The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles Vol. 2

HYMN FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE

 
1 Lo! where youth and beauty lie,
Cold within the tomb!
As the spring's first violets die,
Withered in their bloom.
O'er the young and buried bride,
Let the cypress wave:
A kingdom's hope, a kingdom's pride,
Recline in yonder grave.
 
 
2 Place the vain expected child,
Gently, near her breast!
It never wept, it never smiled,
But seeks its mother's rest.
Hark! we hear the general cry!
Hark! the passing bell!
A thousand, thousand bosoms sigh,
A long and last farewell!
 

THE CHILDREN'S HYMN FOR THEIR PATRONESS

 
1 On God, whose eyes are over all,
Who shows to all a father's care,
First, with each voice, we children call,
And humbly raise our daily prayer.
 
 
2 And next, to her, who placed us here,
The path of knowledge to pursue,
(Oh! witness all we have – a tear!)
Our heartfelt gratitude is due.
 
 
3 Our parents, when they draw their breath,
In pain, and to the grave descend,
Shall smile upon the bed of death,
To think their children have a friend.
 
 
4 As slow our infant thoughts expand,
And life unfolds its opening road,
We still shall bless the bounteous hand
That kind protection first bestowed.
 
 
5 And still, with fervour we shall pray,
When she to distant scenes shall go;
That God, in blessing, might repay
The blessings which to her we owe!
 

EASTER DAY

 
1 Who comes (my soul no longer doubt),
Rising from earth's wormy sod,
And whilst ten thousand angels sing,
Ascends – ascends to heaven, a God?
 
 
2 Saviour, Lord, I know thee now!
Mighty to redeem and save,
Such glory blazes on thy brow,
Which lights the darkness of the grave.
 
 
3 Saviour, Lord, the human soul,
Forgotten every sorrow here,
Shall thus, aspiring to its goal,
Triumph in its native sphere.
 

CHRISTMAS HYMN

 
1 Hark! angel voices from the sky
Proclaim a Saviour's birth;
Glory, they sing, to God on high,
Peace and goodwill on earth!
 
 
2 Catch the glad strain, ye seraphs bright!
The glorious tidings spread;
Wake, wake to wonder and to light,
The dark sleep of the dead!
 
 
3 Let the wide earth, from shore to shore,
One loud hosannah raise,
Glory to God, whom we adore,
Glory and hymns of praise!
 

SONG OF THE CID. ¹⁹⁴

 
1 The Cid is sitting, in martial state,
Within Valencia's wall;
And chiefs of high renown attend
The knightly festival.
 
 
2 Brave Alvar Fanez, and a troop
Of gallant men, were there;
And there came Donna Ximena,
His wife and daughters fair.
 
 
3 When the footpage bent on his knee,
What tidings brought he then?
Morocco's king is on the seas,
With fifty thousand men.
 
 
4 Now God be praised! the Cid he cried,
Let every hold be stored:
Let fly the holy Gonfalon,¹⁹⁵
And give, "St James," the word.
 
 
5 And now, upon the turret high,
Was heard the signal drum;
And loud the watchman blew his trump,
And cried, They come! they come!
 
 
6 The Cid then raised his sword on high,
And by God's Mother swore,
These walls, hard-gotten, he would keep,
Or bathe their base in gore.
 
 
7 My wife, my daughter, what, in tears!
Nay, hang not thus your head;
For you shall see how well we fight;
How soldiers earn their bread.
 
 
8 We will go out against the Moors,
And crush them in your sight;
And all the Christians shouted loud,
May God defend the right!
 
 
9 He took his wife and daughter's hand,
So resolute was he,
And led them to the highest tower
That overlooks the sea.
 
 
10 They saw how vast a pagan power
Came sailing o'er the brine;
They saw, beneath the morning light,
The Moorish crescents shine.
 
 
11 These ladies then grew deadly pale,
As heart-struck with dismay;
And when they heard the tambours beat,
They turned their heads away.
 
 
12 The thronged streamers glittering flew,
The sun was shining bright,
Now cheer, the valiant Cid he cried,
This is a glorious sight!
 
 
13 Whilst thus, with shuddering look aghast,
These fearful ladies stood,
The Cid, he raised his sword, and cried,
All this is for your good:
 
 
14 Ere fifteen days are gone and past,
If God assist the right,
Those tambours that now sound to scare,
Shall sound for your delight.
 
 
15 The Moors who pressed beneath the towers,
Now Allah! Allah! sung;
Each Christian knight his broadsword drew,
And loud the trumpets rung.
 
 
16 Then up, the noble Cid bespoke,
Let each brave warrior go,
And arm himself, in dusk of morn,
Ere chanticleer shall crow;
 
 
17 And in the lofty minster church,
On Santiago call, —
That good Bishop Hieronymo,
Shall there absolve you all.
 
 
18 But let us prudent counsel take,
In this eventful hour;
For yon proud infidels, I ween,
They are a mighty power.
 
 
19 Then Alvar Fanez counselled well,
I, noble Cid, will go,
And ambush with three hundred men,
Ere the first cock doth crow:
 
 
20 And when against the Moorish men
You, Cid, lead on your powers,
We, dauntless, on the other side
Will fall on them with ours.
 
 
21 This counsel pleased the Chieftain well:
He said, it should be so;
And the good Bishop should sing mass,
Ere the first cock did crow.
 
 
22 The day is gone, the night is come;
At cock-crow all appear,
In Pedro's church to shrive themselves,
And holy mass to hear:
 
 
23 On Santiago there they called,
To hear them and to save;
And that good Bishop, at the mass,
Great absolution gave.
 
 
24 Fear not, he cried, when thousands bleed,
When horse on man shall roll!
Whoever dies, I take his sins,
And God be with his soul.
 
 
25 A boon! a boon! the Bishop cried,
I have sung mass to-day;
Let me the brunt of battle bear,
Cid, in the bloody fray.
 
 
26 Now Alvar Fanez and his men
Had gained the thicket's shade;
And, with hushed breath and anxious eye,
Had there their ambush laid.
 
 
27 Four thousand men, in glittering arms,
All issued from the gate;
Whilst the bold Cid, before them all,
On Bavieca sate.
 
 
28 They passed the ambush on the left,
And marched o'er dale and down,
Till soon they got the Moorish camp
Betwixt them and the town.
 
 
29 The Cid then spurred his horse, and set
The battle in array.
Pero Bermudez proudly bore
His standard on that day.
 
 
30 When this the Moors astonied saw,
Allah! began their cry:
The tambours beat, the cymbals rung,
As they would rend the sky.
 
 
31 Banner, advance! the Cid he cried,
And raised aloft his sword:
And all the host set up the shout,
St Mary and our Lord!
 
 
32 That good Bishop Hieronymo,
Bravely his battle bore;
And shouted, as he spurred his steed,
For bold Campeador!
 
 
33 The Moorish and the Christian host
Now mix their dying cries;
And many a horse along the plain,
Without his rider flies.
 
 
34 Now sinks the Crescent, now the Cross,
As the fierce hosts assail;
But what against o'erwhelming might
Can valour's self avail?
 
 
35 Campeador, all bathed in blood,
Spurred on his horse amain;
And, Santiago! cried aloud,
For Bivar and for Spain!
 
 
36 Now Alvar Fanez and his men,
Who crouched in thickets low,
Leaped up, and, with the lightning glance,
Rushed, shouting, on the foe.
 
 
37 The Moors, who saw their pennons gay
All waving in the wind,
Fled in dismay, for still they feared,
A greater host behind.
 
 
38 The Crescent falls. Pursue! pursue!
Haste – spur along the plain!
See where they sink – see where they lie,
The fainting and the slain!
 
 
39 Of fifty thousand, who at morn
Came forth in armour bright,
Scarce fifteen thousand souls were left,
To tell the tale at night.
 
 
40 The Cid then wiped his bloody brow,
And thus was heard to say:
Well, Bavieca, hast thou sped,
My noble horse, to-day!
 
 
41 If thousands then escaped the sword,
Let none the Cid condemn;
For they were swept into the sea,
And the surge went over them.
 
 
42 There's many a maid of Tetuan,
All day shall sit and weep,
But never see her lover's sail
Shine on the northern deep.
 
 
43 There's many a mother, with her babe,
Shall pace the sounding shore,
And think upon its father's smile,
Whom she shall see no more.
 
 
44 Rock, hoary ocean, mournfully,
Upon thy billowy bed;
For, dark and deep, thy surges sweep,
O'er thousands of the dead.
 

POEMS, INEDITED, UNPUBLISHED, ETC

THE SANCTUARY: A DRAMATIC SKETCH

In this wise the Duke of Gloucester took upon himself the order and governance of the young King, whom, with much honour and humble reverence, he conveyed towards London. But the tidings of this matter came hastily to the Queen, a little before the midnight following; and that, in secret wise, her son was taken, her brother and other friends arrested, and sent no man wist whither, to be done with God wot what. With which tidings the Queen, with great heaviness, bewailed her child's reign, her friend's mischance, and her own misfortune, damning the time that ever she dissuaded the gathering of powers about the King; got herself, in all haste possible, with her young son and her daughter, out of the palace of Westminster, in which they then lay, into the Sanctuary; lodging herself and company there in the Abbott's place. —Speed's "History of England," book ix.

Scene I

Elizabeth, widow of Edward IV., in the palace of Westminster, watching her youngest son, Richard, sleeping

 
Eliz. The minster-clock tolls midnight; I have watched
Night after night, and heard the same sad sound
Knolling; the same sad sound, night after night;
As if, amid the world's deep silence, Time,
Pausing a moment in his onward flight,
From yonder solitary, moonlit pile,
More awful spoke, as with a voice from heaven,
Of days and hours departed, and of those
That "are not;" till, like dreams of yesterday,
The very echo dies!
Oh, my poor child!
Thou hast been long asleep; by the pale lamp
I sit and watch thy slumbers; thy calm lids
Are closed; thy lips just parted; one hand lies
Upon thy breast, that scarce is seen to heave
Beneath it; and thy breath so still is drawn,
Save to a sleepless mother's listening ear,
It were inaudible; and, see! a smile
Seems even now lighting on thy lip, dear boy,
As thou wert dreaming of delightful things
In some celestial region of sweet sounds,
Or summer fields, and skies without a cloud;
(Ah! how unlike this dark and troubled world!)
Let not one kiss awaken thee, one kiss,
Mingled with tears and prayer to God in heaven.
So dream; and never, never may those eyes
Awake suffused with tears, as mine are now,
To think that life's best hopes are such a dream!
Now sleeps the city through its vast extent,
That, restless as the ocean-waves, at morn,
With its ten thousand voices shall awake,
Lifting the murmur of its multitude
To heaven's still gate! Now all is hushed as death;
None are awake, save those who wake to weep,
Like me; save those who meditate revenge,
Or beckon muttering Murder. God of heaven!
From the hyena panting for their blood,
Oh save my youthful Edward! and, poor child!
Preserve thy innocence to happier hours.
Hark! There is knocking at the western gate.
 
 
A messenger enters, and announces to her that
her brother had been arrested on the road, by
the Duke of Glo'ster.
 
 
Eliz. O my poor child, thou sleepest now in peace!
Wilt thou sleep thus another year? shall I
Hang o'er thee with a mother's look of love,
Thus bend beside thy bed, thus part the hair
Upon thy forehead, and thus kiss thy cheek?
Richard, awake! the tiger is abroad.
We must to sanctuary instantly.
 
 
Richard awaking.
 
 
Rich. Oh! I have had the sweetest dreams, dear mother!
Methought my brother Edward and myself
And —
Eliz. Come, these are no times to talk of dreams;
We must to sanctuary, my poor boy;
We'll talk of dreams hereafter. Kneel with me.
 
 
Takes him from his couch, and kisses him.
 
 
Rich. Mother, why do you weep and tremble so?
Eliz. I have a pain at heart! Come, stir thee, boy!
Lift up thy innocent hands to Heaven; here kneel
And pray with me before this crucifix.
 
 
Her daughters enter, and they all kneel together.
 

Scene II

The Sanctuary at Westminster

 
Rich. O my dear mother! why do we sit here,
Amid these dusky walls and arches dim,
When it is summer in the fields without,
And sunshine? Say, is not my brother king,
Why will he not come here to play with me;
Shall I not see my brother?
 
 
Eliz.           My own child,
Oh! let me hide these tears upon thy head!
Thy brother, shalt thou see him? Yes, I hope.
Come, I will tell a tale: – There was a boy
Who had a cruel uncle —
 
 
Rich.            I have heard
My uncle Glo'ster was a cruel man;
But he was always kind to me, and said
That I should be a king, if Edward died;
I'd rather be a bird to fly away,
Or sing —
 
 
Eliz.           The serpent's eye of fire,
With slow and deadly glare, poor bird, I fear,
Is fixed on thee and Edward – God avert it!
 
 
Rich. And therefore must not I go out to play?
 
 
Eliz. Go, play among the tombs – I will go too;
Go, play with skulls and bones; or see the train
Of sceptred kings come slowly through the gloom,
And widowed queens move in the shroud of death
Along the glimmering aisles and hollow vaults.
Would I were with them – I shall be so soon!
 
 
Rich. Mother, methought I saw him yesterday —
 
 
Eliz. Saw whom?
 
 
Rich.           My father; and he seemed to look —
I cannot say how sadly. Could it be
His spirit? He was armed, but very pale
And sorrowful his countenance. I heard
No sound of footsteps when he moved away
And disappeared among the distant tombs
In further darkness.
 
 
Eliz.           O my son, my son!
Thou hadst a king thy father – he is dead;
Thou hadst been happier as a peasant's child!
Rich. Oh! how I wish I were a shepherd's boy,
For then, dear mother! I would run and play
With Edward; and we two, in primrose-time,
Would wander out among the villages,
Or go a-Maying by some river's side,
And mark the minnow-shoals, when morning shone
Upon the yellow gravel, shoot away
Beneath the old gray arch, or bring home cowslips
For all my sisters, for Elizabeth,
And you, dear mother, if you would not weep so.
 
 
Eliz. Richard, break not my heart; give me your hand,
And kneel with me by this cold monument.
Spirit of my loved husband, now in heaven,
If, at this moment, thou dost see thy son,
And me, thus broken-hearted, – oh! if aught
Yet human touches thee, assist these prayers,
That him, and me, and my poor family,
God, in the hour of peril, may protect!
Let not my heart yet break.
Come, my poor boy!
 

Scene III

The Cardinal of York ¹⁹⁶ —Queen – Richard

 
Eliz. Now, my Lord Cardinal, what is the will
Of our great lords with me? Your Grace well knows
I am a helpless woman, have no power;
My only wish, for what of life remains,
Prayer and repose, and for my poor child here
Safety.
 
 
Car. The Council, madam, wish no less;
But, for your son, they deem his durance here
Breeds ill report. This separation, too,
Of those in blood allied, almost of years
The same, who have been cradled in one lap,
What can it say, but that one brother stands
In peril of the other? And, besides,
Were it not for the comfort of them both
That they should be together? Sport, not care,
Becomes their early years.
 
 
Eliz.           I say not nay;
It is most fitting that my youngest son
Were with the king, his brother; in good faith,
I know it would be comfort to them both:
But, when I think upon the tender years,
Even of the eldest, I must also think
A mother's custody were best for either.
You have no children, else I would not ask,
Is there a guardian like a mother's love?
Richard, look up! This good man here intends
No harm to me or you. Look up, my boy!
No power on earth, nothing but death itself
Shall sever us.
What would you more, my Lord?
 
 
Car. Madam, no man contendeth that your Grace
Is not the fittest guardian of your child,
And tenderest; but, if so it pleases you
Here to lie hid, shut out from all the world,
Be it for humour or for jealousy,
We hold it meetest, that no power on earth
Should so detain a brother of the King.
And let me add, when reasons of the state
Required the absence of your eldest son,
Yourself were well content.
 
 
Eliz.           Not very well;
Nor is the case the same; one was in health,
The other here declines; and let me marvel
That he, the Lord Protector of this realm,
Should wish him out; for, should aught ill betide,
Suspicion, in some tempers, might arise
Against the keeping of his Grace. My Lord,
Do they complain that my child Richard here
Is with his desolate and widowed mother,
Who has no other comfort? Do they claim
His presence, for that here his residence
Consorts not with his fortunes? I am fixed
Not to come forth and jeopardy his life.
 
 
Car. Jeopardy! Where, and how; – why should, indeed,
Your friends have any fears? Can you say why?
 
 
Eliz. Truly; nor why in prison they should be,
As now they are, I know no reason why.
But this I know, that they who, without colour,
Have cast them into prison, if they will,
Their deaths may compass with as little cause.
My Lord, no more of this.
 
 
Car.           My gracious queen,
This only let me say; if, by arrest,
Your Grace's high and honourable kin
Be now confined, when trial has been had,
They shall do well; and for your Grace's self,
There never was, nor can be, jeopardy.
 
 
Eliz. Why should I trust? That I am innocent!
And were they guilty? That I am more loved,
Even by those enemies, who only hate
Them for my sake!
Therefore I will not forth,
Nor shall my son, – here will we both abide.
These shrines shall be the world to him and me;
These monuments our sad companions;
Or when, as now, the morning sunshine streams
Slant from the rich-hued window's height, and rests
On yonder tomb, it shall discourse to me
Of the brief sunshine in the gloom of life.
No, of heaven's light upon the silent grave;
Of the tired traveller's eternal home;
Of hope and joy beyond this vale of tears.
 
 
Car. Then pardon me. We will not bandy words
Further. If it shall please you, generous queen,
To yield your son, I pledge my life and soul,
Not only for a surety, but estate.
If resolutely still you answer no,
We shall forthwith depart, for nevermore
Will I be suitor in this business
Unto your Majesty, who thus accuse,
Either of want of knowledge or of truth,
Those who would stake their lives on the event.
Madam, farewell!
 
 
Eliz. [after a pause]. Stay, let me think again.
If you say sooth – and I have found you ever,
My Lord, a faithful friend and counsellor —
Into your hands I here resign, in trust,
My dearest treasure upon earth, my son.
Of you I will require him, before Heaven;
Yet, for the love which his dead father bore you,
For kindnesses of old, and for that trust
The king, my husband, ever placed in you,
Think, if a wretched mother fear too much,
Oh think, and be you wary, lest you fear
Too little!
My poor child, here then we part!
Richard! Almighty God shower on your head
His blessings, when your mother is no more.
Farewell, my own sweet son! Yet, ere we part,
Kiss me again, God only knows, poor babe,
Whether in this world we shall meet again!
Nay, my boy Richard, let me dry thy tears,
Or hide them in my bosom; dearest child,
God's blessing rest with thee! – farewell, farewell!
My heart is almost broken – oh, farewell!
 

CHILDE HAROLD'S LAST PILGRIMAGE

 
So ends Childe Harold his last pilgrimage!
Above the Malian surge he stood, and cried,
Liberty! and the shores, from age to age
Renowned, and Sparta's woods and rocks, replied,
Liberty! But a spectre at his side
Stood mocking, and its dart uplifting high
Smote him; he sank to earth in life's fair pride:
Sparta! thy rocks echoed another cry,
And old Ilissus sighed, Die, generous exile, die!
 
 
I will not ask sad pity to deplore
His wayward errors, who thus early died;
Still less, Childe Harold, now thou art no more,
Will I say aught of genius misapplied;
Of the past shadows of thy spleen or pride.
But I will bid the Arcadian cypress wave,
Pluck the green laurel from Peneus' side,
And pray thy spirit may such quiet have,
That not one thought unkind be murmured o'er thy grave.
 
 
So ends Childe Harold his last pilgrimage!
Ends in that region, in that land renowned,
Whose mighty genius lives in Glory's page,
And on the Muses' consecrated ground;
His pale cheek fading where his brows were bound
With their unfading wreath! I will not call
The nymphs from Pindus' piny shades profound,
But strew some flowers upon thy sable pall,
And follow to the grave a Briton's funeral.
 
 
Slow move the plumed hearse, the mourning train,
I mark the long procession with a sigh,
Silently passing to that village fane
Where, Harold, thy forefathers mouldering lie;
Where sleeps the mother, who with tearful eye
Pondering the fortunes of thy onward road,
Hung o'er the slumbers of thine infancy;
Who here, released from every human load,
Receives her long-lost child to the same calm abode.
 
 
Bursting Death's silence, could that mother speak,
When first the earth is heaped upon thy head,
In thrilling, but with hollow accent weak,
She thus might give the welcome of the dead:
Here rest, my son, with me – the dream is fled —
The motley mask and the great coil are o'er;
Welcome to me, and to this wormy bed,
Where deep forgetfulness succeeds the roar
Of earth, and fretting passions waste the heart no more.
 
 
Here rest! – on all thy wanderings peace repose,
After the fever of thy toilsome way;
No interruption this long silence knows;
Here no vain phantoms lead the soul astray;
The earth-worm feeds on his unconscious prey:
Here both shall sleep in peace till earth and sea
Give up their dead, at that last awful day,
King, Lord, Almighty Judge! remember me;
And may Heaven's mercy rest, my erring child, on thee!
 

THE EGYPTIAN TOMB

 
Pomp of Egypt's elder day,
Shade of the mighty passed away,
Whose giant works still frown sublime
'Mid the twilight shades of Time;
Fanes, of sculpture vast and rude,
That strew the sandy solitude,
Lo! before our startled eyes,
As at a wizard's wand, ye rise,
Glimmering larger through the gloom!
While on the secrets of the tomb,
Rapt in other times, we gaze,
The Mother Queen of ancient days,
Her mystic symbol in her hand,
Great Isis, seems herself to stand.
 
 
From mazy vaults, high-arched and dim,
Hark! heard ye not Osiris' hymn?
And saw ye not in order dread
The long procession of the dead?
Forms that the night of years concealed,
As by a flash, are here revealed;
Chiefs who sang the victor song;
Sceptred kings, – a shadowy throng, —
From slumber of three thousand years
Each, as in light and life, appears,
Stern as of yore! Yes, vision vast,
Three thousand years have silent passed,
Suns of empire risen and set,
Whose story Time can ne'er forget,
Time, in the morning of her pride
Immense, along the Nile's green side,
The City¹⁹⁷ of the Sun appeared,
And her gigantic image reared.
 
 
As Memnon, like a trembling string
When the sun, with rising ray,
Streaked the lonely desert gray,
Sent forth its magic murmuring,
That just was heard, – then died away;
So passed, O Thebes! thy morning pride!
Thy glory was the sound that died!
Dark city of the desolate,
Once thou wert rich, and proud, and great!
This busy-peopled isle was then
A waste, or roamed by savage men
Whose gay descendants now appear
To mark thy wreck of glory here.
 
 
Phantom of that city old,
Whose mystic spoils I now behold,
A kingdom's sepulchre, oh say,
Shall Albion's own illustrious day,
Thus darkly close! Her power, her fame
Thus pass away, a shade, a name!
The Mausoleum murmured as I spoke;
A spectre seemed to rise, like towering smoke;
It answered not, but pointed as it fled
To the black carcase of the sightless dead.
Once more I heard the sounds of earthly strife,
And the streets ringing to the stir of life.
 

CHANTREY'S SLEEPING CHILDREN

 
Look at those sleeping children; softly tread,
Lest thou do mar their dream, and come not nigh
Till their fond mother, with a kiss, shall cry,
'Tis morn, awake! awake! Ah! they are dead!
Yet folded in each other's arms they lie,
So still – oh, look! so still and smilingly,
So breathing and so beautiful, they seem,
As if to die in youth were but to dream
Of spring and flowers! Of flowers? Yet nearer stand —
There is a lily in one little hand,
Broken, but not faded yet,
As if its cup with tears were wet.
So sleeps that child, not faded, though in death,
And seeming still to hear her sister's breath,
As when she first did lay her head to rest
Gently on that sister's breast,
And kissed her ere she fell asleep!
The archangel's trump alone shall wake that slumber deep.
Take up those flowers that fell
From the dead hand, and sigh a long farewell!
Your spirits rest in bliss!
Yet ere with parting prayers we say,
Farewell for ever to the insensate clay,
Poor maid, those pale lips we will kiss!
Ah! 'tis cold marble! Artist, who hast wrought
This work of nature, feeling, and of thought;
Thine, Chantrey, be the fame
That joins to immortality thy name.
For these sweet children that so sculptured rest —
A sister's head upon a sister's breast —
Age after age shall pass away,
Nor shall their beauty fade, their forms decay.
For here is no corruption; the cold worm
Can never prey upon that beauteous form:
This smile of death that fades not, shall engage
The deep affections of each distant age!
Mothers, till ruin the round world hath rent,
Shall gaze with tears upon the monument!
And fathers sigh, with half-suspended breath:
How sweetly sleep the innocent in death!
 

July 2, 1826.

ON MISS FITZGERALD AND LORD KERRY PLANTING TWO CEDARS IN THE CHURCHYARD OF BREMHILL

 
Yes, Pamela, this infant tree
Planted in sacred earth by thee,
Shall strike its root, and pleasant grow
Whilst I am mouldering dust below.
This churchyard turf shall still be green,
When other pastors here are seen,
Who, gazing on that dial gray,
Shall mourn, like me, life's passing ray.
What says its monitory shade?
Thyself so blooming, now shalt fade;
And even that fair and lightsome boy,
Elastic as the step of joy,
The future lord of yon domain,
And all this wide extended plain,
Shall yield to creeping time, when they
Who loved him shall have passed away.
Yet, planted by his youthful hand,
The fellow-cedar still shall stand,
And when it spreads its boughs around,
Shading the consecrated ground,
He may behold its shade, and say
(Himself then haply growing gray),
Yes, I remember, aged tree,
When I was young who planted thee!
But long may time, blithe maiden, spare
Thy beaming eyes and crisped hair,
Thy unaffected converse kind,
Thy gentle and ingenuous mind.
For him when I in dust repose,
May virtue guide him as he grows;
And may he, when no longer young,
Resemble those from whom he sprung!
Then let these trees extend their shade,
Or live or die, or bloom or fade,
Virtue, uninjured and sublime,
Shall lift her brightest wreath, untouched by time.
 

THE GREENWICH PENSIONERS

 
When evening listened to the dipping oar,
Forgetting the loud city's ceaseless roar,
By the green banks, where Thames, with conscious pride,
Reflects that stately structure on his side,
 
 
Within whose walls, as their long labours close,
The wanderers of the ocean find repose,
We wore, in social ease, the hours away,
The passing visit of a summer's day.
 
 
Whilst some to range the breezy hill are gone,
I lingered on the river's marge alone,
Mingled with groups of ancient sailors gray,
And watched the last bright sunshine steal away.
 
 
As thus I mused amidst the various train
Of toil-worn wanderers of the perilous main,
Two sailors, – well I marked them, as the beam
Of parting day yet lingered on the stream,
And the sun sank behind the shady reach, —
Hastened with tottering footsteps to the beach.
 
 
The one had lost a limb in Nile's dread fight;
Total eclipse had veiled the other's sight,
For ever. As I drew, more anxious, near,
I stood intent, if they should speak, to hear;
But neither said a word. He who was blind,
Stood as to feel the comfortable wind,
That gently lifted his gray hair – his face
Seemed then of a faint smile to wear the trace.
 
 
The other fixed his gaze upon the light,
Parting, and when the sun had vanished quite,
Methought a starting tear that Heaven might bless,
Unfelt, or felt with transient tenderness,
Came to his aged eyes, and touched his cheek!
And then, as meek and silent as before,
Back, hand in hand, they went, and left the shore.
 
 
As they departed through the unheeding crowd,
A caged bird sang from the casement loud,
And then I heard alone that blind man say,
The music of the bird is sweet to-day!
 
 
I said, O heavenly Father! none may know
The cause these have for silence or for woe!
Here they appeared heartstricken and resigned
Amidst the unheeding tumult of mankind.
 
 
There is a world, a pure unclouded clime,
Where there is neither grief, nor death, nor time,
Nor loss of friends! Perhaps when yonder bell
Pealed slow, and bade the dying day farewell,
Ere yet the glimmering landscape sank to night,
They thought upon that world of distant light!
And when the blind man, lifting light his hair,
Felt the faint wind, he raised a warmer prayer;
Then sighed, as the blithe bird sang o'er his head,
No morn shall shine on me till I am dead!