THE

POETICAL WORKS

OF

MRS. FELICIA HEMANS.

The Forest Sanctuary.

Ihr Platze aller meiner stillen Freuden,
Euch lass ich hinter mir aut immerdar!
So isi des Geistes Ruf an mich ergangen,
Mich treibt nicht eitles, iruisches Verlangen.

Die Jungfrau von Orleans.
Long time against oppression have I fought,
And for the native liberty of faith
Have bled and suffer'd bonds.

Remorse, a Tragedy.

hath power

a

The following Poem is intended to describe the By quenchless longings, to my soul I say, mental conflicts, as well as outward sufferings, of Oh! for the dove's swift wings, that I might filee a Spaniard, who, flying from the religious perse- away, cutions of his own country in the 16th century, takes refuge with his child in a North American

III. forest. The story is supposed to be related by

And find mine ark yet whither ?-I must bear himself amidst the wilderness which has afforded

A yearning heart within me to the grave. him an asylum.

I am of those o'er whom a breath of air

Just darkening in its course the lake's bright I.

wave, The voices of my home !-I hear them still ! And sighing through the feathery canes(1) They have been with me through the dreamy night,

To call up shadows, in the silent hour, The blessed household voices, wont to fill From the dim past, as from a wizard's cave! My heart's clear depths with unalloy'd delight! So must it be !—These skies above me spread, I hear them still, unchang'd:-though some from Are they my own soft skies?–Ye rest not here,

earth Are music parted, and the tones of mirth

IV. Wild, silvery tones, that rang through days more bright!

Ye far amidst the southern flowers lie sleeping, Have died in others,-yet to me they come, Your graves all smiling in the sunshine clear, Singing of boyhood back-the voices of my home! Save one!-a blue, lone, distant main is sweeping

High o'er one gentle head-ye rest not here! II.

'Tis not the olive, with a whisper swaying, They call me through this hush of woods, repo- Not thy low ripplings, glassy water, playing sing

Through my own chesnut groves, which fill In the gray stillness of the summer morn, They wander by when heavy flowers are closing, But the faint echoes in my vreast that dwell, And thoughts grow deep, and winds and stars And for their birth-place moan, as moans the are born;

ocean-shell.(2) E'en as a fount's remember'd gushings burst

V.
On the parch'd traveller in his hour of thirst,
E'en thus they haunt me with sweet sounds, till

Peace !-I will dash these fond regrets to earth,
Ev'n as an eagle shakes the cumbering rain

my dead!

mine ear;

ver:

a

From his strong pinion. Thou that gav'st me For Spain of old.—Yet what if rolling waven birth,

Have borne us far from our ancestral graves! And lineage, and once home,-my native Spain ! Thou shalt not feel thy bursting heart rebel My own bright land—my father's land—ny As mine hath done; nor bear what I have borne, child's !

Casting in falsehood's mould th' indignant brow What hath thy son brought from thee to the

of scorn.
wilds ?
He hath brought marks of torture and the chain,

X.
Traces of things which pass not as a breeze, This shall not be thy lot, my blessed child!
A blighted name, dark thoughts, wrath, wo—thy I have not sorrow'd, struggled, lived in vain-
gifts are these.

Hear me! magnificent and ancient wild;

And mighty rivers, ye that meet the main,
VI.

As deep meets deep; and forests, whose dim
A blighted name!—I hear the winds of morn- shade
Their sounds are not of this !-I hear the shiver The flood's voice, and the wind's by swells per-
Of the green reeds, and all the rustlings, borne vade;
From the high forest, when the light leaves qui- Hear me!—'tis well to die, and not complain,

Yet there are hours when the charged heart must
Their sounds are not of this!-the cedars, wa- speak,
ving,

Ev'n in the desert's ear to pour itself, or break!
Lend it no tone: His wide savannahs laving,
It is not murmur'd by the joyous river !

XI.
What part hath mortal name, where God alone I see an oak before me,(3) it hath been
Speaks to the mighty waste, and through its heart The crown'd one of the woods; and might have
is known?

fung

Its hundred arms to Heaven, still freshly green,
VII.

But a wild vine around the stem hath clung,
Is it not much that I may worship Him,

From branch to branch close wreaths of bond-
With nought my spirit's breathings to control, age throwing,
And feel His presence in the vast, and dim, Till the proud tree, before no tempest bowing,
And whispery woods, where dying thunders roll Hath shrunk and died, those serpent-folds
From the far cataracts ?-Shall I not rejoice

among:
That I have learn'd at last to know His voice Alas! alas !-what is it that I see?
From man's ?-I will rejoice!-my soaring soul An image of man's mind, land of my sires, with

Now hath redeem'd her birth-right of the day, thee! And won, through clouds, to Him, her own unfetter'd way!

XII.

Yet art thou lovely! Song is on thy hills-
VIII.

Oh sweet and mournful melodies of Spain,
And thou, my boy! that silent at my knee That lulld my boyhood, how your memory
Dost lift to mine thy soft, dark earnest eyes,

thrills Filld with the love of childhood, which I see The exile's heart, with sudden-wakening pain! Pure through its depths, a thing without dis- Your sounds are on the rocks—that I might hear guise;

Once more the music of the mountaineer!Thou that hast breath'd in slumber on my And from the sunny vales the shepherd's strain breast,

Floats out, and fills the solitary place
When I have check'd its throbs to give thee rest, With the old tuneful names of Spain's heroic race
Mine own! whose young thoughts fresh before
me rise!

XIII.
Is it not much that I may guide thy prayer, But there was silence one bright, golden day,
And circle thy glad soul with free and healthful Through my own pine-hung mountains. Clear,
air?

yet lone,

In the rich autumn light the vineyards lay,
IX.

And from the fields the peasant's voice was gone;
Why should I weep on thy bright head, my And the red grapes untrodden strew'd the

boy?
Within thy fathers' halls thou wilt not dwell, And the free flocks untended foam'd around:
Nor lift their banner, with a warrior's joy, Where was the pastor ?—where the pipe’s wild
Amidst the sons of mountain chiefs, who fell

tone?

ground,

Music and mirth were hush'd the hills among,

XVIII. While to the city's gates each hamlet pour'd its

It might be that amidst the countless throng, throng.

There swelled some heart with Pity's weight XIV.

oppressed,

For the wide stream of human love is strong Silence upon the mountains!—But within

And woman, on whose fond and faithful breast The city's gates a rush—a press-a swell

Childhood is reared, and at whose knee the sigh Of multitudes their torrent way to win;

Of its first prayer is breathed, she, too, was nigh. And heavy boomings of a dull deep bell,

But life is dear, and the free footstep blessed, A dead pause following each—like that which

And home a sunny place, where each may fill parts

Some eye with glistening smiles, -and therefore The dash of billows, holding breathless hearts

all were still Fast in the hush of fear-knell after knell; And sounds of thickening steps, like thunder

XIX. rain, That plashes on the roof of some vast echoing

All still-youth, courage, strength!—a winter fane!

laid,

A chain of palsy, cast on might and mind! XV.

Still, as at noon a southern forest's shade,

They stood, those breathless masses of mankind; What pageant's hour approach'd !—The sullen

Still, as a frozen torrent!—but the wave gate

Soon leaps to foaming freedom-they, the brave, Of a strong ancient prison-house was thrown

Endured—they saw the martyr's place assigned Back to the day. And who, in mournful state, Came forth, led slowly o'er its threshold-stone ? That numbs each human pulse ?—they saw, and

In the red flames—whence is the withering spell They that had learn'd, in cells of secret gloom, How sunshine is forgotten !—They, to whom

thought it well. The very features of mankind were grown

XX. Things that bewilder'd !-O'er their dazzled sight,

And I, too, thought it well! That very morn They lifted their wan hands, and cower'd before

From a far land I came, yet round me clung the light!

The spirit of my own. No hand had torn

With a strong grasp away the veil which hung XVI.

Between mine eyes and truth. I gazed, 1 saw, To this man brings his brother !-Some were

Dimly, as through a glass. In silent awe

I watched the fearful rites; and if there sprung there, Who with their desolation had entwined

One rebel feeling from its deep founts up, Fierce strength, and girt the sternness of despair

Shuddering, I flung it back, as guilt's own poisonFast round their bosoms, even as warriors bind

сир. The breast-plate on for fight: but brow and cheek

XXI. Seemed theirs a torturing panoply to speak! And there were some, from whom the very mind But I was wakened as the dreamers waken Had been wrung out: they smiled-oh! start- Whom the shrill trumpet and the shriek of dread ling smile

Rouse up at midnight, when their walls are Whence man's high soul is fled !-where doth it taken, sleep the while?

And they must battle till their blood is shed

On their own threshold-floor. A path for light XVII.

Through my torn breast was shattered by the But onward moved the melancholy train,

might For their false creeds in fiery pangs to die.

Of the swift thunder-stroke-and Freedom's

tread This was the solemn sacrifice of Spain

Came in through ruins, late, yet not in vain, Heaven's offering from the land of chivalry!

Making the blighted place all green with life again. Through thousands, thousands of their race they moved

XXII.
Oh! how unlike all others !-the beloved,
The free, the proud, the beautiful! whose eye Still darkly, slowly, as a sullen mass

Grew fixed before them, while a people's breath Of cloud, o'ersweeping, without wind, the sky, Was hushed, and its one soul bound in the thought

Dream-like I saw the sad procession pass, of death!

And marked its victims with a tearless eye.