Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L E L)
Poems published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books - 4
MATLOCK
TO THE MEMORY OF A FAVOURITE CHILD (THE DAUGHTER OF A FRIEND) WHO DIED THERE
HER voice is on the haunted air,
Her face is in the scene;
To me there is no other trace
But where her steps have been.
Not with the passionate despair
With which I turned from Heaven,
And asked how could it take again
The treasure it had given;
Not with that earlier wild despair,
Now gaze I upon earth and air.
A meeker sorrow now subdues
The soul that looks above,
Soothed by the sanctity that dwells
Around departed love.
I do not grieve as once I grieved,
When by thy funeral stone
I flung me in my first despair,
And knew I was alone.
Gradual thy God has given me
To know this world was not for thee.
Thy angel-nature was not made
For struggle or for care;
Thou wert too gentle and too good
For Heaven long to spare.
Thou wert but sent a little while
To soothe and to sustain;
The angels missed thee from their band
And asked for thee again:
But not till thou hadst given birth
To many a holy thought on earth.
Thy influence is with me still,
My own beloved child;
For thy sake hath my spirit grown
Calm--hopeful--strong, yet mild.
I look to heaven as to thy home,
And feel that there must be—
So deep the tie that draws me there—
Some lowly place for me.
The faith that springeth from the tomb
Nor mortal fears nor doubts consume.
I think upon thy early years
Not as I used to think,
With bitterness and vain regret,
And hopes that sprang to shrink,
But with a solemn fond belief
That we shall meet again:
Thy piety--thy sweet content—
Could never be in vain;
Taken alike wert thou, and given,
To win thy kindred unto heaven.
It was the lovely autumn time
When hither thou wert brought;
Not for the lovely scenes around,
But for thy health we sought.
For there was in thy large blue eyes
Too beautiful a light,
And on thy young transparent cheek
The rose was over-bright;
And the clear temples showed too plain
The branching of each azure vein
Too soon we saw it was in vain
That we had brought thee here:
For every day thou weft more weak,
And every day more dear.
Thy hand--how white and small that hand!—
Could scarcely hold the flowers
Which yet were brought thee, with the dew
Of early morning hours.
I seem to look upon them now—
Yet, where are they?—and where art thou?—
Where art thou?—if I dare to ask,
'Tis more with hope than fear;
In every high and tender thought
I seem to feel thee near.
I gaze upon the silent stars,
While lone and still they shine,
As each one were a spirit's home,
And ask, Which home is thine?
I feel as if thy tranquil eyes
Were watching earth from yonder skies.
God bless thee! my beloved child,
As thou hast blessed me;
Faith, hope, and love, beyond the grave
Have been thy gifts to me.
For thy sake dare I look above,
For thy sake wait below,
Trusting with humble confidence,
And patient in my wo.
To me thy early grave appears
An altar for my prayers and tears.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
Matlock and its vicinity, on the banks of the Derwent, in Derbyshire, are celebrated for their thermal springs, and romantic scenery. The waters, which resemble those of Clifton, were discovered in 1698, and are useful in rheumatic affections, and incipient consumption. The “Heights of Abraham” are a pile of picturesque rocks, in the fissures of which the roots of the most luxuriant trees are able to find sufficient nourishment. The beautiful mineral, called Derbyshire spar, from which vases and chimney ornaments are formed, is obtained here.
MILLER'S DALE, DERBYSHIRE
Do you remember, Love, the lake
We used to meet beside ?
The only sound upon the air,
The ripples on the tide.
Do you remember, Love, the hour
When first the moonbeam shone,
Rising above the distant hills,
We used to meet alone.
You knew not then my rank and state,
You only knew my love,
Whose gentle witness was the moon,
That watched us from above.
The valley, silvered with her light,
Was lovely as a shrine ;
The truth within that young fresh heart
Felt there was truth in mine.
You are a Countess now, sweet Love,
And dwell in stately halls ;
The red gold shines upon the board,
The silk upon the walls.
A thousand watch my Lady's eye,
The minstrel sings her name ;
None were so fair at Henry's court,
Where all the fairest came.
For the soft moonshine's rising light,
The pearls are on your brow :
Now, were you, lovely Ladye mine,
The happiest then, or now !
" Nor lake, nor castle," soft she said,
" Have any choice of mine ;
I know in life one only lot,
So long as I am thine !"
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838
The Miller's Dale is one of the most picturesque passages in the interesting valley of the Wye. It extends, for about two miles, in a direction south-east from Wormhill Village, and the colouring of the landscape is diversified by the appearance of loadstone and tufa intersecting the strata of this limestone district. The river, which is pent up within a narrow chasm beneath the mills*, appears to rejoice at its release, as it quietly expands into a more ample stream, and glides leisurely away. This delightful dale abounds in scenes that soothe and tranquillize the mind. The stream is never turbulent, never still ; though in some places the huge branches of the gnarled oak, or a weather-beaten elm, shoot from a fissure in the rock above, in a manner that Salvator would adopt ; yet the light and graceful foliage with which it is accompanied, subdues every feature of wildness, and softens down the whole to beauty. When darkness pervades the Dale, and the many windows are lighted up, and not even the outline of the buildings is to be traced against the dark mountains, fancy may take it for an illuminated palace raised by the magician's power.
* sic, but probably a misprint for 'hills'
o you remember, Love, the lake
THE MISSIONARY
It is a glorious task to seek,
Where misery droops the patient head :
Where tears are on the widow's cheek,
Where weeps the mourner o'er the dead.
These are the moments when the heart
Turns from a world no longer dear;
These are the moments to impart
The only hope still constant here.
That hope is present in our land,
For many a sacred shrine is there ;
Time-honoured old cathedrals stand ;*
Each village has its house of prayer.
O'er all the realm one creed is spread—
One name adored—one altar known :
If souls there be in doubt, or dread,
Alas ! the darkness is their own.
The priest whose heart is in his toil
Hath here a task of hope and love ;
He dwells upon his native soil,
He has his native sky above.
Not so beneath this foreign sky ;
Not so upon this burning strand ;
Where yonder giant temples lie, **
The miracles of mortal hand.
Mighty and beautiful, but given
To idols of a creed profane ;
That cast the shade of earth on heaven,
By fancies monstrous, vile, and vain.
The votary here must half unlearn
The accents of his mother-tongue ;
Must dwell 'mid strangers, and must earn
Fruits from a soil reluctant wrung.
His words on hardened hearts must fall,
Harden'd till God's appointed hour ;
Yet he must wait, and watch o'er all,
Till hope grows faith, and prayer has power.
And many a grave neglected lies,
Where sleep the soldiers of the Lord ;
Who perish'd 'neath the sultry skies,
Where first they preached that sacred word.
But not in vain—their toil was blest;
Life's dearest hope by them was won ;
A blessing is upon their rest,
And on the work which they begun.
Yon city,*** where our purer creed
Was as a thing unnamed, unknown,
Has now a sense of deeper need,
Has now a place of prayer its own.
And many a darken'd mind has light,
And many a stony heart has tears;
The morning breaking o'er that night,
So long upon those godless spheres.
Our prayers be with them—we who know
The value of a soul to save,
Must pray for those, who seek to show
The Heathen Hope beyond the grave.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834
*** Cawnpore.—“ At this place, the excellent missionary, Henry Martyn, laboured for some months, in the years 1809 and 1810, both among the Europeans in the cantonments, and among the natives in the town. In the life of Martyn there is an account of his first effort to preach the gospel publicly to a mixture of the Hindoos and Mohammedans at Cawnpore. This attempt to make the word of God known to these people, seems to have had a peculiar blessing upon it ; and at times he drew together a congregation of eight hundred souls, who frequently burst into loud applause at what he said. Surely, the word of the Lord shall not return to him void.”—Elliot.
* The Cathedral of Exeter.
** Triad Figure. Interior of Elephanta.—" The figure that faces the entrance is the most remarkable in this excavation, and has given rise to numberless conjectures and theories. It is a gigantic bust of some three-headed being, or the three heads of some being to whom the temple may be supposed to be dedicated. Some writers have imagined that it is, what they have called the Hindoo Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva ; and very strange historical conclusions have been deduced from this hypothesis. The Hindoo Trimurti, or Trinity, as it has been called, does not occupy a very remarkable place in the theology of the Brahmins ; the word Trimurti means three forms, and is applied to any three-headed figure."—Elliot.
THE MISSIONARY’S WIFE
NOT through the quiet shadows of our vale
Have I pursued thy path—thy God’s and thine;
Not where the violet rises on the gale—
Not where the green fields in the summer shine.
White was our little dwelling, and around
Were kindred, ancient friends, and countrymen;
Not often did it know a ruder sound
Than when the childlike brook laughed through the glen.
We left our country, and we left our home,
For other stranger lands beyond the sea,
Thou, at the bidding of thy God, to roam,
Strong in thy faith—and I to follow thee.
The wild woods heard our voices, and the name
Of the Redeemer, till that hour unknown-—
Praises and prayers amid the desert came,
Stirring its depths with their eternal tone.
Men who till then had never known the voice
Which murmured at their hearts of awe and fear,
Now knew it called upon them to rejoice,
And felt the presence of their God was near.
Has not the rosy morning heard our hymn,
Heralding in the labours of the day?
And when the twilight’s purple shades were dim
Our tasks were closed with words that praise and pray.
Be this the omen of all coming time,
So spread Thy word from rise to set of sun—
Till the one God be known from clime to clime,
And the great work of Christian love be done.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1841
THE MONTMORENCY WATERFALL AND CONE
We do not ask for the leaves and flowers
That laugh as they look on the summer hours ;
Let the violets shrink and sigh,
Let the red rose pine and die :
The sledge is yoked, away we go,
Amid the firs, o'er the soundless snow.
Lo ! the pine is singing its murmuring song,
Over our heads as we pass alone; ;
And every bough with pearl is hung,
Whiter than those that from ocean sprung.
The sledge is yoked, away we go,
Amid the firs, o'er the soundless snow.
The ice is bright with a thousand dyes
Like the changeful light in a beauty's eyes.
Now it weareth her blush, and now
It weareth the white of her marble brow.
The sledge is yoked, and away we go,
Beneath the firs, o'er the soundless snow.
We are wrapped with ermine and sable round,
By the Indian in trackless forests found ;
The sunbeams over the white world shine,
And we carry with us the purple wine.
The sledge is yoked, and away we go,
Beneath the firs, o'er the soundless snow.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
e do not ask for the leaves and flowers
THE MOSQUE AT CORDOVA
Round the purple shadow
Of the twilight falls
O'er the sculptured marble
Of Cordova's walls.
Scarcely is the present seen,
Thinking over what has been —
Over the crowned glories,
Told in ancient stories,
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Dark across the waters
Came the gathered power,
Guided by Count Julian
In an evil hour.
Castled height and wooded dell,
Knew the armed infidel.
Maidens in the orange bowers,
Knights within their armed towers,
Owned the Moslem rule in Spain.
Stately rose their city —
Many towns are fair,
None rose like Granada
In the morning air.
There the Moorish princes swayed
Empire which themselves had made.
Like a dream their memory dwells
Where the carved marble tells
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Mighty was the palace
Of their royal race,
Still the Hall of Lions
Has its ancient grace ;
Still the silver fountains sing
As they sang before the king,
Murmuring to the mournful night,
As they murmured in the height
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Yet the azure colours
On the ceiling shine,
Graved with golden letters
Of the Koran's line.
They are marked with many a stain
From the dew and from the rain.
And each thing is as a sign
In decay and in decline,
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Yet what dreams of beauty
Through the midnight glide :
Many a dark-eyed ladye,
Lovely in her pride,
Gliding o'er the perfumed floor,
As she wont in days of yore.
Fantasy with time at war,
Calls dim memories from afar
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Yet in old Cordova,
Mid the crowded streets,
Moorish trace and record
At each step one meets.
Not alone the Moorish fane
Brings us back the past again ;
But, like clouds on summer skies,
Fancy-shaped traditions rise
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Sacred unto poetry
Is the mystic past,
Hence the fairy shadows
Round the present cast.
Old songs lend their lovely wings
To a thousand lovely things.
And how many haunting songs
Still the charmed reign prolongs
Of the Moslem rule in Spain.
Honoured be each story
Brought from other days,
But for them there were no flowers
On our world-worn ways.
Every land, and every heart,
Turn back to their earlier part.
Let old songs and stories live
While the fanciful they give
To the Moslem rule in Spain.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840
This massive and splendid pile of architecture, in its original glory inferior only to the mosque at Mecca, was erected by the Khaliph Abderrahman in the year 786, and finished by his son Hishom about 800; succeeding sovereigns, however, added to its magnitude and splendour; so that the whole edifice was the work of eight monarchs of the house of Ummaiya. There is not, perhaps, upon the face of the habitable globe, any single scene so calculated to impress the mind of the spectator with a variety of distinct and powerful emotions, as that which the skilful and intelligent artist has here presented to our view. Whether we regard the city of Cordova as the ancient seat of learning, the birth-place of the two Senecas and the poet Lucan, or contemplate the heathen, Christian, and barbaric vestiges of former greatness, which it still retains, the mind is led onward in the history of men and nations, from one to another of those great land-marks, which the river of time has left unmoved by its perpetual ebb and flow. Beyond the mosque, and stretching to the left, is a pile of building formerly called the Alcazor, but more fearfully known to modern times as the dungeon of the Inquisition.
NEFTAH IN THE JEREED
The word Jereed implies the country of the palm branches; and the little azure sparrow, the subject of the following poem, is peculiar to that district, and is called The Father of Friendship.
It is a little azure bird,
It has a plaintive cry,
It singeth mournful to the eve,
When none beside are nigh.
But not the less its gentle song
Ariseth for the noon ;
The day has not a lonely hour,
Unknowing that sweet tune.
It loveth those with whom it lives,
It loveth where it dwells ;
When the green palm extends its shade
Above the desert wells.
Never those azure wings expand,
But on their southern wind ;
At once it dieth, if it leave
Its native sands behind.
It pineth with familiar love
For its accustomed sky ,
And even in a golden cage
It lieth down to die.
And for the love it beareth them,
The natives hold it true,
That whosoever kills this bird
Himself must perish too.
A simple but a kind belief,
To keep it free from scaith ;
And blessed whate'er in this cold world
Awakens love or faith!
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1841
THE NIZAM'S DAUGHTER
SHE is as yet a child in years,
Twelve springs are on her face,
Yet in her slender form appears
The woman's perfect grace.
Her silken hair, that glossy black,
But only to be found
There, or upon the raven's back,
Falls sweeping to the ground.
'Tis parted in two shining braids
With silver and with gold,
And one large pearl by contrast aids
The darkness of each fold.
And for she is so young, that flowers
Seem natural to her now,
There wreaths the champac's snowy showers
Around her sculptured brow.
Close to her throat the silvery vest
By shining clasps is bound,
Scarce may her graceful shape be guest,
Mid drapery floating round.
But the small curve of that vein'd throat,
Like marble, but more warm,
The fairy foot and hand denote
How perfect is the form.
Upon the ankle and the wrist
There is a band of gold,
No step by Grecian fountain kiss'd,
Was of diviner mould.
In the bright girdle round her waist,
Where the red rubies shine,
The kandjar's * glittering hilt is placed,
To mark her royal line.
Her face is like the moonlight pale,
Strangely and purely fair,
For never summer sun nor gale
Has touched the softness there.
There are no colours of the rose,
Alone the lip is red;
No blush disturbs the sweet repose
Which o'er that cheek is shed.
And yet the large black eyes, like night,
Have passion and have power;
Within their sleepy depths is light
For some wild wakening hour.
A world of sad and tender dreams
'Neath those long lashes sleep,
A native pensiveness that seems
Too still and sweet to weep.
Of such seclusion know we nought:
Yet surely woman here
Grows shrouded from all common thought,
More delicate and dear.
And love, thus made a thing apart,
Must seem the more divine,
When the sweet temple of the heart
Is a thrice-veiled shrine.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
* The small poniard worn by Hindoo princesses.
BRITISH RESIDENCY AT HYDERABAD
THE edifice here represented is the residence of the English Minister at the Court of the Nizam, or native prince. The party entering the gate shews the species of state, and the retinue, with which persons of rank appear in public. The curtains of the palanquins, in which females go forth, are always closely drawn : seclusion in the East is, as it were, the element of beauty. It is quite in human nature to admit that
— " such must be
— " Dear — and yet dearer for its mystery."
ODE TO RETIREMENT
“Nor those alone prefer a life recluse,
Who seek retirement for his proper use;
To them the deep recess of dusky groves,
Or forest where the deer securely roves.
The fall of waters and the song of birds,
And hills that echo to the distant herds,
Are luxuries excelling all the glare
The world can boast, and her chief fav’rites share."
PALE maiden, that dost sit with downcast eye,
Musing on many things, although thy path
Hath now no more the toil another hath.
This world and this world’s things thou hast put by,
A holier and a calmer lot to try.
Beloved art thou of many in their speech,
The goal which is the general hope to reach;
Yet gained, thy sister Weariness stands nigh.
Mistress of mournful thoughts and quiet hours,
Given to Memory more than Hope’s domain—
Visions and fancies haunt thy dreaming bowers,
Where life may linger, but may not remain.
Only a shelter art thou on our road,
But never meant for mortal man’s abode.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
Note: quotation from Cowper
OLINTHUS GREGORY, L.L.D., F.R.A.S. &c.
" THE following lines allude to Dr. Gregory's late domestic calamity. Mr. Boswell Gregory, his eldest son, was drowned by the boat's upsetting as he was returning home by water to his father's house at Woolwich."
IS there a spot where Pity's foot,
Although unsandalled, fears to tread,
A silence where her voice is mute,
Where tears, and only tears, are shed?
It is the desolated home
Where Hope was yet a recent guest,
Where Hope again may never come,
Or come, and only speak of rest.
They gave my hand the pictured scroll,
And bade me only fancy there
A parent's agony of soul,
A parent's long and last despair;
The sunshine on the sudden wave,
Which closed above the youthful head,
Mocking the green and quiet grave,
Which waits the time-appointed dead.
I thought upon the lone fire-side,
Begirt with all familiar thought,
The future, where a father's pride
So much from present promise wrought:
The sweet anxiety of fears,
Anxious from love's excess alone,
The fond reliance upon years
More precious to us than our own:
All past--then weeping words there came
From out a still and darkened room,
They could not bear to name a name
Written so newly on the tomb.
They said he was so good and kind,
The voices sank, the eyes grew dim;
So much of love he left behind,
So much of life had died with him.
Ah, pity for the long beloved,
Ah, pity for the early dead;
The young, the promising, removed
Ere life a light or leaf had shed.
Nay, rather pity those whose doom
It is to wait and weep behind,
The father, who within the tomb
Sees all life held most dear enshrined.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
THE ORPHAN BALLAD SINGERS
O, WEARY, weary are our feet,
And weary, weary is our way ;
Through many a long and crowded street
We've wandered mournfully to-day.
My little sister she is pale;
She is too tender and too young
To bear the autumn's sullen gale,
And all day long the child has sung.
She was our mother's favourite child,
Who loved her for her eyes of blue,
And she is delicate and mild,
She cannot do what I can do.
She never met her father's eyes,
Although they were so like her own ;
In some far distant sea he lies,
A father to his child unknown.
The first time that she lisped his name,
A little playful thing was she ;
How proud we were,—yet that night came
The tale how he had sunk at sea.
My mother never raised her head ;
How strange, how white, how cold she grew !
It was a broken heart they said—
I wish our hearts were broken too.
We have no home—we have no friends,
They said our home no more was ours ;
Our cottage where the ash tree bends,
The garden we had filled with flowers.
The sounding shells our father brought,
That we might hear the sea at home ;
Our bees, that in the summer wrought
The winter's golden honeycomb.
We wandered forth mid wind and rain,
No shelter from the open sky ;
I only wish to see again
My mother's grave, and rest and die.
Alas, it is a weary thing
To sing our ballads o'er and o'er ;
The songs we used at home to sing—
Alas, we have a home no more !
Fisher's Draing Room Scrap Book, 1835
OXFORD STREET
LIFE in its many shapes was there,
The busy and the gay;
Faces that seemed too young and fair
To ever know decay.
Wealth, with its waste, its pomp, and pride,
Led forth its glittering train;
And poverty's pale face beside
Asked aid, and asked in vain.
The shops were filled from many lands,
Toys, silks, and gems, and flowers;
The patient work of many hands,
The hope of many hours.
Yet, mid life's myriad shapes around
There was a sigh of death;
There rose a melancholy sound,
The bugle's wailing breath.
They played a mournful Scottish air,
That on its native hill
Had caught the notes the night-winds bear
From weeping leaf and rill.
'Twas strange to hear that sad wild strain
Its warning music shed,
Rising above life's busy train,
In memory of the dead.
There came a slow and silent band
In sad procession by:
Reversed the musket in each hand,
And downcast every eye.
They bore the soldier to his grave;
The sympathising crowd
Divided like a parted wave
By some dark vessel ploughed.
A moment, and all sounds were mute,
For awe was over all;
You heard the soldier's measured foot,
The bugle's wailing call.
The gloves were laid upon the bier,
The helmet and the sword,
The drooping war-horse followed near,
As he, too, mourned his lord.
Slowly--I followed too--they led
To where a church arose,
And flung a shadow o'er the dead,
Deep as their own repose.
Green trees were there--beneath the shade
Of one, was made a grave;
And there to his last rest was laid
The weary and the brave.
They fired a volley o'er the bed
Of an unconscious ear;
The birds sprang fluttering over-head,
Struck with a sudden fear.
All left the ground, the bugles died
Away upon the wind;
Only the tree's green branches sighed
O'er him they left behind.
Again, all filled with light and breath,
I passed the crowded street—
Oh, great extremes of life and death,
How strangely do ye meet!
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
IFE in its many shapes was there,
THE PALACE CALLED BEAUTIFUL
" He lifted up his eyes, and behold there was a very stately palace before him, the name of which was 'Beautiful’. Looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the way."—Pilgrim's Progress.
HE wandered on a weary way,
A weary way he wandered on ;
Till eagerness and fortitude—
Till all but hope were gone.
The night fell dark around his steps,
And terrible is falling night,
For cheerful thoughts of enterprise
Attend on morning's light.
And there were Lions in the way—
The lion mighty in his wrath—
No marvel that the traveller shrank
From such a dreary path.
Then spake the Porter of the house,
The house that was so fair,
The house whose name was BEAUTIFUL,
And bade him not despair.
Chained were the Lions on his way,
And he could safely pass along,
If that he had a steadfast hope,
And if his faith were strong.
He entered in the lovely place :
Four maidens at the door,
With wine, and bread, and pleasant words,
His fainting soul restore.
Next morn they furnished him with arms,
That in the sunshine glowed.
Who were the maidens setting forth
The Christian on his road ?
Prudence and Piety, intent
On every work of Love,
And Charity, whose youthful heart
Is tender as the dove.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
THE PALACE OF THE SEVEN STORIES
The past it is a fearful thing,
With an eagle's sweep, and a tiger's spring.
Here was a palace, the dwelling of kings,
Now to its turrets the creeping plant clings.
The past it is a mighty grave ;
What remains for the present to save ?
A few sad thoughts, a few brief words.
These are the richest of memory's hoards.
Where temples stood, the tamarinds grow ;
Broken columns are mouldering below.
No steps are heard in the ruined hall.
Such is man's pride, and such is its fall.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832
The Seven-storied Palace is a ruin of great beauty. Captain Sykes states, " that it must have been a splendid building ; the remains of carved work and gilding indicate that no expense or art was spared. "Bejapore is one of the most picturesque cities in Hindostan. Immense tamarind trees spread their rich foliage over the magnificent remains of mosques and mausoleums, or partially cover some finely broken palace or beautiful tank. Tradition records a characteristic anecdote of the building of the palace. "The inhabitants of a small village called Kejgunally, complaining of the injury they were exposed to, from the works in progress, the king, with a whimsical affectation of justice, surrounded them with a high wall. The village, in the course of time, disappeared ; but the wall remains, and is pointed out as a proof of the severe justice of the king, who chose rather to comply with the literal wish of the inhabitants, of being protected from injury, than remove them by force to a more desirable spot."
THE PHANTOM
I come from my home in the depth of the sea,
I come that thy dreams may be haunted by me ;
Not as we parted, the rose on my brow,
But shadowy, silent, I visit thee now.
The time of our parting was when the moon shone,
Of all heaven's daughters the loveliest one ;
No cloud in her presence, no star at her side,
She smiled on her mirror and vassal, the tide.
Unbroken its silver, undreamed of its swell,
There was hope, and not fear, in our midnight farewell ;
While drooping around were the wings white and wild,
Of the ship that was sleeping, as slumbers a child.
I turned to look from thee, to look on the bower,
Which thou hast been training in sunshine and shower ;
So thick were the green leaves, the sun and the rain
Sought to pierce through the shelter from summer in vain.
It was not its ash-tree, the home of the wren,
And the haunt of the bee, I was thinking of then ;
Nor yet of the violets, sweet on the air,
But I thought of the true love who planted them there.
I come to thee now, my long hair on the gale,
It is wreathed with no red rose, is bound with no veil,
It is dark with the sea damps, and wet with the spray,
The gold of its auburn has long past away.
And dark is the cavern wherein I have slept,
There the seal and the dolphin their vigil have kept;
And the roof is incrusted with white coral cells,
Wherein the strange insect that buildeth them dwells.
There is life in the shells that are strewed o'er the sands,
Not filled but with music as on our own strands ;
Around me are whitening the bones of the dead,
And a starfish has grown to the rock overhead.
Sometimes a vast shadow goes darkly along,
The shark or the sword-fish, the fearful and strong :
There is fear in the eyes that are glaring around,
As they pass like the spectres of death without sound :
Over rocks, without summer, the dull sea-weeds trail,
And the blossoms that hang there are scentless and pale ;
Amid their dark garlands, the water-snakes glide,
And the sponge, like the moss, gathers thick at their side.
Oh ! would that the sunshine could fall on my grave,
That the wild flower and willow could over it wave ;
Oh ! would that the daisies grew over my sleep,
That the tears of the morning could over me weep.
Thou art pale 'mid the dreams, I shall trouble no more,
The sorrow that kept me from slumber is o'er :
To the depths of the ocean in peace I depart,
For I still have a grave greener far in thy heart.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
PICCADILLY
THE sun is on the crowded street,
It kindles those old towers;
Where England's noblest memories meet,
Of old historic hours.
Vast, shadowy, dark, and indistinct,
Tradition's giant fane,
Whereto a thousand years are linked,
In one electric chain.
So stands it when the morning light
First steals upon the skies;
And shadow'd by the fallen night,
The sleeping city lies.
It stands with darkness round it cast,
Touched by the first cold shine;
Vast, vague, and mighty as the past,
Of which it is the shrine.
'Tis lovely when the moonlight falls
Around the sculptured stone
Giving a softness to the walls,
Like love that mourns the gone.
Then comes the gentlest influence
The human heart can know,
The mourning over those gone hence
To the still dust below.
The smoke, the noise, the dust of day,
Have vanished from the scene;
The pale lamps gleam with spirit ray
O'er the park's sweeping green.
Sad shining on her lonely path,
The moon's calm smile above,
Seems as it lulled life's toil and wrath
With universal love.
Past that still hour, and its pale moon,
The city is alive;
It is the busy hour of noon,
When man must seek and strive.
The pressure of our actual life
Is on the waking brow;
Labour and care, endurance, strife,
These are around him now.
How wonderful the common street,
Its tumult and its throng,
The hurrying of the thousand feet
That bear life's cares along.
How strongly is the present felt,
With such a scene beside;
All sounds in one vast murmur melt
The thunder of the tide.
All hurry on—none pause to look
Upon another's face:
The present is an open book
None read, yet all must trace.
The poor man hurries on his race,
His daily bread to find;
The rich man has yet wearier chase,
For pleasure's hard to bind.
All hurry, though it is to pass
For which they live so fast—
What doth the present but amass,
The wealth that makes the past.
The past is round us—those old spires
That glimmer o'er our head;
Not from the present is their fires,
Their light is from the dead.
But for the past, the present's powers
Were waste of toil and mind;
But for those long and glorious hours
Which leave themselves behind.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
PILE OF FOULDREY CASTLE
LANCASHIRE
No memory of its former state,
No record of its fame,
A broken wall, a fallen tower,
A half-forgotten name;
A gloomy shadow on the wave,
And silence deep as in the grave.
And yet it had its glorious days,
It had its hour of pride,
When o'er the drawbridge gallantly
Its warriors wont to ride ;
When silver shield, and plume of snow,
Were mirror'd in the wave below.
In sooth, that was a stirring time
Of chivalry and song.
When the bright spear was put in rest.
And the right arm was strong ;
When minstrel meed, and ladye's glove.
Were high rewards of war and love.
Oh ! vain delusion, cruel days
Were then upon the land ;
A battlement on every wall,
A sword in every hand ;
And rose the cry, and poured the flood.
Of human wrong, and human blood.
Then many a stately castle stood
O'er dungeons dark and deep ;
Then many a noble robber wont
The king's highway to keep.
Ah ! these were not the times to praise,
Thank God, we know more peaceful days.
Oh ! better that the ivy wreath
Should clothe the mouldering tower,
Than it should be a place of strength.
For passion and for power.
All glory to those stern old times,
But leave them to their minstrel rhymes.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832
THE PIRATE'S SONG OFF THE TIGER ISLAND
Our prize is won, our chase is o'er,
Turn the vessel to the shore.
Place yon rock, so that the wind,
Like a prisoner, howl behind ;
Which is darkest—wave, or cloud ?
One a grave, and one a shroud.
Though the thunder rend the sky,
Though the echoing wind reply,
Though the lightning sweep the seas,
We are used to nights like these ;
Let it foam, the angry main—
Washing out the blood-red stain,
Which the evening conflict threw
O'er the waters bright and blue.
Though above the thunder break.
Twill but drown our victims' shriek ;
And the lightning's serpent coil,
Will but glimmer o'er our spoil:
Maidens, in whose orient eyes,
More than morning's sunshine lies—
Honour to the wind and waves,
While they yield us such sweet slaves—
Shawls the richest of Cashmere,
Pearls from Oman's bay are here;
And Golconda's royal mine
Sends her diamonds here to shine ;
Let the stars at midnight glow,
We have brighter stars below;
Leave the planet of the pole
Just to guide us to our goal,
We'd not change for heaven's own stars,
Yon glad heap of red dinars ;*
See the crimson silks unfold,
And the slender chains of gold,
Like the glittering curls descending,
When the bright one's head is bending;
And the radiant locks fall over,
Or her mirror or her lover,
On which face she likes to dwell,
'Twere a prophet's task to tell;
All those crystal flasks enclose
Sighs of the imprisoned rose ;
And those porcelain urns are filled
By sweet Indian wood distilled ;
And behold those fragrant piles,
Spice from the Manilla isles,
Nutmegs, cloves, and cinnamon—
But our glorious task is done.
Little dreamed the merchant's care
Who his precious freight should share—
Fill the wine-cup to the brim,
Our first health shall be to him.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832
* An Indian coin.
THE POET’S GRAVE
’TIS his tomb—and trails around it
Wild flowers, fragrant, sweet, and dim;
Summer with a wreath hath bound it—
With a wild wreath worthy him.
Children of the sunny weather,
Nurtured by the careless air;
Fitting flowers are they to gather
O’er the wild one sleeping there.
Lovely are they in the morning,
Opening to the dewy wind,
Lifting up their sweet heads, scorning
Common culture of their kind.
But, ere evening comes, has perished
Fragrant breath and early glow:
None their fragile life has cherished—
None did his who sleeps below.
Even so did he inherit
Gifts that nature gives alone;
Frail as lovely was the spirit
Which to soon from earth has flown.
Many a line of his yet lingers,
Many a careless heart among:
For he was of earth’s sweet singers,
Whose whole soul is poured in song.
I remember him in childhood,
With his large and earnest eyes,
Wandering amid the wild wood,
Watching where the violet lies.
Or when the clear stars, united
Round the midnight’s solemn throne,
Gazing till his pale face lighted
With a beauty like their own.
Soon our valleys knew his singing—
Singing that was half divine;
From all fair things round him bringing
Tribute for his lovely line.
There he paid the rose sweet duty,
Linking love with every leaf;
And again the lily’s beauty
Lived, that else had been so brief.
And he sang of others’ sorrows,
Till his own each sorrow seemed:
Strange how soon the poet borrows
All of which he has but dreamed!
Yet it is this gift inspires him
In that holy shrine, the heart;
And the general love endears him
For in all love he hath part.
But such gift is bought too dearly
By a heart too prone to melt,
Griefs and troubles touch too nearly,
Where another scarce was felt.
And alas! too much dominion
Has a passing look and word;
Rude the empire of opinion
O’er the soul’s too fine-touched chord.
Soon he perished—weary-hearted,
From the cold and the unkind;
Yet what gifts hath the departed
Left a world he loved behind,
Lofty thought, and soft emotion—
Fancies exquisite as new;
And a generous devotion
To the beautiful and true.
Let the wild flowers droop above him
Let the dews of twilight weep—
They are fitting things to love him,
They are comrades for his sleep;
Human tears were unavailing,
Grief were an unsuiting guest.
Death against the world prevailing,
Hath but given him to rest.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
THE PORTRAIT OF LORD BYRON, AT NEWSTEAD ABBEY
INSCRIBED TO LORD BYRON'S SISTER, MRS. GEORGE LEIGH
It is the face of youth — and yet not young ;
The purple lights, the ready smiles have vanished ;
The shadows by the weary forehead flung,
The gayer influences of life have banished.
'Tis sad, and fixed — yet we can fancy gleams
Of feverish spirits, suddenly awaking.
Flinging aside doubts, fancies, fears, and dreams,
Like some red fire on startled midnight breaking.
'Tis an uncertain thing — a mind so framed,
Glorious the birthright which its powers inherit,
Mingling the loved — the feared — the praised — the blamed —
The constant struggle of the clay and spirit.
His name is on the haunted shade,
His name is on the air;
We walk the forest's twilight glade,
And only he is there.
The ivy wandering o'er the wall,
The fountain falling musical,
Proclaim him everywhere,
The heart is full of him, and flings
Itself on all surrounding things.
The youthful poet! here his mind
Was in its boyhood nurst;
All that impatient soul enshrined
Was here developed first.
What feelings and what thoughts have grown
Amid those cloisters, deep and lone!
Life’s best, and yet its worst:
For fiery elements are they,
That mould and make such dangerous clay.
A thousand gifts the poet hath
Of beauty and delight;
He fiingeth round a common path,
A glory never common sight
Would find in common hours.
And yet such visionary powers
Are kin to strife and wrath.
The very light with which they glow
But telleth of the fire below.
Such minds are like the heated earth
Of southern soils and skies;
Care calls not to laborious birth
The lavish wealth that lies
Close to the surface; some bright hour
Upsprings the fruit, unfolds the flower,
And inward wonders rise:
A thousand colours glitter round,
The golden harvest lights the ground.
But not the less there lurks below
The lava’s burning wave;
The red rose and the myrtle grow
Above a hidden grave.
The life within earth’s panting veins
Is fire, which silently remains
In each volcanic cave.
Fire that gives loveliness and breath,
But giveth, in one moment, death!
So framed is such a mind, it works
With dangerous thoughts and things;
Beneath, the fiery lava lurks,
But on the surface springs
A prodigality of bloom,
A thousand hues that might illume
Even an angel’s wings!
Thrice beautiful the outward show,
Still the volcano is below.
It is the curse of such a mind
That it can never rest,
Ever its wings upon the wind
In some pursuit are prest;
And either the pursuit is vain,
Or, if its object it attain,
It was not worth the quest,
Yet from the search it cannot cease,
And fold its plumes, and be at peace.
And what were that boy-poet’s dreams,
As here he wont to stray,
When evening cast her pensive gleams
Around his forest way?
Came there “thick fancies” ’mid the gloom,
Of war-horse, trumpet, pennant, plume,
And all the proud array,
When mailed barons, stern and old,
Kept state in Newstead’s ancient hold?
Or more—was the boy's fancy won
By penance and by vow,
When hooded monk and veiled nun,
The beating heart and brow,
Alike concealed from common eyes,
Revealed, perhaps, to midnight skies,
Dreams that possessed him now?
Dreams of a world, whose influence still
Prevaileth over human will.
Or was it some wild dream of love
That filled the summer noon,
And saw but one sweet face above,
What time the maiden moon
Looked on a fairy world beneath,
And waked the hawthorn's sweetest breath,
The fountain's softest tune?
For young love, living on a smile,
Makes its own Eden for a while.
The ancient hall, when winter came,
Gave fantasies to night,
Light by some old lamp's flickering flame,
Or the red embers' light.
The shadows, that have little power
Upon the sunshine's cheerful hour,
Then master mind and sight ;
The visionary world appears
Girt with fantastic shapes and fears.
Such was his childhood, suited well
To fashion such a mind ;
The feudal sword — the gothic cell,
Their influence combined.
The old oak-wood — the forest stream,
And love soon wakened from the dream
It never quite resigned.
His life contained no after hour
O'er which his boyhood had no power.
Be after scenes with after years —
Here only we recall
Whatever soothes, subdues, endears,
In his ancestral hall.
The deep enchantment we have felt,
When every thought and feeling dwelt
Beneath his spirit's thrall.
Sad, softened, are the hearts that come
To gaze around his boyish home.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840
PRESTON
Lo ! the banquet is over,—but one, only one,
Remains when the mirth of the revel is done ;
His forehead is dark as he paces the hall,
He is bound by an oath which he cannot recall.
The youngest, though chief of his house and his line,
He has pledged the Stuart's health in his own Spanish wine ;
The sword on the wall must start forth from its sheath,
For Richard of Chorley is bound to the death.
He is brave as the bravest that ever wore brand,
Yet downcast his eye, and reluctant his hand.
He lingers enthralled by that tenderest tie,
For whose sake the bold are unwilling to die.
A step in the silence, a shade on the gloom,
And a lady thrice lovely hath entered the room ;
He can see her lip quiver, can hear her heart beat,
She kneels on the floor, and she sinks at his feet.
He dares not look on her, he turns from her now,
For the moonlight falls clear on her beautiful brow :
One word from those lips, one glance from those eyes ;
‘Tis for life, or for death—if he leave her, she dies.
‘Tis for love or for honour—a woman for love
Will yield every hope upon earth, or above ;
But a soldier has honour—life's first and best chord ;
He may die for his love, but he lives for his word.
He belts on his sword, and he springs on his steed,
And the spur is dyed red as he urges its speed ;
The road flies before him, he passes the wind,
But he leaves not the thoughts that oppress him behind.
Alas for the White Rose ! its hour is gone by
Its toil is unfriendly, inclement its sky ;
The day of its pride and its beauty is o'er,
The White Rose in England will blossom no more.
Alas for its victims ! the green fields are spread,
The green fields of England, with dying and dead ;
But deeper the wail where these prison-walls stand,
Where the captives are gathered with gyves on each hand.
The day-break is bright, as with joy overspread,
The face of the east wears a glorious red ;
The dew's on the hawthorn, the early wild flowers
Smile out a sweet welcome to morning's glad hours.
But dark looms the gibbet on high in the air,
While the shuddering gaze turns from the sight that is there :
Dishonoured—degraded—a mock for the crowd,
Can this be the doom of the young and the proud !
'Tis over—the traitors are left on the tree !
One sits 'neath their shadow, her head on her knee ;
A cloak o'er the face of the mourner is spread,
They raise it to look—and they look on the dead.
Young Richard of Chorley she followed thee on
But thy life was her own, and with thine it is gone;
Both true to their faith, both so fair and so young,
Wo, wo, for the fate which on this world is flung !
Now for their sake, when summer's sweet children unclose,
Give a moment's sad thought to the fatal White Rose.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834
In the year 1715, the friends of the Pretender were defeated here by the forces of George the First, under the command of Generals Willis and Carpenter. Having been joined by disaffected people, great numbers of them were made prisoners, brought to trial, and found guilty of high treason. Richard Chorley, Esq., of Chorley, was one of the number.—Fisher's Lancashire.
PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
DARK the wave, and dark the cloud,
Yet thy bark is on the sea;
Say “farewell” to other friends,
Do not say “farewell” to me.
Others may desert thy cause,
Others may desert thy side—
I cling to thee till the hour
Death shall me and thee divide.
Fatal is thy doomed house,
Last of an ill-fated line,
But through exile and through blood
I will follow thee and thine.
Never more thy step will be
On thy own, thy English shore;
Let another take thy land,
It will know thy place no more.
Vainly through a life of care
Have I struggled for thine own !
Must thy people know thee not ?—
Must a stranger fill thy throne?
Let the old ancestral names
Which were bound to thee and thine,
Kneel before the rising sun—
Worship at a newer shrine.
Spurning our dishonoured land,
In yon bark I cross the wave:
Never will I leave thy side
Till I leave thee for the grave!
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
Charles Edward Stuart, called " the Pretender," grandson of James II of England, son of James Edward and Clementine, daughter of Prince Sobiesky, was born at Rome, in 1720. In his attempts to recover the throne of his grandfather, he was supported by the courts of Rome and Versailles, but the battle of Culloden terminated his military career. A reward of £30,000 being offered for his head, he concealed himself in the fastnesses of Scotland until the arrival of a French frigate in Lochnanach, in which he embarked for France, and bade a last adieu to Britain. In the 52nd year of his age he espoused a Princess of Stolberg-Godern, but died, in 1788, aged 68 years. His remains were entombed, at Frescati, with regal pomp.
THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE
THE tears of a nation were shed for her doom,
The wail of a people rose over her tomb.
From palace and cottage one funeral cry,
Asked—So gay and so lovely, oh, how could she die ?
Scarce a year since her bridal had gladdened the land,
The wreath on her forehead, the ring on her hand :
When forth went the summons, and down came the blow;
And the young hope of England in dust was laid low.
Alas, for her husband, though others may weep,
Ah, what is their sorrow, to what he must keep !
A dream for his midnight, a shade for his day,
For which time has no comfort, and hope has no stay.
Love may be forgotten, when false or when vain ;
And pride may recover its calmness again.
But where is the solace for tears that are shed
O'er the hope of a life-time, the loved and the dead.
Oh ! folly of deeming aught earthly can last,
Life never knew sorrow whose reign has not past.
Oh ! mockery of mockeries, to trust human heart,
Whose grief is a shadow, to come and depart:
For he, the heart-broken, hath joy at his side,
And again at the altar he stands with his bride.
Oh! dark shades of Claremont, find brightness and bloom,
For the widower desolate returns a bridegroom.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
" It is said, that Leopold and his young bride intend visiting this country, when they will spend a fortnight at Claremont."—Morning Paper.
HE tears of a nation were shed for her doom,
THE PRINCESS VICTORIA
A FAIR young face o'er which is only cast
The delicate hues of spring,
Though round her is the presence of the past,
And the stern future gathers darkly fast ;
As yet no heavy shadow loads their wing.
A little while hast thou to be a child,
Thy lot is all too high ;
Thy face is very fair, thine eyes are mild,
But duties on thine arduous path are piled—
A nation's hopes and fears blend with thy destiny.
Change is upon the world, it may be thine
To soothe its troubled way,
To make thy throne a beacon and a shrine
Whence knowledge, power, and liberty may shine,
As yet they have not shone on mortal day.
There is much misery on this worn earth,
But much that may be spared ;
Of great and generous thought there is no dearth,
And highest hopes of late have had their birth,
Hopes for the many, what the few have shared.
The wind that bears our flag from soil to soil,
Teaches us as it flies ;
It carries in its breath a summer spoil,
And seeds spring up to stimulate man's toil,
So should our mind spread round its rich supplies.
Thou, royal child, the future is thine own,
May it be blessed in thee !
May peace that smiles on all be round thy throne,
And universal truth, whose light alone
Gives golden records unto history.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
THE PROPHETESS
IN the deep silence of the midnight hours,
I call upon ye, oh ye viewless powers!
Before whose presence mortal daring cowers.
I have subdued ye to my own stern will,
I fear ye not; but I must shudder still,
Faint with the awful purpose ye fulfil.
Not for myself I call the æther-born,
They have no boon my being doth not scorn—
Wholly and bitterly am I forlorn.
Dearly is bought the empire of the mind;
It sitteth on a sullen throne, designed
To elevate and part it from its kind.
Long years my stricken soul has turned away
From the sweet dreams that round my childhood lay:
Would it still owned their false but lovely sway!
In the dark grave of unbelief they rest,
Worthless they were, and hollow, while possest.
I am alone--unblessing, and unblest!
Knowledge is with me--guest that once received
Love, hope, ambition, are no more believed;
And we disdain what formerly had grieved.
A few fair flowers around their colours fling,
But what does questioning their sources bring?
That from corruption and from death they spring.
'Tis thus with those sweet dreams which life begin,
We weary of them, and we look within:
What do we find? Guile, suffering, and sin.
I know my kind too well not to despise
The gilded sophistry that round it lies:
Hate, sorrow, falsehood--mocking their disguise.
Oh, thou old world! so full of guilt and cares,
So mean, so small--I marvel Heaven bears
Thy struggle, which the seeing almost shares.
Yet, mine ancestral city, for thy sake
A lingering interest on this earth I take;
In the dim midnight 'tis for thee I wake.
Softly the starlight falleth over fanes
That rise above thy myrtle-wooded plains,
Where summer hath her loveliest domains.
Beneath, the gardens spread their pleasant shade,
The lutes are hushed that twilight music made,
Sleep on the world her honey-spell hath laid.
Sweet come the winds that o'er these flower-beds rove,
I only breathe the perfumes that ye love.
Spirits! my incense summons ye above.
What of yon stately city, where are shrined
The warrior's and the poet's wreath combined—
All the high honours of the human mind!
Her walls are bright with colours, whose fine dyes
Embody shapes that seem from yonder skies,
And in her scrolls the world's deep wisdom lies.
What of her future?--Through the silvery smoke
I see the distant vision I invoke.
These glorious walls have bowed to time's dark yoke.
I see a plain of desert sand extend
Scattered with ruins, where the wild flowers bend,
And the green ivy, like a last sad friend.
Low are the marble columns on the sand,
The palm-trees that have grown among them stand
As if they mocked the fallen of the land.
Hence, ye dark Spirits! bear the dream away;
To-morrow but repeateth yesterday;
First, toil--then, desolation and decay.
Life has one vast stern likeness in its gloom,
We toil with hopes that must themselves consume—
The wide world round us is one mighty tomb.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838
IN the deep silence of the midnight hours,
PULO PENANG
Never—that fairy isle can be
No lengthened resting-place of mine ;
I love it dearest when I see
Its shadow lengthen on the brine :
And then my heart with softness fills ;
I think upon its palmy groves,
I hear the murmur of its rills,
I hear the singing of its doves.
I see the white catalpa bend,
As when beneath thy whiter hand,
The buds in snowy showers descend,
To wreath for thy dark hair a band :
And then I sigh to be on shore,
To linger languid at thy side,
I think that I will part no more
From thee, my own, my idol bride.
Oh, only those who part can know
How dear the love that absence brings ;
O’er wind and wave my fancies go,
As if my very heart had wings :
And yet, when listless on the land,
Impatient in my happiness,
I long again to grasp my brand,
Again I long the deck to press.
I love to see my red flag sweep;
I love to see my sabre shine ;
Almost as much I love the deep
As I love those sweet eyes of thine.
I bring thee treasures from afar;
For thy dear sake I sweep the sea ;
But for the honour won in war,
I should be too unworthy thee.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
QUEEN ELIZABETH’S ENTRANCE INTO KENILWORTH
LONELY sits the lovely lady,
Lonely in the tower;
Is the dell no longer shady
Where she was the flower?
Wherefore did she leave that dell?
There she knew no ruder sorrow
Than some childish toy,
Vanished whensoe’er to-morrow
Brought some newer joy.
Captive in a captive cell,
She hath bade her youth farewell.
While the lovely lady keepeth
Vigil sad and lone,
Asking every hour that creepeth,
When will night be done,
Watching makes the hours seem long.
Mocking at the mourner's sadness,
Rises from below
Every sound of feast and gladness
That the night can know.
What avails those sounds among—
One low sigh is borne along.
From the topmost turret ringing
Comes the giant bells,
Till the very walls are swinging
Of the sad one's cell —
Deafened with the iron roar—
Loud the fiery cannon sounding,
Seem to rend the skies ;
While the multitude surrounding
Answer with their cries.
Loud as waves upon the shore,
Fast the hurrying horsemen pour.
Lute and voices soft are stealing,
Soft and musical ;
But the trumpet, proud appealing,
Rises above all.
Proud it welcomes England's queen !
Slow amid the crowd she rideth,
With a stately grace,
While with queen-like art she chideth
Her white courser's pace —
That no one who there had been
But might tell what he had seen.
Blue her eyes are, as the morning
Flashing into day ;
Clear as are the falcon's, scorning
Not to meet that ray.
Now its light is soft the while.
In her golden hair are blended
Diamond and pearl ;
But that glittering head is bended
To the favourite Earl ;
And the Lady of our isle
Listens with a conscious smile.
Suddenly the air is gleaming
With a rosy light,
And thousand rockets streaming
Seem like stars, when night
Shakes them from her raven hair.
Gloriously the golden splendour
Flashes o’er the scene:
Thus the lake and castle render
Homage to the queen.
Shouts from all the crowd declare
That the Queen hath entered there.
At the royal rein attending
Does Lord Leicester ride,
To the mane his dark locks bending,
As he keeps her side—
And his voice is soft and low.
Proud he welcomes in his sovereign,
Proud he paceth by,
Yet there was some trouble hovering
O'er his large dark eye.
Mockery of life's fairest show,
Who can read the heart below ?
Where is she, the sorrow-laden,
In this glorious hour?—
Lonely sits the lonely maiden,
In the haunted tower.
Sadly is it haunted now
By the thoughts that memory bringeth
Most are wanted not;
Wearily her hands she wringeth
O’er her weary lot—
While her golden tresses flow
Loose o’er her neglected brow.
Pale the pitying moonlight gleaming
Shows her pale sweet face,
While the bright hair round her streaming,
Loses not its grace,
Though so carelessly arrayed.
On her hand her white brow stooping,
Leaneth she, alone ;
With a weary spirit drooping
Over days now gone —
Days ere love the heart betrayed
Thus to solitude and shade.
Ever thus does woman's spirit
Choose the dangerous part ;
Still the worst she doth inherit
Of the beating heart—
Much must it abide.
Scarcely hath she left her childhood,
She who leans above,
Pining for her native wild wood,
For her father's love ;
Better far that she had died
Than another love have tried.
One brief, feverish sleep she taketh
From the night's long pain ;
But the cruel morning breaketh,
And she wakes again.
Music is upon the air—
Cheerily the horns are ringing
Round the captive's keep ;
And the early lark is singing
While her sad eyes weep.
Every sound the wild winds bear
Only bring doubt—death—despair.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
“Kenilworth Castle is one of the most magnificent piles of ruin in England. In the reign of the first Henry, it was private property, but its owner taking an unsuccessful part in the civil wars, it fell to the crown, and remained so till the time of Elizabeth, who bestowed it on her favourite Leicester. On the 9th of July, 1575, a banquet was given to Elizabeth, by its ambitious lord, which Langham, an officer of the Queen’s household, who was present at the time, has described minutely: ‘The queen approaching the first gate, a man of tall person, and stern countenance, with a club and keys, accosted her majesty in a rough speech, full of passion, in metre aptly made for the purpose—demanding the cause of all this din and noise, and riding about within the charge of his office. But on seeing the queen, as if pierced at the presence of a personage so evidently expressing heroical sovereignty, he fell down on his knees, humbly prays pardon for his ignorance, yields up his club and keys, proclaims open gates, and free passage to all:’—immediately the trumpeters on the gate-tower, six in number, each an eight foot high, with their silvery trumpets of a five foot long, sounded up a tune of welcome.”—Vide Langham’s Account of the Festivities at Kenilworth.
Later versions had 'Comes the giant bell' in verse 2 - the original has 'bells'
THE QUEEN OF PORTUGAL
YOUNG daughter of a race of kings,
Is there no crown for thee,
The blood that feeds thy being springs
From hoar antiquity.
And many are the legends told
Of thy proud house in days of old.
Methinks 'tis hard to be
A wanderer, rifled of thy own,
Banished from thy ancestral throne.
It is in vain to say, content
Dwells with the lowlier lot;
That careless smile, and brow unbent,
Are what a king knows not.
But who could lay a crown aside,
And dream no dreams of former pride,
The glorious past forget
Of days before the high command
Past meanly from their sceptred hand ?
The time has been, when for thy right
A thousand swords had sprung
Forth from their scabbards into light,
A thousand trumpets rung;
And many a banner, worked in gold,
The 'scutcheon on each crimson told
Had high in air been flung,
And Europe's gallant chivalry
Had gathered for thy rights and thee.
Those days are past—we reason now
Where we had fought before;
And high romance, and knightly vow,
Their influence is o'er:
'Twere better for earth's happiness
If that we calculated less,
And felt a little more.
I would not call past times again,
But wish our present to retain
What then had kindled, Queen, for thee,
A bold and ready sympathy.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
THE QUEEN'S ROOM:
SIZERGH HALL, WESTMORLAND
AY, regal the chamber, and stately the gloom
That the old oaken panels fling over the room ;
The carving is gilded—the hangings are rare ;
Yet, stranger, I warn thee—Oh ! slumber not there.
For when the lamp dies in the dead of the night,
And when the wan moon has exhausted her light,
By that mirror of silver a pale lady stands,
And rends her long tresses and wrings her white hands.
Years have pass'd since that lady smoothed back her bright hair,
And asked of the glass if her image was fair:
It was not for her husband she braided its gold,
Or flung from its brightness the veil's silver fold.
He slew her while watching her cheek where the rose
Was reddening in beauty, like sunshine on snows.
He slew her—the glass was yet warm with her breath—
She turned to her lover—she turn'd to her death.
Less crimson the wine-cup that stood at her side,
Than the red stream which gushed with her life on its tide,
A groan and a gasp, and the struggle is o'er—
The blood which he spilt is yet there—on the floor.
No prayer by her death-bed—no mass for her soul—
No bell on the depths of the midnight to toll ;
Unshrouded, uncoffin'd they laid her to rest,
The grave was unholy—the ground was unblest.
She comes with the midnight—meet not her cold eye,
It shines but on those who are fated to die.
She comes with the midnight, when spirits have power—
She comes with the midnight, and evil the hour.
She comes from the grave, with its secret and pain,
The grave which recalleth its truant again.
The chamber grows damp with the charnel-like air;
Then, stranger, I warn thee—oh ! slumber not there.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
Tradition has conferred on this apartment the name of the Queen's Room. Catherine Parr, the last queen of Henry VIII., is said to have occupied this apartment for several nights after the king's death.
Y, regal the chamber, and stately the gloom
RAPHAEL SANZIO
[AH ! not for him the dull and measured eye,
Which colours nothing in the common sky,
Which sees but night upon the starry cope,
And animates with no mysterious hope.
Which looks upon a quiet face, nor dreams
If it be ever tranquil as it seems ;
Which reads no histories in a passing look,
Nor on the cheek which is the heart's own book,
Whereon it writes in rosy characters
Whate'er emotion in its silence stirs.
Such are the common people of the soul,
Of whom the stars write not in their bright scroll.
These, when the sunshine at the noontide makes
Golden confusion in the forest brakes,
See no sweet shadows gliding o'er the grass,
Which seems to fill with wild flowers as they pass ;
These, from the twilight music of the fount
Ask not its secret and its sweet account ;
These never seek to read the chronicle
Which hides within the hyacinth's dim-lit bell:
They know not of the poetry which lies
Upon the summer rose's languid eyes;
They have no spiritual visitings elysian,
They dream no dreamings, and they see no vision.
The young Italian was not of the clay,
That doth to dust one long allegiance pay.
No ; he was tempered with that finer flame,
Which ancient fables say from heaven came ;
The sunshine of the soul, which fills the earth
With beauty borrowed from its place of birth.
Hence has the lute its song, the scroll its line ;
Hence stands the statue glorious as its shrine ;
Hence the fair picture, kings are fain to win,
The mind's creations from the world within.]
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Not without me !—alone, thy hand
Forgot its art awhile ;
Thy pencil lost its high command,
Uncherished by my smile.
It was too dull a task for thee
To paint remembered rays ;
Thou, who were wont to gaze on me,
And colour from that gaze.
I know that I am very fair,
I would I were divine,
To realize the shapes that share
Those midnight hours of thine.
Thou sometimes tellest me, how in sleep
What lovely phantoms seem ;
I hear thee name them, and I weep,
Too jealous of a dream.
But thou didst pine for me, my love,
Aside thy colours thrown ;
'Twas sad to raise thine eyes above,
Unanswered by mine own :
Thou who art wont to lift those eyes,
And gather from my face
The warmth of life's impassioned dyes,
Its colour and its grace.
Ah ! let me linger at thy side,
And sing some sweet old song,
That tells of hearts as true and tried,
As to ourselves belong.
The love, whose light thy colours give,
Is kindled at the heart ;
And who shall bid its influence live,
My Raphael, if we part ?
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
This celebrated Italian was essentially the painter of beauty. Of the devotion with which he sought its inspiration in its presence, a remarkable instance is recorded. He either could not or would not paint without the presence of his lovely mistress, La Fornarina.
The portrait from which this engraving is taken, is the one in the Berlin gallery ; — a portrait late research ascertains to be the genuine one.
REBECCA
She looketh on the glittering scene
With an unquiet eye ;
The shadow of the wakening heart
Is passing darkly by.
The heart that is a woman's world,
Her temple and her home,
Which coloureth with itself her cares,
Whence all her joys must come.
All generous feelings nursed the love
That out of pity came ;
Womanly kindness, suffering truth,
Might sanctify its claim.
But better had she shared the doom,
She bade from him depart ;
Death has no bitterness like life,
Life with a wasted heart.
Proud—beautiful—she boweth down
Beneath one deep despair ;
Youth lingers lovely on her cheek,
It only lingers there.
She will command herself, and bear
The doom by Fate assigned ;
In natures high as hers, the heart
Is mastered by the mind.
But not the less 'tis desolate,
All lofty thoughts and dreams;
The poetry, with whose deep life
All stronger feeling teems.
These aggravate the ill, and give
A misery of their own ;
The gifted spirit suffers much,
To common ones unknown.
Why did she love ? Alas, such choice
Is not at woman's will ;
Once must she love, and on that cast
Is set life's good or ill.
Sorrows, and timid cares, and tears,
The happiest entertain ;
But this world has no other hope,
For her who loves in vain.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
REGATTA,—WINDERMERE LAKE
With sunshine on their canvass,
And sunshine at their side—
Like court beauties at a pageant,
The stately vessels glide.
The sound of shout and music
Comes from the boats behind ;
And the peal of youthful laughter
Makes glad the summer wind.
But we will not go with them,
My loved one and my own ;
We never are so happy
As when we are alone.
Yet when the purple shadows
Of the quiet eve come on,
And the ripple of those vessels
From each still wave is gone:—
When stars with silver footsteps
Pass like angels o'er the sky ;
When the breath of leaf and blossom
To the lulling winds reply :—
Then let our boat, my sweet one !
To yonder shore depart,
When not a sound is louder
Than our own beating heart.
Like a dream beneath the moonlight,
Our fairy float will be ;
Let the weary crave the many—
I ask only for thee !
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
THE REPLY OF THE FOUNTAIN
How deep within each human heart,
A thousand treasured feelings lie ;
Things precious, delicate, apart,
Too sensitive for human eye.
Our purest feelings, and our best,
Yet shrinking from the common view ;
Rarely except in song exprest,
And yet how tender, and how true !
They wake, and know their power, when eve
Flings on the west its transient glow ;
Yet long dark shadows dimly weave
A gloom round some green path below.
Who dreams not then—the young dream on—
Life traced at hope's delicious will ;
And those whose youth of heart is gone,
Perhaps have visions dearer still.
They rise, too, when expected least,
When gay yourself, amid the gay,
The heart from revelry hath ceased
To muse o'er hours long past away.
And who can think upon the past
And not weep o'er it as a grave !
How many leaves life's wreath has cast !
What lights have sunk beneath the wave !
But most these deep emotions rise
When, drooping o'er our thoughts alone,
Our former dearest sympathies
Come back, and claim us for their own.
Such mood is on the maiden's mind
Who bends o'er yon clear fount her brow ;
Long years, that leave their trace behind,
Long years, are present with her now.
Yet, once before she asked a sign
From that wild fountains plaintive song ;
And silvery, with the soft moonshine,
Those singing waters pass along.
It was an hour of beauty, made
For the young heart's impassion'd mood,
For love of its sweet self afraid,
For hope that colours solitude.
"Alas," the maiden sighed, "since first
I said, O fountain, read my doom ;
What vainest fancies have I nurst,
Of which I am myself the tomb !
"The love was checked—the hope was vain,
I deemed that I could feel no more ;
Why, false one, did we meet again,
To show thine influence was not o'er ?
"I thought that I could never weep
Again, as I had wept for thee,
That love was buried cold and deep,
That pride and scorn kept watch by me.
“My early hopes, my early tears
Were now almost forgotten things,
And other cares, and other years
Had brought what all experience brings—
“Indifference, weariness, disdain,
That taught and ready smile which grows
A habit soon—as streams retain
The shape and light in which they froze.
“Again I met that faithless eye,
Again I heard that charmed tongue ;
I felt they were my destiny,
I knew again the spell they flung.
“Ah ! years have fled, since last his name
Was breathed amid the twilight dim ;
It was to dream of him, I came,
And now again I dream of him.
“But changed and cold, my soul has been
Too deeply wrung, too long unmoved,
Too hardened in life's troubled scene
To love as I could once have loved.
“Sweet fountain, once I asked thy waves
To whisper hope's enchanted spell !
Now I but ask thy haunted caves
To teach me how to say farewell.”
She leaned her head upon her hand,
She gazed upon that fountain lone
Which wandered by its wild flower strand
With a low, mournful, ceaseless moan.
It soothed her with a sweet deceit
Of pity, murmured on the breeze ;
Ah deep the grief, which seeks to cheat
Itself with fantasies like these.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834
ow deep within each human heart,
RESTORMEL CASTLE
It was the last Chief of Restormel,
He sat within his tower,
Dim burnt the hearth, and pale was the lamp,
For it was the midnight hour.
It was not the sound of a mortal voice,
Though it spoke with a mortal word,
Mid the howl of the wind, and the dash of the wave,
That the Chief of Restormel heard.
He heard a shriek on the midnight wind,
And he heard a dying groan;
Each gust through the sky, that went hurrying by,
Brought his murdered brother's moan.
The dark hearth hissed with the falling rain,
The lamp would burn no more;
But redder and redder the bloodspots grew
That stained the oaken floor.
Then he knew that the voice of his brother's blood
Was crying aloud to heaven;
And he knew that the present hour was one
To the evil spirits given;
And fiendish shapes from the tapestry looked,
And the lightning glared on the band;
" Come," said a voice, and he felt on his heart
The touch of an icy hand.
Fearful, they said, was the face of the dead,
Whom his vassals found next day;
For a clay-cold corse, in his midnight tower,
The last Chief of Restormel lay.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832
Restormel Castle was one of the principal residences of the Earls of Cornwall. The above verses are founded on a traditionary story told of its last castellan, or constable.
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD DURHAM
NOW ON AN EMBASSY AT THE COURT OF RUSSIA
WHAT are the glories, which on history's page
Make nations proud; not that her fleets can sweep,
Like fate, above the ocean ; not that lands,
More mighty than herself, yet own her sway;
Not that her armies might subdue a world;
Not that strength sits within her walls, and wealth
Pours its abundance forth: these are but means,
And humble instruments, to work renown.
Look to what use she puts them. Does her flag
Extend protection ? Is her sword but drawn
For righteous uses ? Does her strength supply
Force to the weak ? and does her wealth relieve
The want which follows it? England, these things
Are now demanded of thee :—Far away
A ship is sailing over northern seas,
And in that ship is one who comes from thee,
An English statesman, one who lately stood
And pledged himself to the immortal cause
Of the unalienable rights of man.
He goes—and in thy name, and with thy power,
To greet the Czar, he, whose far rule extends
—" Even to Asia. Will he bear no word *
Of wrath to the oppressor, and of hope
To the oppressed ? and will he raise no voice,
O gallant Poland! in thy generous cause ?
A fearful state—that of society,
When all its natural order is o'erthrown,
By the o'erwhelming pressure of some fear,
More terrible than death; and by some hope,
Desperate, but determined : then are changed
All common rules, children have thoughts like age,
While men 'merge every aim in one atttempt;
And all hands grow familiar with the sword.
E'en woman leaves the couch by which she watched,
The lute o'er which she leant, the home which owed
To her its happiness, and seeks the trench,
The guarded wall, or mounts the fiery steed;
The sabre glances, and along the line
Runs the red flashing of the musketry:
The cannon shakes the ground, she trembles not,
Her whole sweet nature altered by despair—
But stands her ground, and dies as heroes die.
This was the struggle—then the triumph came
Of the ferocious victor, blood was poured
Like wine at some gay feast; the fire arose
A wild illumination, for it came
From castles, destined ere the morn to be
A heap of ashes, and from cottages
The clustering vine would never cover more.
Crime and captivity were common things,
And tortures strange were heralds unto death.
'Twas an unequal struggle ; but for that,
Should a free people have bent down the knee ?
Is the expedient, then, our only law ?
Must we give up the right, because we feel
That we are weak, and the oppressor strong ?
Forbid it, England—by thine own great self,
By thine own yet unviolated hearths,
By the proud flags which in thy churches wave,
Each one a victory by land or sea,
Witnesses and thanksgivings to that God,
Whose arm upheld thee; by thy future hopes
Of peace, of plenty, and of liberty—
Let not thy minister go forth in vain :
The fate of Poland now is at thy will;
The Autocrat will hear and heed thy voice ;
England, my glorious country, speak, and save!
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
* The curious punctuation here, i.e. —", is in the original but is presumably a misprint.
THE RIVER OF THE WATER OF LIFE
[Pilgrim's Progress.]
Oh, glittering river, — doth the willow stoop
O'er thy blue depths ? or do the lilies droop,
Watching the shadow of each ivory blossom,
So soon to sink in thy unquiet bosom ? —
Does the bright heaven make of thy tide its glass ?
Do the dark clouds above thy mirror pass ?
Do thy banks echo to the shepherd's song ?
Do human feet pass restlessly along ?
They do : — upon those mystic waves of thine
Time finds a symbol, and Faith sets its sign.
Thus does Time's flood roll silently away —
Losing the sunshine of its earlier day.
The songs that floated o'er its waves are fled.
Its green leaves fallen, and its flowers dead.
Then Faith steps forth, and promises, " Once more
That stream will rise, but on another shore.
The seraph's harp will be its music there ;
Immortal flowers will light the immortal air.
Each human lip that drinks of that bright wave
Drinks to the Cross's triumph o'er the grave."
Life to thy river is a far course given.
But both its birthplace and its home are heaven.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
THE RIVER WEAR
Come back, come back, my childhood,
To the old familiar spot,
Whose wild flowers, and whose wild wood
Have never been forgot.
It is the shining river,
With the bulrush by its tide,
Where I filled my green rush quiver
With arrows at its side ;
And deemed that knightly glories
Were honoured as of old.
My head was filled with stories
My aged nurse had told.
The Douglas and the Percy
Alike were forced to yield ;
I had but little mercy
Upon the battle field.
Ah ! folly of the fancies,
That haunt our childhood's hour.
And yet those old romances
On after life have power,
When the weight appears too weary
With which we daily strive,
'Mid the actual and the dreary,
How much they keep alive !
How often, amid hours
By life severely tried,
Have I thought on those wild flowers
On the sweet Wear's silver tide.
Each ancient recollection
Brought something to subdue ;
I lived in old affection,
And felt the heart was true.
I am come again with summer,
It is lovely to behold.
Will it welcome the new comer,
As it seemed to do of old ?
Within those dark green covers,
Whose shade is downward cast,
How many a memory hovers
Whose light is from the past !
I see the bright trout springing,
Where the wave is dark yet clear,
And a myriad flies are winging,
As if to tempt him near.
With the lucid waters blending,
The willow shade yet floats,
From beneath whose quiet bending
I used to launch my boats.
Over the sunny meadows,
I watch them as of old,
Flit soft and sudden shadows
That leave a greener gold.
And a faint south wind is blowing
Amid the cowslip beds,
A deeper glow bestowing
To the light around their heads.
Farewell, sweet river ! ever
Wilt thou be dear to me ;
I can repay thee never
One half I owe to thee.
Around thy banks are lying
Nature's diviner part,
And thou dost keep undying
My childhood at my heart.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838
ome back, come back, my childhood,
ROBERT BLAKE
ADMIRAL AND GENERAL OF THE PARLIAMENTARY FORCES
What ! will they sweep the channels,
And brave us as they go !
There's no place in English annals
For the triumph of a foe.
Thus spoke the English admiral,
His hand was on his sword ;
Hurrah ! was the sole answer
From every man on board.
The Dutch came o'er the ocean,
As if it were their home,
With a slow and gliding motion
The stately vessels come.
The sky is blue above them,
But ere an hour be past,
The shadows of the battle
Will over heaven be cast
They meet— it is in thunder,
The thunder of the gun ;
Fire rends the smoke asunder
The battle is begun.
He stands amid his seamen,
Our Admiral of the White,
And guides the strife more calmly,
Than of that strife I write.
For over the salt water
The grape-shot sweeps around ;
The decks are red with slaughter,
The dead are falling round.
But the bold flag of old England
Flies bravely at the mast ;
The Dutch take down their colours,
While the cannons fire their last.
From that hour victorious
Have we kept the seas,
And our navy glorious,
Queens it o'er the breeze.
Long may we keep such empire,
It is a noble debt
We owe to those past triumphs,
We never may forget.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
The victory over the Dutch was won by Admiral Blake in the time of the Protectorate. Von Tromp sailed into the channel with a broom at his masthead, intimating that he would sweep the seas of the English. The result is stated above.
RUINS ABOUT THE TAJ MAHAL
MOURNFULLY they pass away,
The dearest and the fairest ;
Beauty, thou art common clay,
Common doom thou sharest.
Though the rose bestow its dyes
For a blush too tender ;
Though the stars endow thine eyes
With their midnight splendour.
Though thy smiles around thee fling
Atmosphere elysian ;
Though thy presence seems to spring
Like a poet's vision ;
Though the full heart worship thee,
Like a thing enchanted ;
Though the cold earth common be,
When thy touch is wanted :
Yet thou dost decay and die,
And beside thee perish
All that grew beneath thine eye,
All that we wont cherish,
Every gentle hope and thought
Which thou bearest hither ;
Hues from thine own heaven brought,
Hues thou takest thither.
Fare thee well — thou soon art flown
From a world that loved thee ;
Heaven, that claims thee for its own,
Soon from us removed thee.
Here thy shadows only come,
Fleeting, though divinest;
But in thine eternal home
Steadfastly thou shinest.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
An arid plain leads to the luxuriant gardens which still adorn the mausoleum where Nour Jahan and the lovely partner of his throne "sleep the sleep that knows no waking." Ponds of gold and silver fish are the common ornaments of a great man's grounds in India. They are covered after sunset with a gauze frame, to protect them from their various nightly enemies. Notwithstanding the care taken for their preservation, they often become the prey of the kingfisher. Tombs in India are palaces, vast and immutable as the slumbers which they cover. As if to add the contrast of natural fertility to human decay, the garden always surrounds the grave.
RUINS AT BALBEC
The crowned monarch sat on his throne,
He looked on the plain, it was bare and lone;
Saving the palm-tree waving on high,
Nothing was there but the sand and the sky.
He called his slaves—and thousands stir,
For he was a king and a conqueror;
And he bade them dig deep in the earth
Where the white and veined marbles have birth.
And he said, I will build me a city whose fame
Shall keep to the end of all time my name.
Ships brought ivory—ships brought gold,
And the carved woods were fair to behold.
They built the temple, they built the tower,
And they hung with purple a royal bower.
There was corn and wine in the market-place,
And the streets were filled with the human race.
When the king died—even conquerors must—
Mighty the tomb they raised o’er his dust.
His throne was filled by his eldest son,—
He went on as his father had done.
Years have grown into centuries grey,
The king and his people, where are they?
Where are the temples of carved stone?
Look in the dust—to dust they are gone.
Five or six pillars alone remain
Of the thousands that crowded that marble plain.
The palm-tree that stood by that building of yore
Standeth as green as it did before.
But the dust is heaped o’er the works of men—
And so it hath been, and will be again.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
BALBEC, or Baalbec, the ancient Heliopolis (City of the Sun) in Cœlosyria, is seated at the foot of Anti-libanus, forty miles from Damascus. It is a small town, surrounded by ruinous walls; contains about five thousand inhabitants, Christian and Jews; and is under the government of an Aga, who assumes the title of Emir. Here are the finest ruins in the East. Amongst the most remarkable are the remains of the Temple of the Sun, built either by Antoninus Pius, or Septimus Severus, upon whose medals it is represented. Of fifty-four columns there are but six standing; their shafts are sixty feet high, twenty-two in circumference, and, including the pedestal and capital, have a total height of seventy-two feet. The dimensions of the stones with which the Temple walls were built, are such that no modern architectural machinery could place them in their present positions. Under Constantine, this building was converted into a Christian church, and so continued until the Arab irruption, after which it was neglected. The remains of the palace of Antoninus Pius also possess distinguished beauty; and every where around, bas-reliefs and marble statues of Jupiter, Diana, Leda, Roman emperors, &c. all of exquisite finish, may be seen. There are few, but they are conspicuous landmarks, in the records of this ancient city. Its original rulers were expelled by Obeidah, a general of Caliph Omar. In 1401, Tamerlane became its sovereign: and, in 1759, modern Balbec was almost entirely overthrown by an earthquake.
RUNJEET-SINGH, AND HIS SUWARREE OF SEIKS
THE hunters were up in the light of the morn,
High on the clear air their banners were borne ;
And the steeds that they mounted were bright to behold,
With housings that glittered in silver and gold.
Proud at their head rode the chief of Lahore,
A dagger that shone with the ruby he wore ;
And Inde, and Bokhara, and Iran supplied
The dogs, staunch and gallant, that coursed at his side.
He wears the green robe of the Prophet's high line,
He is sprung from the chieftain of Mecca's far shrine ;
His horse, on whose bridle the white pearls are sown,
Has a lineage as distant and pure as his own.
His falconers are round him, a bird on each hand—
No Norman from Norway ere brought such a band,
So strong is each wing, so dark is each eye
That flings back the light it has learnt in the sky.
In vain from the chase of that gallant array
The wild boar will hide in the forest to-day ;
In vain will the tiger spring forth from its gloom,
He springs on the sabre that beareth his doom.
On, on through the green woods that girdle the pass,
The sun and the dew are alike on the grass ;
On, on till by moonlight the gathering be
Of the hunters that rest by the banyan tree.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838
Mr. Burnes gives a most splendid description of the hunting cavalcades in Lahore. Part, however, of the sport was cruel. The captured hogs were fastened to a stake, and baited with dogs, and their spirit renewed, when it failed, by cold water dashed over them. At length Runjeet gave orders that they should be liberated, in order, as he said, that " they might praise his humanity." This latter consideration seems to have arrived somewhat late.—The horses sent from England attracted great admiration ; but that was nothing compared to the praise, bestowed on their shoes. The letter of thanks from Runjeet to our king says, "On beholding the shoes, the new moon turned pale, and nearly disappeared from the sky."
HE hunters were up in the light of the morn,
“This drawing, made on the occasion of Runjeet Singh’s interview with the governor-general of India, in 1831, represents a suwarree (cavalcade) of natives, with the Lahore chieftain, and his retinue. The landscape is a sketch near the river Sutleje, with a fortified Seik town, and a distant view of the Himalaya Mountains. Mr. Burnes frequently mentions the magnificence of the dresses, and the jewellery displayed at Runjeet’s grand entertainments. Among the latter was the celebrated diamond weighing three and a half rupees, and said to be worth three and a half millions of money ; also a ruby weighing fourteen rupees, and a topaz half the size of a billiard-ball.”
THE RUSH-BEARING AT AMBLESIDE
SUMMER is come, with her leaves and her flowers—
Summer is come, with the sun on her hours;
The lark in the clouds, and the thrush on the bough,
And the dove in the thicket, make melody now.
The noon is abroad, but the shadows are cool
Where the green rushes grow in the dark forest pool.
We seek not the hedges where violets blow,
There alone in the twilight of ev'ning we go;
They are love-tokens offered, when heavy with dew,
To a lip yet more fragrant--an eye yet more blue.
But leave them alone to their summer-soft dream—
We seek the green rushes that grow by the stream.
Away from the meadow, although the long grass
Be filled with young flowers that smile as we pass;
Where the bird's eye is bright as the sapphires that shine
When the hand of a beauty is decked from the mine.
We want not their gems, and we want not their flowers.
But we seek the green rush in the dark forest bowers.
The cowslip is ringing its fairy-like chime,
Sweet bells, by whose music Titania keeps time;
The rose-bush is covered with cups that unfold
Their petals that tremble in delicate gold.
But we seek not their blossoms in garlands to blend,
We seek the green rush where the willow-trees bend.
The green rush, the green rush, we bear it along
To the church of our village with triumph and song;
We strew the cold chancel, and kneel on it there,
While its fresh odours rise with our voices in prayer.
Hark the peal from the old tower in praise of it rings,
Let us seek the green rush by the deep woodland springs.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
In the olden time, when the churches were strewn with rushes, the ceremony of changing them was a yearly religious festival. The custom, once universal, now lingers only in some of the remote northern districts. There, bunches of rushes, gaily ornamented, attended by banners and music, are still borne in triumph by the young people of the village. Last remains of that pastoral poetry which once characterised "Merrie England."
UMMER is come, with her leaves and her flowers—
RYDAL WATER AND GRASMERE LAKE
(or ON WORDSWORTH'S COTTAGE, NEAR GRASMERE LAKE)
NOT for the glory on their heads
Those stately hill-tops wear,
Although the summer sunset sheds
Its constant crimson there.
Not for the gleaming lights that break
The purple of the twilight lake,
Half dusky and half fair,
Does that sweet valley seem to be
A sacred place on earth to me.
The influence of a moral spell
Is found around the scene,
Giving new shadows to the dell,
New verdure to the green.
With every mountain-top is wrought
The presence of associate thought,
A music that has been;
Calling that loveliness to life,
With which the inward world is rife.
His home--our English poet's home—
Amid these hills is made;
Here, with the morning hath he come,
There, with the night delayed.
On all things is his memory cast,
For every place wherein he past,
Is with his mind arrayed,
That, wandering in a summer hour,
Asked wisdom of the leaf and flower.
Great poet, if I dare to throw
My homage at thy feet,
'Tis thankfulness for hours which thou
Hast made serene and sweet;
As wayfarers have incense thrown
Upon some mighty altar-stone
Unworthy, and yet meet,
The human spirit longs to prove
The truth of its uplooking love.
Until thy hand unlocked its store,
What glorious music slept!
Music that can be hushed no more
Was from our knowledge kept.
But the great Mother gave to thee
The poet's universal key,
And forth the fountains swept—
A gushing melody for ever,
The witness of thy high endeavour.
Rough is the road which we are sent,
Rough with long toil and pain;
And when upon the steep ascent,
A little way we gain,
Vexed with our own perpetual care,
Little we heed what sweet things are
Around our pathway blent;
With anxious steps we hurry on,
The very sense of pleasure gone.
But thou dost in this feverish dream
Awake a better mood,
With voices from the mountain stream,
With voices from the wood.
And with their music dost impart
Their freshness to the world-worn heart,
Whose fever is subdued
By memories sweet with other years,
By gentle hopes, and soothing tears.
A solemn creed is thine, and high,
Yet simple as a child,
Who looketh hopeful to yon sky
With eyes yet undefiled
By all the glitter and the glare
This life's deceits and follies wear,
Exalted, and yet mild,
Conscious of those diviner powers
Brought from a better world than ours.
Thou hast not chosen to rehearse
The old heroic themes;
Thou hast not given to thy verse
The heart's impassioned dreams.
Forth flows thy song as waters flow,
So bright above--so calm below,
Wherein the heaven seems
Eternal as the golden shade
Its sunshine on the stream hath laid.
The glory which thy spirit hath
Is round life's common things,
And flingeth round our common path,
As from an angel's wings,
A light that is not of our sphere,
Yet lovelier for being here,
Beneath whose presence springs
A beauty never mark'd before,
Yet once known, vanishing no more.
How often with the present sad,
And weary with the past,
A sunny respite have we had,
By but a chance look cast
Upon some word of thine that made
The sullenness forsake the shade,
Till shade itself was past:
For Hope divine, serene and strong,
Perpetual lives within thy song.
Eternal as the hills thy name,
Eternal as thy strain;
So long as ministers of Fame
Shall Love and Hope remain.
The crowded city in its streets,
The valley, in its green retreats,
Alike thy words retain.
What need hast thou of sculptured stone?—
Thy temple, is thy name alone.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838
A comprehensive view of Lake Scenery is here presented, including the Lakes of Rydal Water and Grasmere, in connection with all the noble and picturesque objects in their vicinity. The village of Rydal is situated on the north side of the Lake, and Rydal Hall, the magnificent seat of the Le Flemings, seems embosomed in a beautiful park that occupies the declining front of the mountain. Near to the principal gate of entrance, the cottage residence of the poet Wordsworth peeps forth from the woods, as if endeavouring to recall to memory a name that can never be forgotten. The distance, and the whole background of the landscape, is composed of that mountain-chain in which Langdale Pikes and Silver How are the most elevated and conspicuous.
ST. KNIGHTON'S KIEVE
Silent and still was the haunted stream.
Feeble and faint was the moon's pale beam,
And the wind that whispered the waving bough
Was like the sound of some godless vow.
Far in the distance the waters fell
Foaming o'er many a pinnacle ;
They waged with the crags an angry fight,
'Twas a dreary sound in the dead of night.
But the place where we stood was a quiet nook,
Like a secret page in nature's book ;
Down at our feet was the midnight well,
Naught of its depths can the daylight tell.
An old oak tree grows near to the spot,
Gray with moss of long years forgot ;
They say that the dead are sleeping below,
'Twas a shrine of the Druids ages ago.
One alone stood beside me there,
The dismal silence I could not bear ;
A mariner wild from beyond the sea :
I wish that he had not been with me.
Over the gloomy well we hung,
And a long, long line with the lead we flung ;
And as the line and the hook we threw,
Darker and darker the waters grew.
With gibe and jest that mariner stood,
Mocking the night of that gloomy flood ;
Quoth he, "when the line brings its treasure up,
I'll drain a deep draught from the golden cup.
"I only wish it were filled with wine,
Water has little love of mine ;
But the eyes I'll pledge will lend a glow,
They're the brightest and wickedest eyes I know.
"Though those eyes light up a cloister now,
Little she recks of the veil and the vow ;
And let but the well yield its gold to-night,
And St. Valerie's nun will soon take flight."
Black and more black the midnight grew,
Black and more black was the water's hue ;
Then a ghastly sound on the silence broke,
And I thought of the dead beneath the oak.
"Thank God, thank God for light below,
'Tis the charmed cup that is flashing now ;"
"No thanks to God," my comrade cries,
"'Tis our own good skill that has won the prize."
There came a flash of terrible light,
And I saw that my comrade's face was white ;
The golden cup rose up on a foam,
Then down it plunged to its mystical home.
Then all was night—and I may not tell
What agony there on my spirit fell ;
But I pray'd for our Lady's grace as I lay,
And the pain and the darkness past away.
Years have past, yet that sinful man,
Though his hair is gray and his face is wan,
Keeps plunging his line in the gloom of that well ;
He is under the Evil Spirit's spell.
'Twas the fairies carved that cup's bright mould,
What have we to do with their gold ?
Now our Lady forgive my hour of sin,
That ever I sought that cup to win.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
I am indebted to a communication from Mr. Clarke for this legend. He has not stated the attempt to gain the golden cup, hidden in the well, to be an act so reprehensible as I have made it. However, I only follow common custom, in putting upon any act the worst possible construction.
ST. MAWGAN CHURCH AND LANHERN NUNNERY, CORNWALL
It stands amid the sheltering boughs,
A place of peace—a place of rest,
Where the veiled virgin's hourly vows
By prayer and penitence are blest.
The sunshine rests upon the walls
More golden than the common day,
And there a stiller shadow falls
Than rests on life's tumultuous way.
Alas ! why should this quiet place
Bring fancies of unrest to me ;
Why looks forth that beloved face
I seem in every place to see ?
Ah, what may not those walls conceal !
The sunshine of that sainted shrine
Might from its inmost depths reveal
Some spirit passionate as mine ;
Some one condemned in youth to part
From all that made her youth so dear,
To listen to her beating heart,
In shame—in solitude and fear :
To know no hope before the grave,
To fear there is no hope beyond,
Yet scarcely dare of heaven to crave.
Forgiveness for a faith too fond :
To feel the white and vestal veil
Grow wet and warm with worldly tears,
To pass the midnight watching pale,
Yet tremble when the day appears
Prostrate before the cross to kneel,
With eyes that may not look above;
How dare the delicate to feel
The agony of earthly love ?
O ! misery, for the young heart doomed
To waste and weep its youth away,
To be within itself entombed,
And desperate with the long decay !
Yes, misery ! but there may he
A yet more desperate despair ;
There is a love whose misery
Mocks all those cells may soothe and share.
There the pale nun at least can keep
One treasured and unbroken dream ;
The love for which she wakes to weep,
Seems ever what it once could seem.
She knows not time's uncharming touch
Destroying every early hue ;
The false !—she dreameth not of such—
Her love is still the deep, the true.
Not so the love of common life,
'Tis coloured by the common air ;
Its atmosphere with death is rife,
A moral pestilence is there.
Fevered—exacting—false and vain,
Like a disease, it lingers on,
Though all that blest its first sweet reign,
Its morning dew and light, are gone.
Such is the actual life of love,
Such is the love that I have known ;
Unworthy of the heaven above—
Dust, like the earth where it has grown.
Ah ! better far alone to dwell,
Dreaming above the dearest past,
And keeping in the silent cell,
Life's best illusions to the last.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
The old Mansion of Lanhern belonged to the Lords Arundell, of Wardour. It was given in 1794 by Henry Eighth, Lord Arundell, as an asylum for a convent of English Theresian nuns, who had migrated from Antwerp, in consequence of the invasion of the French. The sisterhood, or rather their successors, still continue secluded in the old and lonely house now called the Lanhern Nunnery.
THE SACRED SHRINES OF DWARKA
Such was the faith of old—obscure and vast,
And offering human triumphs unto heaven.
Then rose the stately temple, rich with spoils
Won from the vanquished nations. There the god
Stood visible in golden pageantry ;
And pride, pomp, power were holy attributes.
A humbler creed has wandered o'er the earth,
Known, as a quiet scarce-seen stream is known,
But by the greener growth upon its banks.
It is our Christian worship, which doth lead
The heart of man to Heaven by love alone.
Plant ye the Cross then by these ancient shrines :
Far let it spread its genial influence—
Peace for its shadow—Hope for its sunshine.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
The introduction of Christian Missionaries was always advocated by Sir Alexander Johnston, while President of His Majesty's Council in Ceylon. A leading Brahmin mentioned, while in conversation with him, the following striking fact. "For our toleration," said he, " I refer to the little Roman Catholic chapel of St. Francis, which had for the last three hundred years stood under a banyan tree, close by the great Hindoo temple. Not one of the innumerable devotees who resort thither on pilgrimages had ever molested the shrine of another faith."
uch was the faith of old—obscure and vast,