 Thomas, the only child of the late Rev. Edward 
 Thomas, and Captain in the Leicestershire Militia, 
 in the thirtieth year of his age." — Leicestershire 
 GrUARDiAN, February 5th, 1859. 
 
 " Death of Captain THOMAS.-^Our Obituary of 
 to-day, records a death which wiU cause deep regret 
 both in , this town and county — that of Captain 
 Thomas, of the Leicestershire Militia. Beloved 
 
■vrui PKEFACE. 
 
 wierever lie was known, this amiable yoxmg man is 
 cut off in tlie very flower of his age, with prospects as 
 bright as his best friends could wish for him ; for he 
 was heir presumptive to extensive landed estates, and 
 on the point of forming a matrimonial alliance with 
 one of our oldest county families. 
 
 " To his brother ofiicers, and to all who had the 
 pleasure of his acquaintance, Captaia Thomas's loss 
 will be grievous — ^what must it be to her who has so 
 long watched over hiTn with such maternal devoted- 
 ness, and to her who was so soon to be his bride ? 
 When we say he was ' the only child of his mother 
 and she is a widow, beside him she had neither son 
 nor daughter,' we feel we need not add another word 
 to show the extent of the bereavement. His remains 
 were consigned to the ancestral vault in the little 
 church at BiUesdon, amid the tears of his affectionate 
 relatives, the attached tenantry of the estate, and the 
 domestics of the Hall." — Ibid. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 Not another word, indeed, need be added to show 
 the extent of the bereavement ! The foregoing aifecting 
 record must speak to the hearts of every one who is 
 touched with even a feeling of common humanity. 
 I will only then remark that, with the exception of 
 the first six, these Poems were all written long before 
 I even imagined such a total wreck of earthly happi- 
 ness ; yet, from their tone of pervading sadness, it 
 would seem that I imconsciously did " rejoice with 
 trembling " over the treasure^ 
 
 " Not dead, but gone before." 
 
 J. THOMAS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. In iWemorfam. 
 
 *MY SON .... 
 
 *ONCB MORE, MT SON, ONCE MOEE 
 *MY son's BETKOTHED 
 
 *MY son's nasT birthday aptek death 
 
 *0H! I YEARN POE THEE, MY SON 
 *VI01ETS FROM MY SON's BETROTHED 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 6 
 12 
 19 
 
 24 
 
 qo 
 
 311. ©ctaaional ^oems. 
 
 THE EYE OP THE BIRTHDAY 
 
 REMORSE ..... 
 
 LONDON ..... 
 
 OH I TELL ME WHERE THE WEARY ABE AT REST 
 
 GOOD NIGHT, MY CHILD . 
 
 heaven's PEEEECT CHRYSOLITE 
 
 CAPRICE . . . . 
 
 COME BACK, BUT HASTE 
 
 YES ..... 
 
 THE DYING HUSBAND .... 
 
 PAEEWELL .... 
 
 THE STOLEN KISS .... 
 
 36 
 40 
 43 
 51 
 63 
 58 
 64 
 68 
 72 
 76 
 79 
 82 
 
Xll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE PATAL BLOW < 
 
 THE DEAD TAKE NOUGHT AWAY 
 
 THE LAST 
 
 STBUGGLB STILL 
 
 DEATH .... 
 
 PEACE IS PROCLAIMED 
 
 EARLY SPRING, AND EARLY LOVE . 
 
 THE MURDERER 
 
 THE RETREAT 01' THE RUSSIAN ARMY 
 
 STAR OP THE NORTH IN GLOOM THAT SETS 
 
 MY BABE 
 
 MY WASTED SPAN 
 
 THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW OP DEATH 
 
 I HAD A HOPE, 'tis GONE 
 
 THE MOTTO 
 
 THE PRENGH AND ENGLISff ALLIANCE . 
 
 love's lightest STEP 
 
 THE GREAT GARNERER 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . . 84 
 
 
 94 
 
 
 97 
 
 
 100 
 
 
 105 
 
 
 110 
 
 
 116 
 
 
 121 
 
 
 132 
 
 5 
 
 139 
 
 
 148 
 
 
 154 
 
 
 159 
 
 
 172 
 
 
 176 
 
 
 182 
 
 . 
 
 190 
 
 
 196 
 
 The. first six Poems, marked by asterisks, have been written 
 since the death of my most-loved and ever-to-be-regretted son. 
 How faintly do they portray the deep anguish. of my heart ! But 
 
 'Slow comes the verse that reni woe inspires." 
 
AUTUMNAL LEAVES. 
 
 i* in Mtmovium* 
 
 MY SON. 
 
 " Now when he came nigh, to the gate of the city, behold, there 
 was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she 
 was a widow," — St. Luke yii. 12. 
 
 In his own image, God created Mm, 
 
 And spotless kept Mm in Ms birtli-liour state ; 
 
 Letting no stain the excellence bedim, 
 
 WMcli He preserved, for Heaven, immaculate. 
 
 To show how perfect here a man could he. 
 Upon the earth he long enough remained ; 
 
 While I made conscious, gracious God, by Thee, 
 Not unawares an angel entertained ; 
 
 B 
 
MY SON. 
 
 For, oil ! so reverential was my love, 
 
 So holy, so devout eacli sentiment ; 
 I felt, of right, his dweUing was ahove : 
 
 And he to me was but in pity lent. 
 
 My son ! my son ! my ever-new deKght ! 
 
 My rapture, ever with fresh ardour sought ! 
 How thou hast vanished from my watchful sight. 
 
 Hast filled with wonder my astonished thought ! 
 
 I strive to pray — ^I strive to reconcile 
 
 My shattered happiaess with God's decree ; 
 
 Then flashes on my soul thy glowing smile : 
 And all my anguish is renewed for thee ! 
 
 Pardon the widow. Lord ! whose only son 
 Thou didst not rescue from the sepulchre : 
 
 Have patience. Lord ! in time " Thy will be done," 
 May burst in resignation, even from her. 
 
MY SON. 3 
 
 My faith, like Abraham's, Thou didst not test, 
 To guerdon it with most divine surprise ; 
 
 Thou knewest, Lord ! the weakness unconfest : 
 So took, unasked, my lamb of sacrifice. 
 
 My son ! who standest now at God's right hand, 
 My angel-son ! iu glory's robes arrayed ; 
 
 My son ! the foremost now in Mercy's band : 
 Remember me, when I shall need thy aid. 
 
 May it be soon ! I weary of my woe. 
 Life is too burthensome to bear alone ; 
 
 Oh ! I felt nothing, when thou wert below. 
 
 Save love's warm atmosphere which round me shone. 
 
 Now all oppresses ; for, the heavy air 
 
 Comes loaded with the vapours of the grave ; 
 
 Oh ! would that I were hidden from my care 
 In that still darkness, woimded spirits crave. 
 
 B 2 
 
* MY SON. 
 
 Had I been proud — ^as many would have been, 
 Possessing thee — I had deserved this blow ; 
 
 But I sought earnestly each troubled scene, 
 Where tears of agony did fastest flow ; ■ 
 
 To weep with tliem that wept — ^to pour the oil. 
 That heals the smartings hurry on decay ; 
 
 Oh ! never once did my glad soul recoil 
 
 From the pale anguish which affiights the gay ; 
 
 To show the silver lining in each cloud, 
 To eyes, would scarcely in its light believe ; 
 
 Yet, for aU this, my son ! thou'rt in thy shroud :. 
 So God refused the offering to receive. 
 
 My son ! enlist the seraphs on my side, 
 
 "With thee let all the heavenly hosts implore ; 
 
 That thy poor mother's struggles with the tide 
 Of whelming sorrow may be shortly o'er :- — 
 
MY SON. 
 
 Thou canst not cross tlie everlasting bourne, 
 Howe'er thy soul may yearn to comfort me ; 
 
 Yet — ^yet a gleam of hope, the while I mourn, 
 Rises amid despair's obscurity, 
 
 Sufiusiag with celestial ray the gloom 
 
 Which I must braye, my son ! how fearlessly! — 
 To seek beyond the barrier of the tomb, 
 
 The consummation of God's clemency! 
 
 Would, that my hour were come ! would I could meet 
 My son, my Saviour, and my Judge benign ; 
 
 My son ! my son ! embracing Jesu's feet, . 
 Having no sins to own, entreat for mine ; 
 
 That when I, panting, reach the crystal gates. 
 
 Whose entrance opens on eternity ; 
 Only the welcome, which the blest awaits. 
 
 May greet thy mother, from her God, and — thee ! 
 
ONOE MORE, MY SON ! ONCE MORE ! 
 
 " The heart knoweth his own bitterness ; and a, stranger doth 
 not intermeddle with his joy." — PBoyKUBS xiv. 10. 
 
 The Lord, He gave — and lo ! the Lord His treasure 
 
 does retake ; 
 Yet, tliougli bowed to the very earth, my faith this 
 
 shall not shake ; 
 "What ! shall I good from Grod receive, and shall I evil 
 
 shun? 
 How could I hope life's rock-bound sea would ever 
 
 smoothly run ? 
 What years of happiness were mine ! How trembles 
 
 now my soul, 
 As memory brings the transports back, then imder no 
 
 control ! 
 
ONCE MORE, MY SON ! ONCE MORE. 7 
 
 No fears to cast a damp on them ; no doubts, lest they 
 
 should fade ; 
 Ere I, though clingmg to them still, within the tomb 
 
 was laid. 
 Till restitiition was required, then, midst deep 
 
 mysteries, 
 What sobs convulsed my stifled breast ; what tears 
 
 obscured mine eyes ; 
 And agony so shook my frame, I tottered in each limb ; 
 As yet I hurried frantic on, to look my last on him ; 
 The idol of so many years, the worshipped of each 
 
 hour ; 
 The bud — ^the blossom of my soul — my one love- 
 cultured flower — 
 The only child me mother called — and oh ! in such a 
 
 tone, 
 God never heard a sweeter one, from seraphs roimd 
 
 His throne. • 
 
8 ONCE MOKE, MY SON ! ONCE MORE. 
 
 Ah ! only they who've gazed their last on him they'd 
 
 died to save ; 
 Ah ! only they whose desperate grief would hold him 
 
 from the grave ; 
 Ah ! only they whose maddened brain denies he dead 
 
 can be, 
 Can comprehend — and faintly too — -my incredidity. 
 
 The vision vanished which, to me, was real as the 
 
 light 
 That ushers in the new-born day, from the dark womb 
 
 of night ; 
 Yea, Lord ! as real as the creed, that firmly I believe, 
 Which teaches Thou dost love them most, whom most 
 
 Thou dost aggrieve : — 
 And his young love — ^his destined bride— -she ! she 
 
 who'd scarcely erred. 
 Why were the waters of her soul by the death-angel 
 
 stirred ? 
 
ONCE MORE, MY SON ! ONCE MOEE, 9 
 
 Why did they Gverwhelm, the hope, whose crescent 
 
 softly rose 
 In sky as calmly beautiful, as met the eyes of those 
 Who first in admiration gazed on the azure vault 
 
 serene, 
 Before they knew through it, (how soon,) would 
 
 tempests intervene ? — 
 
 When all was o'er — ^most sacredly on his dead heart 
 
 I placed 
 The letters where her artless love she guilelessly had 
 
 traced ; 
 Resolved no mortal eye save his their tenderness 
 
 should know ; 
 Though purest angel would not blush, could he those 
 
 letters show 
 In that chaste Heaven, where aU is pure, where aU is 
 
 Tmdefiled ; 
 Where artifice has never yet one sinless saint beguiled; 
 
10 ONCE MOKE, MY SON ! ONCE MORE. 
 
 Where love is simple as a babe, all smiles of joyous- 
 
 ness, 
 And God, wbo is Himself but Love, does heap it to 
 
 excess ! 
 
 All festivals — all holy days — all days of jubilee- — 
 
 Will now be held as funeral ones^-my precious son ! 
 by me ; 
 
 Once shared by thee — oh ! how could I alone keep, 
 otherwise 
 
 Than as re-burials of the dead, such hallowed revelries ? 
 
 I would be still, but this loud world, with ever-start- 
 ling sound, 
 
 Mockiag the cry of "Peace, peace, peace," where 
 peace cannot be found. 
 
 Distracts my bosom — ^breaks the hush, which steals, 
 like drowsiness. 
 
 Upon the worn and weary heart, exhausted by 
 distress. 
 
ONCE MORE, MY SON ! ONCE MORE. 11 
 
 How I have sorrowed for my son — Q-od ! well Thou 
 
 knowest how ! 
 Yet would I, selfish, snatch the crown of glory from 
 
 his brow ? 
 No : — ^let him wear it like a king — a heaven-anointed 
 
 king: 
 Yet, Lord! permit o'er me he spreads a fond pro- 
 tecting wing, 
 To shield me from the bitter blasts that chill my 
 
 wasted frame, 
 Untn the mandate comes to me which. Lord ! unto 
 
 him came ; 
 How welcome in my loneliness ! how will I bare my 
 
 breast 
 To meet the arrow, (mercy-sped,) which brings the 
 
 restless rest ! 
 
13 
 
 MY SON'S BETROTKED. 
 
 " Our first love murder'd is the sharpest pang 
 The hnman heart can feel. ... 4 ." 
 
 TouNo's "Brothers." 
 
 Eee, bud of hope, tlirougli time, one leaf lias shed, 
 She's learnt the uttermost of human grief; 
 
 Alas ! the pity ! that, for her, instead 
 Of youth's expectancy, the tried belief. 
 
 Love, the hoped substance of life's sole delight, 
 
 Proves but the shadow of its woful night. 
 
 The "passing-bell" — ^yea — ^be it tolled, 
 
 'Tis muffled for her ear ; 
 Who now, in passion uncontrolled. 
 
 Sheds desperation's tear ; 
 
MY son's betrothed. 13 
 
 No merry peal of marriage gay, 
 
 But that oppressive soimd 
 WHch teUs a soul has passed away, 
 
 To mystery profound. — 
 Who durst admonish such a grief ? — 
 
 Who reckon it a crime ? — 
 0, what a wretched make-belief 
 
 Reproof, at such a time ! 
 
 Then — ^let her agony have vent ; 
 
 Such agony must rave ; 
 'Tis useless urgirig-^" It is sent 
 
 To purify, and save ;" 
 To one who could not, would not hear. 
 
 Even though an angel spoke ; 
 No — ^not if he, from highest sphere. 
 
 Her patience did invoke ; 
 Whose loss occasioned her despair, 
 
 Her mental overthrow : 
 
14 MY son's betrothed. 
 
 A time will come for calmer prayer ; 
 For calmer tears to flow. — 
 
 All ! what a change ! — all ! wliat a change, 
 
 For one so young to feel ! 
 Nought can, on earth, her soul estrange 
 
 From him, who makes appeal 
 Each hour to it — ^in every scene — 
 
 In dreams — ^when she can sleep : — 
 And, if awake— the "what has been" 
 
 Thoughts of the time will keep. 
 When time was counted by the heart. 
 
 Which chid each brief delay ; 
 As if, from Hfe, some vital part 
 
 Of joy were held at bay ; — 
 
 When expectation from the eye 
 Glanced, like a rippling stream. 
 
 Illuminated from a sky 
 Of cloudless solar beam ; — 
 
MY son's betrothed. 15 
 
 When hope upon tlie seTered lips, 
 
 In breatHess rapture, hung ; 
 While shyness eyery sentence clips 
 
 That fluttered from the tongue ; — 
 When ecstacy's impassioned thrill 
 
 Each pulse did animate : — 
 And — ^now the soul that stands so still : — 
 
 Arrested thus by Fate ! 
 
 God ! why sufier them to meet, 
 
 To part through such a blow ? 
 God ! God ! how incomplete 
 
 Is happiness below ! — 
 To that reiterated "Why?" 
 
 Thou ne'er hast yet replied ; 
 Love stOl must see fond lovers die, 
 
 As lovers fond have died ; 
 TVnd love, through life, must drag about 
 
 A chaia, whose links but gall ; 
 
16 MY son's betrothed. 
 
 Yet — -mth a tenderness devout, 
 Tliem the heart's jewek call. — ■ 
 
 All ! with, her love within the tomb, 
 
 With memories ne'er to cease ; 
 She's listening for the voice of doom, 
 
 As agony's release ; — 
 But Death accedes not when implored. 
 
 Woe must his will abide ; 
 Else the adoring, and adored. 
 
 Had slumbered side by side. — 
 Her grief, which now so real seems, 
 
 Her poignancy of thought ; 
 Shall they be held but idle dreams. 
 
 That torture life for nought ? 
 
 The tears so passionate and strong, 
 The sighs, the bosom rend ; 
 
 Esteem we them, at last, too wrong 
 For reason to defend ? 
 
MY son's betrothed, 17 
 
 Lo, Grod, wHo wipes all tears away, 
 
 Even God, who prompts eacli prayer, 
 Forbears to exercise His sway, 
 
 TiU. time shall grief prepare 
 To feel— to owH the stroke was just, 
 
 Yea — ^merciful, in sooth ; 
 Which levelled Hope, even with the dust, 
 
 To raise it up as Truth. 
 
 Shall man then prematurely preach, 
 
 While Grod remaineth mute ? 
 The lessons, which his silence teach, 
 
 Man' s eloquence confute. 
 For He who made the suffering heart, 
 
 Its sorrows well may scan. 
 And bear the expression of their smart, 
 
 More patiently than man. 
 Poor, stricken one ! — a few more tears, 
 
 A few more hopes unblest ; 
 
 c 
 
18 MY son's betkothed. 
 
 A few more disappointing years, 
 And thou wilt be at rest. 
 
 Thy Saviour has downtrod the thorns, 
 
 Which choked thy path to God ; 
 And thou, whose sorrow Jesus mourns, 
 
 Must tread the way He trod ; 
 To bear thy cross up Calvary, 
 
 Whose glorious heights, when gained, 
 Thy soul may shout exultingly, 
 
 " Salvation is attaiaed ! " 
 Which angels catching, shall repeat. 
 
 While one (how instant known ! ) 
 To heaven his looked-for bride shall greet. 
 
 In earth's familiar tone ! 
 
19 
 
 MY SOFS FIRST BIRTHDAY AFTER 
 DEATH. 
 
 " A good name is better than precious ointment ; and the day 
 of death than the day of one's birth." — Ecciesiastes vii. 1. 
 
 " He answered me and said, This present life is not the end 
 where much glory doth abide." — 2 Esdeas vii. 42. 
 
 Oh ! if ia the abodes of perfect bliss, 
 
 To whicb thou wert translated suddenly. 
 Remembrance is allowed of world like this ; 
 
 On me bestow that filial memory : — 
 Or rather, with impartial We, divide 
 
 That consciousness, between thy mother here. 
 And the nipped flower, who hoped to be thy bride : 
 
 Ere summoned hence wert thou from hearts so dear. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 MY son's first birthday after death. 
 
 Her head is bowed, my son ! her heart is broke ; 
 
 She pines to share thy everlasting rest ; 
 While my own tears, the words of- comfort choke, 
 
 For her sole soothing, I would have expressed.— 
 My son, my son, forlorn enough are we, 
 
 Blasted Kke trees, upon storm- smitten heath ; 
 Yet gratefully, our heavenward glances see 
 
 Thy brow encircled with Redemption's wreath.- 
 
 Oh, suppKcate, my son ! the angel-throng, 
 
 Who celebrate with thee thy natal day ; 
 To plead for pardon, if the grief is wrong : 
 
 Which over us bears such tyrannic sway. — 
 No : name it not — let nought terrestrial jar 
 
 The heavenly harmony attuned for thee ; 
 Earth, and its earthly anguish, must not mar 
 
 Thy full fruition of feKcity. 
 
 The requiem of our untamed despair 
 Must mingle not with music of the sky ; 
 
MY son's FIEST birthday AFTER DEATH. 21 
 
 Lest, ia the lull of gladder harpings there, 
 
 Thine ear should catch its mournful minstrelsy, 
 
 And recognise our birthday hymn for thee, 
 Dirgelike, and solemn, as funereal wail ; 
 
 And dissonance be blent with melody : 
 Whose diapason should serene prevail. 
 
 Oh ! as the years, love-registered, brought round 
 
 The happy birthdays, welcomed so by me ; 
 My soul, enamoured, bathed in the profoimd 
 
 Of an immeasurable ecstacy ; 
 Yet — ^forced was I " with trembling to rejoice," 
 
 To lighten bonds, seemed slackening every hour ; 
 Yet forced was I to ask, in doubtful voice. 
 
 Of Him, o'er fate has absolutest power ; 
 
 " How long, Lord ! how. long will this endure ? 
 
 Lord, in loving mercy answer me ! — • 
 Lord ! wilt Thou not a mother's hope ensure? — 
 
 The sweetest hope, she could receive from Thee." — 
 
22 MY son's fikst birthday aptee death. 
 
 Was the Lord angered ? — did I wrath provoke, 
 That He so sternly tinto me replied ? — 
 
 Crushing, with one annihilating stroke. 
 Me, and, alas ! thy unoffending bride ? 
 
 Her grief, how great! — and oh! how great is mine!- 
 
 We have not courage to compare our woes ! — 
 Yet, with the heartstrings, stronger doth entwine 
 
 The love, from infancy, that ever grows : — 
 Mine then is greatest ; for I grieve for both ; 
 
 While she, completely occupied with thee, 
 (Though liberal as charity,) feels loth, 
 
 To spend regret upon my agony : — 
 
 In Nature, what a gap thy death has made, 
 And, in our bosoms, what a vacancy ; 
 
 While we go timidly, as if afraid 
 Of some untoward new calamity ! 
 
MY son's first birthday AFTER DEATH. 23 
 
 Yet — ^what misfortune can us now befall ? — 
 Has sorrow from ns one affliction kept ? — 
 
 "WTiy, if destruction did tlie world o'er-pall, 
 
 Our dead we've buried— and our dead we've wept. 
 
 And now, like pilgrims wbo have reached the shrine, 
 
 By superhimian hope encouraged on ; 
 Where is to end life's trials, they resign 
 
 To Christ the staff of faith, they lean upon ; 
 We're bowing down in prayer, hand clasped ia hand. 
 
 And souls resolved^ as martyrs, to depart ; 
 Longing to feel the soaring wings expand. 
 
 To mount to realms, where thou already art ! 
 
24 
 
 OH! HOW I YEARN POR THEE, MY SON! 
 
 "Weeping may endure foi* a nigM, but joy oometh in the 
 morning." — PsAIM xxx. 5. 
 
 " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be 
 like his ! " — ITumbees xxiii. 10. 
 
 My tearful eyes to heaven I raise, 
 
 In sorrow's vague desire to see 
 WTiat never more, to human gaze. 
 
 Apparent, my son ! can be.^- 
 And then, with morbid wish, I crave, 
 
 (For thought on something sure to dwell,) 
 To penetrate into thy grave ; • 
 
 And ransack its mysterious cell. 
 
OH ! HOW I YEARN FOR THEE, MY SON ! 25 
 
 Yet — wliat does now that grave contain 
 
 To captivate a motlier's love ? — > 
 Jesus ! — ^pardon — and sustain 
 
 The soul, that sighs to meet above 
 The beauty, which was so extreme ; 
 
 The worth, surpassing all compeers ; 
 The piety, should form the theme 
 
 Of exultation — ^not these tears. — 
 
 Yet — ^thou — ^while on the earth — who weptst, 
 
 Subdued to mortal agony ; 
 And by the grave of friendship, keptst 
 
 The vigil of humanity ; — • 
 Thou — ^who couldst cry, in mortal woe, 
 
 " Father ! allow this cup to pass ! " 
 When traitor friend — and open foe. 
 
 Exposed Thee to a ribald mass; — 
 Canst comprehend that mortal throe, 
 
 Which wrings the soul, despair has fed ; 
 
26 OH ! HOW 1 YEARN FOR THEE, MY SON ! 
 
 And suffer mortal tears to flow, 
 
 Wtich but for mortal pangs are shed ; — 
 Canst suffer suffering to try. 
 
 To hold communion witli thy saints ; 
 While hope, on retroverted eye, 
 
 The glory of submission paints, 
 To lead dejection such as miae, 
 
 To look beyond earth's transient iUs ; 
 And learn to own that the Dj-nne 
 
 Is merciful in all He wills ;— 
 Canst suffer me to breathe the straia 
 
 Of ineffectual distress ; 
 (Until I learn to joy in pain; 
 
 And own that pain a nothingness,) 
 Unto the dead. 
 
 Yet to the dead, 
 
 Wherefore even sorrow's vain appeal ? — 
 The dead — whose consciousness has fled, 
 
 Oh ! can it syinpathise — or — feel ? — 
 
OH ! HOW I YEAKN FOK THEE, MY SON ! 27 
 
 'Tis to the living, Jesus ! Thou 
 
 Didst triumph over Death, to save. 
 That grief should speak, as I do now ; 
 
 Not to dead ashes, in the grave : 
 Therefore, my son ! to thee I send 
 
 My tale of hapless misery ; 
 Whose sanctioned spirit may attend : 
 
 Sanctioned, my grief to sanctify. 
 
 Oh ! tOl I wept thee, on thy bier, 
 
 Oh !, till I saw thee borne away ; 
 I knew not how deserted here 
 
 I should become, from day to day. 
 StUl must I teU each thought to thee. 
 
 For— oh ! each thought is wholly tlune ; 
 -Thou — when an infant at my knee : 
 
 (And purity did thee enshriae,) 
 In thy untarnished innocence, 
 
 Hadst not, even then, one thought more free 
 
28 OH ! HOW I YEARN FOR THEE, MY SON ! 
 
 From earthly vice— from earth's offence, 
 
 Than those I utter now to thee. 
 Thou'rt never absent from my sight ; 
 
 Thou art in each familiar place, 
 Like golden track, that's very bright. 
 
 My path to heaven direct to trace ; 
 The echo of thy infant joy, 
 
 Above all other sounds, I hear ; 
 When thy j&rst laugh had no alloy : 
 
 No moral maxim, clothed in fear ; 
 And then thy manhood's firmer tone, 
 
 To speak protectingly stUl seems ; 
 I turn to answer — ^but alone 
 
 I find myself, -with idlest dreams ; 
 I pray for thee — ^how vain, how vain — 
 
 For thee ! — for whom a Saviour prays ! — 
 Yet — darHag ! how can I refrain 
 
 From such sweet long-accustomed ways ?— 
 
OH ! HOW I YEAE.N" FOR THEE, MY SON ! 29 • 
 
 I weep for thee — ^how vainer still — ■ 
 
 For thee ! — whose tears a Saviotir dries ! 
 Yet-i— yet my heart, like mountain- rill, 
 
 Fresh sources for my tears supplies. 
 Oh ! mine is a true woman's grief, 
 
 Which only is expressed by tears ; 
 With yivid iatervals, most brief. 
 
 Of former too enchanting years. 
 I cannot rave — nor rend my hair — 
 
 Nor act like Tragedy iusane — 
 Miae's not the frenzy of despair. 
 
 Would call thee from the tomb again j 
 It is that sensibility. 
 
 On which a God in judgment sits ; 
 And, though almost idolatry. 
 
 In His staid wisdom. He permits ; 
 Which, bound to earth, tenacious clings 
 
 To earth's illusory deceit ; 
 Nor seems aware — remembrance brings 
 
 But visions which the senses cheat ; 
 
30 OH ! HOW I YEARN FOB, THEE, MY SON ! 
 
 And these the Yisions now pourtrayed, 
 
 By retrospection's life-like sketch ; 
 My son ! ere hope was death-betrayed : 
 
 Or I became this lonely wretch ; 
 When thou didst leave — ^then hurry back, 
 
 Nor novelty could thee seduce ; 
 While never did my welcome lack 
 
 The ardour, might have cooled from use. 
 
 From that abandoned spot named home, 
 
 (From which I did in horror flee ;) 
 Despatches, as of old, still come : 
 
 But no fond messages from thee ; 
 The silence of the grave does rest 
 
 Upon thy filial tenderness ; 
 Yet every word to me addressed, 
 
 Upon my heart, with pointed stress 
 Is written, by undying love, 
 
 To which I turn — as sacred lore ; 
 
OH ! HOW I YEAKN FOE, THEE, MY SON ! 31 
 
 To read of one — a saint above, 
 Wlio wrote to me those words of yore. 
 
 'Tis better tbus to tbink — and weep — 
 
 Yea — even in nndue excess — 
 Than leave tbe stagnant soul to creep 
 
 Into entire forgetfulness — 
 It sbonld " remember sucb tbings were, 
 
 Wbicb were, indeed, to it most dear;" 
 Nor from tbeir reminiscence spare 
 
 One memory-exacting tear ; 
 For tbougbt, wben on an angel bent. 
 
 From worldly dross must sifted be ; 
 And lose tbat impious discontent, 
 
 Wbicb sours, and sbarpens Grod's decree. 
 
 Cbrist ! bow bave I tried to tbink 
 
 As Tbou wouldst bave my tbougbts incHne ; 
 
32 OH ! HOW 1 TEAKN FOK THEE, MY SON ! 
 
 And, with unwaTering faith, to drink 
 Life's draught of sacramental wine ; 
 Oh ! teach me how I may attaia 
 
 Unto my son's celestial state ! — 
 Oh ! teach me, Lord ! how I, may gain 
 
 The pardon. Lord ! for which I wait ! — 
 Hast Thou not taught me ? Lord ! I know, 
 
 I must no longer sorrow here, 
 For him, with that usurping woe. 
 To Thee may crimiiial appear ; 
 But hope — ^yea, hope — through Mercy's grace, 
 
 (How longs my soul, at this, to die ! ) 
 Again to see him face to face : 
 
 And Thou, too. Lord ! . in realms on high ! 
 
 come ! Lord Jesus ! quickly come ; 
 
 My spirit wearies. Lord ! for Thee 
 To guide it where my son, at home. 
 Impatient is to welcome me ! 
 
33 
 
 VIOLETS FROM MY SON'S BETROTHED. 
 
 " Pray to live 
 So fair and innooently ; pray to die, 
 Leaf after leaf, so softly." — Death's Jest Book. 
 
 The -violets, so fresh from thee, 
 Though, perished, treasured are by me. 
 For the emotions they impart, 
 To wound, yet meliorate the heart ; 
 From pleasure, wedded unto pain. 
 No more to be divorced again. — 
 
 Sad bridals !— where the smile and tear 
 In union; all too close, appear ! — 
 They died — as vividness should die. 
 Which mocks this Hfe-suspecting eye ! — 
 
34 VIOLETS FROM MY SON's BETROTHED. 
 
 They died — as bloom should speed away, 
 In earth's swift hurry of decay ; 
 To prove, with startling emphasis. 
 Duration's not for world like this. 
 Where loveliaess does soonest fade ; 
 "Which lasting but for Heaven is made ! — 
 
 Ah ! dearest ! what a fate is ours. 
 When, to us, Nature's simplest flowers 
 Come with remembrance on each leaf. 
 There written by the hand of grief ! — 
 Yet — ^yet^^though hard to learn, the wise 
 Protest, such lesson we should prize, 
 As teachings from a God of love ; 
 Who breathes instruction from above, 
 Through sorrow, which is joy's disguise ; 
 Assimied, to guide us to the skies : 
 Thrown ofi" when there, as needed not, 
 Where consciousness of grief's forgot ; 
 
VIOLETS FROM MY SON's BETROTHED. 35 
 
 Or to be thouglit of but as gleam 
 Of ligbtBing, threatening in a dream, 
 Wliicli rouses from a fear-fraugbt sleep ; 
 To make tbe heart with gladness leap, 
 That it was but a dream did scare ; 
 Aiid Grod and safety's everywhere ! 
 
 d2 
 
36 
 
 ih (Bttn&ionnl poemsf. 
 
 THE EYE or THE BIETHDAY. 
 
 Lo ! on tlie tliresliold of anotlier year, 
 
 Thou standest, like a conqueror elate ; 
 Wliilst I, witli timid and prophetic fear, 
 
 Predict tlie evils of tliy lengthened date. 
 Like to a seer, do I plunge mine eye 
 
 Into the dimness of each coming hour ; 
 To mark the tempest gathering in the sky, 
 
 Which o'er thy pathway will portentous lower.^ 
 Oh ! if for thee immunity from ill 
 
 My prayers could purchase, how unceasing they ! — 
 How should you angels marvel at the will 
 
 Which grew ia strength, the more that I did pray ! 
 
THE EVE OF THE BIETHDAY. 37 
 
 Hope forward ruslies; and, witli hurried pace, 
 
 Speeds to the goal, some promised joy that brings : 
 But fear the past more slowly doth retrace, 
 
 And o'er the present broods, with drooping wings. 
 Hope grasps the future ; but the substance shrinks 
 
 Into a spectral shadow, when embraced ; 
 As the feigned waters, which the pilgrim driaks. 
 
 Sinks in the mirage of the desert's waste. 
 How fortune-favoured, could I but ayert 
 
 The disappointments thronging thee aroimd ; 
 But, as forbidden, oh, be thou alert 
 
 To gaia the wisdom in experience found ; 
 Which doth instruct, that suffering must be 
 
 The penalty exacted from mankind ; 
 Light be the burden, which it lays on thee ! — 
 
 And prompt the aid, that thou for it ehalt find ! 
 Rejoice to be, though Hfe, alas ! is fraught 
 
 With sorrows, which obscure its brightest sun ; 
 It hath one gladness, which thine, sure, hath 
 caught: 
 
38 THE EVE OF THE BIRTHDAY. 
 
 For by each breast the glorious prize is won. — 
 Love ! SENTIENT love ! which life to feeling wakes 
 
 From inert slumber, and from inert dream ; 
 And on the soul in glowing lustre breaks, 
 
 As if young seraphs spread supernal beam ; 
 I do rejoice thotj art. Dear Heaven, be praised ; 
 
 Thanks, gentle planet, for the boon of life, 
 Which hath my sadder being often raised 
 
 Above the veil of many a cruel strife ! 
 
 Before we met, earth was a wilderness. 
 
 With each emotion, like a captive, gyved ; 
 But since, O since, it hath been little less, 
 
 For my full soul, than Paradise revived ! — 
 It was thy hand unloosed my slavish bonds ; 
 
 It was thy smile which set my spirit free ; 
 How then my heart unto my tongxte responds. 
 
 When asking God's most choicest gifts for thee. 
 They only know, who midnight pUlows steep 
 
 In tears of agony, no sobs betray ; 
 
THE EVE OF THE BIRTHDAY. 39 
 
 How mournful is tlie memory they keep 
 
 Of some fond trust, whicli time hath borne away ! 
 How to the fair delusion the heart clings, 
 
 So cherished as a truth, so treasured there ; 
 Though every passing moment deeper wrings 
 
 The hesart, a fallacy could so ensnare ! 
 When He, who bids the " weary come and rest," 
 
 Invites me to this beatific sphere ; 
 When all the expectations of this breast 
 
 In their true nothingness shall then appear ; 
 When my plumed spirit, panting to depart. 
 
 But lingers still in company with thine, 
 The tenderness shall yet subdue my heart, 
 
 Which, through death's changes, it could not 
 resign. 
 Then, then, whto watchers catch my final sigh, 
 
 In softest whisper they shall hear thy name ; 
 The last on earth, the fikst beyond the sky, 
 
 Which coxdd from me, beloved, affection claim ! 
 
40 
 
 REMORSE. 
 
 As one, his vision failing by degrees, 
 
 Consoles himself, the mist will soon disperse 
 
 Which seems to render all things indistiact, 
 
 And rlima the lustre of the Orb of Day ; 
 
 Until on him is forced the fatal truth, 
 
 That 'tis his sight, and not the skies are veiled ; 
 
 So o'er my mental vision gathers mist, 
 
 Growing as dense as ever Blindness caused. 
 
 And one sole crime hath this dread darkness brought — ■ 
 
 The crime, which made me prematurely old — 
 
 The crime, which mid- way in life's bold ascent 
 
 My steps arrested, bidding me return 
 
 Ere I had gained the Pisgah of my hopes, — 
 
 Erom whose exhilarating, breezy top 
 
 I might survey the Canaan of the heart, — 
 
KEMOKSE. 41 
 
 The Promised Land of Love, and that Great Joy, 
 (The yoimg make breathless, even in idea,) 
 The full attainment of Amhition's dream. — 
 
 Panting and baffled, struggling in defeat, 
 Like gladiator from arena borne ; 
 I did commence the slow descent which led 
 Into the valley of this death of shame ; — 
 Heart- weary of a world I scarcely knew. 
 
 awful is that withering of the soid, 
 Which parches into age its spring-tide bloom ! 
 Awful to have its verdure blighted by 
 
 The simoom of remorse — ^its freshness turned 
 
 To aridness, as dry as desert-sands. 
 
 By the fierce blastings of its glowing grief ! — 
 
 One who bestowed on me the fond belief 
 
 Of childhood's innocence, and woman's trust, — 
 
 1 hurried to the grave in earliest prime ; 
 Yet, not too soon, an angel to its Gf^od : 
 
42 EEMORSE. 
 
 Save that, indeed, my hateful memory 
 
 May mar the bliss of Paradise for her, 
 
 Molestiag it with earthly perfidy. — 
 
 Hence, hence, the tortures of my stricken breast ! 
 
 Hence, hence, the anguish of my conscience torn ! 
 
 Hence, hence, the desperation of my fears ! 
 
 But, soft ! but, soft ! that which appeared Despair, 
 
 Dreary as starless sky 'neath "Wiater's night. 
 
 Hath changed to hope as bright as Summer's noon, 
 
 When cloudless radiance floods the azure dome. 
 
 At the glad thought of her great gentleness ! 
 
 Oh ! she will plead for me imto her Grod, 
 
 Yea, with an earnestness so powerful 
 
 As might seem wondrous, proving woman's love, 
 
 In its forgiveness, parallels His own. 
 
 When Wrong doth challenge its benignity. 
 
 And thus, through her whom I have most oppressed. 
 
 The amplest measure of redeeming grace 
 
 I shall receive, serene beatitude ! 
 
43 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 " If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God."- 
 1 Peter iv. 11. 
 
 Fair' Island, girdled by a mighty zone 
 Of cliffs precipitous, whose sharp ascent 
 Defiance frowns upon the ambitious foe ; — 
 With giant cestus belting thee around, 
 To keep at distance each approaching harm ! — 
 Fair Island ! fair thy City of delights, 
 The envy, and the marvel of the world ; 
 The prosperous, — ^the erudite, — ^the great. — 
 
 Thou modem Rome ! Magnificent as was 
 The ancient empire, when the Caesars reigned, 
 
44 LONDON, 
 
 And pride and luxury donumon shared, 
 
 And arrogance attained the giddy height 
 
 From which it toppled down, no more to rise ! — 
 
 Lo ! equal pride and luxury are thine — 
 
 Lo ! equal arrogance has dizzy grown — 
 
 Lo ! equal crime precipitates thy doom, 
 
 Metropolis of grandeur, and of guUt, 
 
 Reeling beneath the vertigo of sin. 
 
 Yet unaware of danger neighbouring thee ! — 
 
 Thy days are numbered, — on thy palace- walls 
 
 The same demmciation is inscribed 
 
 As seared the -vision of Assyria's king ; 
 
 Who gazed himself to blindness, when the words 
 
 Of fiery indignation smote his sight, 
 
 Which told that the Invisible was there, 
 
 To wrest the sceptre from his impious grasp. 
 
 Unmasked by the irreverent throng, who crowd 
 Thy busy thoroughfares, a Prophet walks, 
 
LONDON. 4$ 
 
 Crying to tlie regardless multitudes, 
 
 " Woe, woe to tlie inliabitants of earth ! 
 
 Woe, woe to ye wlio sleep, wMle broods tlie storm ! 
 
 Woe, woe to ye wlio build in every street. 
 
 Yet set no watcbmen on your citadels. 
 
 To warn of Deatb, wbo cometh like a thief. 
 
 When the night-hush is on the universe 1 
 
 Woe, wOe to ye whom pleasure enervates. 
 
 Whom splendour dazzles, and whom station charms ! 
 
 Woe ; woe to ye the haughty, and the vain, 
 
 The self-exalted, and the self-esteemed, 
 
 Who set the foot upon your fellow's neck ; 
 
 And spurn whom Grod did mould from the same clay. 
 
 Woe, woe to ye who, lulled in soft repose. 
 
 And the voluptuous langour of your ease. 
 
 Forget, in the oblivion of the soul ; 
 
 From dust ye came, and shall to dust return ! 
 
 Woe, woe to ye your Maker who bring down, 
 
 By your indifference, to the censure of 
 
46 LONDON. 
 
 The TRULY suffering, and the fancied wronged ; 
 
 Who feeling ye are blest above desert, 
 
 Look for prompt judgment on your thanklessness ; 
 
 Conscious that God must be extreme to mark, 
 
 If He is just, your base ingratitude, 
 
 And them reward out of your forfeitures ! 
 
 Woe, woe to ye who treat as madman's dream 
 
 The dread predictions, any instant may. 
 
 To your amazing horror, Yerify ! 
 
 — Till, from its yerdant valleys, rose on high 
 
 The purple coliimn of sulphureous smoke, 
 
 Who credited Gromorrah was in flames. 
 
 Though angels came its threatened fall to tell? 
 
 Sodom ! thoU' fairest city of the plain ! 
 The dance, the feast, the revel still was held 
 Within thy spacious chambers, till, appalled 
 By the hot thunderbolts from Heaven which fell. 
 The guests afirighted sought some means to fly, 
 
LONDON. 47 
 
 And 3ank expiring on thy marble courts, 
 
 Black, suffocate, o'ertaken by swift doom ! 
 
 And wbo will now believe this our report ? 
 
 Wbo wiU attend the oracle diyine 
 
 By wisdom uttered, timely caution teaching, 
 
 Until too late His vengeance to avert ? 
 
 No ear will listen, and no heart will quail — 
 
 No hand ia supplication be upraised — 
 
 No knee ia prayer of solemn import bow. 
 
 The sons of "Wealth, absorbed ia sensual joy. 
 
 With senses blunted, and with reason dimmed, 
 
 See not the menaciags His lightnings bear ; 
 
 So leave their God, in irreligious scorn. 
 
 To smile and spare not : while the squaKd poor 
 
 Think it is useless to implore His aid 
 
 Who never found their by-ways of despair, 
 
 But them abandoned to the penury 
 
 Which claims no thankfulness, and wakes no praise. 
 
 And thus each class, the mighty and the mean, 
 
48 LONDON. 
 
 Eesigns, to the fierce scathings of His rage, 
 
 Tlie gorgeous palaces, the temples grand, — 
 
 And tlie low dens, the alleys, and the lanes, 
 
 Where sad, imthought-of poverty conceals 
 
 Its fever, and its famine, rags and shame. 
 
 Nor tower, nor steeple, nor the gilded spire, 
 
 Eemains to ghtter in the morning ray 
 
 Of that calm sun, which, from the placid skies, 
 
 Looks down serenely on the shaken earth. 
 
 To mark the site of the once beautiful. 
 
 And show that London* hath become the Past ; — 
 
 Another recoi'd for Tradition's page — 
 
 Another emblem of the Mutable — 
 
 Another extract from the Book of Time — 
 
 Another witness for the Mighty One 
 
 Who wrote " I am" upon creation's dawn, 
 
 * " The time shall come when a New Zealander, sitting on the 
 broken arches of London-bridge, shall mourn for England's 
 departed grandeur." — Lobd MiCAULiY. 
 
LONDON. 49 
 
 And who" will write " I am," at tlie Last Day, 
 The sole Eternal, Time and Death survives. 
 
 Bow down, in awe, " ye of little faith," 
 
 And own the Infinite Himself reveals ! — 
 
 For cpuntless centuiies, the desert-sands 
 
 Had curtained N^eveh, to cover up 
 
 Her glory, and her crime, until her name 
 
 Had almost ceased among remembered thiilgs. 
 
 But, in the age of rankest heresy. 
 
 When Scepticism ruleth pafamourit, 
 
 And Piety is driven from our fanes; 
 
 From Palestine's to England's favoured shores, 
 
 The hallowed relics are triumphant borne. 
 
 To show to Doubt, the Eternal, at its fall. 
 
 Decreed its resurrection at this hour. 
 
 To testify of Him, ye would deny, 
 
 But for the stones, which thus enforce conviction ; 
 
 And your reluctant worshippings compel. 
 
50 LONDON. 
 
 So, from Tune's teeming womb, in lapsing year's. 
 
 Another Layard stall, by Providence, 
 
 Be led to disinter tbe buried pomp 
 
 Of this still crescent, buge metropolis, " 
 
 To find upon her charred and blackened stones. 
 
 The like inscription — " God, the Powerful, 
 
 Beholding the iniquity of Man, 
 
 And the sad groanings of the land, through sin, 
 
 The livid lightnings of His anger shot 
 
 From burning clouds, that city to consume, 
 
 Which held divided interest with Him ; 
 
 And, as in Strength, so in Pkofaneness grew." 
 
51 
 
 OH! TELL ME WHERE THE WEARY ARE 
 AT REST. 
 
 Oh ! tell me where the weary are at rest ? 
 
 Earth's fainting pilgrims, — ^where find they repose ? 
 Upon Affection's sympathetic breast ? 
 
 Within the grave, at Sorrow's final close ? 
 The heart may ache, — ^but, if the heart be young, 
 It would delay to have Death's reqiiiem sung ! 
 
 Oh ! teU me where the weary are at rest ? 
 
 A seraphim, from the abodes of peace ; 
 By Mercy missioned, did it come in quest 
 
 Of suffering hearts, to bid their anguish cease ; 
 Lo ! still enchained below, by some fond tie. 
 Amid despair, they'd hesitate to die ! 
 
 E 2 
 
52 oh! tell me wheee the weary are at rest. 
 
 oil ! tell me where the weary are at rest ? 
 
 A maiden, pure as lily in its dell, 
 With one coy thought, scarce in her prayers confest, 
 
 Though chaste as Innocence aloud might tell, 
 Can, on her bosom, yield a rest as sweet 
 For love, as Heaven's, when tearless eyelids meet ! 
 
 Oh ! tell me where the weary are at rest ? 
 
 But low as whisper, angels hear alone ; 
 For it woidd jar upon the soid opprest. 
 
 If happier creatures caught the welcome tone : 
 For soft as prayers o'er dying babe should be 
 The quiet utterings of eternity ! 
 
53 
 
 GOOD NIGHT, MY CHILD ! 
 
 " Good nigH my cMd !"— la tlie night good. 
 
 That wraps us ia its glooin to brood 
 
 O'er anguish, no cessation knows ; 
 
 Which still weeps on, when eyelids close 
 
 In slimiber, that should grant reprieve 
 
 To those, at least, who only wake to grieve ? 
 
 My mother sleeps.-?-" Good night, my child !" 
 Her lips could say — and — ^how they smiled ! 
 Not in derision, but delight—' 
 To thee, a thousand times, *' Good night," 
 Dear mother, who couldst smile on me ; 
 Mid the afflictions pressing sore on thee ! 
 
54 GOOD NIGHT, MY CHILD ! 
 
 My mother sleeps — ^my mother dreams — 
 
 May she have those celestial gleams 
 
 Of ecstacy, which fill the breast, 
 
 In the short iaterrals of rest, 
 
 "When quiet is that active woe. 
 
 Which frenzies the poor brain with ceaseless throe. 
 
 She sleeps — ^my blessed mqj^er sleeps ! 
 
 Her sole release from want, which keeps 
 
 A watch, whose vigilance distracts 
 
 The brain it wears — ^the heart it racks. 
 
 My heart is old — Time's furrows there 
 
 Have been forestalled, by the rude plough of care. 
 
 I am so poor, that sympathy. 
 
 Emotion is too kich for me ! — 
 
 So poor — ^they'd mock, should I forego 
 
 My sorrow, for another's woe ; 
 
 And who'd the barren boon receive. 
 
 Which them occasioned not the less to grieve ? 
 
GOOD NIGHT, MY CHILD ! 55 
 
 Yet — could my heart's spontaneousness 
 More than mere sympathy profess ; 
 Like Queen of Sheba — ^from the isles, 
 Where perfumed sunshine ever smiles, 
 I'd come, full-fraught, but not to them. 
 Bowed 'neath the weight of regal diadem. — 
 
 I'd come, full-fraught, but not to kings, — 
 But to those more neglected things 
 Whom Fortune never seeks, — ^who shed, 
 With breaking heart, and throbbing head, 
 The ebbless tears, whose confluent tide 
 The narrow strait of joy doth ne'er divide. 
 
 Oh ! shall I never know that bliss, 
 (Supremest in a world like this,) 
 Such tears, in their sad course, to check, 
 And the wan lips in smiles to deck. 
 Which have not smiled since infancy. 
 And then on breast of misery ? — 
 
66 GOOD NIGHT, MY CHILD ! 
 
 Once in a fever — or a dream — 
 I know not -wliich. — ^but I did seem 
 To have the gracious power, and will. 
 My soul's deep yearnings to fulfil ; 
 Removing from each burthened breast 
 The load of agony, which so opprest. — 
 
 But never, in one conscious hour, 
 Have I possessed such heavenly power ; 
 
 I can but shudder, as I see 
 
 The HUDDLED groups of penury 
 
 In corners crouching.— Doth Grod's eye. 
 
 In such forsaken comers ever pry ? — ■ 
 
 Yes ! — ^the Omniscient peeth all. — 
 On me, God ! let that eye fall, 
 Watching a mother while she sleeps ; 
 To kiss away the tears she weeps : 
 And prayiag Thee, of Hope one proof 
 To send beneathjihis hopeless roof.— 
 
GOOD NIGHT, MY CHILD ! 57 
 
 Oh ! when she wakes, that I could say, 
 
 " Dear mother mine, to thee, < Good-day!' " 
 
 Yet — could she say to me — " Good night !" 
 
 In her most miserable plight ; 
 
 Her patience chides me — ^pardon, Lord — 
 
 Thou, even now, dost aid afford.-^ ' 
 
 Oh ! it is Thou inspirest me, 
 
 To have a firmer trust in Thee ! 
 
 Oh ! nothing more that faith shall shake! 
 
 Dear, dearest mother, wake — wake, ' / 
 
 That we may bid the Heavens " Good day :" 
 
 Dawning on us, with more refulgent ray ! 
 
58 
 
 HEAVEN'S PERFECT CHRYSOLITE. 
 
 The throne on wHcli, witli glory crowned, 
 
 Transcendent Glory knew His own ; 
 Which myriad rays diffiised around, 
 
 Emitted from each costly stone ; 
 On which archangels trembling gazed. 
 
 And seraphim approached with awe ; 
 Which with the blended brightness blazed. 
 
 As once exalted prophet saw ; 
 Q-od deemed a jewel far less clear, 
 
 (Though dazzling its resplendency), 
 Than the rich splendour of the tear 
 
 Which gems the eye of Charity. — 
 
 Such tear, an infant Rose once caught, 
 (Expanding in the vernal mom ;) 
 
heaven's perfect chrysolite. 69 
 
 WHch she had wept, wlieii over-frauglit 
 
 With pity, for the fortune-shorn ; 
 And sped it on a sunbeam, where 
 
 Cherubs earth's choicest gifts receive, 
 To treasure up, to witness bear 
 
 God doth not grief unsolaced leave ; 
 For to a " perfect chrysolite," 
 
 Heaven's chemistry transforms that tear ; 
 That, RADIANT in Jehovah's sight, 
 
 Its gorgeous lustre might appear. 
 
 There's not a day — ^there's not an hour, 
 
 But from some eye such tear might flow ; 
 Which grateful to Eternal Power 
 
 Would be as empyrean glow. 
 There's not a day-^th#re's not an hour, 
 
 But hearts He animates to feel. 
 It is to HAVE a heavenly dower. 
 
 On misery to softly steal. 
 
60 heaven's perfect chrysolite. 
 
 And, in His holy name, declare 
 
 A truce to its wild war of woe ; 
 And, witli it, unreserved, to share 
 
 The wealth, for that He did bestow. — 
 O think ! how glorious 'tis to break 
 
 The arrows of an adverse fate ; 
 And let the wretched here partake 
 
 Of bHss, all, AIL anticipate ! 
 To trample on the barb, would rend 
 
 The hapless breast, 'gainst which 'tis aimed ; 
 Is, surely, to have reached the end 
 
 Of Christian duty, which God claimed !— 
 think ! in corners most remote, 
 
 (Ye, who have ne'er unprosperoiis been ;) 
 His angels throng about, to note 
 
 Where coy Compassion glides, unseen 
 By human pride, whose lofty looks 
 
 Bend not to seek the hidden ways 
 Of sorrow, in the distant nooks. 
 
 From which her practised step ne'er strays. 
 
heaven's peefect chrysolite. 61 
 
 As One was speeding through, the sky, 
 
 Lo ! on its rushing wings, it paused 
 To mark, in home of penury, 
 
 That sudden plenty what had caused. 
 Amid the famished, shivering there, 
 
 Solemn as spirits in conclave, 
 In accents, asking of despair, 
 
 " When their's the rest would nothing crave ?" 
 "With what a transport of delight, 
 
 One of God's missioned it beheld ; 
 Who riveted the tearful sight : 
 
 And the complaining bosom spelled ; 
 Glad tiding breathing from the heart, 
 
 In Pity's gentle undertone ; 
 Which to the hopeless did impart 
 
 The hope, they deemed for ever flown.— 
 Its radiant pathway through the sky, 
 
 On swiftest wings, it did retrace ; 
 To teU, to t^ll exultingly, 
 
62 heaven's perfect chrysolite. 
 
 That a proscribed, degenerate race, 
 Did, God onmipotent ! retain 
 
 The Charity in Heaven was bom; 
 Which, yet, at Sorrow's touching 'plain, 
 
 Which, yet, at sigh of the forlorn, 
 Buoyant, as moulted bird repliuned. 
 
 For Woe's lone dwelling took its flight. 
 And, with its halo, re-Ulumed 
 
 The gloom of its pervading night ; 
 For well it knew the joy above, 
 
 The triumph Mercy would express ; 
 To learn that Pity, moved by Love, 
 
 The objects of acute distress 
 Made objects of unceasing care ; 
 
 Fulfilling thus Divine behest ; 
 Increasing, while it did not spare. 
 
 The portion, the Almighty blest. — 
 While Mercy, of that Pity boasts. 
 
 On earth, God ! abounding still. 
 
heaven's perfect chrysolite. 63 
 
 Silence would liusli the heavenly hosts 
 
 "With ecstacy's unspoken thrill ! — 
 The thriE, which never found a voice, 
 
 Save once, when choral hosts did sing, 
 " Death, despair ! Earth, rejoice ! 
 
 Ye sin-redeemed, accept your King I" 
 
64 
 
 CAPRICE. 
 
 So fair ! so loved ! — ^thy wayward mood, 
 
 Is agony to me ! — 
 'Tis worse than loneliest solitude, 
 
 Companioned so by thee ! 
 That solemn pause in sympathy, 
 
 When the heart feels alone, 
 I could endure — (0 misery ! 
 
 Such truth that I should own !) 
 But weary of continual taimt ; 
 
 0, would I could erase 
 The gentler words, my memory haunt; 
 
 Which Love will there retrace. 
 I sped to thee, with such excess 
 
 Of pleasure in my breast ; 
 
CAPRICE. 
 
 It still throbs witli the happiness : 
 
 Checked — checked — ^before exprest. 
 'Tis ever thus — ^but let that pass. — 
 
 Mine's the intenser woe, 
 To loye not less, alas ! alas ! 
 
 The more thy faults I know. 
 Beauty's is not a tyrant's power, 
 
 (Invincible when meek) ; 
 It doth misuse its heavenly dower, 
 
 Which Love comes swift to seek. 
 When it its influence would test. 
 
 Its sway the more increase. 
 By deeming passion, once confest. 
 
 Can never, never cease, 
 Whatever the caprice it shows ; 
 
 Mistake of fancy born ! 
 The love for tenderness which glows, 
 
 Chills 'neath the breath of scorn. 
 
66 CAPKICE. 
 
 I do not liope thou wilt repent, 
 
 Or grieve thou dost provoke ; 
 So long as Iny mean neck is bent 
 
 Submissive to thy yoke ! 
 I've thought from thee to keep away, 
 
 Thy beauty to resist ; 
 And then I've thought how long the day, 
 
 Ere came the hour of tryst. 
 Silence upon my soul might fall. 
 
 Unbroken as the tomb's ; 
 And muteness wrap, as in a pall. 
 
 Each floweret there that blooms ; 
 And darkness veil the sun, the moon. 
 
 In awful, mystery ; 
 Within that soul could still be noon 
 
 From thy! refulgency. — ■ 
 For I'd recalthy beaming look. 
 
 When I my love avowed ; 
 
CAPRICE. 67 
 
 Whicl. sparkled in tlie crystal brook, 
 
 O'er wMch thy face was bowed; — 
 And softly to that soul I'd tell ' 
 
 The whisper then I heard ; 
 Which from thy lips in music fell, 
 
 As if a zephyr stirred 
 The chords of some ^olian lyre. 
 
 Or baby fingers swept 
 The harp, a mother's hand did tire. 
 
 To luU it till it slept.— 
 And then I'd think it was a dream, 
 
 This sad reality ; 
 As woman, driven to extreme, 
 
 StiU generous must be. — 
 And then I'U think, thou didst but try 
 
 To make me love thee more ; 
 Ah ! dearest ! let this satisfy : 
 
 I only can adore. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 COME BACK! BUT BA.STE TO PARDON 
 ME. 
 
 Eeturn ! thou Sabbath of my soul ! — 
 Thy presence why so long delay ? — 
 
 come ! the weakness to control. 
 
 Which that frail soul still leads astray ; 
 
 come ! with thy fiem tone of prayer, 
 And ALL its turpitude declare. 
 
 Yet when on mine thine eye is bent, 
 Look then as He who passed not by 
 
 The world-deserted penitent, 
 In His celestial ministry ; 
 
 Then, shall I feel, by thee forgiven, 
 
 1 may dare hope the same from Heaven. 
 
COME BACK ! BUT HASTE TO PARDON MB. 69 
 
 The pang tlie most severe, wliieli wrings 
 
 The bosom of remorsefulness,. 
 Is that endured, when Memory brings, 
 
 (Too late the eyil to redress,) 
 The thought of one, intensely wronged : 
 With the DEAR worth to him belonged. 
 
 Alas ! how little Vanity 
 
 Doth e'er conceive, must come a time, 
 When it shall, in repentance, fly 
 
 To him, so injured by the crime 
 Which love degraded — ^honour shamed. 
 Ere suffering its pride had tamed.- — , 
 
 Yet in the dark hour, Folly reaps. 
 The heart for early love will crave ; 
 
 (The one pure pulse which stiU upleaps 
 Above Pollution's turgid wave) 
 
 Nor dread repulse — nor aims mistook— 
 
 'Not scorn — which stronger nerves hath shook. 
 
70 COME back! but haste to paedon me. 
 
 For God, to humble most that heart, 
 And it for Heaven to sanctify, 
 
 Doth the first love, which did impart 
 A foretaste of its ecstacy. 
 
 Re-kindle, — ^when contrition rends 
 The heart, self-love no more defends. 
 
 Yea — when this world the hardest goes 
 With those for it who've staked their all ; 
 
 "When cold contempt the first stone throws 
 At its poor martyrs, in their faU ; 
 
 Then to that love the heart doth t\im : 
 
 Which wiU not, out of pity, spurn. — 
 
 Oh ! BUT for Pity now to sue ! — 
 And fear lest it should be denied ! — 
 
 erring heart ! thou weU may'st rue 
 The blandishments of sinful pride. 
 
 Which made thee love esteem so small. 
 
 And gives such anguish to recall ! 
 
COME BACK ! BUT HASTE TO PARDON ME. 71 
 
 Ah ! what, save pride, dotli now complain 
 
 That pity is so mean a thing ? 
 The dove, that feels, the arrow's pain. 
 
 Can soar no more on buoyant wing. 
 Nor can, Heart ! Love ever stoop 
 To her 'neath wounded fame doth droop. — 
 
 Love cannot love, without respect ; 
 
 'Tis veneration forms its joy ; 
 When once on foUy's ocean wrecked. 
 
 Thou canst not back that love decoy ; 
 Sunk 'mid the waste of waters there, 
 It leaves thee. Heart ! to thy despair ! — 
 
 Come then, as Pity, back to me, 
 Let Mercy guide thee where I mourn ; 
 
 come ! to set the spirit free. 
 Of every earthly craving shorn ; 
 
 Save the insatiate desire 
 
 Thee to behold, and then expire ! 
 
72 
 
 YES. 
 
 Ah ! little word ! — ^yet most potential thou, 
 
 To force the heart's best blood to flush the brow 
 
 Of manhood, with a pleasure palpable ; 
 
 Too quick for self-possession to repel ! 
 
 Mine is now glowing, — sweet ! thine eye may see 
 
 The magic of that word of ecstacy ! — 
 
 Mine is now glowing, — ^yet, I fain would turn, 
 
 To hide that wherewith it doth seem to burn. 
 
 Even from that eye, (thou dearest on the earth :) 
 
 Lest it should triumph, giving Rapture birth ! 
 
 How long I've sought that " Yes ;" — ^yet now I fear 
 
 The confirmation of my hopes to hear ; 
 
 And my heart trembles with confused delight, 
 
 Like hers, who hath, on some expectant night, , 
 
YES. 
 
 73 
 
 Dared the ordeal of tliat public praise, 
 "WTiicli doth its idol, on the iustant, raise 
 Upon a pinnacle, whose dizzy height 
 The veil of faiatness spreads before the sight ; 
 For there are some few feelings, choice as rare, 
 Which, though of happiness, give pain to bear. 
 Life hath no recoEection of true bliss, 
 Anterior, my own beloved, to this ! 
 Oblivion hath enshrouded meaner joys. 
 To leave to that, this hour intense, employs 
 AU space, all scope, all margin of the mind. 
 That atoms of beatitude, combined, 
 May form one gem imparalleled, for me ; 
 Whose value yet is all derived from thee ! — 
 How bright my future path, for rays divine, 
 Lo ! from that HEAET-set gem, on it will shine ! 
 How bright my future path, by thee so made ! — 
 Oh ! for that " Yes," art thou not well repaid ?— 
 Yet, yet, how long didst thou withhold from me 
 That attestation of felicity ! — 
 
74 YES. 
 
 Woman thus ever seeketh to enhance 
 The ecstacy, doth eTsry sense entrance, 
 By coy delay ; yet, if she could but guess 
 The torture she inflicts, — ^prompt to confess, 
 As Mercy, would she be her hidden love : 
 As BOTH are emanations from above. 
 
 Silence in heaven once was : could it be when 
 
 The angels heard, what was concealed from men. 
 
 The low-breathed whisper, — faltered in a tone 
 
 So musical, 'twas fit for heaven alone, — 
 
 Of that soft " Yes," which did, in sooth, allay 
 
 The irritation of thy long delay ? 
 
 The " Yes," thou'st spoken, and canst not retract. 
 
 The " Yes," so long my doubting soul which racked. 
 
75 
 
 THE DYING HUSBAND. 
 
 Let my cool hand o'ershade tliose bunung eyes, 
 WMcli look so glowing in their ■watchfulness ; — 
 
 Who are they seeking for ? — ^Arise, arise, 
 
 Cabn vision, down those paia-propped Kds to press : 
 
 That, in some healthful dream, disease may fade, 
 
 And my beloved awake, like man new-made. 
 
 Patience, my heart ! he^U wake, like man new made, 
 But not for human hope, or misery ; — 
 
 But in those realms, where nothing can degrade 
 Heaven's heir immortal, crowned with dignity ; — 
 
 When he hath paid, by suffering, the toll, 
 
 Those Paradisean gates admit his soul. 
 
76 THE DYING HUSBAND. 
 
 I miss the glad and gratifying tones, 
 
 Whicli greeted me, wlien Love was in its Spring ; 
 Then, I shall miss the agonizing groans 
 
 Which now, for thee, my melting bosom wriag ; 
 And in the consciousness thou art at rest, 
 Command Despair to quit my hopeless breast. 
 
 Then, I shall miss the wishful, anxious eye. 
 Bent, with such mournful interest, on my face ; 
 
 As if thou pitied'st me, that thou must die, 
 
 And leave me here, with none to fiU thy place ; 
 
 Yet shall I joy that thou no more canst be 
 
 Disquieted in spirit, even for me. 
 
 Then, I shall miss the light, — ^the languid tread ; 
 
 What is there not, I shall not miss in thee ? — 
 Oh ! I shall miss the world, when thou art dead, 
 
 The world, — so verdant in felicity! — 
 Transformed to barren waste, whose only green 
 Will be the grave, where thou art laid serene. 
 
THE DYING HUSBAND. 77 
 
 restless Death ! — why wilt thou slumber not ? 
 
 My senses ache, — ^to think how long since thine 
 Have, in a happy sleep, the pangs forgot, 
 
 Which shake thee so, our union to untwine ; 
 Our hearts' selection, — ^when love doth insist 
 To lead the judgment, whither it may list. 
 
 Art yearning for thy babes ? — oh ! let them sleep ! — 
 They've watched with me, tiU feeling's self is dead ; 
 
 Oh ! let them sleep ! — enough for me to keep 
 
 Grief's lonelier watch and ward, by thee, instead ; 
 
 They are too young, to witness scene so dire : 
 
 Why should they watch their slowly-dyiug sire ? 
 
 When all is over — my expressive tears, ^ 
 Will challenge them to sympathetic grief ; 
 
 And then will Death, which, at the first, appears 
 A thing TOO undefined for youth's belief. 
 
 Be offered to the sudden hand- veiled eye. 
 
 In all its stark, and dread reaKty. 
 
78 THE DYING HUSBAND. 
 
 Thy blessing leave with me ; as holiest trust, 
 They shaU receive it, and thy kiss also ; 
 
 Their artless prayers for it shall thank thy dust. 
 And soothe thy hovering spirit's pensive woe ; 
 
 Shewing the little band, bereft thine aid, 
 
 A 'shrine for worship of thy ashes made ! — 
 
 Life's light's expiring ; lo ! as the fair morn 
 
 Is breaking brightly in the orient. 
 To usher in a day, for me, but bom 
 
 To see the anguish, long, long, heart up-pent ; 
 Alas ! the same will not each day behold ; 
 TiU, till thy grave this senseless form enfold ? 
 
 Hark ! merjy voices smite upon mine ear ! — 
 Hark ! little feet are rushing to this room ! — 
 
 I must prepare cue babes — (farewell, most dear !)- 
 Unscaeed, to enter in this senseless gloom ; 
 
 For they've just risen from that gorgeous dream 
 
 Which on the sleep of innocence doth beam ! 
 
79 
 
 FAREWELL. 
 
 'Tis not to pain thy heart, but ease my own, 
 
 TKat I address these final lines to thee ; 
 For shouldst thou leave, — nor my regret be known,- 
 
 That heart would burst, with o'erfraught agony. 
 It^is in vain to struggle to forget. 
 
 It is in vain to hope from Time relief; 
 For on my soul is thy remembrance set : 
 
 For my eternal adoration — &eief. 
 When I recal, (alas ! when do I not ?) 
 
 The proofs of love I have received from thee ; 
 I consecrate with tears each blissful spot, 
 
 Endeared, nay, hallowed by their memory. 
 
80 FAREWELL. 
 
 Go where thou wilt, sacred as saint enshrined, 
 
 Thou'lt be to me, through every changing scene ; 
 While Thought pursuing swifter than the wind, 
 
 ShaU mock the distance standing us between. 
 Oh ! could I the assurance but attain. 
 
 That thou wert happy, though not so through 
 me; 
 I think, I should the fortitude regain, 
 
 "Would me enable to rejoice for thee. 
 Clear skies may darken, and their sun grow dim. 
 
 And Hope expand its wings, from them to fly ; 
 Still one peculiar star will shine for him. 
 
 Whose path is followed by Love's watchful eye. 
 Farewell ! yet not for ever ! we must meet ; 
 
 Hearts linked like ours Death cannot sever quite ; 
 we shall meet again in that retreat 
 
 Beyond the grave, so calm, so pure, so bright ! 
 Farewell ! unruffled may Life's barque down glide. 
 
 O'er the smooth waters of a tideless sea ! — 
 
FAREWELL. 81 
 
 Farewell, beloved ! tliougli oceans may divide, 
 
 My prayers, my soul, my thoughts will be with 
 thee! 
 
 O Heaven benign ! I to Thy care commend. 
 One far more dear than mortal e'er should be ; 
 
 To hover o'er him, some sweet seraph send. 
 Whose tender lineaments remind of me ! 
 
82 
 
 THE STOLEN KISS. 
 
 Like quenckmg, at a sudden stepped-on rill, 
 
 The thirst created by the noon-tide heat, 
 Whose waters bubble o'er the mouth they fill, 
 
 And speed fresh strength to the heart's languid beat, 
 Was the cool kiss upon my cheek she laid, 
 
 (First pledge of lore, which modesty did seal ;) 
 The while, affectiag slumber, I betrayed 
 
 Her tip-toe softness near my couch to steal. 
 I longed to gaze upon her flushed-up face, 
 
 But set mine eyes as in unbroken rest ; 
 I longed to clasp her in a fond embrace, 
 
 But held mine arms, impassive, o'er my breast ; 
 
THE STOLEN KISS. 83 
 
 I would, not so her bashfuliiess liave shamed, 
 
 Nor forced her lily-coyness to unfold ; 
 I ne'er exacted, though I might have claimed, 
 
 Another kiss, to keep that one untold ; 
 But treasured the sweet secret all mine own. 
 
 For meditation's purer reverie ; 
 To be mused on, when the dark years were flown. 
 
 Which leave less gracious things to memory. 
 
 2 
 
84 
 
 THE FATAL BLOW* 
 
 MIND ! — ^wHat sudden darkness shrouds tlie ligKt, 
 Which rose resplendent from the gloom of night ; 
 To life illuminate ? — spark from Him, 
 Supernal Godhead ! — ^what cotdd instant dim 
 The radiance of intelligence, which glowed 
 With brightness, heavenly attribute bestowed ? 
 What unforetold eclipse involved in shade 
 That which "man Kttle less than angel made" ? 
 
 * One portrait is that of an Earl of Arundel, with Ms little son 
 beside him, whose face is marred by a wild idiotic stare. The story 
 goes that the Earl, in a fit of passion, struck the boy over the head. 
 The blow made his son a hopeless idiot ; the father, in his deep 
 repentance, amd as a warning to others, had four of these pictures 
 taken. He is painted with the stick in his hand with which he 
 struck the blow. — Nbwstead Asset. 
 
 Hastings and 8t. Leona/ri's News, September 5, 1856. 
 
THE FATAL BLOW. 85 
 
 What prematurely quenclied the beam divine ? 
 This hand inhuman, God ! this hand of mine ! — 
 Oh ! my precocious, — my excelling child, — 
 Who on the assassin of thy reason smiled ; 
 The threat deriding, as I aimed the blow, 
 Prostrated thee, and " laid mine honour low ;" 
 As if it seemed impossible to thee, 
 To credit such barbarity in me. 
 My smiling boy ! — ^my boy, to smile no more ! — 
 Whose gladness, richer than an Indian shore. 
 Did freight our hearts with joy ineffable. — 
 Oh ! what blank horror on thy mother fell. 
 When, in a voice as humble as of prayer, 
 I did the forfeit of my soul declare I — 
 
 fatal rage ! thee, thee, an idiot left ; 
 And me of earthly happiness bereft ! — 
 Stunted alike in intellect and growth, 
 
 A thing to touch a stranger would be loth ; 
 
 1 see thee ever, — day and night the same : 
 ily agony, reproach, my torture, shame. 
 
86 THE FATAL BLOW. 
 
 Oh ! hath hell torments which can mine exceed ? 
 From which I pray, how vainly ! to be freed. 
 To lay the burthen of that conscience down ; 
 "Which wreathes for me, indeed, a thorny crown. 
 
 Can I forget ? Madness ! seal my brain, 
 
 let it not the memory retain 
 
 Of that one glance abhorrent, cast on me ; 
 
 The one of holier pity cast on thee : 
 
 When thy poor mother struggled — ^not to hate 
 
 The author of thy lamentable fate ; 
 
 And yet for thee commiseration felt, 
 
 As did to retributiye anguish melt ; 
 
 How then she clasped thee, till thy blackened face 
 
 Told the connilsion of that strong embrace ; 
 
 How then she. sobbed and shrieked, then silent grew, 
 
 And thee still cjoser to her bosom drew. 
 
 As if her life-long labour now must be 
 
 To wait, and watch, and minister to thee. — 
 
THE FATAL BLOW. 87 
 
 That glance was all, — she did no more upbraid, 
 
 But my heart whispered what hers left unsaid ; 
 
 The condemnation, which condemneth me. 
 
 To my imutterable woe, I see. 
 
 In the most mournful eyes,^— whose earnest look 
 
 Hath never once her hapless boy forsook, 
 
 Since, sullenly, I dragged him to the feet, 
 
 It was his wont so readily to meet. — 
 
 Since, like a criminal, I stood before 
 
 The unconscious victim, who could not deplore 
 
 His own calamity ; — ^his stricken brain, 
 
 Alike insensible to joy or paia ; 
 
 No throb of native pity e'er to feel 
 
 For her, whose grief to demons might appeal, — 
 
 For him, who quailed beneath the vacant eye 
 
 Devoid, alas ! of kindred sympathy. — 
 
 Thus both, thus both, from his remembrance swept, 
 
 His ill-starred doom without cessation wept ; 
 
 Yet, not together ; — ^lonely and apart. 
 
 We wept unsocial, — ^yet, we knew, would start 
 
OO THE FATAL BLOW. 
 
 The simultaneous tears, did almost choke 
 
 The stifled breasts, their bitterness ne'er spoke. 
 
 Estranged, and distant ; — dried, for us, the source 
 
 Which freely flowed of mutual intercourse 
 
 For his dear -well-being, whose awful plight 
 
 Hung like the mildew of pernicious blight 
 
 Over the fairest blossom of our lives. — 
 
 How, at that thought, my dulled remorse revives !— 
 
 That thought pursues me, like avenging fiend ; 
 
 Or like the lightning, when, with head unscreened, 
 
 I brave the blasting of the lurid blaze ; 
 
 Which yet disdains me from the earth to raze. — ■ 
 
 That thought obtrudes upon my fitful sleep. 
 Me to awake, — for what ? to see her weep ; 
 To see her weep, whom I durst not console, 
 Whose bourne of bHss is but the grave's sad goal ; 
 Bowed to that grave, — ^she yet pathetic prays 
 To Heaven, stiU to prolong her weary days ; 
 
THE FATAL BLOW. 89 
 
 That she may tend on him, whose passive state, 
 
 One gentle act cannot reciprocate ; 
 
 Who knows not loye doth on his steps attend ; 
 
 Who knows not love each faculty doth lend 
 
 His mental inefficiency to aid ; 
 
 My ruiaed boy ! — ^my wreck np-stranded laid ! 
 
 What ! what reflection, for a heart so fond, 
 
 To be convinced, he never can respond 
 
 To all the lavish love so bounteous spent ; 
 
 A babe for ever ! — ^purposeless intent ! 
 
 A babe for ever ! — ^no progression bland, 
 
 The infant mind to genially expand ! — 
 
 A babe for ever ! — even of instinct void, 
 
 A creature, once the laws had safe destroyed ! — > 
 
 Yet she, that lady, delicate of nerve. 
 
 Doth all the needs of absent reason serve 
 
 To him. So violent his mood alarms 
 
 MyseK and others ; but her patience charms 
 
 To newer trials, — and to newer straits ; 
 
 And never, mid o'erwhelming griefs, abates. — 
 
90 THE FATAL BLOW. 
 
 All this alone she doth ; — and ne'er doth ask 
 Help, help from me ; — ^yet mine's the harder task 
 To feel so alien, — ^that she never flies 
 To me, in complicate extremities. — 
 
 No more with us as with most wedded pairs, 
 
 Whose love a jealous emulation hears. 
 
 Each hap to spare the other, seeming not 
 
 Aware the sacrifice, self so forgot. — 
 
 Dead in our bosoms lies the fervid fire 
 
 Of such a generous, and pure desire ; 
 
 Yet, yet how mine doth yearn again to be 
 
 Familiar, in our closely-joined degree ; 
 
 To hold commxmion, Kbe those fast-boimd friends, 
 
 Whom, Grod uniting, — Death apart but rends ; 
 
 But there's that herald, idiot son of mine. 
 
 To dash, and daimt the spirits, might incline 
 
 To reconcilement, ia the sadder hour, 
 
 When sorrow doth resentment overpower. 
 
THE FATAL BLOW. 91 
 
 To threaten judgment, Heaven might intermit, 
 
 If that his mother's still remained unknit 
 
 To the ferocious father's, who could smite, 
 
 (Yea, in his own feKcity's despite,) 
 
 The soul of him whose glory might have shed 
 
 A halo round this seasons- waning head, 
 
 And lent a lamhent lustre to a name. 
 
 The World may censure, and I must defame. — 
 
 His mother, every mournful musing hid, 
 
 She might have prayed for me, oh ! sure she did ! — 
 
 She might have pitied me, beholding how 
 
 I softly went, with earth down-seeking brow ; 
 
 She might have pardoned me, that I shall know 
 
 In God's good time ; — oh ! let it, Grod, be so ! — 
 
 There's not one pulse to pleasure could it move ; 
 
 But how will it enhance my bliss above ! — 
 
 Then, be the knowledge of that pardon sealed. 
 
 Meet but 'mid heavenly hosts to be revealed ; 
 
 It being the divinest offering 
 
 Which human heart as sacrifice could bring ; 
 
92 THE FATAL BLOW. 
 
 God- ordered, God-accepted, boon sublime ! 
 Doth cancel from the register of Time 
 Such turpitude as mine, — and welcome wins 
 From Saints, who weep o'er fallen Nature's sins. 
 
 With penitence, which ever comes too late, 
 
 I have engaged Art to perpetuate 
 
 The rending of the heart, which mine hath seen, 
 
 (With not one interval of calm between,) 
 
 Since, since this hand, (which should have withered 
 
 then,) 
 Struck down my son ; to warn my fellow-men 
 From yielding to the promptings of that rage, 
 Perpetual war with peace doth after wage. — 
 Yet, oh ! what limner's skill could ever paint 
 That heart's contrition, — or its love's restraint ? — 
 The one I may not show, — ^the other tell ; 
 No, no, remorse, affection, I must quell. 
 Who would for my remorse feel sympathy ? 
 Who with my tenderness would flattered be ? 
 
THE FATAL BLOW. 93 
 
 Not she, my wife, though her angelic mind, 
 
 For every sufferer can compassion find ! 
 
 Not he, my son, a soulless tenement, 
 
 A shrineless temple, with its vail still rent ; 
 
 Enveloped in a fear- inspiring gloom. 
 
 Impenetrable as the night of doom ! 
 
 Nor yet one old associate, nor friend, 
 
 I stand aloof from all, and lowly bend 
 
 Me to the destiny I did provoke. 
 
 Until the fetters of my crime be broke : 
 
 When Heaven the reason hath restored whose loss 
 
 Hath been my expiating, seK-bome cross ; 
 
 When me my son doth once more recognize. 
 
 And my wife looks with unaverted eyes ; 
 
 When I may hope the mercy from the Lord, 
 
 Which to true penitence He doth accord ; 
 
 WTien I may claim my portion in that state. 
 
 Bought at a price He can but estimate ! 
 
 Then may I cry aloud, " exultemus ! 
 
 Let us praise Him, who so exalteth us !" 
 
94 
 
 THE DEAD TAKE NOUGHT AWAY. 
 
 Ask not the just-stripped heart, which grieyes 
 
 With that absorbing agony 
 That Death occasions, that bereaves 
 
 Of hope — of joy — of ecstacy — 
 Whether the dead with them take nought ? 
 
 For then they seem all, all to take ; 
 Their very sepulchre, each thought 
 
 Abode of nursing woe doth make. — 
 The memory, (whose quickened sense 
 
 Restores, with such integrity. 
 Each trifle, held of worth immense,) 
 
 Dwells with the dead — and misery — 
 The lingering regret — ^the pain — 
 
 The void — ^their presence still doth crave ; 
 In hearts can ne'er be filled again : 
 
 The dead bear with them to the grave. — 
 
THE DEAD TAKE NOUGHT AWAY. 95 
 
 The midnight tears from eyes, which shun 
 
 The radiance Day hath onward led ; 
 Towards that arid desert run, 
 
 Made by the ashes of the dead. — 
 The low communings of the heart. 
 
 Sorrow's pathetic rhapsody ; 
 With, with Distraction's wilder start — 
 
 Call on the dead — ^and hope reply. — 
 But when the anguish is outworn, 
 
 Whose fierceness rent the heart in twain ; 
 When Nature prostrate, and down borne, 
 
 Doth scarcely consciousness retain ; 
 When, when the frenzy of Despair 
 
 Hath melted into tenderness ; 
 And hand of Mercy is seen where 
 
 Seemed one empowered but to distress ; 
 Then, ask them what the dead possess 
 
 Of Earth's accumulated store ? 
 (The smallest atom is not less 
 
 Than that which to the grave they bore !) 
 
96 THE DEAD TAKE NOUGHT AWAY, 
 
 Then, thanMully their hearts will own, 
 
 (Attempered to submissive peace,) 
 The dead belong to Heaven alone : 
 
 With them, all earthly interests cease. — ' 
 That they take nothing to the grave, 
 
 That they all earthly things reject ; 
 Nor wish of earth one boon to save ; 
 
 Glad to escape from earth's neglect. — 
 That they are past all suffering now, 
 
 All human error — ^human dread ; 
 The brand of Cain from off their brow 
 
 God, God erasing — ^there to shed 
 The halo of that Glory's light. 
 
 Which stars reflect through skies serene ; 
 To show the dead, in regions bright, 
 
 Need nothing of this dim terrene. — 
 That the great penalty is paid. 
 
 And cancelled sin's exacted due ; 
 And that the doom on mortal laid. 
 
 The Immortal never more shall rue. 
 
97 
 
 THE LAST. 
 
 Farewell, for ever ! — quit me, to receive 
 
 The bought caresses which will beggar thee, 
 The sordid blandishments which but deceive 
 
 With simulations of Love's ecstasy. 
 Farewell, for ever ! though thy heart is steeled 
 
 Against me, with resentful enmity ; 
 Because to sophistry I would not yield : 
 
 I'll not conceal that mine's unchanged to thee. 
 Farewell, for ever ! how my heart contracts, 
 
 Beneath the sudden spasm of despair ! — 
 Yet, when the torturer severest racks, 
 
 The frame exhausted hath less time to bear, 
 
 H 
 
yo THE LAST. 
 
 And yet I seem, as in a wildering dream, 
 
 It is so strange to ttink ttou couldst depart ; 
 Me, me abandoning, without one gleam 
 
 Of joy to light my isolated heart. — 
 That heart's a sepulchre of many tombs, 
 
 (Of mouldering ashes, and of fresh decay ;) 
 While death's o'ershading pall eternal glooms 
 
 The orient lustre of life's risirig day. — 
 For, one by one, my buried hopes lie there, 
 
 The hopes which came, as whisperings from the 
 spheres ; 
 Like angel measures fondly that declare 
 
 The tidings that the heart so gladly hears. 
 
 Hath my mistrust outworn thy love for me ? 
 
 Oh ! have I judged thee wrongfully at last ? 
 Thou who for years, long years, couldst steadfast 
 be. 
 
 Canst thou my memory date as of the past ? 
 
THE LAST. 99 
 
 Forgive ! all ! woman ! apt thyself to blame, 
 
 To load tliy guileless breast with faults unknown ! 
 Did he not unto thee another name ? 
 
 Has he not from thee to another flown ? 
 Ah ! add not the intolerable weight 
 
 Of self-reproach unto that burthened breast : 
 Thou art forsaken, — yield thee to thy fate : 
 
 There comes for such as thou a night of rest, 
 Hush, graceless Heart ! wouldst thou thyself forswear ? 
 
 If he be happy, thou in silence break ! 
 Was not his happiness thy only care ? 
 
 Then bless the one his happiness doth make ! 
 Pray for thy rival, that she constant prove. 
 
 Oh ! ne'er may she avenge his wrong to thee ; 
 (Poor Heart ! poor Heart ! such pity now doth move :) 
 
 But spare him from the pangs of perfidy ! 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 STRUGGLE STILL. 
 
 Listless as man, alas ! could be, 
 
 Subdued to sucli extreme 
 Of unresisting apathy, — 
 
 As dotb all effort deem 
 Worse tlian tlie waste, an idle strain 
 
 Of mind, subdued by spell ; 
 To action I. was roused again 
 
 By force iarisible. 
 It came like order from a king, 
 
 Despotical of will ; 
 Wbose messenger to me did bring 
 
 Command, to " struggle still ;" 
 
STETJGGLB STILL. 101 
 
 To " struggle still,' despite of all :" 
 
 Sovereign of keaven supreme ! 
 If Thou from " burning bush " didst call, 
 
 I did not see the gleam 
 Which testified my Grod was near, 
 
 My failing strength to aid : — 
 Why should I struggle, I who fear 
 
 No more to be betrayed 
 By any ill, could happen now ? — 
 
 I who no good expect ? — 
 Who wear the brand upon my brow 
 
 Of Misery's elect ?— 
 How that command my bosom shook. 
 
 Almost with death at strife ! — 
 Each panting pidse my heart forsook, 
 
 Then bounded back to life. — 
 'Twas like loud clarion-trumpets' blast, 
 
 To armies in' the rear ; 
 'Twas like the splitting of mainmast. 
 
 By tempests' -lightnings sheer ; 
 
102 STRUGGLE STILL. 
 
 'Twas like tlie cannon's threafmng boom, 
 
 Vibrating on the air ; 
 'Twas like tbe final trump of doom : 
 
 Imagined by despair. — 
 It shook me ! — ^yet — how to obey 
 
 Command, so like hope's fraud ? — 
 Thou who commandest teach the way, 
 
 Thy servant listens, God ! 
 Have I not struggled with each wave. 
 
 That beat upon hope's shore ? 
 Thou, then Omnipotent ! must save : 
 
 I cannot struggle more. — 
 Such struggling hath exhausted me, 
 
 I sink in sight of land ; 
 And turn iustiuctively to Thee : 
 
 To lead me to the strand, 
 Whose golden sands my weak eyes daze, 
 
 (Their glitter is so bright) ; 
 Sparkling as life's rekindled rays, 
 
 Just melting in death's night. — 
 
STRUGGLE STILL. 103 
 
 Yet let me sink — for peace may be, 
 
 Nay — some tmguessed delights, 
 In the calm bottom of that sea. 
 
 Whose ruffled surface frights. — 
 Delights, to such as me, unknown. 
 
 Of race the most forlorn ; 
 Creatures which on the world are thrown ! — 
 
 Why are such creatures bom ? 
 Why ? for the gems to serve as foil, 
 
 The prosperous to bedeck ; 
 Worms, cast upon the common soil, 
 
 For fortune's birds to peck ? 
 No ! no ! — the rivets of the chain 
 
 Of nature's gradient plan ; 
 To render to each reason plain, 
 
 God linketh man to man. 
 His rising — His descending scale, 
 
 His justice strictly guides ; 
 And the mete due will never fail 
 
 Him. who in Him confides. 
 
104 STRUGGLE STILL. 
 
 I did despair ; — ^I liope once more : — 
 
 He ever wins who tries ; 
 I yet may gain tlie golden shore, 
 
 Wliicli dazzled so mine eyes ! — 
 I'll struggle still : — ^yet — ^would not reacli 
 
 An eminence too Mgli ; 
 A lowly station best doth teach 
 
 Immortal destiny ; 
 I'll struggle stiE : — ^my energies 
 
 Are all renewed by Thee ; 
 Thou monarch ! — looTdng from Thy skies. 
 
 With piteous love, on me ! 
 The niandate came from Thee alone : 
 
 Thy messenger did bring 
 That order straightway from Thy throne : 
 
 My God — ^my Saviour — ^King ! 
 
105 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 I STROVE to banish tlie dark thought ; it did my mind 
 
 so scare, 
 It seemed beyond my moral strength, with courage to 
 
 prepare ; 
 To quit a scene so pleasure-fraught, to leave all I held 
 
 dear, — 
 The world, to stay which more enticed, as jealous 
 
 death drew near. 
 The hopes, so flush of future bliss, — ^the cherished 
 
 memories, 
 Which, like the scent of faded flowers, fresh trodden 
 
 down, did rise. 
 
106 DEATH. 
 
 To sicken with, their fragrance faint, until the reeling 
 
 braia 
 Did ache with that intense regret, acutest of all 
 
 paia; — 
 While thought on thought rolled on and on, as wave 
 
 succeedeth wave ; 
 And made my spirit more recoil from the repugnant 
 
 grave ; 
 But now that it hath really come, emotions rash are 
 
 hushed, 
 And schemes which stretched to unknown years 
 
 reprovingly are crushed ; 
 And I am sinking into rest, as with that lullaby 
 Which closes on the mother's breast the fevered 
 infant's eye. 
 
 It is so blest, to be released from the unequal strife, 
 Which doth declare to meek as I, " War to the very 
 knife." 
 
DEATH. 107 
 
 There is sucli rude contention in this crowded world 
 
 of cares, 
 Where no one with his fellow man one social feeling 
 
 shares ; 
 Where banners of factitious hope are waving in the 
 
 breeze, 
 To lure away from quietude, — earth's holy, soothitig 
 
 ease. 
 
 Upon my hot and throbbing brow a cooling hand 
 
 seems laid, 
 And a voice of soft encouragement whispers, " Be not 
 
 afraid ; 
 Gather thy strength for one last leap ; the chasm 
 
 yawneth wide. 
 But faith will thee enable stUl to gain the other 
 
 side." 
 I feel a lassitude creep on like pain's reluctant sleep. 
 Or for a grief o'er which the heart is too out- worn to 
 
 weep; 
 
108 DEATH. 
 
 While even to affection's tone my ear seems deaf to 
 
 be-: 
 Oh ! is this resignation, Lord ? or, is it apathy ? 
 
 That which of late so terrified appears like night's 
 
 dark dream. 
 Retreating fast before the light of morning's orient 
 
 beam; 
 And I can scarcely recoUect the horrors me beset : 
 Sweet anodyne, in heaven distilled, so teaches to 
 
 forget ! 
 In the serene, sequestered way, leads' to eternity, 
 No step of hurried rivalry appears to outstrip me ; 
 Though thousands may be threading it, I seem to 
 
 walk alone, 
 Slowly, with awe-retarded pace, towards the mercy 
 
 throne. 
 I feel, Lord, as if, indeed, "life's conflict now 
 
 will cease," 
 And that I am about to find that everlasting peace, 
 
DEATH. 109 
 
 The strugglers of this world find not, but those who've 
 
 fought that fight, 
 Proclaims them the true warriors of Thee, Thou Lord 
 
 of Might. 
 
110 
 
 PEACE IS PEOCLAIMED. 
 
 Welcome, as cooling draught to lips wticli burn 
 
 "With fervid fever's heat, (forbidding smiles,) 
 Is the glad news, announcing the return 
 
 Of one whose absence of all joy beguiles 
 The minute-counting heart, which reckons more 
 
 By anguish, than by hours, the tuneless stay 
 Of the long looked- for, who can but restore 
 
 Due measure to Love's miscomputed day. — 
 
 Oh ! when the heart is the sole dial-plate. 
 The evening sun of Time must overshade ; 
 
 How must it watch — ^how wait — ere it can date 
 The gracious hope, its settiag hath conveyed 
 
PEACE IS PEOCLAIMED. Ill 
 
 Unto that fond and fainting heart whicli droops 
 
 Beneath the sickness of expectancy ; 
 And " the thick-coming fancies" which, in troops, 
 
 Seem marshalled on by adverse destiny. — 
 
 When sweet conTiction had dispersed the dread, 
 
 That heart which tortured worse than certain 
 ill; 
 When the belief came flush on it instead, 
 
 That Love its plight would happily fulfil ; 
 When full fruition crowned the lingering hope ; 
 
 When to the heart, the pulsing heart was 
 pressed ; 
 When he'd escaped, where gory Death did grope 
 
 For victims, 'mid the flaming ruins, dressed 
 In tenfold horror, as war's wanton rage 
 
 Destruction hurled with fixe, as well as sword ; 
 When fiends, not men, alas ! appeared to wage 
 
 The bloodiest battle ever on record ; 
 
112 PEACE IS PROCLAIMED. 
 
 Thought me assured, he had escaped the grasp ; 
 
 Thought me assured, from danger he was free ; 
 When him I held in such tenacious clasp, 
 
 As bade defiance to mortality. — 
 
 But, soft : — pause, choking Heart, crush down thy 
 
 swell. 
 What dream was thiue ? what mockery of delight ? 
 
 Canst thou proceed ? hast fortitude to teU, 
 How swift he faded from Love's doubting sight ? 
 
 He had brought home the most pernicious seeds, 
 (Life to infect within his sluggish veias,) 
 
 The fatal malady malaria breeds. 
 Which reeking rises from the festeriug plains. 
 
 Obscenely strewed with the unburied dead, 
 Whose only tomb is in the vulture's breast ; 
 
 While o'er their bleaching bones pale moonbeams 
 shed 
 A holy light, to sanctify their rest. — 
 
PEACE IS PROCLAIMED. 113 
 
 While their mourned dust the summer's sweetness 
 spums, 
 While their mourned bones the winter's tempest 
 stains; 
 Eternal love their memory in-urns, 
 
 And sepulchres in thought their blest remains. 
 
 The secret pestilence, Kke Moloch-pyre, 
 
 Offered my precious unto ravenous Death ; 
 And when as in a sleep he did expire, 
 
 I almost died, from grief- suspended breath. — 
 Then aU was o'er — ^that all, oh ! how it wrings 
 
 The heart that's wounded past the hope of cure ! — 
 The heart that unto desolation clings. 
 
 And pleased to suffering doth itseK inure ! — 
 Soon on the stillness broke a lumbering sound. 
 
 And busy voices, busy feet were heard ; 
 As if Volcano, in earth's deep profound, 
 
 Was, for convulsed eruption, demon-stirred ; 
 
 I 
 
114 PEACE IS PROCLAIMED. 
 
 . And suUeii knockings smote the startled ear, 
 
 And then a silence, whose appalling hush 
 Confirmed imagination's awful fear. 
 
 And sent the life-blood with impetuous rush ' 
 Prone from the heart, to flood the dizzy brain, 
 
 Yet not to kill, but, duly to stagnate 
 The vital agony, whose poignant pain 
 
 Renewed activity would aggravate. — 
 Then, like babe- whisper, came a gentler tone, 
 
 And a hot tear my icy cheek bedewed ; 
 Whence I perceived that I was not alone. 
 
 Although all sympathy I had eschewed ; 
 OfBcious still, it heard the hearse depart, 
 
 Then let the sunshine in the curtained room ; 
 Then let the sunshine in my curtain'd heart, 
 
 Wrapped in the darkness of a denser gloom ; 
 And bade me hope, — while slowly crept away 
 
 The solemn hearse, my hope from me which bore !- 
 I knew how trite was all that it would say : 
 
 So craved, in. mercy, it would speak no more ! 
 
PEACE IS PEOCLAIMED. . 115 
 
 Love, in despair must leisure have to rave, 
 
 To grow fanuliar witli its misery ; 
 To grow familiar with its idol's grave : 
 
 Ere it can grow resigned to Heaven's decree. 
 
116 
 
 EARLY SPRING, AND EARLY LOYE. 
 
 The old and ague-stricken souglit the sun, 
 
 For tlie spring's currents and the winter's blasts 
 
 Commingled stiU, retarding summer's heat. — 
 
 Grirls, whose untown-worn health defiant made 
 
 The frame, though fragile, 'gainst the Boreal breeze ; 
 
 And Boys, whose veins glowed with a warm delight. 
 
 And aspirations as yet undefined, 
 
 Sped to an antique wood for primroses. 
 
 And harebells, which to Nature ofier up 
 
 Diurnal incense, from their secret dells ; 
 
 Like piety, by heaven alone observed. — 
 
 Through hesitation shy, and bashful pride. 
 
 One lagged behind, delaying to advance ; 
 
 Though he loved more than the boy-men who pressed 
 
EAKLY SPRING, AND EARLY LOVE. 117 
 
 Intrusively on tliose wind-battling girls ; 
 And thougli white fingers, like a flasli of light. 
 Enticed him on, half sportive, earnest half. 
 But then his love was yet a hidden thing ; 
 And he did shrink, lest, in revealing it, 
 He should expose to many bitter scorns 
 The thought his whole existence sanctified : 
 So, with a slower pace and sorrowful, 
 He followed in the buoyant giddy train. — 
 He heard her gay laugh, suddenly repressed. 
 As if she feared its heedlessness might wound 
 His not far-distant ear ; — and, lo ! he writhed 
 To think that the melodious symphonies 
 Of that checked joyousness should be disbursed 
 On inharmonious beings, who nor felt, 
 Nor melted at their snow-soft cadences. — 
 
 Oh the sick heart ! — ^it needs as nuld a chme 
 As the sick body, shivering with disease ! — 
 
118 EARLY SPRING, AND EARLY LOVE. 
 
 His yearned for some soft, southern atmosphere, 
 Such as love makes, where jealousy is not ; 
 Its tepid bahniness to rarefy. — 
 Unconsciously, from out that musing heart 
 Her name leaped to his lips, a kissing joy ; 
 And 'dewed his brow with bHss ineflEable : — 
 And then, as if a hope was in the sound, 
 He bounded forward, with elastic step, — 
 And her beheld in pensive mood apart. 
 As waiting for the spirit that should give 
 The ecstasy intensified to hers, 
 Which mutual and congenial love bestows. — 
 
 They left the broadway to the frolic throng. 
 And plunged into a narrower, denser path ; 
 And sauntered on, with hand embracing hand : 
 And eyes that sought and shunned each other's 
 
 face ; 
 "With now and then a word abruptly spoke : 
 
EARLY SPRING, AND EARLY LOVE. 119 
 
 But, oh ! the rapture in their silence sweet ! — 
 
 They were the last, the hamlet found at eve, 
 
 And not a primrose, nor a harebell bore 
 
 The hand, too honest for such artifice ; 
 
 While all their clusters boastfully displayed. 
 
 With embryo taunts upon their mocking tongues. — 
 
 But ere they could deride, her blushes craved 
 
 The mercy of their speechless sympathy ; 
 
 While his beseeching eye conscious implored 
 
 Their silent pity for her modest shame, 
 
 And for a love too serious for their jest. — 
 
 So each respected, and so each rejoiced 
 
 In the sweet union, which, though untold, 
 
 AU guessed now bound those twain iu solemn 
 
 bond; 
 (Praying that nothing might dissever them :) 
 And wreathed their harebells, and their primroses, 
 And, with a tearful eye, and trembling hand. 
 Entwined their brows, the newly-crowned of love. 
 
120 EARLY SPRING, AND EARLY LOVE. 
 
 For the instinctive mystery was stirred 
 "Within their bosoms, and they instant felt 
 Constrained to sadness, pleasanter than mirth ; 
 As if a prophecy were there fulfilled, 
 Long looked for, telling their own destiny ! 
 
121 
 
 THE MURDEREE. 
 
 A GEACious new-born babe, — ^he lay, — 
 Like sLiunberlng flower, in fragrant rest ; 
 
 While sbe, his motber, wiped away 
 
 Tbe tears, sprang from her soul, opprest 
 
 With the deep sense of what she owed 
 
 To God for blessing just bestowed. — 
 
 A fairer infant seldom met 
 
 A mother's captivated eye ; 
 To make her instantly forget 
 
 Her recent travail's agony ; 
 But, seeing what by it she'd gained. 
 Its lingering throes she now disdained. — 
 
122 THE MURDEREK. 
 
 AJl rapture was, — and gratitude, 
 
 And full fruition of delight ; 
 Eacli thought was banished, would obtrude 
 
 On pleasure's proud, imperious right ; 
 Her heart its suffrage did demand 
 From heaven's benignant, bounteous hand- 
 
 And did He grant, — ^that Providence 
 To whom she did, in trust, appeal, — 
 
 The prayer of earnestness intense. 
 Which her feKcity should seal 
 
 "With that dxiration, only He 
 
 The righteous guarantee could be. — 
 
 She so beKeved. — No doubt arose 
 To shake her confidence entire ; 
 
 Her soul was lulled to that repose 
 Such confidence can but inspire ; 
 
 She felt how firm in faith she stood. 
 
 And said, with Him, " That all was good." 
 
THE MURDEEER. 123 
 
 Joy in thy babe ; — dream out the dream, 
 Which hope and promise for thee weave ; 
 
 Yoimg mother ! gilded by the gleam, 
 More gorgeous than an eastern eve ; 
 
 The golden glory doth invest 
 
 The sanctuary of thy breast ! — 
 
 Joy ia thy babe ; ere seasons steal 
 
 The innocence thy senses thraU, 
 And, mortal, thou art made to feel 
 
 Of mortal the predestined faU ; 
 Thou rearing him in strength to grow 
 For guiltiness which time must show. — 
 
 Joy in thy babe ; — ere come the fears 
 Which rise, like spectres, in the shade ; 
 
 And, ripe in forfeitures, appears 
 The criminal that time hath made ; 
 
 And thou dost shudder, that from thee 
 
 He drew sustained vitality. — 
 
124 THE MURDEEEE. 
 
 Joy in thy babe ; — ^wbile be is tbiae, 
 The present is tby triiunpb's bour ; 
 
 As in a solemn fane, ensbrine 
 
 His pureness in tby bosom's bower ; 
 
 As Samuel from a world of sin 
 
 Was sbut tbe Holy Temple in. — 
 
 Joy in tby babe ; — ^nor forward look, 
 Yet ceaseless Heaven implore, for bim ; 
 
 His life is still an uncut book. 
 With, uncontaminated rim ; 
 
 Witb angel-written title-page. 
 
 Devout perusal to engage. — 
 
 As o'er eacb leaf tbine bead sbaU bend, 
 
 Tbougb disbelieved, what words may scare !- 
 
 What ominous predictions rend 
 Tbe spirit, terror bids forbear ! — 
 
 Predictions, mocked, as unfulfilled, 
 
 Yet witb a trutb-Hke tremor'tbrilled ! — 
 
THE MUEDEKEE. 125 
 
 The arms, wMdi 'twined tliy neck around, 
 The fingers with thy ringlets played,^ 
 
 Shall, in those Ixirid leaves, be found 
 Red in the blood of friend betrayed ;* 
 
 The Tery arms upheld with thine. 
 
 In homage to a name Divine ! 
 
 In weird sadness, then thou'lt sit. 
 
 With grim despair associate ; 
 Who to thy soul will closer knit 
 
 Each grief, makes thee most desolate ! 
 And count upon thy prayer-worn beads. 
 Thy penances for his misdeeds. — 
 
 And strip the veil from off thine heart, 
 
 And show the Idol overthrown 
 Which thou didst worship, all apart 
 
 From Him who worship claims alone ; 
 
 * " It cuts me to the heart to tMni that I shoiild be thought 
 guilty of such a crime, when the poor fellow was more like a bro- 
 ther to me than anything else." — Thomas Chmstopheb Wokebli, 
 the Murderer of George Carter, at Erith. 
 
 WeelcVy News, Nov. 23, 1856. 
 
126 THE MTJKDEREE. 
 
 Proving devotion such as thine 
 To Fetish-image did incline. — 
 
 Yet if a pardon could be won, 
 
 Which Mercy freely might endorse ; 
 
 It should he for the love a son 
 
 Doth from a mother's heart enforce ;* 
 
 A love too sacred, — ^too sublime, 
 
 To bear analogy with crime. — 
 
 * " A celebrated artist, in one of his rambles, met with the most 
 beautifal child he had ever seen. ' I will paint the portrait of this 
 child,' he said, ' and keep it for my own ; for I may never look 
 upon its like again.' He painted it, and when trouble came, and 
 evil passions moved his spirit to rebel, he gazed upon the likeness 
 of the boy, and passion fled, and holier thoughts entranced his soul. 
 Tears passed away, and at length, within a prison's walls, stretched 
 upon a floor of stone, he sees a man stained with blood, with glaring 
 eyes and haggard face, and with demoniac rage cursing himself and 
 his fellow-beings, and blaspheming God as he lay waiting for the 
 hour of his execution. The artist transferred his likeness also to 
 canvas, and placed it opposite to the child's. How striking, how 
 complete the contrast ! The angel boy — the fiendish man ! What 
 must have been the feelings of the artist, when, upon inquiry, he 
 ascertained that both the portraits he had made were of the same 
 individual ! The beautiful innocent child had grown into the 
 hideous, sinful man." 
 
 The Weelcly Times, December 2,8, 1856. 
 
THE MtJEDEREK. 127 
 
 And, in his love-deserted cell, 
 (The hooted of the common cry ;) 
 
 In late remorse, wiU he not dwell 
 On his fond mother's gentle eye ? 
 
 On his fond mother's smile, which came 
 
 Whene'er (how oft !) she blessed his name ? 
 
 The eye, down flooding rapture's light, 
 The smile, sought seraph's sympathy ; 
 
 Shall at the aspect ne'er grow bright, 
 Denounced to public infamy ; 
 
 The mob-reviled — the mob-pursued, — 
 
 The wretch, with guilty blood imbued. — 
 
 Yes — ^ia his felon-cell, shall steal 
 The moaning of her misery :* 
 
 * " But who can describe the heart-rending scene that ensued : 
 the anguish of the aged mother, as she prayed to God in broken 
 accents to give her strength in that trying hour, and the wild un- 
 utterable looks of the condemned murderer as he gazed upon his 
 unhappy parent, made wretched by his wickedness ? 
 
 " Tears rolled down her furrowed cheeks, and her ftiU affection- 
 
128 THE MUEDEEEK. 
 
 And dream of infancy reveal 
 
 His mother, as if kneeling by ; 
 And lie shall wake, and find her there, 
 That mother, with her pardoning prayer. — 
 
 What crime a mother's love can bar ? 
 
 What shame prevent a mother's tears ? 
 Oh ! that is Kke the Polar- star, 
 
 Which never from its circuit veers ; 
 But shineth on, as it hath shone 
 Since first Heaven's orbs to man were known. 
 
 Though but a dream the mother dreams. 
 Though but the merest phantasy ; 
 
 They are like the precursor streams 
 Of lightning, sweeping o'er the sky ; 
 
 ate heart seemed as if it -would burst before she was able to express 
 her concern for her unhappy son, and to assure him that, although 
 he had cruelly violated the ties of humanity, and all that is dear in 
 this world, she still felt a mother's love towards him." — The Exe- 
 cution OP Castle, at Bedpoed, fob. the Mukdee op his Wipe. 
 
 Dmly Telegraph, April 2, 1860. 
 
THE MUKDEEER. 129 
 
 "Wticli tell the storm is gathering fast,- 
 To ride destructive on the blast. 
 
 Though but a dream, in fitful sleep, 
 
 Depicts that mother to that son ; 
 Lo ! he shall wake to see her weep. 
 
 For trespasses which he hath done ; 
 To feel her hot, impassioned tear, 
 A heated brand, his brow to sere. — 
 
 The little mounds, — ^the infants' graves, — 
 The fairy hillocks, churchyards dot ; 
 
 Affection's dearest thought, which craves. 
 As its love-consecrated spot. 
 
 The Ark of spotless purity, 
 
 Oasis of the memory. — • 
 
 Yet mothers there will vigils hold. 
 
 And " sorrow without hope" o'er them ; 
 
 Oh ! let them be, by cherub told, 
 
 Their babes, crowned with Heaven's diadem, 
 
130 THE MTJHDEKER. 
 
 Rejoice at being safe from harm, 
 And bland seduction's fatal cbarm. 
 
 The mother,— once of him so proud. 
 
 The gracious new-bom babe, — ^whose fate 
 
 The sombre mystery did shroud ; 
 The Poet's mind did penetrate : 
 
 Her life had spent in thankftd prayer. 
 
 Had grave of childhood been his share. 
 
 When, in his manhood's prime, she found. 
 How prone to err his course would be ; 
 
 Until ia manacles were bound 
 
 The arms, she deemed as virtue's free ; 
 
 The babe such attributes displayed. 
 
 She marvelled for what more she prayed. 
 
 The daisies will refuse to braid 
 His grave of ignominious shame ; 
 
 And old and young recoil, afraid. 
 From the dark shadow of his name ; 
 
THE MURDERER. 131 
 
 Yet pause compassionate to gaze 
 On tlie wan woman there wKo stays. 
 
 True to her mother's instincts, she 
 That dreaded grave will ne'er forsake ; 
 
 Undaunted by the obloquy 
 
 A landmark of it scorn doth make ; 
 
 Like tabernacle in the waste, 
 
 To it, in each extreme, she'll haste. — 
 
 Until the hours ring out her date 
 
 Of suffering, and thwarted joy : 
 And she is summoned to that state 
 
 Of bliss, above all earth's annoy ; 
 Where cancelled is from memory 
 Of sin atoned the penalty. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 THE RETEEAT OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY/ 
 
 They are retreating, — swift retreating ; — 
 The Lord is figMiag, — ^He is beating 
 
 Else indomitable foes ; 
 StUl, ia disorder, armies flying, 
 Trample on the dead, — ^the dying, — 
 
 For whom earth in mourning goes. — 
 
 Still retreating, — cohorts calling 
 
 "Wildly on comrades, spent, — and falling, — 
 
 " Haste ! for Heaven is on their side ! 
 Haste ! haste ! the God of battles, rising 
 In their defence, whom we despising, 
 
 He hath forced His wrath to 'bide ! — 
 
 * " The Euasian army is retreating in confusion." (Turin 
 Paper.)— MoENiNS Post, Oct. 2, 1855. 
 
THE RETREAT OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY. 133 
 
 Britisli and Frencli, — our powers out-daring, 
 "WTiom, He protecting, death is sparing^ — 
 
 While our slaughtered bar our ■way. — 
 Oh ! for one hour, — ^that same God aiding 
 Our laurels, 'neath their triumph fading. 
 
 Would not "victory crown our day ? — 
 
 Comrades ! farewell ! — ^with thoughts despairing, 
 We are to ouj- homes repairing ; 
 
 (Homes of desolation, — gloom, — ) 
 To hear your "widows, — orphans raving. 
 Hapless, — ^hopeless, — ^mercy craving. 
 
 To hasten on releasing doom ! 
 
 Comrades ! ferewell ! — ^repose in glory ; 
 We but survive to tell the story 
 
 Written in your wasted blood ! 
 We are retreating,— yes ! retreating, — 
 Trembling at our foiled country's greeting ; 
 
 For conquest ebbing at the flood !" 
 
134 THE KETKEAT OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY. 
 
 Yes ! they're retreating, — God be praised ! 
 On every bastion will be raised 
 The flags of England, and of France, 
 And in the air will gaily dance. 
 No ! spread by pity, let them shrond 
 The naked dead, the plains which crowd ; 
 For valour, warm in victory, 
 Melts o'er its fallen enemy. — 
 
 Yes ! stiU retreating ; — ^those allies 
 Beheld with glad, — ^yet scorning eyes, 
 The frantic rush the Russians made. 
 To 'scape from whom they did invade ; 
 And then a nobler feelirig rose. 
 Within their bosoms for their foes ; 
 The victims of despotic sway : 
 The subjects bom but to obey !— 
 
 Yes ! still retreating ; — sickening sight ! 
 Oh ! how precipitate their flight ! 
 
THE RETREAT OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY. 135 
 
 No time allowed regretful heart 
 To show its agony, to part 
 Witli fortress deemed impregnable ; 
 Till 'neath superior force it fell ! — 
 No time, one backward look to cast 
 On glory, now for ever past ! — 
 
 Yes ! still retreating ; — victory's voice. 
 Bidding exulting bearts rejoice ; 
 Is silenced as tbe strains arise, 
 Wbicb to tbe Grod of Destinies* 
 Ascribe tbe honour of a figbt, 
 Won only tbrougb His potent migbt ; 
 And bymns and psalms tbe sbouts succeed, 
 Wbicb first announced tbe gallant deed. — 
 
 * "A Te Deum has been sung in the Cathedral of 
 topol, in the presence of Marshal Pffissier. Another church 
 is appropriated to the English." — Mabsbilles, 29th September, 
 1855. 
 
13^ THE KETKEAT OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY. 
 
 Yes ! still retreating ; — ^paiise awhile, — 
 Hark ! hark ! -withia the hallowed pile. 
 By bigot left to ruthless flames. 
 The homage which the victor claims ; 
 And which, Sebastopol, thy shrine 
 Does consecrate, as fane diTuie ! — 
 Pause, Gortschakoff ! — ^then — sullen flee, 
 "With slaves compelled to follow thee ! — 
 
 Yes ! still retreating ! — dauntless brave, 
 Who slumber in your gory grave ; 
 Awake ! and listen to the beat 
 Of that ignoble, base retreat ! — 
 Hark I to the dull, continuous tread, 
 Which shakes the ground above your head ; 
 Then, sleep again ! your work is done ; 
 Young heroes ! deathless conquest won ! — 
 
 Yes ! still retreating ; — ^tum, and see. 
 The lurid flame's intensity ; 
 
THE RETREAT OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY. 137 
 
 (Armies ! undisciplined that fly !) 
 Grleaming terrific o'er tlie sky ! 
 And the remembrance of its glare, 
 To Russia's snow-girt regions bear ; 
 To lend an artificial glow, 
 To freezing narrative of woe ! — 
 
 Thou ! by insane ambition led ! 
 Thou Emperor, defeated, — dead ! 
 Thou didst not hear the bubble burst, 
 Thine heart which so inflated — curst ; 
 Thou canst not know, the Lord hath made 
 A mockery of thy pride, — ^parade, — 
 Handful of execrated dust ; 
 In what a shadow didst thou trust ! — 
 
 How oft must God example make 
 Of despots, for the oppressM's sake ? — 
 How oft must. God the warning give, 
 Not for ambition monarchs live ? — 
 
138 THE RETREAT OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY. 
 
 How oft must GTod be forced to smite 
 Injustice, in tlie cause of right ? — 
 How oft, tyrant, must the Lord 
 Such overthrow as thine record ? 
 
139 
 
 STAE OF THE NORTH IN GLOOM THAT 
 
 SETS.* 
 
 But yesterday, and thousands bowedf 
 
 To tliy Imperial state ; 
 So vast, — ^thou cotddst not count tlie crowd, 
 
 That thronged thy palace-gate ; 
 Whom thou didst think thy native worth 
 
 Assembled thee to praise ; 
 Alas! the vanity of birth, 
 
 How does it seK upraise ! 
 
 * The Emperor Nicholas of Russia. 
 
 t " But yesterday the word of Caesar might 
 
 Have stood against the world : now lies he tliere, 
 
 And none so poor to do him reverence." 
 
 Shakespbaee's " Jtjmus C^sae." 
 
140 STAR OF THE NORTH IN GLOOM THAT SETS. 
 
 But yesterday, and thousands pressed 
 
 To gaze upon tliy face ; 
 And, with a servile fear, confessed 
 
 Thy power to grace disgvace ; — 
 And crouched beneath the trampling foot. 
 
 And kissed the scourging hand ; 
 Nor dared the rebel question put, 
 
 " Why Grod so scourged the land ?" 
 
 Where, King ! is that obsequious crowd, 
 
 The vassals of thy wealth ? 
 Not thee approaching in thy shroud, 
 
 With sorrow's step of stealth ; 
 But sped the rising sun to hail. 
 
 Thy setting renders bright ; 
 While thou, death-quenched, must sudden pale 
 
 Thy " ineffectual Kght ! " 
 
 Thou'st held thy temporary sway 
 O'er autocratic rights ; 
 
STAB. OF THE NORTH IN GLOOM THAT SETS. 141 
 
 And now, deposed, thou makest way 
 
 For Mm, new rule deUglits ; 
 Thou liast performed thy mimic part 
 
 On Grrandeur's gaudy stage ; 
 And Fortune now dismissed, thou art 
 
 A Player, none engage ! — 
 
 Mere semblance of iuvestiture 
 
 Not e'en canst thou bestow, 
 Upon one flatterer, to allure 
 
 Him to remain, — for — ^lo ! 
 As naked as from mother's womb, 
 
 Monarch, thou must descend 
 To the humiliating tomb. 
 
 Where mundane honours end. 
 
 The meanest may revile thy name, 
 
 Nor tremble at thy frown ; 
 And, with long-nurtured hate, defame 
 
 Thy idolized renown ;. 
 
142 STAR OF THE NORTH IN GLOOM THAT SETS. 
 
 And h.e, who quailed beneath tliine eye, 
 
 May, witli uncovered head, 
 TJnawed, to thy remains draw mgh. 
 
 And SCOWL upon the dead. — 
 
 Nor rank, nor riches, purchase love, 
 
 Nor gild a Tyrant's cause ; 
 The mercenary they but move 
 
 To venial applause. 
 For minds of nobler stamp despise 
 
 External attributes ; 
 And what the vulgar eulogize 
 
 Consider but imbrutes. 
 
 But equal all by death are made. 
 When man to dust returns ; 
 
 The beggar, of the king afraid ; 
 The king, the beggar spurns : 
 
STAK OF THE NORTH IN GLOOM THAT SETS. 143 
 
 The outcast, and the courtly-bred, 
 
 (At one tribunal tried,) 
 Shall, in the Session of the Dead, 
 
 Be simply classified ! 
 
 Ah ! tears were shed, though not for thee ; 
 
 Tears of heart- wrung despair ; 
 When multitudes, ia agony. 
 
 Did to one spot repair 
 To recognise the mangled, — ^maimed, — 
 
 The dying, — and the dead, — 
 The fragments which affection claimed : 
 
 Objects of love and — dread ! 
 
 Wlule Superstition's wizard aid. 
 
 Sent fren2y prescient sight ;* 
 
 * " The celebrated great bell, ' Eeni,' suspended in the tower of 
 St. Ivan in the Kremlin, whilst being toUed for the Emperor 
 Nicholas, fell in consequence of the iron supporters giving way, 
 and broke through three separate stories of vaults, HUing five 
 persons on the spot, whilst five were wounded severely, and four 
 slightly. The accident made a deep impression at the time on the 
 
144 STAK OF THE NORTH IN GLOOM THAT SETS. 
 
 Whose threats prophetical delayed 
 
 Thy spirit's hurried flight ; 
 To learn the dire calamity, 
 
 Thy suhjects filled with woe, 
 Did, for thy great iniquity, 
 
 Grod's judgment doom foreshow ; — 
 
 For war, thy rash ambition waged. 
 
 The war of stubborn pride ; 
 Which with a slaughterous fury raged, 
 
 And loud for vengeance cried ; 
 The war, denounced by God, and man, 
 
 Whose end thou ne'er shouldst see ;* 
 Which they did stigmatize with ban 
 
 Of blood-stained infamy ! — 
 
 minds of the superstitious Kussiams, who regarded it as a direct 
 visitation from heaven in condemnation of a Vf ar undertaken by 
 the Emperor ; and processions were made, fasts instituted, and 
 candles burned to the Panagia, or Holy Virgin, to appease the 
 wrath of heaven." — The News op the World, July 15, 1855. 
 
 * " The Emperor Nicholas of Kussia died March 2, 1855. The 
 fall of Sebastopol, and the retreat of the Russians, Sept. 8, 1855." 
 
STAR OF THE NOETH IN GLOOM THAT SETS. 145 
 
 Wild shrieks of anguish, pierce the sky, 
 
 As "passing-bell" was tolled 
 For thee whose awful destiny 
 
 Eternity enrolled 
 Among the fiat- verdicts passed 
 
 Upon the stunmoned there ; 
 Thou ! whose triumphant reign, at last, 
 
 Ends like a breath of air ! — 
 
 pride of station ! — ^held in pawn, 
 
 (The pledge. Death shall redeem ;) 
 What art thou, when God hath withdrawn 
 
 His transitory beam ? — 
 A comet, that hath sunk in gloom ; 
 
 A flash, that dazed the eyes ; 
 The phosphorescence of the tomb. 
 
 Doth from corruption rise ! — 
 
 pride of station ! — strengthless power ! 
 Shadow of giant-might ; 
 
146 STAR OF THE NORTH IN GLOOM THAT SETS. 
 
 Frailer than that fair tropic flower, 
 
 Counts being in one night ;* 
 That man, — ^the Son of God, — the Heir, 
 
 Joint-heir with Christ, — (death-free ;) 
 Should strive, with such life-wearing care. 
 
 After a shade like thee ! 
 
 Instead of that inheritance, 
 
 (That Kingdom so secure ;) 
 Beyond vicissitudes of chance ; 
 
 Which must, for aye, endure ! — 
 Which the Almighty grants to those. 
 
 Who, reigning here below, 
 Can, when He Emperors doth depose, 
 
 To Him rejoicing go ! 
 
 0, Death man's fortitude does test. 
 As crucible fine gold ; 
 
 * " CereiiB grandiflorus." — Gilbeet's "Wondees oe the World.' 
 
STAK OF THE NORTH IN GLOOM THAT SETS. 147 
 
 Stripping ofP titles, did invest 
 
 Witli honoTirs manifold ; 
 Precipitating, as base dross, 
 
 The dignities so dear ! — 
 Ah, happy he ! who counts no loss. 
 
 What Death did not revere ! — 
 
 Ah, happy ! when the kingly crown, 
 
 (As burthen too long borne,) 
 World-wearied monarch can lay down ; 
 
 Yet feel his brow unshorn ; — 
 Conscious, a costlier coronet, 
 
 (By king-maker Divine, — ) 
 Upon that Heaven-sealed brow is set, 
 
 Beside the Lord's, to shine ! 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 MY BABE. 
 
 First vernal blossom of my wedded spring, 
 
 Bright morning's flushings of its summer's noon ! 
 Why art thou fading ? what bleak wind can bring 
 
 The freezing current, withers thee so soon ? — 
 Where is thy fragrance? where thy vivid bloom? 
 
 Thy sparkling eyes ? their look of artless glee ? 
 I cannot see them, in this darkened room : — 
 
 Alas ! what light could show them now to me ? 
 How parched the little hand, in mine I hold, 
 
 It bums to seething in my shuddering grasp ; 
 Yet, lo ! I tremble lest an icy cold 
 
 Should chill to death the fingers I enclasp. 
 How groans my heart, at each sad moan of pain ! 
 
 0, would I could endure thy pangs for thee ; 
 
MY BABE. 149 
 
 What tortuie, darling ! would I not sustain, 
 
 Couldst thou but only once more easy be ? 
 Mine throbs to frenzy, as thy restless head, 
 
 (Upon the pillow which I vainly smooth,) 
 Tosses impatiently, as sleep were fled 
 
 For aye the couch it was so wont to soothe. 
 thou ! expiring even before mine eyes. 
 
 Thou babe, who came, Kke Hope, to seek my 
 breast; 
 Thou strickened loveHness, that prostrate lies : 
 
 All earthly hope upon thee still doth rest ! — 
 Yet that perplexed confusion of the brain. 
 
 Proceeding from absorbing agony. 
 Forbids me, though I wish it, to explain ; 
 
 That my mute torture is not apathy. 
 Thy bed of suffering I sit beside, 
 
 Unheeding hours which Time's progression 
 strike; 
 While thoughts ungovemed wander far and wide : 
 
 All filled with thee, and grief, yet none alike ; — 
 
150 MY BABE. 
 
 The random sport of inconsistent Fear, 
 
 Wliicli vary but from anguisli to regret ; 
 And then return to anguish, while, with tear 
 
 Of dread foreboding, my wan cheek is wet. 
 My beckoned cherub ! Heaven-in-vited guest ! 
 
 While thou art here, while thou art spared to me ; 
 Yea, after thou art gone, this yearning breast 
 
 Will still bestow its every thought on thee ! — 
 How all will mind me then, that once on earth 
 
 I was the favoured mother of a child. 
 
 Brought such abundant blessings with its birth, 
 I 
 That I the fortunate of Heaven was styled. — 
 
 Oh ! then will Envy, sickened at my joy. 
 
 Melt ia compassion at my rapt amaze ; 
 That God, so gracious, could a babe destroy, 
 
 He made so worthy of a mother's praise. — 
 But froward apprehension, wait, oh, wait ! 
 
 Thou still art living, Sweet ! thou art not dead ! 
 Then let me not the ill anticipate, 
 
 From Terror's false prediction haply bred. — 
 
MY BABE. 151 
 
 The reed I lean on droopeth. to the stream, 
 
 Bowed, though not broken, by the tempest-blast ; 
 The ray I gaze on is a murky gleam. 
 
 By that still lowering tempest overcast ; 
 That reed, to bear me up, doth stronger grow, 
 
 Its pliant stem erect and firm appears ; 
 And, brightening through the storm, that gleam doth 
 throw 
 
 A radiance which the sky of Hope now clears ; 
 For the Unerring, who must needs be right, 
 
 (Despite the sceptic's unbelie-ving scorn,) 
 Hath said, " Though sorrow may endure a night : 
 
 Take heart, Grief! joy oometh in the mom." — 
 And hath not mine, my babe, endured that night, 
 
 Fighting for thee, with Death? but, in the East, 
 Is breaking now that morning's joyous light. 
 
 Which shows my night of agony hath ceased. — 
 Which shows the battle ended, conflict o'er, 
 
 That I may trust, that I may hope again ; 
 
152 MY BABE. 
 
 For He, Death's arbiter, can still restore. 
 
 To Faith, the thread of life He cut in twain.— ^ 
 A Lazarus He lifted from the grave ! — 
 
 A widow's son did He not too give back ? 
 And I might have been sure, that He would 
 save 
 
 My son also, had not my faith grown slack ! — 
 Oh ! as its fire so kindles in my heart. 
 
 So holy, fervent, its seraphic flame; 
 I feel, as " Mary chose the better part," 
 
 To God submitting, I could choose the same; 
 And almost give an angel unto Him, 
 
 And thee secure His everlasting bliss; 
 Letting thee wing thy way beyond the rim 
 
 Of such a sorrow-circling space as this ; 
 But Nature falters at the sacrifice, 
 
 "Weak, hiunan nature, hesitating still 
 To win itself a passport to the skies; 
 
 On earth fulfilling Heaven's benignant wiU ; 
 
MY BABE. 153 
 
 But He will pardon, — oh.. He will forgive 
 
 Thy mother's wavering, and mercy stretch ; 
 For, losing thee. He knoweth, while I live. 
 
 Pity will not condole a sadder wretch. — 
 Oh ! He hath pardoned ! — as I steadier gaze, 
 
 Returning life is spreading o'er thy cheek ; 
 Let common joy express itself in praise : 
 
 My joy for this, O God, I cannot speak ! 
 
154 
 
 MY WASTED SPAN. 
 
 Oh ! he who at the close of his spent years, 
 
 Indifferent to their futile course appears ; 
 
 Who shrinks not from himself, nor from the eye 
 
 Of stem Omnipotence turns tremblingly ; 
 
 That man is worthier pity, than the one 
 
 Who'd fain each erring action were undone : 
 
 For he, alarmed at consciousness of sin, 
 
 May, through remorse, its mitigation win ; 
 
 But he, who quafls not at iniquity. 
 
 Is bad to li-ve, — ^but, oh, far worse — ^to die ! — 
 
 My " three score years and ten," are they not run ?- 
 
 And am I wiser than when they begun ? 
 
MY WASTED SPAN. 155 
 
 "WTiat liave I learnt of tlie essential good, 
 Whicli, for Salvation, must be understood ; 
 In aU tliat precious time, — ^wMcli, fleet as breath 
 Of moming-zepliyr, wafted me to death ? 
 
 How have I bunted after shadows vain, 
 The phantoms which the grasp could not retain, 
 But which eluded every fond desire. 
 And, like loved chrisom, did in birth expire ! — 
 How have I followed that deluding Pride, 
 The mocking Anak, whose colossal stride 
 Did span the "Bridge of Sighs," which I must cross. 
 To reach the goal, whose vaunted prize was dross! 
 How have I thought that time was yet to spare. 
 Before such solemn aims need claim my care ; 
 And dallied with the hours, and joked away 
 The moments leading to the Judgment Day ! — 
 Yet I remember, — (and the pang pf soul. 
 As of the past I read the shrivelled scroll ;) — 
 
156 MY WASTED SPAN. 
 
 How, on tlie threshold of life's promised date, 
 
 I did its several seasons calculate ; 
 
 To bring fortli fruits, wliose gamerings should be 
 
 In the ripe gatherings of Eternity ; 
 
 Yet barren rocks alone the seed received : 
 
 And not one ftdl-eared harvest have I sheaved ! 
 
 Now, now I feel the error of my ways. 
 
 Yet, like the culprit who from terror prays. 
 
 At "the eleventh hour," I bow the knee ; 
 
 But from a God of Vengeance fain would flee ; 
 
 Striving to flatter fear, to soothe despair : 
 
 By censuring the burthen all must bear ; 
 
 And, with the sceptic's groundless sophistry. 
 
 Struggling accusing conscience to defy ; 
 
 Whispering my stricken heart, " Could I the 
 
 ban 
 Evade of Trespass ? — Am I not a man ?" — 
 Then, melting into penitential shame, 
 Not my Creator, but myself I blame ; 
 
MY WASTED SPAN. 157 
 
 And wisli myself upon my mother's breast, 
 Her prayers for me still imto Heaven addrest. 
 
 To snatch me from Destruction's dark career ; 
 She died too soon, me leaving drifting here, 
 Like a dismantled bark, whose pilot fled, 
 When to the shore the startled seamen sped ; 
 When flaming lightnings rend the quivering skies ; 
 And, them to quench, huge surging bOlows rise ; 
 When Ocean is a monstrous catacomb. 
 And the heaped dead obtrude upon the home 
 Of the Leviathan, whose frothy breath 
 Enshrouds thy shroudless, thou immodest Death ! 
 She died too soon ; — ^yet she may intercede ! 
 Faith in a Mother's love is stiU the creed 
 Her prayers instil in the yotmg, ductile mind. 
 Which hardened Age's doth, like treasure, find. 
 When beggared of all else, to cheer, and speed 
 The spirit on to a Diviner creed. 
 
158 MY WASTED SPAN. 
 
 "Witli heart as desert as that Arctic-waste, 
 
 From whose chill aspect vagrant sunheams haste ; 
 
 And sullen vegetation, checked, and slow, 
 
 Refuses o'er its spectral plains to throw 
 
 The vivid mantle of its cheerful green ; 
 
 I unavaOing mourn, that I have been. 
 
 It seems so terrihle, to have no time. 
 
 The heights of Everlasting Life to cHmb ; 
 
 When Death is in the valley, — and the doom 
 
 Of Fate unchangeable is in the tomb ! 
 
159 
 
 THE VALLEY OF TKE SHADOW OF 
 DEATH. 
 
 "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh 
 through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none," — St. 
 Matthew, c. 12, v. 4S. 
 
 G-RiM, as the regions of the damned, 
 
 And fetid, as if over-crammed 
 
 With writhing beiags, tortured by 
 
 Diseases of mortality, 
 
 Was the dark valley, where I found 
 
 Myself, — and horror most profound. 
 
 " There, one by one — ^then, two by two — 
 
 Of all the dead I ever knew,"* 
 
 Before me solemnly defiled; 
 
 * 
 Nor one among those spectres smiled, 
 
 * Vide Axmngham's Poems. 
 
160 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 As if was recognized a face, 
 Eemembrance melted to retrace. — 
 And stiQ each instant myriads sends, 
 (Oil ! have I lost so many friends ?) 
 And stiU each instant did restore 
 More wanderers, from the Stygian shore. 
 The young looked old as wrinMed age, 
 And all as if they'd died in rage ; 
 Besistiag with defeated might. 
 The victor of unequal fight; 
 And concentrated strength did waste, 
 Like one, who climbs a hiU in haste, 
 Spent long before the summit's gained,' 
 Which by no effort is attained. 
 The sky, opaque as starless night. 
 Was yet streaked with sulphureous Kght ; 
 Enough to render visible 
 
 A scene that nought could parallel. 
 Muteness ! — Nature shrinks to bea 
 Above — around — and everywhere — 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 161 
 
 Intolerable to sustain, 
 
 Relieved by shriek of human pain, 
 
 Relieved by hiunan agony; 
 
 Though awful its blaspheming cry! 
 
 I trod upon the tangled brake, 
 
 Hoping to rouse the hissing snake 
 
 In torpor coiled, — abhorrent, till 
 
 That silence did with terror fill 
 
 My soul, — and made it almost cHng 
 
 Familiarly to loathsome thing. 
 
 I strove myself to speak — to scream — 
 
 But, Hke the mockery of a dream. 
 
 The wildered senses which abuse. 
 
 Articulation did refuse 
 
 One demonstration clear to give. 
 
 That I, stOl in the flesh, did live. 
 
 More than the shadowy ghosts which went 
 
 There to and fro, with no intent. 
 
 M 
 
162 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 The black forms of gigantic trees, 
 
 (Througli wMcli swept no refreshing breeze) 
 
 Calciaed by scathing lightnings, aimed 
 
 To pierce that sky, whose air inflamed 
 
 Seemed heated from some furnace-glow; 
 
 Seething volcanic, deep below. 
 
 No bird — ^no flower — ^no herbage green — 
 
 Were in that desolation seen. 
 
 To break monotony as dread. 
 
 As could but be, where all was dead. 
 
 No sound — ^not one — ^the stifled breath 
 
 "Was utterance — choked — ^where only Death 
 
 And Silence held supremest sway ; 
 
 Nor Echo dared to disobey. 
 
 Tremendous hush ! — stillness ! — Fear, 
 
 O'erwhebning found — ^longing to hear 
 
 The cataract's wild roar — ^the crash 
 
 Of thunders, as they furious dash 
 
 To atoms the thick clouds, and fray 
 
 A' passage for the tempest's way ! 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 163 
 
 Pressing against tlie shrivelled skin, 
 Yet rattling not the bones pent in 
 Their yeUow-parchment prison-den : 
 The bones of once strong stalwart men ! 
 Is there such silence in the grave ? 
 Oh ! do not there the desperate rave 
 O'er their lost souls, and try to rend 
 Their shroud-bands, and more freedom lend 
 To the brain's tension, which then seems 
 Bursting with woe that over- teems? 
 My own brain seemed so on the brink 
 Of madness, that I paused to think 
 Of childhood's hours — of childhood's bliss — 
 God ! of anything save this ! 
 Yet — ^yet in vain : the present scene 
 Would, with its horrors, intervene 
 Betwixt my memory — and my dread. 
 And direr agitation bred. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 My blood-sliot eyes still upward turned, 
 That with that scalding anguish burned 
 Which the Sahara's parching wind 
 Inflicts upon the traveller bHnd, 
 Straining through his galled Ms, to mark 
 In the dull heavens one transient spark. 
 Struck from the Empyrean's blaze ; 
 Whose fires the Seraphim upraise, 
 To show Eternal Light was where 
 God bade it be — to witness bear 
 That sun and moon did magnify 
 The everlasting Majesty; 
 And that the heavens' star-studded frame 
 Did, too, that majesty proclaim.* 
 Lo ! while I looked — a ray of light, 
 Condensed from all that is most bright. 
 With dazzling lustre overspread 
 The lowering mass of clouds, and shed 
 
 * The heavens declare the glory of God : and the firmament 
 showeth His handy-work." — Psalm xix. 1. 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 165 
 
 Resplendence on ttem — ^till the eye 
 Quailed 'neath excess of brilHancy.* — 
 Another — and another came, 
 Rapid as chariot wheels on flame, 
 That for some guerdon fierce contend, 
 And last but till they gain their end. 
 Tin the conyex-like burnished shield 
 Of warrior glittered, and revealed 
 To my o'er-awed and baffled gaze 
 Sight which, in sooth, did vision daze ; 
 Sight which no man can see and live ! 
 To which no thought can language give ! 
 Wbile still those heavens did more expand, 
 Like sea, which so usurps the land, 
 That pilot this no more can trace. 
 As Paul, in terror, hid his facef 
 
 * "He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, 
 Closed his eyes in endless night." — Gbay. 
 t Acts ix. 4. 
 
166 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 From the insufferable light ; 
 
 BUnding to unregenerate sight : 
 
 So I, down on my face did fall, 
 
 When from the heavens a voice did call, 
 
 Where only the Ineffable 
 
 Could, throned in native glory dwell ; 
 
 " I am the Resurrection — ^Life ; — 
 
 Look up ! behold Creation rife 
 
 With imsurpaseed magnificence ; 
 
 With Godhead's high omniscience ! " 
 
 Mysterious Heaven! — what change was 
 
 there ! 
 It to describe, may mortal dare ? 
 Each ghostly form was now arrayed 
 In beauty, such as when God made 
 Man in his perfect loveliness ; 
 Like to His image all express. — 
 The arid earth — ^now rich in bloom. 
 The zephyrs loaded with perfume ; 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 167 
 
 The asphodel — ^more white than snow ; 
 The amaranth, with purple glow ; 
 The Syrian lily, which did fling 
 Contempt on Egypt's gorgeous king,* 
 (When in those regal robes attired, 
 Which reverential praise inspired ;) 
 All mingling — did aroma lend 
 The balmy air — delight to send 
 Far as those tepid gales could blow ; 
 And sweetest odours wafted throw 
 Round every hill, and distant vale : 
 That all their fragrance might inhale. — 
 The trees, with freshest foliage crowned, 
 Swept gracefully unto the ground ; 
 Wliile»chorus-birds their shade amid, 
 (As if each other they out-did,) 
 Sang in such ecstasy — ^their throats 
 Could scarce trill forth the harmonious notes. — 
 * St. Lute xii. 27. 
 
168 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 While rivulets — ^Ht by the sun, 
 O'er pearly pebbles which did run, 
 Murmured in unison most sweet ; 
 This woodland concert to complete : 
 Soon drowned in the triumphant strains, 
 " The Lord Omnipotent now reigns !" 
 Which to those harps were joyful sung, 
 Once on those drooping willows hung. 
 When " Israel's sweetest singers," were 
 In Babylon bowed in mute despair. 
 Beside its brooks — ^remembering thee, 
 Zion ! in prosperity !* 
 Attimed, by those late silent ghosts. 
 Melodious to the Lord of Boosts ! 
 Was ib the chaplets round their brow. 
 Which rendered them so radiant now ? — 
 Or hallelujahs which were breathed 
 By lips that smiles of rapture wreathed, 
 * Psalm xxxvii. 2. 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 169 
 
 Lending their face that charm divine 
 Of blended love, and faith benign ? — 
 It was not envy which depressed 
 My sad sonl, sinkitig in my breast ; 
 It was despondency more grave, 
 Which holiest sympathy did crave. — 
 I, who from them had prompt recoiled, 
 Felt now by me they would be soiled ; 
 And, self-abhorent, stole away ; 
 (Poor leperous worm of spotted clay !) 
 I had not dared to lift mine eye. 
 To the supernal Majesty, 
 Who had redeemed them from despair : 
 I had but" felt His presence there. 
 I had not dared to lift mine eye. 
 To the immense Eternity, 
 Whither such countless Just have flown ; 
 The precious ones, God calls His own. — 
 O Grand ! vast Superlative ! 
 What words can Emit to thee give ? 
 
170 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 What words convey how great thou art ? 
 
 Illimitable ! — ^not a part 
 
 Towards an end doth terminate ! — 
 
 O thought ! how mean, inadequate, 
 
 Art thou, when thou presumest to try 
 
 To girdle-in Infinity ! 
 
 Thy ocean ebbs towards no shore — 
 
 In vain may telescope explore 
 
 To scan horizon, sweeping far 
 
 Into the depths of some dimmed star. 
 
 Thou independent planet-sphere. 
 
 Self-balanced — dost to nought adhere ; 
 
 For all, inferior unto thee, 
 
 Would crumbled by thy contact be ! — 
 
 Yet — there for me 'will be a place, 
 
 When I, too, am redeemed by Grace ! 
 
 When disembodied from the grave 
 
 My spirit, which Christ died to save, 
 
 To immortaEty shall rise, 
 
 And penetrate ethereal skies ! — 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 171 
 
 "WTien I shall see, as once lie saw, 
 
 Whose Tision-mind was clear from flaw, 
 
 The Thrones — the Glories — Cherubim — 
 
 Rapt reverie revealed to him ;* 
 
 And all the marvels, prophet-saiat, 
 
 Which thou couldst gaze on, and couldst paint. 
 
 Oh ! as the skies night's clouds invest, 
 
 Which canopy a world at rest ; 
 
 The curtains which young mom draws back, 
 
 With hand that leaves a fiery track. 
 
 To brighten till consummate day 
 
 Its full -refulgence doth display ! — 
 
 Now darkness quits the lustrous skies : 
 
 On which, at length, I bend mine eyes, 
 
 To hail the advent of that ray. 
 
 Which ushers in my endless Day ! 
 
 * Est. iv. 3. 
 
172 
 
 I HAD A HOPE— 'TIS GONE ! 
 
 Oh ! let ns cease this diild-game, "hide and seek," 
 
 This dodging round the comers of the heart ; 
 If thou repentest of our plightings, speak : 
 
 And we will, without added torture, — ^part ! — 
 My mood is not to love, nor hate, in sport, 
 
 Passions are serious in their due degree ; 
 And I disdain the cowardly resort 
 
 Of jest, to screen an earnest perfidy. — 
 Thee I approach as if for doom it were. 
 
 With heart that hurries, then retards its 
 speed; 
 
1 HAD A HOPE 'tis GONE. 173 
 
 And sombre wliisper seems to bid, " prepare 
 
 Eor -word will instant break Hope's bending reed !" 
 I feel tbe derelict of some dire ban, 
 
 Under tbe anger of tby distant eye ; 
 Which doth my conscious rectitude unman, 
 
 Thee making guilty, yet unknowing why. 
 Oh ! 80 reliant is my soul, it blinks 
 
 The question of a doubt, would kill me quite ; 
 And it, like charity, no evil thinks 
 
 Of one, it ever would have in the right. 
 
 What I have borne ! — ^yet, yet did I disclose 
 
 The wrongs which make it agony to live ? 
 The wrongs which cause thee to be blamed by those 
 
 Who suffer nothing from the pangs they give ! 
 'Twas thou, in usurpation of Love's power. 
 
 Obtained for me the pity, soothes me not ! — 
 Oh ! when the autumn storm doth darkest lower, 
 
 Leave then its battered flower to careless rot ! — 
 
174 I HAD A HOPE TIS GONE. 
 
 How canst thou utterly forget to feel 
 
 The sympathy, to trifles once lent weight ? 
 Yet Death doth laugh, when grates the vessel's keel 
 
 Upon the rock, lets out its living freight. — 
 And treachery wears its very bitterest smile, 
 
 The victim of its fraud when it beholds, 
 "Writhing beneath the mockery of each will, 
 
 As late conviction falsity unfolds ! — 
 It is no trial for the callous heart 
 
 To wrench the faith, another's joy secured ; 
 Yet — Heaven forbid ! thine e'er should feel the smart, 
 
 The pain which teaches, that is then endured ! — 
 Oh ! never may that torpid heart awake 
 
 To the keen horror, quickens to remorse ; 
 To ponder on the ruin it doth make 
 
 When it, for Mercy's, uses Tyrant's force. 
 
 Strange ! a pale girl, with eyes Hd- veiled and meek. 
 Such concentrated sternness can conceal ; 
 
I HAD A HOPE 'tis GONE. 175 
 
 Nor one swift flusliing o'er her marble clieek 
 
 The hard resolve an instant but reveal ! — 
 But he to solve such mystery who tries, 
 
 In the endeavour " spends his strength in vain ;" 
 For the solution far too hidden lies 
 
 For heart-ache's guessing, or for rack of brain ! 
 This in a creature, fragile, deHcate, 
 
 As earliest primrose, bares its bloom to spring ; 
 Yet mighty in her strength to arbitrate 
 
 Betwixt the causes Love and Fear do briag. 
 A thing, each manly hand would stretch to aid. 
 
 So feeble, so defenceless, she appears ; 
 Yet, Kke a Sovereign, will be e'er obeyed : 
 
 Whose throne despotic servile terror rears. 
 Who, with a glance can shine or shade impart. 
 
 To warm, to chill, (as wilM whim doth move ;) 
 The mortified, forgiving, puppet-heart, 
 
 Which is the bond-slave of despising Love ! 
 
176 
 
 THE MOTTO. 
 
 It came, remembraiice to awake 
 
 From opiate trance of apatliy; 
 The seal of secrecy to break 
 
 On docxunent of mystery; 
 And bade me read with glaring eyes, 
 
 The page which turpitude concealed ; 
 Where gross, unrighteous perjuries, 
 
 By conscience to the soul revealed. 
 Made guilt convicted stand aghast, 
 
 Ab if there were stem witness by, 
 To prove the horrors of the past. 
 
 Present remorse doth amplify ; 
 
THE MOTTO. 177 
 
 And sent- a thrill tlirouglioTit the frame, 
 
 An agony from terror bred ; 
 Old " Motto ! " at thy startling name, 
 
 As whisper of the shrouded dead ! — 
 A Yoice, to check my wild career ; 
 
 A warning as by Mercy given ; 
 As if a spirit hovered near. 
 
 Too restless for the calm of Heaven ; 
 A mother's spirit ! — could it rest. 
 
 If conscious of my deeds below ? — 
 Would not that region of the blest 
 
 A desperate anguish o'er it throw ? — 
 
 "All's well ! "—Alas ! it had been so. 
 If I had died long, — ^long ago,— 
 For every added year to me 
 Hath been an added infamy ; 
 Likes- him the demons entered in. 
 To load with sevenfold weight of sin, 
 
 N 
 
178 THE MOTTO. 
 
 Until I dare not even survey- 
 That from wHcli Mercy turns away; 
 And whereto Pity doth deny 
 Her common tear of charity ; 
 She, who hath wept Man's fall and crime, 
 Since Error owed its birth to Time ! 
 
 Tush! — shall the "motto on a seal," 
 Me so unman ? — But, soft ! I feel 
 A dear, despised, fond hand impressed 
 The words of fire, consume my breast ! — 
 She flashed upon me like a beam 
 Of morning sun on heavenly dream ; 
 As if to instant realize 
 That radiant vision of the skies ; 
 The faithful love of those pxire days, 
 It were profane in me to praise ; 
 There's such a cloud betwixt their light, 
 And my soul's dim, obscuring night ! — 
 
THE MOTTO. 179 
 
 She spake of peace,-^-of peace, for me!— 
 Of love, could tliat but mocking be ? — 
 Her tone was serious, — and ber eye 
 More mournful than wben infants die ; — 
 She said, " I migbt once more regain 
 My innocence, though crime did stain 
 My name, my nature with a blot ;" 
 To her my crime had she forgot? — 
 I coidd have struck her, in the ire 
 These seeming tauntings did inspire ; 
 Yet she persisted,, till to Hope 
 I turned, as doth the heliotrope 
 ^o the bright sun; — and strength was 
 
 there, — 
 j?o burst from folly's tangling snare. — 
 
 Is she of earth ? — I've waited long, 
 To catch the angel-uttered song,— 
 
 N 2 
 
180 THE MOTTO. 
 
 Recalling tlie stray seraph here, 
 
 Home to her own celestial sphere ; 
 
 And listened, with a throbbing heart. 
 
 For her blessed summons to depart ; 
 
 And faiated with expectant dread; 
 
 Such beauty on my soul she shed. 
 
 But still I see her by my side, . 
 
 A creature spreading far and wide 
 
 The influence of a holy life ; 
 
 And most on me, my pardoning wife ! — 
 
 She's made me not afraid to pray. 
 
 She's " showed me Heaven, and leads the way," 
 
 She's reasoned down each doubt that rose, 
 
 She's taught me how to win repose. 
 
 She's told me Mercy would relent. 
 
 When sinners earnestly repent. 
 
 She's given me back my youth again. 
 
 My very youth, without a stain ; 
 
THE MOTTO. 181 
 
 (And all this, giving back her love : 
 Oh ! what contrition me doth move ! ) 
 She's forced me break that motto's spell, 
 To smile through tears, and cry, "All's 
 Well!" 
 
182 
 
 THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH ALLIANCE.* 
 
 Dissever, not the new-formed tie, 
 
 Be it an ancient story ; 
 The blood of Alma is not dry, 
 
 Of Inkermaim's red glory ; 
 Of Balaklava's gallant charge, 
 
 Where slaughter grew a fame ; 
 And striplings' hearts did so enlarge, 
 
 They giants' hearts became ; 
 
 Of Malakoff,— of the Eedan, 
 When dauntless, side by side ; 
 
 * " We cordially agree with our esteemed French contemporary, 
 the ' Si^ole,' of the 4th instant, that no better aHiance can exist for 
 England than that of Prance, and for France no more fiiiitfiil 
 alliance than that of England." — Moening Post, Nov. 6, 1856. 
 
THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH ALLIANCE. 183 
 
 The Frencli and JEnglisli, to a man, 
 " On ! on ! to Victory !" cried.* 
 
 Wlien French and English fearless fought, 
 When French and English bled ; 
 
 As by one simtdtaneous thought 
 To conquest they wisre led. — 
 
 Their spirits still retained the fire, 
 
 Their wonted courage woke ; 
 And, stiU intrepid in their ire, 
 
 Death's silent ranks they broke. 
 For those who saw their comrades fall, 
 
 Fought with increasing zeal ; 
 As if the dead to them did call, 
 
 Their spirits to anele. — 
 
 * " Since Alma and IiLkennann, sharing in a common danger 
 and partaMng of a common glory, the French soldier has embraced 
 his British comrade as ' bon dmlle, vieux cwma/rade,' and holds 
 him — and as a consequent, his nation — as the best and bravest 
 on earth, after the soldiers of la helU IVcm(;e."-.-MoENiNa Post, 
 Nov. 6, 1856. 
 
184 THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH ALLIANCE. 
 
 In trendies, wHcli like rivers flowed, 
 
 Ran French and English blood ; 
 From veins commingling tides bestowed, 
 
 Those sanguine streams to flood ; 
 And in the Battle's hasty grave, 
 
 Eepose in tranquil rest 
 The French and English, — ^which most brave 
 
 They neither sought to test.* 
 
 Can generous emotion seek 
 
 A dearer sympathy ? 
 Even from their tombs those Heroes speak 
 
 To spirits bold reply ! « 
 
 * " At last tlie number in the trench is completed. The bodies 
 lie as closely as they can be packed. Some of them have upraised 
 arms, in the attitude of taking aim ; their legs stick up through 
 the mould as it is thrown upon them; others are bent and 
 twisted into shapes like fantoccini. Inch after inch the earth 
 rises above them, and they are left 'alone in their glory,' — 
 no, not alone ; for the hopes, and fears, and affections of hundreds 
 of human hearts lie buried with them." — ^W. H. Eussbll — Battle 
 OP Inkeemann. 
 
THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH ALLIANCE. 185 
 
 Their Union Death, more riyetted. — 
 
 How sacred then appear 
 The wedded ashes, Honour sped 
 
 To the same envied bier ! 
 
 And shall one dastard voice be raised. 
 
 Those ashes to malign ? — * 
 Where is the tongue that hath not praised 
 
 A friendship so divine ? — 
 Who enmity would dare invite, 
 
 Make foes whom friends we own ? — 
 Or pain the Living with a spite. 
 
 The Dead cannot atone ? 
 
 Oh ! shall a random word or two. 
 By reckless rancour hurled, 
 
 * " The Frenoli Grovermnent must be perfectly well aware that 
 that of England has not the slightest power of dictatiag to, or con- 
 troUiog, the press ; and cannot therefore be made responsible for 
 any course which it may be seen to pursue." — Times, Oct. 28, 
 1856. ^From the Mcmchester ChiarcUcm.) 
 
186 THE FKENCH AND ENGLISH ALLIANCE. 
 
 Divide tlie Warriors, who flew, 
 ("WTien banners were unfurled,) 
 
 To fight — ^to triumph. — and — ^to die ; — 
 Who heeded not, though they, 
 
 Unanimous for Yictory, 
 In Death, victorious lay ! 
 
 The French, — who equal danger shared, — 
 
 The French, — an equal fate, — 
 The French, — ^whate'er the English dared, 
 
 Did more than emulate ! — 
 Cease that resentfulness of soul 
 
 Which bums to fiercest strife, — 
 As flames, enMndled past control. 
 
 Are with destruction rife ! — 
 
 Spare, of the venerated dead. 
 
 The Testament of Truth ; 
 The blood in the Crimea shed 
 
 Bears witness of its sooth ; — 
 
THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH ALLIANCE. 187 
 
 Think on tlie bravest of the Brave, 
 
 (Of such true Poets sing !) 
 Who fell those household gods to save, 
 
 To which pure bosoms cling ! — 
 
 Oh ! from barbarian Russia take 
 
 A lesson in your need ; 
 And blush, — if contrast can awake 
 
 Remorse for venial creed ; 
 Behold its homage for the dead ; 
 
 Its honours to the brave ; 
 The blood was not ignobly shed : 
 
 That winneth such a grave !* 
 
 Shall its rude serfs exult to hear. 
 How ye your dead revile ? 
 
 * " The Enssian dead at Sevastopol. A letter from St. Peters- 
 burg, pnbUslied in the ' Moniteur de I'Armee,' states that the sub- 
 scription opened in Russia for erecting a monument to the Russian 
 officers and soldiers killed at Sebastopol, has produced a sum of 
 60,000 silver roubles."— Weekly Dispatch, Deo. 7, 1856. 
 
188 THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH AXLIANCE. 
 
 Shall its rude serfs, witK callous sneer, 
 
 And cold, derisive smile, 
 Feel, Low ye do avenge the shame 
 
 Those Heroes on them heaped ; 
 When ye the Memory defame. 
 
 In quenchless glory steeped ? 
 
 Eemembei, in your graceless seomj 
 
 Whate'er the Living be ; 
 The Dead are held, as the Unborn, 
 
 Exempt from Calunmy. — 
 And oh ! revere those did escape 
 
 The carnage of that hour ; 
 The Tmstanched wounds, which then did gape, 
 
 Appealed to Sovereign Power, 
 
 For the renown, ye would deny ; 
 
 For the unfading prize 
 Of Glory, mounting to the sky, 
 
 From Valour's sacrifice ! 
 
THE FRENCH AOT) ENGLISH ALLIANCE. 189 
 
 With hands ■which throb from ardent hearts 
 
 Entwine fresh laurels now ; 
 (The while the tear spontaneous starts ;) 
 
 To wreathe the "Warrior's brow ! 
 
190 
 
 LOYE'S LIGHTEST STEP. 
 
 'Neath moss-grown branches of old willow tree. 
 
 In cabn serene as Eden must Lare known ; 
 Entranced I lay, in dream- wrought reverie, 
 
 Whicli at -nvacious life had iastant flown. — 
 Picture on picture rose ; — such visions rare, 
 
 As fancy, love-inspired, can but portray; 
 Them to mere fancy I may well compare, 
 
 MeltiQg, alas ! unrealised, away ! — 
 Nature a vacuum ever doth abhor, 
 
 Hence is it that the heart for ever aches ; 
 For whate'er good it hath, a something more,! 
 
 Yet unpossessed, its fuU enjoyment makes. — 
 
love's lightest step. 191 
 
 How mine did yearn tliat pleasure to attain, 
 
 Can but imagined be by one doth, pine. 
 Like me, as earnestly that bliss to gain 
 
 For whicb all other blessings he'd resign ! — 
 How my soul stretched to reach the shadowy joy, 
 
 Which still eluded its pursuing wing ; 
 But to remember almost doth, destroy, 
 
 Though long it's ceased, a wearied, baffled thing! — 
 Softly as slumber stealeth o'er a child ; 
 
 Silent as wafture of a spirit's hand ; 
 Noiseless as stream meanders through the wild 
 
 Towards that sea, its tribute doth, demand ; 
 No rustling leaf pre-heralding her tread. 
 
 She came behind me, — She! of whom I dreamed ! — 
 (The aureole of Hope around my head, 
 
 Resplendent as her eyes, must then have gleamed!) 
 Her velvet fingers pressing on mine eyes, 
 
 (Whose voluntary touch made my heart bound,) 
 " Qness who I am ! " with silvery laugh she cries ; 
 
 " Say! is the pearl for thy heart's casket found ?" 
 
192 love's lightest step. 
 
 "All ! were mine eyes in utter darkness sealed, 
 
 That Leart would still discern all it absorbs;" 
 I murmured fondly, " for love e'er revealed 
 
 The idolized unto the mental orbs ; 
 And thrill, as it doth now, as tangled threads 
 
 Of streaming, radiant hair, swept o'er my face ; 
 The web of witchery, which Beauty spreads. 
 
 Its captives, closely round, to interlace ! " 
 My praises struck the key-note of her pride. 
 
 And pitched the tone of its high privilege ; 
 Now, conscious made of power, wiU she abide 
 
 By her more ignorant, though sacred pledge ? — 
 Dare I complain, if, for that hour iatense. 
 
 Years of intenser anguish did succeed ? — - 
 No, — it forestalled regret, — and each gross sense 
 
 Etherialized, — as of earth's suffering freed ! — 
 Yet she was but a mocking-bird, who sang 
 
 Love's Sabbath-music, ia that hour divine ; 
 Yet with such truth, alas ! the discord rang, 
 
 That confidence supreme in it was mine ! — 
 
love's lightest step. 193 
 
 Hers was tlie syren- warbling doth betray 
 
 The simple hearts whicli hear it to their harm ; 
 O'er mine it held the strong, impulsive sway 
 
 Of fascination's inexpressive charm. — 
 They who've ne'er loved so much may haply 
 think, 
 
 I might have been more wary — ^true ! I might ! — 
 The desert-parched, howe'er, the shipwrecked, driak 
 
 Of the first water meets their straining sight ; 
 Nor stop the stagnant stream to analyse, 
 
 Until their maddening thirst they have allayed ; 
 When the palled stomach at the draught doth 
 rise, 
 
 For which to Heaven in agony they prayed. — 
 So the love-fevered heart, in eager haste. 
 
 Its Circe-cup, doth quaff as gratefully; 
 Sweeter than nectar seeming to the taste : 
 
 But, oh ! the bitter dregs at bottom lie ! — 
 
194 love's lightest step. 
 
 The sun doth never after shine so bright, 
 
 When love hath trusted been and hath deceived !- 
 The heart doth never after feel so light, 
 
 When of Hope's buoyancy it is bereaved ! — 
 The earth a sadder, gloomier, aspect -wears. 
 
 Enlivened not by memory of the past ; 
 And life unto the grave the shadow bears, 
 
 Which, paU-Kke, over it in youth, was cast ! — 
 So near the isthmus, — near the narrow strait. 
 
 Which Heaven connects with this sublunar 
 sphere; 
 Where Love, and all Love doth anticipate 
 
 Is laid by Time upon Affection's bier ; 
 Need I lament the failure of my life ? — 
 
 The loss of that which gave my being fire ? — 
 Which warmed the soul to overcome each strife ; 
 
 From which the ; cold and listless prompt 
 retire ? — 
 
love's lightest step. 195 
 
 Can it now signify, tliat Fate refused 
 
 To crown my hopes ? — ^those boyisli hopes, so fair ! 
 Tbougli "fine the gold" of love, it had been used, 
 
 Beyond a hope its lustre to repair ! — 
 It doth ! it doth ! for pleasure once possest, 
 
 Though gone for ever, is a joy still felt ; 
 Glowing on the piire altar of the breast. 
 
 As setting sun night's clouds with radiance belt ! 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 THE GEEAT GAENEEEE. 
 
 Dread Husbandman ! wlio never dost relax 
 Thy ever-grudging servants still to tax ! — 
 "WTio add'st, eacli instant, to tliy boundless store ; 
 Yet — witb gaunt greedy bands, up gamerest more ! 
 Insatiate cravings rend tby famisbed breast, 
 And Plenty only lends imagined zest 
 Unto tbe Feast, wbicb never satisfies. 
 But, Hke prodigious Wealtb, new wants supplies. 
 Nor cboice, nor dainty tbou, — for tbou canst feed 
 Upon tbe offal of eacb guilty deed ; 
 Partaking, -^tb tbe murderer, of blood. 
 And from tbe gibbet even accepting food ; 
 Yet, — ^nice at times, tbe ricbest, ripest fruit, 
 Tby wisbful, wilful palate wiU but suit ; 
 
THE GREAT OAENEREB. 197 
 
 Seasoned witL. tears, — ^witli frantic prayers, for grace : 
 Lo ! from such, banquet angels turn the face. 
 And Pity, clasping Sorrow to her heart. 
 Looks hopeless on, then slowly dotli depart : 
 Wlule reyelry abhorrent shakes the skies, 
 To whicb Despair for retribution cries. 
 
 Thy Harvest gatherest thou, the whole year round, 
 And for th.e Grave are sheaves perpetual bound ; 
 All seasons are aKke, alas ! to th.ee ; 
 Thou, licensed Purveyor, the tomb dost fee ! — 
 Thou sendest forth thy mowers, mute and grim, 
 When Winter's mists Orion's lustre dim ; 
 When Spring's cold bosom chills the flower it wakes : 
 When Summer's breath parches the rill-fed lakes ; 
 And Autumn's vertical, down-glowing blaze, 
 The herbage bums, till not a kiae can graze. — 
 Yet, yet they reap for tbee, those mowers fell. 
 And labour on unwearied, nor one spell 
 
198 THE GREAT GARNERER. 
 
 Of rest luxurious take from endless toil ; 
 
 While thou, as all unwearied, count'st the spoil. 
 
 The babe ia Vagrant slumber softly lies, 
 
 Which yet the mother's ever-gazing eyes 
 
 With wonder furnishes — as beauties new 
 
 Break on her startled and enraptured view. — 
 
 The babe so yearned for, hoped in, prized, caressed. 
 
 The babe for whom her dreams went oft in quest ; 
 
 For whom each wakeful fancy eager sped : 
 
 Hush! hush! can she believe it ? Hethdead! — 
 
 The Bridegroom-lover presses to his breast 
 
 The wife just made his own, and hath confessed, 
 
 In that low whisper of entranced bliss ; 
 
 (The Heavens do hear, though Earth doth /often 
 
 miss ;) 
 That there is happiness for man below : 
 That this is not a scene of endless woe. — 
 A moiety of Life she cost to win, 
 Yet he now deems his Ufe doth but begin. — 
 
THE GREAT GAENERER. 199 
 
 Then comes a cliange o'er that bright, beaming face, 
 
 A little shadow, yet its cause how trace ? 
 
 A pallor o'er its blush ; a duU, strange look, 
 
 By Love, though' blind, which cannot be mistook ; 
 
 His precious one is drooping, — she will die : — 
 
 The pang of that prophetic agony ! — 
 
 Ah ! frenzied husband ! vainly bar the door ! — 
 
 He'll enter in, — ^he must : — cease to implore ! — 
 
 He but demands his rights— dominion, — ^power, — 
 
 O'er all of Earth, since the disastrous hour 
 
 Sin brought Decay unto each withering thing, 
 
 Which, doomed to die, to life will closer cling. 
 
 'Tis Nature's progress, — Fiat, — destiny ; — 
 Irrevocable — ^bare Humanity ; — 
 It is the summons that's despatched by Fate, 
 Alike for innocent and reprobate ; 
 The love-preserved, — ^the fortune-cast-away, — 
 The household angel, — and the shore- washed stray. 
 
200 THE GREAT GAKNEEER. 
 
 The new-born infant, with ambrosial breath, 
 
 And old decrepit, vassals are of Death. — 
 
 The Conqueror, to be conquered at the last. 
 
 The King, whose kingdom will be of the Past, — 
 
 joy ! a limit's set to one, whose reign 
 
 The boldest awes, and dares him. to disdain ! — 
 
 Yet, — ^who'll survive, to signal his defeat ? 
 
 "With shout triumphant, who his ear will greet ? 
 
 None ? Oh, what none ! Say you, the World will be 
 
 Again a chaos, less vitality ; 
 
 With every vestige of creation fled ; 
 
 " And darkness but the burier of the dead ?" 
 
 — Ttti mortal Man, redeemed from mortal thrall, 
 
 Restored to Sonship with the Sire of All, 
 
 Beholds the generations as they rise, 
 
 New Earths, new Heavens, new Eternities ! 
 
 THE EKD. 
 

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