Forgive me, Freedom! O forgive those dreams!
I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament,
From bleak Helvetia 's3 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 a 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 kind?
To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway, Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey; To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils From freemen torn; to tempt and to betray?
The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game
They burst their manacles and wear the name
Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain!
O Liberty! with profitless endeavour
Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour; 90
But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain nor
Didst breathe thy soul in forms 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.
And visited all night by troops of stars,
O struggling with the darkness all the night,
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? joy,
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
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast—
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
tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise,
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young?—Ah, woeful When!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flashed along:-
with 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.
Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
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
The bees are stirring-birds are on the wing-Oh! come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
Written in 1827: the mournful Ay de mi of a man confronted by age and sickness and looking back over a life of defeated hopes and wasted opportunities.
to dance at our Lochinvar?'
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;
And the bride-maidens whispered "Twere bet-
ter by far
To have matched our fair cousin with young
Lochinvar.'
One touch to her hand and one word in her ear,
When they reached the hall-door, and the
charger stood near;
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
'She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and
scaur;4
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.
There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the
Netherby clan;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode
and they ran:
There was racing and chasing on Cannobie
Lee,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they
So daring in love and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young
Lochinvar ?
FROM THE LADY OF THE LAKE, CANTO III
He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
He witnessed from the mountain's height,
With what old Bertram3 told at night,
Awakened the full power of song,
And bore him in career along;-
As shallop launched on river's tide,
That slow and fearful leaves the side,
But, when it feels the middle stream,
Drives downward swift as lightning's beam.
"The Minstrel came once more to view
The eastern ridge of Benvenue,
For ere he parted, he would say
Farewell to lovely Loch Achray-
Where shall he find, in foreign land,
So lone a lake, so sweet a strand!-
There is no breeze upon the fern,
No ripple on the lake,
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 vawarde 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 hetween Lochs Katrine and Achray.
|