Forgive me, Freedom! O forgive those dreams!
I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament,
From bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent-
I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained
Heroes, that for your peaceful country per-
ished,
And ye, that fleeing, spot your mountain snows
With bleeding wounds; forgive me, that I
One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes!
To scatter rage and traitorous guilt
Where Peace her jealous home had built;
A patriot-race to disinherit
HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE
OF CHAMOUNI*
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again, 10
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,
Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear; Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
And with inexpiable spirit
To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer
O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind,
And patriot only in pernicious toils!
Are these thy boasts, Champion of human
Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee,
(Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee)
Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions,
And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves,
Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipped the Invisible alone.
O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn?
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?
Where may the grave of that good man be?-
By the side of a spring, on the breast of
Helvellyn,1
Under the twigs of a young birch tree!
The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,
And whistled and roared in the winter alone,
Is gone, and the birch in its stead is grown.-
The Knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;-
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
FROM ZAPOLYA, ACT II, SCENE I
A sunny shaft did I behold,
From sky to earth it slanted:
And poised therein a bird so bold-
Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted!
He sunk, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled
Within that shaft of sunny mist;
His eyes of fire, his beak of gold,
All else of amethyst!
And thus he sang: Adieu! adieu!
Love's dreams prove seldom true.
The blossoms they make no delay;
The sparkling dew-drops will not stay.
Sweet month of May,
We must away;
Far far away!
Today! today!
YOUTH AND AGE*
Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee-
Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-point- Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young?-Ah, woeful When!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast-This breathing house not built with hands,
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with
tears,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flashed along:-
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in't together.
1 A mountain in Cumberland.
A first rough draft of this poem was called "Area Spontanea," and the whole still reads like a musical improvisation,
Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O! the joys, that came down shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old? Ah woeful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
'Tis known, that Thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit-
It cannot be that Thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:-
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe, that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size:
But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are house-mates still.
Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life 's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old:
That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismist;
Yet hath out-stay 'd his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.
So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall, Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all:
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their For the poor craven bridegroom said never a
Every sense in slumber dewing.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
The bride kissed the goblet: the knight took |
it up,
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down Dream of fighting fields no more;
the cup.
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to Morn of toil, nor night of waking.
sigh,
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand ere her mother could
bar,-
'Now tread we a measure!' said young Lochinvar.
So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard2 did grace;
While her mother did fret, and her father did
fume,
No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armour's clang, or war-steed champing,
Trump nor pibroch summon here
Mustering clan or squadron tramping.
Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the daybreak from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near,
Guards nor warders challenge here,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnets Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing, and plume;
Shouting clans or squadrons stamping.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;
While our slumbrous spells assail ye,
Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveillé.
Sleep! the deer is in his den;
Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying:
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;
| Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye
They'll have fleet steeds that follow,' quoth Here no bugles sound reveillé. young Lochinvar.
Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber! Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, Thou art gone, and forever!
THE BATTLE OF BEAL' AN DUINE*
FROM THE LADY OF THE LAKE, CANTO VI
The Chieftain reared his form on high,
And fever's fire was in his eye;
But ghastly, pale, and livid streaks
Chequered his swarthy brow and cheeks.
—“Hark, Minstrel! I have heard thee play,
With measure bold, on festal day,
In yon lone isle,-again where ne'er
Shall harper play, or warrior hear!-
That stirring air that peals on high,
O'er Dermid's race1 our victory.-
Strike it!-and then, (for well thou canst,)
Free from thy minstrel-spirit glanced,
Fling me the picture of the fight,
When met my clan the Saxon2 might.
I'll listen, till my fancy hears
The clang of swords, the crash of spears!
These grates, these walls, shall vanish then,
For the fair field of fighting men,
And my free spirit burst away,
As if it soared from battle fray."
The trembling Bard with awe obeyed,-
Slow on the harp his hand he laid;
But soon remembrance of the sight
Upon her eyrie nods the erne, 4
The deer has sought the brake;
The small birds will not sing aloud,
The springing trout lies still,
So darkly glooms yon thunder cloud,
That swathes, as with a purple shroud,
Benledi's distant hill.
Is it the thunder's solemn sound
That mutters deep and dread,
Or echoes from the groaning ground
The warrior's measured tread?
Is it the lightning's quivering glance
That on the thicket streams,
Or do they flash on spear and lance
The sun's retiring beams?—
I see the dagger-crest of Mar,5
I see the Moray's silver star,
Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war,
That up the lake comes winding far!
To hero bounes for battle-strife,
Or bard of martial lay,
'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life, One glance at their array!
"Their light-armed archers far and near 400 Surveyed the tangled ground,
Their centre ranks, with pike and spear,
A twilight forest frowned,
Their barded horsemen, in the rear,
The stern battalias crowned.
No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang,
Still were the pipe and drum;
Save heavy tread, and armour's clang,
The sullen march was dumb.
There breathed no wind their crests to shake,
Or wave their flags abroad;
Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake,
That shadowed o'er their road.
Their vaward scouts no tidings bring,
Can rouse no lurking foe,
Nor spy a trace of living thing,
Save when they stirred the roe;
The host moves, like a deep-sea wave,
Where rise no rocks its pride to brave,
High-swelling, dark, and slow.
The lake is passed, and now they gain
A narrow and a broken plain,
Before the Trosachs '10 rugged jaws:
And here the horse and spearmen pause,
While, to explore the dangerous glen,
Dive through the pass the archer-men.
"At once there rose so wild a yell
Within that dark and narrow dell,
4 eagle
5 A Lowland leader. 6 prepared
7 armed with plate-ar
10 The rough mountains and pass in the Highlands between Lochs Katrine and Ach ray.
|