For these most bloom where rests the war-To-morrow for the Mooa we depart, But not to-night-to-night is for the heart. And we will sit in twilight's face, and see Again bestow the wreaths we gently woo, The sweet moon glancing through the tooa-Ye young enchantresses of gay Licoo!
The lofty accents of whose sighing bough Shall sadly please us as we lean below; Or climb the steep, and view the surf in vain Wrestle with rocky giants o'er the main, Which spurn in columns back the baffled spray.
How beautiful are these! how happy they, Who, from the toil and tumult of their lives, Steal to look down where nought but Ocean strives!
Even he too loves at times the blue lagoon,
And smoothes his ruffled mane beneath the
Yes-from the sepulchre we'll gather flowers,
Then feast like spirits in their promised bowers,
Then plunge and revel in the rolling surf, Then lay our limbs along the tender turf, And, wet and shining from the sportive toil, Anoint our bodies with the fragrant oil, And plait our garlands gather'd from the
And wear the wreaths that sprung from out the brave.
But lo! night comes, the Mooa woos us back, The sound of mats is heard along our track; Anon the torchlight-dance shall fling its sheen
In flashing mazes o'er the Marly's green; And we too will be there; we too recal The memory bright with many a festival, Ere Fiji blew the shell of war, when foes For the first time were wafted in canoes. Alas! for them the flower of mankind bleeds; Alas! for them our fields are rank with weeds:
Forgotten is the rapture, or unknown. Of wandering with the moon and love alone. But be it so they taught us how to wield The club, and rain our arrows o'er the field; Now let them reap the harvest of their art! But feast to-night! to-morrow we depart. Strike up the dance, the cava-bowl fill high, Drain every drop!-to-morrow we may die. In summer-garments be our limbs array'd; Around our waists the Tappa's white dis- play'd;
Thick wreaths shall form our Coronal, like Spring's, And round our necks shall glance the Hooni- strings; So shall their brighter hues contrast the glow
Of the dusk bosoms that beat high below.
But now the dance is o'er – yet stay awhile; Ah, pause! nor yet put out the social smile.
How lovely are your forms! how every sense Bows to your beauties, soften'd, but intense, Like to the flowers on Mataloco's steep, Which fling their fragrance far athwart the deep:
We too will see Licoo; but-oh! my heart-What do I say? to-morrow we depart.
Such was this ditty of Tradition's days, Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys In song, where Fame as yet hath left no sign Beyond the sound, whose charm is half divine;
Which leaves no record to the sceptic eye, But yields young History all to harmony; A boy Achilles, with the Centaur's lyre In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire. For one long-cherish'd ballad's simple stave, Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave,
Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side, Or gathering mountain-echoes as they glide, Hath greater power o'er each true heart
Than all the columns Conquest's minions
And sweetly now those untaught melodies | Restore their surface, in itself so still,
Broke the luxurious silence of the skies, The sweet siesta of a summer-day, The tropic afternoon of Toobonai, When every flower was bloom, and air was balm,
And the first breath began to stir the palm, The first yet voiceless wind to urge the wave All gently to refresh the thirsty cave, Where sat the songstress with the stranger boy,
Who taught her passion's desolating joy, Too powerful over every heart, but most O'er those who know not how it may be lost; O'er those who, burning in the new-born fire, Like martyrs revel in their funeral pyre, With such devotion to their ecstasy, That life knows no such rapture as to die: And die they do; for earthly life has nought Match'd with that burst of nature, even in thought;
And all our dreams of better life above But close in one eternal gush of love.
O'er her clear nut-brown skin a lucid hue,
Which draws the diver to the crimson cave.
Until the earthquake tear the Naiad's cave, Root up the spring and trample on the wave, And crush the living waters to a mass, The amphibious desart of the dank morass! And must their fate be hers? The eternal change
But grasps humanity with quicker range; And they who fall,but fall as worlds will fall, To rise, if just, a spirit o'er them all.
And who is he? the blue-eyed northern child
Of isles more known to man, but scarce less wild;
The fair-hair'd offspring of the Hebrides, Where roars the Pentland with its whirling Rock'd in his cradle by the roaring wind, The tempest-born in body and in mind, His young eyes opening on the ocean-foam, Had from that moment deem'd the deep his home,
The giant comrade of his pensive moods, The only Mentor of his youth, where'er The sharer of his craggy solitudes, His bark was borne; the sport of wave and air; A careless thing, who placed his choice in chance,
Nursed by the legends of his land's romance, Eager to hope, but not less firm to bear, Acquainted with all feelings save despair. Placed in the Arab's clime, he would have been
As bold a rover as the sands have seen, And braved their thirst with as enduring lip Fix'd upon Chili's shore, a proud Cacique; On Hellas' mountains, a rebellious Greck; Born in a tent, perhaps a Tamerlane; Bred to a throne, perhaps unfit to reign. For the same soul that rends its path to sway,
As Ismael, wafted on his desart-ship ;
Like coral reddening through the darken'd If rear'd to such, can find no further prey Beyond itself, and must retrace its way, Plunging for pleasure into pain; the same Such was this daughter of the Southern Seas, Spirit which made a Nero Rome's worst Herself a billow in her energies, To bear the bark of others' happiness, Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less: Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knew No joy like what it gave; her hopes ne'er
Aught from experience, that chill touch- stone, whose
Sad proof reduces all things from their hues: She fear'd no ill, because she knew it not, Or what she knew was soon--too soon- forgot:
Her smiles and tears had pass'd, as light winds pass O'er lakes, to ruffle, not destroy, their glass, Whose depths unsearch'd, and fountains from the hill,
A humbler state and discipline of heart Had form'd his glorious namesake's counterpart:
But grant his vices, grant them all his own,
How small their theatre without a throne!
Thou smilest,-these comparisons seem
high To those who scan all things with dazzled eye; Link'd with the unknown name of one whose doom
Has nought to do with glory or with Rome, With Chili, Hellas, or with Araby, Thou smilest?-Smile; 'tis better thus than sigh:
The chase, the race, the liberty to roam, The soil where every cottage show'd a home;
Yet such he might have been; he was a man, Which seem'd so white in climes that knew A soaring spirit ever in the van, A patriot hero or despotic chief, To form a nation's glory or its grief, Born under auspices which make us more Or less than we delight to ponder o'er. But these are visions; say, what was he here? A blooming boy, a truant mutineer, The fair-hair'd Torquil, free as Ocean's spray,
The husband of the bride of Toobonai.
In vast canoes, begirt with bolts of flame, Topp'd with tall trees, which, loftier than the palm,
Seem'd rooted in the deep amidst its calm; But, when the winds awaken'd shot forth wings
Broad as the cloud along the horizon flings, And sway'd the waves, like cities of the sea, Making the very billows look less free;- She, with her paddling oar and dancing prow,
Shot through the surf,like rein-deer through
Swift-gliding o'er the breakers' whitening edge,
Light as a Nereid in her ocean-sledge, And gazed and wonder'd at the giant hulk Which heaved from wave to wave its tramp- ling bulk:
The anchor dropp'd, it lay along the deep, Like a huge lion in the sun asleep, While round it swarm'd the proas' flitting chain,
Like summer-bees that hum around his
The white man landed; need the rest be told?
The New World stretch'd its dusk hand to the Old;
Each was to each a marvel, and the tie Of wonder warm'd to better sympathy. Kind was the welcome of the sun-born sires, And kinder still their daughters' gentler fires, Their union grew: the children of the
Found beauty link'd with many a dusky form;
The sea-spread net, the lightly-launch'd
Which stemm'd the studded Archipelago, O'er whose blue bosom rose the starry isles; The healthy slumber, earn'd by sportive toils;
The palm, the loftiest Dryad of the woods, Within whose bosom infant Bacchus broods, While eagles scarce build higher than the
Which shadows o'er the vineyard in her breast;
The cava feast, the yam, the cocoa's root, Which bears at once the cup, and milk, and fruit;
The bread-tree, which, without the plough- share, yields The unreaped harvest of unfurrowed fields, And bakes its unadulterated loaves Without a furnace in unpurchased groves, And flings off famine from its fertile breast, A priceless market for the gathering guest; – These, with the luxuries of seas and woods, Tamed each rude wanderer to the sympathies The airy joys of social solitudes, Of those who were more happy if less wise, And civilized civilization's son ! Did more than Europe's discipline had done,
Neuha and Torquil were not the least fair: Both children of the isles, though distant far; Both born beneath a sea-presiding star; Both nourish'd amidst Nature's native scenes,
Lov'd to the last whatever intervenes Between us and our childhood's sympathy, Which still reverts to what first caught the eye.
He who first met the Highland's swelling blue,
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue, Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face, And clasp the mountain in his mind's em- brace. Long have I roam'd through lands which are not mine, Adored the Alp and loved the Apennine, Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep: But 'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all Their nature held me in their thrilling thrall;
The infant-rapture still survived the boy, And Loch-na-gar with Ida look'd o'er Troy, Mix'd Celtic memories with the Phrygian mount,
And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount.
While these in turn admired the paler glow, Forgive me, Homer's universal shade!
Forgive me, Phœbus! that my fancy stray'd; The North and Nature taught me to adore Your scenes sublime, from those beloved before.
The love which maketh all things fond and fair, The youth which makes one rainbow of the air,
The dangers past, that make even man enjoy The pause in which he ceases to destroy, The mutual beauty, which the sternest feel Strike to their hearts like lightning to the steel,
United the half savage and the whole, The maid and boy, in one absorbing soul. No more the thundering memory of the fight Wrapp'd his wean'd bosom in its dark delight;
No more the irksome restlessness of Rest Disturb'd him like the eagle in her nest, Whose whetted beak and far-pervading eye Darts for a victim over all the sky; His heart was tamed to that voluptuous state,
At once Elysian and effeminate, Which leaves no laurels o'er the hero's urn; - These wither when for aught save blood they burn;
Yet, when their ashes in their nook are laid, Doth not the myrtle leave as sweet a shade? Had Cæsar known but Cleopatra's kiss, Rome had been free, the world had not been his.
And what haveCæsar's deeds andCæsar's fame Done for the earth? We feel them in our shame :
The gory sanction of his glory stains The rust which tyrants cherish on our chains.
Though Glory, Nature, Reason, Freedom,bid Roused millions do what single Brutus did, Sweep these mere mock-birds of the despot's
But still expanding lovelier o'er the sky, Howe'er its arch may swell, its colours move, The cloud-compelling harbinger of Love.
Here, in this grotto of the wave-worn
shore, They pass'd the Tropic's red meridian o'er; Nor long the hours-they never paused o’er time,
Unbroken by the clock's funereal chime, Which deals the daily pittance of our span, And points and mocks with iron-laugh at man. What deem'd they of the future or the past? The present, like a tyrant, held them fast: Their hour-glass was the sea-sand, and the tide,
Like her smooth billow, saw their moments glide;
Their clock the Sun, in his unbounded tower; They reckon'd not, whose day was but an hour;
The nightingale, their only vesper-bell, Sung sweetly to the rose the day's farewell; The broad Sun set, but not with lingering
sweep, As in the North he mellows o'er the deep, But fiery, full, and fierce, as if he left The world for ever, earth of light bereft, Plunged with red forehead down along the
As dives a hero headlong to his grave. Then rose they, looking first along the skies,
And then for light into each other's eyes, Wondering that summer show'd so brief
And asking if indeed the day were done?
And let not this seem strange; the devotee Lives not in earth, but in his extasy; Around him days and worlds are heedless
His soul is gone before his dust to heaven. Is love less potent? No-his path is trod, Alike uplifted gloriously to GOD; Or link'd to all we know of heaven below, The other better self, whose joy or woe Which, kindled by another, grows the same, Is more than ours; the all-absorbing flame Wrapt in one blaze; the pure, yet funeral pile,
Where gentle hearts, like Bramins, sit and smile.
How often we forget all time, when lone, Admiring Nature's universal throne, Her woods, her wilds, her waters, the intense Reply of hers to our intelligence! Live not the stars and mountains? Are the
Without a spirit? Are the dropping caves Without a feeling in their silent tears? No, no;-they woo and clasp us to their spheres,
Dissolve this clog and clod of clay before
Its hour, and merge our soul in the great | Borne from a short frail pipe, which yet had blown
Its gentle odours over either zone, And, puff'd where'er winds rise or waters roll, Had wafted smoke from Portsmouth to the Pole,
Strip off this fond and false identity!- Who thinks of self, when gazing on the sky? And who,though gazing lower,ever thought, In the young moments ere the heart is taught Time's lesson, of man's baseness or his own? Opposed its vapour as the lightning flash'd, All Nature is his realm, and Love his throne. And reek'd, 'midst mountain-billows un- abash'd, To Eolus a constant sacrifice, Through every change of all the varying
Neuha arose, and Torquil: twilight's hour Came sad and softly to their rocky bower, Which, kindling by degrees its dewy spars, Echo'd their dim light to the mustering stars. Slowly the pair, partaking Nature's calm, Sought out their cottage, built beneath the palm;
Now smiling and now silent, as the scene; Lovely as Love-the spirit! when serene. The Ocean scarce spoke louder with his
And what was he who bore it?—I may err, But deem him sailor or philosopher. Sublime tobacco! which from east to west Cheers the Tar's labour or the Turkman's rest;
Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides His hours, and rivals opium and his brides; Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand, Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand;
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe, When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe;
Like other charmers, wooing the caress More dazzlingly when daring in full dress; Yet thy true lovers more admire by far Thy naked beauties-Give me a cigar!
Through the approaching darkness of the wood A human figure broke the solitude, Fantastically, it may be, array'd, A seaman in a savage masquerade; Such as appears to rise out from the deep, When o'er the Line the merry vessels sweep, And the rough Saturnalia of the Tar Flock o'er the deck,inNeptune's borrow'd car; And, pleased, the God of Ocean sees his name Revive once more, though but in mimic game
of his true sons, who riot in a breeze Still the old god delights, from out the Undreamt of in his native Cyclades.
Those best and earliest lyres of harmony, With echo for their chorus; nor the alarm Of the loud war-whoop to dispel the charm; Nor the soliloquy of the hermit owl, Exhaling all his solitary soul, The dim though large-eyed winged ancho-To snatch some glimpses of his ancient reign. Our sailor's jacket, though in ragged trim, His constant pipe, which never yet burn'd
Who peals his dreary pæan o'er the night;- But a loud, long, and naval whistle, shrill As ever startled through a sea-bird's bill; And then a pause, and then a hoarse "Hillo! Torquil! my boy! what cheer? Ho, brother,
“Who hails?” cried Torquil, following with his eye The sound. "Here's one," was all the brief
But here the herald of the self-same mouth Came breathing o'er the aromatic south, Not like a "bed of violets" on the gale, But such as wafts its cloud o'er grog or ale,
His foremast air, and somewhat rolling gait, Like his dear vessel, spoke his former state; But then a sort of kerchief round his head,
Not over tightly bound, nor nicely spread; For even the mildest woods will have their And 'stead of trowsers (ah! too early to! thorn)
A curious sort of somewhat scanty mat Now served for inexpressibles and hat; His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt face, Perchance might suit alike with either race. His arms were all his own, our Europe's growth, Which two worlds bless for civilizing both;
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