Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L E L)
Poems published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books - 5
THE SAILOR’S BRIDE or THE BONAVENTURE
THE day is yet rosy with wakening from sleep,
The stars have one moment gone down in the deep,
The flowers have not opened that hide in the grass,
And the hares leave their print in the dew as they pass.
Long and dark on the sand are the shadows that fall
From turret and tower of the castle’s old wall ;
No fisherman’s sail to the morning is spread—
Why leaveth the lady her chamber and bed?
Why leaves she her chamber of purple ?—too soon
For its curtains’ silk folds to unclose before noon.
Why leaves she her pillow, so soft and so fair ?—
The hours of the night are yet cold on the air.
Her maidens are sleeping—her young page, in dreams,
Sees the blue flowers that bend by the far inland streams ;
Those flowers each morning his lady receives—
He’ll gather them yet with the dew on their leaves.
Upriseth the lady, to ask from the light
The hope of her day, and the dream of her night.
She comes with the morning—she lingers at eve—
For long months has her task been to gaze and to grieve.
No tidings to cheer her—but still she hopes on,
Though the summer he promised their meeting, be gone ;
An hundred knights ask for a look, on their knee,
But she turns from them all, and she watches the sea.
Three years have gone by since the ship spread her sail,
Yet she watches the wave, and she waiteth the gale.
There are shells in her chamber—when midnight is lone,
How often her ear has been filled with their tone;
While she asked of the tempest, from warnings that dwell
Like echoes that breathe of their birth, in each shell.
There are flowers, the rarest—but dearer than all
Is the sea-weed that hangeth cold, damp, on the wall.
She saw the tall ship through the dark waters ride,
With war on her deck, and with death at her side ;
She caught the last wave of the captain’s armed hand.
And the Bonaventure left our fair English strand.
She was bound for the south, where gold and where war
Await the bold seaman who comes from afar ;
But many and strong are the galleons of Spain,
And three years Sir Francis has been on the main.
The white o’er the red rose has somewhat prevailed,
And more slender her form since Sir Francis first sailed ;
But lovely, how lovely ! that paleness to him
Who knows for his sake lip and cheek are thus dim.
The oriel, whose shrine is of silver, where stands
St. Therese, that lifted the white-sculptured hands,
Might tell how long midnights the ladye has prayed
For that ship in the South seas, her patron saint’s aid.
No night is so long, but it breaks into day—
No voyage, that has not an end to its way—
The ladye hath risen with daybreak again,
She watcheth the sky, and she watcheth the main :
She seeth a speck—’tis a cloud in the sky—
Ah, no—’tis a tall ship ! it comes—it is nigh—
The flag of St. George is hung proud at the mast,
The Bonaventure is returning at last.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
SARNAT, A BOODH MONUMENT
DIM faith of other times, when earth was young,
And eager in belief; when men were few,
And felt their nothingness; not then elate
With numbers, science, and the victories
Which history registers o'er vanquished time.
For time is vanquished by discovery,
By arts which triumph over common wants,
By knowledge, which bequeaths the following age
All that its predecessor sought and won.
But thou, oh ancient creed, hast nought of this.
Others have given immortality
To their bold founders ; he who worshipped fire,
And taught the Magi how to read the stars,
The Persian Zoroaster, left a name ;
And he, too, of the crescent and the sword,
Who sternlike swept on his appointed way,
Is still his followers' war-cry. These beliefs
Are obvious in their workings ; we can trace
The one great mind that set the springs in play,
By which the human puppets rise and fall.
Ambition, avarice, cruelty, and fear,
The natural inmates of the heart in man,
Are stirred by some adventurer, who knows
How superstition can be made the bond
To fetter thousands; I can understand
The rise and progress of such earthly creed.
Oh, vanity of vanities is writ
Upon all things of earth—but what can wear
The writing on its forehead like this shrine ?
It is a mighty thing to teach mankind
A new idolatry, to bind the weak
In their own fancies, to incite the strong
By high imaginations, future hopes,
Which fill the craving in all noble hearts
For things beyond themselves, beyond their sphere.
All human gifts must concentrate in Him
Who can originate a new belief—
The fiery eloquence that stirs the soul,
The poetry that can create a world
More lovely than our own, and body forth
Its glorious creation, and yet blend
This fine enthusiasm with an eye
Worldly and keen, which sees in others' faults,
Frailties, and follies, but the many means
Which work to its own ends : yet, out on pride !
Such men may live, fulfil their destiny,
Fill a whole land with temples and with tombs,
And yet not leave a record of their fame ;
Forgotten utterly; and of their faith,
No memory, but fallen monuments,
Haunted by dim tradition.—
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
" All accounts of the Hindoos speak of a most dreadful persecution carried on by the Bramins, the sect of Bhud, many years ago, and the subsequent expulsion of the latter, whose doctrines extend over Ceylon, Thibet, Tonquin, Cochin China, throughout China, exists largely in Japan, and is without doubt the religion which has
the most numerous followers in the world. Next to this, I suppose, the Christian can boast the greatest number of believers; then the Mahometans; and, lastly, the Braminical—being the four principal religions which divide the habitable world.
" As to the antiquity of the two religions, if we allow the figure of Bhud to be the personification of fire, as some of the statutes representing this deity have a small flame on the tops of their heads, and that one of the earliest religions amongst mankind sprung from natural respect towards the sun, and also grant that the Bramins
come, according to their own admission, from the northward, the preference seems due to that of Bhud."
See Colonel Fitzclarence's (now Lord Munster's) Journey Overland from India; one of the most interesting and able works of the time.
SASSOOR, IN THE DECCAN
(or THOUGHTS ON CHRISTMAS-DAY)
It is Christmas, and the sunshine
Lies golden on the fields,
And flowers of white and purple,
Yonder fragrant creeper yields.
Like the plumes of some bold warrior,
The cocoa tree on high,
Lifts aloft its feathery branches,
Amid the deep blue sky.
From yonder shadowy peepul,
The pale fair lilac dove,
Like music from a temple,
Sings a song of grief and love.
The earth is bright with blossoms,
And a thousand jewelled wings,
'Mid the green boughs of the tamarind
A sudden sunshine flings.
For the East is earth's first-born,
And hath a glorious dower
As Nature there had lavished
Her beauty and her power.
And yet I pine for England,
For my own—my distant home ;
My heart is in that island,
Where'er my steps may roam.
It is merry there at Christmas—
We have no Christmas here ;
'Tis a weary thing, a summer
That lasts throughout the year.
I remember how the banners
Hung round our ancient hall,
Bound with wreaths of shining holly,
Brave winter's coronal.
And above each rusty helmet
Waved a new and cheering plume,
A branch of crimson berries,
And the latest rose in bloom.
And the white and pearly misletoe
Hung half conceal'd o'er head,
I remember one sweet maiden,
Whose cheek it dyed with red.
The morning waked with carols,*
A young and joyous hand
Of small and rosy songsters,
Came tripping hand in hand.
And sang beneath our windows,
Just as the round red sun
Began to melt the hoar-frost,
And the clear cold day begun.
And at night the aged harper
Played his old tunes o'er and o'er ;
From sixteen up to sixty,
All were dancing on that floor.
Those were the days of childhood,
The buoyant and the bright ;
When hope was life's sweet sovereign,
And the heart and step were light.
I shall come again—a stranger
To all that once I knew,
For the hurried steps of manhood
From life's flowers have dash'd the dew.
I yet may ask their welcome,
And return from whence I came ;
But a change is wrought within me,
They will not seem the same.
For my spirits are grown weary,
And my days of youth are o'er,
And the mirth of that glad season
Is what I can feel no more.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
THE plate represents a temple to Mahadeo, surrounded by inferior shrines. The Hindoos usually place some religious building at the confluence of two streams : and when the accompanying view was taken, there were some cultivated gardens, and groves of beautiful trees. Still, I believe, few Indian residents but will admit the truth of the feeling which the following lines endeavour to express.
* This is one of those pretty customs that yet remain at a due distance from London—London, that Thalaba of all observances. I remember once being awakened by a band of children coming up the old beech avenue, singing carols with all their heart. The tune was monotonous enough, and as to time, I will say nothing on the subject. Still the multitude of infant voices, and the open air, and the distance, gave a singularly wild and sweet effect to the chant of the childish company. The words, which I subjoin, had a practical tendency.
Ivy, holly, and misletoe,
Give me a penny, and let me go.
THE SAVOYARD IN GROSVENOR SQUARE
HE stands within the silent square,
That square of state, of gloom;
A heavy weight is on the air,
Which hangs as o'er a tomb.
It is a tomb which wealth and rank
Have built themselves around—
The general sympathies have shrank
Like flowers on high dry ground.
None heed the wandering boy who sings,
An orphan though so young;
None think how far the singer brings
The songs which he has sung.
None cheer him with a kindly look,
None with a kindly word;
The singer's little pride must brook
To be unpraised, unheard.
At home their sweet bird he was styled,
And oft, when days were long,
His mother called her favourite child
To sing her favourite song.
He wanders now through weary streets,
Till cheek and eye are dim;
How little sympathy he meets,
For music or for him.
Sudden his dark brown cheek grows bright
His dark eyes fill with glee,
Covered with blossoms snowy-white,
He sees an orange tree.
No more the toil-worn face is pale,
Nor faltering step is sad;
He sees his distant native vale,
He sees it, and is glad.
He sees the squirrel climb the pine,
The doves fly through the dell,
The purple clusters of the vine;
He hears the vesper bell.
His heart is full of hope and home,
Toil, travel, are no more;
And he has happy hours to come
Beside his father's door.
Oh, charm of natural influence!
But for thy lovely ties,
Never might the world-wearied sense
Above the present rise.
Blessed be thy magic every where,
Oh Nature, gentle mother;
How kindlier is for us thy care,
Than ours is for each other.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
SCALE FORCE, CUMBERLAND
It sweeps, as sweeps an army
Adown the mountain side,
With the voice of many thunders,
Like the battle's sounding tide.
Yet the sky is blue above it,
And the dashing of the spray
Wears the colour of the rainbow
Upon an April day.
It rejoices in the sunshine
When after heavy rain
It gathers the far waters
To dash upon the plain.
It is terrible, yet lovely,
Beneath the morning rays :
Like a dream of strength and beauty,
It haunted those who gaze.
We feel that it is glorious,
Its power is on the soul ;
And lofty thoughts within us
Acknowledge its control.
A generous inspiration
Is on the outward world ;
It waketh thoughts and feelings
In careless coldness furled.
To love and to admire
Seems natural to the heart ;
Life's small and selfish interests
From such a scene depart.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
This cascade, distant about a mile and a half from the village of Buttermere, exceeds in extent of fall the renowned Niagara, yet, owing to a difficulty of access, it is frequently neglected by the tourist.
SCENE IN BUNDELKHUND
She sat beneath the palm tree, as the night
Came with a purple shadow on the day,
Which died away in hues of crimson shades,
Blushes and tears. The wind amid the reeds,
The long green reeds, sung mournfully, and shook
Faint blossoms on the murmuring river's face.
The eve was sweet and silent—she who sat
Beneath the deepening shadow of the palm,
Look'd like an ancient and a pastoral dream ;
Dreams—dreams indeed ! It is man's actual lot
That gives the future hope, and fills the past
With happiness that is not—may not be.
—O, tranquil earth and heaven—but their repose,
What influence hath it on the mourner there !
Her eye is fix'd in terrible despair,
Her lip is white with pain, and, spectre-like,
Her shape is worn with famine—on her arm
Rests a dead child—she does not weep for it.
Two more are at her side, she'd weep for them,
But that she is too desperate to weep :
Dust has assumed dominion, she has now
No tenderness, nor sweet solicitudes
That fill the youthful mother with fond fears.
Our fierce and cruel nature, that which sleeps
In all, though lulled by custom, law, and ease,
In her is roused by suffering. There is death
Within those wolfish eyes. Not for herself !
Fear, the last vestige of humanity,
Makes death so horrible that she will buy
Its absence, though with blood—that blood her own,
Once dearer that it ran in other veins :
She'll kill those children—for they share her food.
AND SUCH IS HUMAN NATURE, AND OUR OWN.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
Distress In Bundelkhund.—The Sumarchar Durpun, of Feb. 22, contains a description of the horrible state of the native population of Bundelkhund, in consequence of the famine, which has prevailed there for some time past. The price and scarcity of grain have put it far beyond the reach of the poorer classes, more particularly as there appears to be great difficulty in the way of finding employment. For some time they obtained a miserable subsistance on byers, a sort of astringent and acid berry ; but even this wretched supply has now ceased. A most appalling and pitiable condition of human misery is the consequence. Mothers have been seen to devour the dead bodies of their own children !
SCENE IN KATTIAWAR
I Have a steed, to leave behind
The wild bird, and the wilder wind :
I have a sword, which does not know
How to waste a second blow :
I have a matchlock, whose red breath
Bears the lightning's sudden death ;
I have a foot of fiery flight,
I have an eye that cleaves the night.
I win my portion in the land
By my high heart and strong right hand.
The starry heavens lit up the gloom
That lay around Al Herid's tomb ;
The wind was still, you might have heard
The falling leaf, the rustling bird ;
Yet no one heard my footstep fall,
None saw my shadow on the wall :
Yet curses came with morning's light,
Where was the gold they hid at night ?
Where was the gold they loved so well,
My heavy girdle best could tell !
Three travellers crost by yonder shrine ;
I saw their polished pistols shine,
And swore they were, or should be mine.
The first, his head was at my feet ;
The second I was glad to greet;
He met me like a man, his sword,
Damascus true, deserved its lord ;
Yet soon his heart's best blood ran red :
I sought the third—the slave had fled.
I have a lovely mountain bower,
Where blooms a gentle Georgian flower ;
She was my spear's accustom'd prize,
The antelope hath not such eyes.
Now my sweet captive loves her lot,
What has a queen that she has not ?
Let her but wish for shawls or pearls,
To bind her brow, to braid her curls ;
And I from east to west would fly,
Ere she should ask and I deny.
But those rich merchants must be near,
Away, I cannot linger here ;
The vulture hovers o'er his prey,
Come, my good steed—away !—away !
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
"THE north-western portion of Guzerat is inhabited by a warlike and robber race ; hence travellers need an escort. This is sometimes given by the native chieftains. More frequently the merchant hires a guard. The shelter afforded by the ruined temples and tombs, occasion such resting-places to be usually made in their vicinity."
SCENE IN LEBANON
"THE PRETTIEST AND ONE OF THE BOLDEST PASSES IN LEBANON.”
Ye mountains, gloomy with the past,
Ye dark ancestral heights,
Whereon the gleams of morning cast
The earliest of their lights.
The stars shine out above your snows,
Until the world seems made
For that one hour of dim repose
Of solitude and shade.
What have ye witnessed, since ye prest,
Beneath the new-born sun,
That shadow, type of those which rest
All human things upon.
Change has passed over all below,
But none has passed o'er thee.
Oh, mighty mountain ! thou art now
What thou wast — and wilt be.
The proud Assyrian's purple host
Swept through thy dark defile,
Their banners by thy winds were tost,
Which mocked their pride the while.
Persian, and Ottoman, and kings
Far from the northern seas,
And knight and monk tradition brings
'Neath these ancestral trees.
There was earth's first-born offering made,
And there the Cross has past ;
God's earliest altars knew their shade,
And they shall know the last.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840
THE SHEPHERD BOY
LIKE some vision olden
Of far other time,
When the age was golden,
In the young world's prime
Is thy soft pipe ringing,
O lonely shepherd boy,
What song art thou singing,
In thy youth and joy?
Or art thou complaining
Of thy lowly lot,
And thine own disdaining
Dost ask what thou hast not?
Of the future dreaming,
Weary of the past,
For the present scheming,
All but what thou hast.
No, thou art delighting
In thy summer home;
Where the flowers inviting
Tempt the bee to roam;
Where the cowslip bending,
With its golden bells,
Of each glad hour's ending
With a sweet chime tells.
All wild creatures love him
When he is alone,
Every bird above him
Sings its softest tone.
Thankful to high Heaven,
Humble in thy joy,
Much to thee is given,
Lowly shepherd boy.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
“Now as they were going along, and talking, they spied a boy feeding his father's sheep. The boy was in very mean clothes, but of a fresh and well-favoured countenance ; and as he sat by himself, he sung. Then said the guide, Do you hear him ? I will dare to say, this boy lives a merrier life, and wears more of the herb called heartsease in his bosom, than he that is clad in silk and velvet."
— Pilgrim's Progress.
THE SHRINE AND GROTTO OF SANTA ROSALIA
Had she not birth — that gives its place
High honoured in the land ?
Her seat at every festival
Was at the Queen's right hand.
Had she not wealth — the wanting which,
Rank is a painful show ?
It is the spirit of red gold
That rules the world below.
Had she not beauty — last, best charm
To woman granted here ?
Ah ! Nature has no other gift
So infinite — so dear !
Yet has she turned away from life,
Alone, apart, to dwell,
Within a mountain-solitude,
Within a mountain-cell.
What feelings and what impulses
Then stirred the human soul,
That gave itself entire, apart,
To solitude's control !
Was it a world of fantasy
Wherein her being moved,
While only of imagined things
She feared, and hoped, and loved ?
Did the pale stars that watch at night
Reveal their mystic lore,
And tell the secrets of those days
That earth will know no more ?
Did the wild winds amid the pines
Seem as they brought the tone
Of holy and immortal songs
To angels only known ?
Her's must have been a life of dreams,
Exalted and sustained
By that enthusiastic faith
Which such a victory gained.
Yet hold I not such sacrifice
Is for the Christian's creed :
I question of its happiness —
I question of its need.
God never made a world so fair,
To leave that world a void,
Nor scattered blessings o'er our path,
Unless to be enjoyed.
Look round— the vales are sweet with flowers
The woods are sweet with song:
The soul, uplifted with their joy,
Says, such joy is not wrong.
Divine its origin — divine
The faith it keeps alive.
Not with the beautiful and true
Should human nature strive ;
Each fine sense gifted with delight,
Was to the spirit given,
That, conscious of a better state,
It might believe in heaven.
Too much this weary world of ours
Has fallen since the fall ;
And low desires, and care, and crime.
Hold empire over all.
Yet not the less it is our part
To do the best we can :
A better faith — a better fate
Man yet may work for man.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840
Tradition relates that the saint, who was niece of William the Good, disgusted with the manners of her uncle's court, at the early age of fifteen retired to a life of solitude and prayer, on the mountains near Palermo, and was not heard of after. The picturesque grotto, in which the bones of the saint were discovered, has, like the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, been enclosed within the walls of a church. The celebrated effigy of the saint is seen peeping through a rounded aperture ; and in the inner and darker part of the gloomy cavern, stands her image. There is something so affecting in the attitude, beauty, and expression of the countenance, that it suggests an apology for its infatuated Palermitan worshippers, which can easily be understood by those who have seen Westmacott's "Houseless Wanderer.”
SHUHUR, JEYPORE
A LONELY grave, far from all kindred ties;
Lonely like life, and that was past afar
From friends and home. 'Tis well that youth has hopes
That gladden with the future present hours ;
Or else how sorrowful would seem the time
Which parts the young bird from its parent nest,
To wing its passage through the dreary world.
Alas ! hope is not prophecy,—we dream,
But rarely does the glad fulfilment come :
We leave our land and we return no more;
Or come again, the weary and the worn.
But yonder grave, where the dark branches droop,
The only sign of mourning, early closed
O'er the young English stranger ;—former love
And other days were warm about his heart,
When it grew cold forever . . . . . . .
And many are the tombs that scattered lie
Alone neglected, o'er the Indian plains—
'Tis the worst curse, on this our social world,
Fortune's perpetual presence—wealth, which now
Is like life's paramount necessity.
For this, the household band is broken up,
The hearth made desolate—and sundered hearts
Left to forget or break. For this the earth
Is covered with a thousand English graves,
By whose side none remain to weep or pray ;
Alas ! we do mistake, and vainly buy
Our golden idols at too great a price.
I'd rather share the lowest destiny,
That dares not look beyond the present day,
But treads on native ground, breathes native air,—
Than win the wealth of worlds beyond the wave;
And pine and perish 'neath a foreign sky.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834
Shuhur is a small town, in a wild part of Jeypore. The recent death of a young acquaintance in its neighbourhood, led lo the above lines. Every traveller alludes to the melancholy appearance of European burying-grounds; without mourners or memorial, and almost without the common decencies of sepulture.
SIR ROBERT PEEL
DIM through the curtains came the purple twilight slowly,
Deepening like death's shadow around that silent room;
There lay a head, a radiant head, but lowly,
And the pale face like a statue shone out amid the gloom.
Never again will those white and wasted fingers
Waken the music they were wont to wake of yore,
A music that in many a beating heart yet lingers,
The sweeter and the sadder that she will breathe no more.
It is a lovely world that the minstrel leaves behind him,
It is a lovely world in which the minstrel lives,
Deep in its inmost life hath the soul of love inshrined him,
And passionate and general the pleasure which he gives.
But dear-bought is the triumph, what dark fates are recorded
Of those who held sweet mastery o'er the pulses of the lute,
Mournfully and bitterly their toil has been rewarded,
For them the tree of knowledge puts forth its harshest fruit.
Glorious and stately the ever-growing laurel,
Flinging back the summer sunshine, defying winter's snow,
Yet its bright history has the darkly-pointed moral,
Deadly are the poisons that through its green leaves flow.
And she, around whose couch the gentle daylight dying,
Seems like all nature's loving, last farewell;
She with the world's heart to her own soft one replying.
How much of song's fever and sorrow could she tell.
Yet upon her lip a languid smile is shining,
Tokens of far-off sympathy have soothed that hour of pain;
Its sympathy has warmed the pallid cheek reclining
On the weary pillow whence it will not rise again.
It is the far-off friend, the unknown she is blessing,
The statesman who has paused upon toil's hurried way,
To learn the deepest charm that power has in possessing,
The power to scatter benefits and blessings round its sway.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
Mrs. Heman's last hours were cheered by the kindness of Sir Robert Peel; and the letter promising an appointment to her eldest son, was one of the latest that she received. This fact is my excuse for having deviated from my general rule of leaving contemporary portraits to speak for themselves. I frankly confess that I can never write till interested in my subjects. Now, a female writer cannot pretend to even an opinion on the political and public characters of the day. The above incident, on the contrary, belongs to the many who look back with admiration and gratitude to the gifted and the gone.
SIR THOMAS HARDY
GOVERNOR OF GREENWICH HOSPITAL
SILENCE is now upon the seas,
The silent seas of yore ;
The thunder of the cannonade
Awakes the wave no more.
The battle-flag droops o'er the mast,
There quiet let it sleep ;
For it hath won in wilder hours
Its empire o'er the deep.
Now let it wave above their home,
Of those who fought afar ;
The victors of the Baltic sea,
The brave of Trafalgar.
Upon a terrace by the Thames,
I saw the Admiral stand ;
He who received the latest clasp*
Of Nelson's dying hand.
Age, toil, and care had somewhat bowed
His bearing proud and high ;
But yet resolve was on his lip,
And fire was in his eye.
I felt no wonder England holds
Dominion o'er the seas ;
Still the red cross will face the world,
While she hath men like these.
And gathered there beneath the sun
Were loitering veterans old ;
As if of former victories
And former days they told.
No prouder trophy hath our isle,
Though proud her trophies be,
Than that old palace where are housed
The veterans of the sea.
Her other domes—her wealth, her pride,
Her science may declare ;
But Greenwich hath the noblest claim,
Her gratitude is there.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
His favourite captain :—Nelson died in Sir Thomas Hardy's arms. Too long for extract here, the account of that battle and death is at once the most exciting and yet touching record I know in English history.
SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE
DIVINEST art, the stars above
Were fated on thy birth to shine ;
Oh, born of beauty and of love,
What early poetry was thine!
The softness of Ionian night
Upon Ionian summer lay,
One planet gave its vesper light,
Enough to guide a lover's way ;
And gave the fountain as it played,
The semblance of a silvery shower,
And as its waters fell, they made
A music meet for such an hour ;
That, and the tones the gentle wind
Won from the leaf, as from a lute,
In natural melody combined,
Now that all ruder sound was mute ;
And odours floated on the air,
As many a nymph had just unbound
The wreath that bound their raven hair,
And flung the fragrant tresses round.
Pillowed on violet leaves, which prest
Filled the sweet chamber with their sighs,
Lulled by the lyre's low notes to rest,
A Grecian youth in slumber lies ;
And at his side a maiden stands,
The dark hair braided on her brow,
The lute within her slender hands,
But hushed is all its music now.
She would not wake him from his dreams,
Although she has so much to say,
Although the morning's earliest beams
Will see her warrior torn away.
How fond and earnest is the gaze
Upon these sleeping features thrown,
She who yet never dared to raise
Her timid eyes to meet his own.
She bends her lover's rest above,
Thoughtful with gentle hopes and fears,
And that unutterable love
Which never yet spoke but in tears ;
She would not that those tears should fall
Upon the cherished sleeper's face,
She turns, and sees upon the wall
Its imaged shade, its perfect grace ;
With eager hand she marked each line,
The shadowy brow, the arching head,
Till some creative power divine,
Love's likeness o'er love's shadow spread:
Since then, what passion and what power
Has dwelt upon the painter's art;
How has it soothed the absent hour,
With looks that wear life's loveliest part.
Oh, painter of our English isle,
Whose name is now upon my line,
Who gave to beauty's blush and smile
All that could make them most divine ,
The fair Ionian's ancient claim
Was never paid, till paid by thee,
And thou didst honour to her name,
By showing what her sex can be.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
SIR THOMAS TYLDESLEY
THE dew on the forest is steaming and white,
As cold as the moonbeam it mirrored all night.
Pale and ghostlike the stars fade away in the sky,
While a faint gleam tells that the sun is on high.
The moon in the west with a faint and veiled crest,
Her beauty departed, is sinking to rest;
The sun in the east is still cumbered with night,
No rays are around him, no colours are bright.
And dark, like an omen, the long shadow falls
Of my castle, that threatens, with war on its walls;
The guns on the ramparts—the flag on the keep,
Drooping downwards—their watch, but a sullen watch, keep.
There!—silence those trumpets—they suit not the hour—
My lady is weeping alone in her bower.
I ride not to battle as on I should ride,
With a foe to my face, and a friend at my side.
But the war-cry that rises to answer my own
Will be in the tongue I from childhood have known;
The hand will be English that meets my right hand,
And the soil where we fight is our own native land.
I shun not the combat, but grieve at the cause
That ever our freedom, our faith, and our laws,
Our heritage old, that for ages has stood,
Should need the dark sanction and cement of blood.
Farewell! my fair castle—farewell! my fair dame—
Farewell! the fair boy—now the last of his name.
My banner I spread—to my saddle I spring—
I fight for my country—I fight for my king.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
Sir Thomas Tyldesley was a distinguished cavalier, whose deeds were more suited to the pages of a romance than to those of history, and who, by his affection and steadiness to an unfortunate master, his dauntless courage and chivalrous bearing, has cast a halo round a cause, which of itself, perhaps, has little to recommend it. He was born at Tyldesley, in Lancashire, was bred in the German wars, raised a troop at his own expense to assist Charles I, served with honour at the battles of Edge-Hill, Burton-upon-Trent, Bolton, Lancaster, &c. and fell in the action of Wigan Lane, 25th of August, 1651. A monumental pillar was erected on the spot where he received his death-wound, and he was interred beneath a marble tomb in the Church of Leigh.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
DEAD !--it was like a thunderbolt
To hear that he was dead;
Though for long weeks the words of fear
Came from his dying bed;
Yet hope denied, and would deny—
We did not think that he could die.
The poet has a glorious hold
Upon the human heart,
Yet glory is from sympathy
A light alone--apart;
But there was something in thy name,
Which touched us with a dearer claim
The earnest feeling borne to thee
Was like a household tie,
A sunshine on our common life,
And from our daily sky.
Thy works are those familiar things
From which so much of memory springs.
We talked of them beside the hearth,
Till every story blends
With some remembered intercourse
Of near and dearest friends,
Friends that in early youth were ours.
Connected with life's happiest hours.
How well I can recall the time
When first I turned thy page,
The green boughs closed above my head
A natural hermitage;
And sang a little brook along,
As if it heard and caught thy song.
I peopled all the walks and shades
With images of thine;
The lime-tree was a lady's bower,
The yew-tree was a shrine:
Almost I deemed each sunbeam shone
O'er banner, spear, and morion.
Now, not one single trace is left
Of that sequestered nook;
The very course is turned aside
Of that melodious brook:
Not so the memories can depart,
Then garner'd in my inmost heart.
The past was his--his generous song
Went back to other days,
With filial feeling, which still sees
Something to love and praise,
And closer drew the ties which bind
Man with his country and his kind.
It rang throughout his native land,
A bold and stirring song,
As the merle's hymn at matin sweet,
And as the trumpet strong:
A touch there was of each degree,
Half minstrel and half knight was he.
How many a lonely mountain glade
Lives in his verse anew,
Linked with associate sympathy,
The tender and the true;
For nature has fresh beauty brought,
When animate with life from thought.
'Tis not the valley nor the hill,
Tho' beautiful they be,
That can suffice the heart, till touched
As they were touched by thee;
Thou who didst glorify the whole,
By pouring forth the poet's soul.
Who now could stand upon the banks
Of thine own "silver Tweed?"
Nor deem they heard thy "warrior's horn,"
Or heard thy "shepherd's reed?"
Immutable as Nature's claim,
The ground is hallowed by thy name.
I cannot bear to see the shelf
Where ranged thy volumes stand,
And think that mute is now thy lip,
And cold is now thy hand;
That, hadst thou been more common clay,
So soon thou hadst not passed sway,
For thou didst die before thy time,
The tenement o'erwrought,
The heart consumed by its desire,
The body worn by thought;
Thyself the victim of thy shrine,
A glorious sacrifice was thine.
Alas, it is too soon for this—
The future for thy fame;
But now we mourn as if we mourned
A father's cherished claim.
Ah! time may bid the laurel wave—
We can but weep above thy grave.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
he poet has a glorious hold
SIR WILLIAM STANLEY
The man was old, his hair was grey—
And I have heard the old man say,
"Keep thou from royal courts away ;"
In proof thereof, he wont to tell
The Stanley's fatal chronicle.
King Henry sat amid his court, and of the nobles there
Not one with William Stanley for favour could compare ;
He was the royal chamberlain, and on his bended knee
Within King Henry's silver cup the red wine poured he.
There came a knight in presence there, he named my master's name,
As he stood betting golden coin upon the royal game.
And on Sir Robert Clifford's word, they took his sword away,
And William Stanley to the Tower was prisoner sent that day.
God only knows the hearts of men, but 'twas a wondrous thing
My noble master should conspire against the crowned king ;
For well I know on Bosworth Field it was his red right hand
That placed upon Earl Richmond's brow King Richard's royal band.
But ancient service is forgot ; and he, the Wiseman, said,
Think thou no evil of the king upon thy lonely bed;
And therefore little will I name of what I then heard told,
That my good lord's worst treasons were his broad lands and his gold.
I saw him on the scaffold stand, the axe was gleaming bright,
But I will say he faced its shine as best became a knight ;
He prayed a prayer—he knelt him down—there smote a sullen sound,
I saw my master's severed head upon the dark red ground.
No nobles bore the noble's pall, there was no funeral bell,
But I stood weeping by the grave of him I loved so well.
I know not of the right or wrong, but this much let me say,
Would God my master had been kept from kings and courts away !
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
ing Henry sat amid his court, and of the nobles there
SITE OF THE CASTLE OF ULYSSES
SONG OF THE SIRENS
Hither, famed Ulysses, steer,
Pass not, pride of Greece, along
To our haven come and hear,
Come and hear the Sirens' song.
Never did a sable hark
Coasting by our island stray—
That it did not stop to mark,
With raptured ear our honied lay.
Here the seamen, loath to part,
Ever found a welcome kind ;
We with pleasure cheered his heart
We with wisdom filled his mind.
Well we know each gallant deed
Done in Ilion's spreading land,—
When, as gods of heaven decreed,
Greece and Troy fought hand to hand.
Whatsoe'er beside is done
In earth's confines know we well ;
These to thee, Laertes' son,
Shall our witching numbers tell.
Hither, famed Ulysses, steer,
Pass not, pride of Greece, along;
To our haven come and hear,
Come and hear the Sirens' song.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
The original verses, eight in number, from which the above song is rather imitated than translated, are perfect models of harmony. They are generally supposed to give Homer's own idea of what an epic poem should be—bland and conciliatory in its opening, but at the same time expressing a thorough consciousness that the poet had the power of doing that which would make all ears listen. Ulysses wandering by, in his "winged pines," as Browne phrases it, is accosted in words of gentle accent, but the Sirens take care to tell him that, much praised and deservedly honoured as he is, he must listen to their song, for never yet had man heard them sing, without being subdued. The poet proceeds to promise, that sweetness of melody is to mark the flowing numbers of his lay, and that in the honied song are to be conveyed lessons of wisdom. The sailor, they say, dwells here delighted and filled with ampler knowledge. Such are the general promises, but as, after all, we must come to the particular incidents of human life—the soaring poem is to relate whatever is most spirit-stirring, most heart-moving, most thought-awakening in the doings of men. We must not hear of mere abstractions—we must have names and deeds interesting in every bosom ; and we must be shown, too, that these deeds are regulated by powers above human control. The Sirens, therefore, announce that they shall sing of the most renowned event of their time, those wars and battles which took place before the "wind swept towers of Ilion,"— events to which he to whom they were sung had so mainly contributed, and which were done by the impulse of the gods. Such is the lay, continues the poet, I am about to pour into your ear; and that it may be done with every certainty of affecting all whose intellect or whose feeling can be approached in tone not to be resisted, I, the minstrel, (we, say the Sirens, but it is Homer, the one Homer, who speaks,) come to my task prepared with long-stored knowledge of all that can concern mankind. "We know all that is done upon the fertile bosom of earth."
Such is the ancient interpretation of the Song of the Sirens. It may, perhaps, be fanciful, —but those who consider the song with care will find that there is much in the comment, and will, at all events, agree that the poet who wrote the verses has fulfilled the conditions.
SKELETON GROUP IN THE RAMEDWUR, CAVES OF ELLORA
Supposed to represent the nuptials of Siva and Parvati
He comes from Kilas, earth and sky,
Bright before the deity;
The sun shines, as he shone when first
His glory over ocean burst.
The vales put forth a thousand flowers,
Mingling the spring and summer hours;
The Suras* fill with songs the air,
The Genii and their lutes are there;
By gladness stirred, the mighty sea
Flings up its waves rejoicingly;
And Music wanders o'er its tide,
For Siva comes to meet his bride.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832
The above lines are a paraphrase of a translation from the Siva-Pooraun. It goes on to mention, besides the signs of rejoicing I have enumerated, that " The dwellers upon earth stocked the casket of their ideas with the jewels of delight ;" also, that " the eyes of the devotees flamed like torches," and that " Siva set off like a garden in full blow." Among the guests who attended his wedding were " Brahma, who came on his goose"—" the Kerokee and other serpents all drest in habits of ceremony." Query, What habits of ceremony did the serpents wear? Vide Maurice. Captain Sykes mentions, that one of the compartments represent Siva and Parvati playing at dice, her attitude expressing " unsuccess or denial." May not this allude to their celebrated quarrel, so often mentioned by Hindoo writers. The tale is as follows. Siva and Parvati parted, owing to a quarrel at dice. They severally performed rigid acts of devotion ; but the fires they kindled blazed so vehemently as to threaten a general conflagration. The other deities in great alarm supplicated him to recall his consort, but the angry god answered, that she must come of her own free choice. The river goddess prevailed on Parvati to return, on condition that his love for her was restored. Camdeo, the Indian Cupid, then wounded Siva with one of his arrows, and, for his pains, was reduced to ashes by a flash from Siva's eye. The shaft, however, had lost none of its honied craft. Parvati, as the daughter of a mountaineer, appeared before her immediately enamoured husband ; her conquest once secured, she assumed her natural form. Siva, in the joy of reconciliation, decreed, that Camdeo should be known again as the son of Crishna. Asiatic Researches.
* Good spirits.
THE SNOWDROP
Thou beautiful new comer.
With white and maiden brow;
Thou fairy gift from summer.
Why art thou blooming now ?
This dim and sheltered alley
Is dark with winter green;
Not such as in the valley
At sweet spring-time is seen.
The lime-tree's tender yellow,
The aspen's silvery sheen,
With mingling colours mellow
The universal green.
Now solemn yews are bending
Mid gloomy firs around;
And in long dark wreaths descending.
The ivy sweeps the ground.
No sweet companion pledges
Thy health as dew-drops pass;
No rose is on the hedges,
No violet in the grass.
Thou art watching, and thou only,
Above the earth's snow tomb
Thus lovely, and thus lonely,
I bless thee for thy bloom.
Though the singing rill be frozen,
While the wind forsakes the west,
Though the singing birds have chosen
Some lone and silent rest;
Like thee, one sweet thought lingers
In a heart else cold and dead,
Though the summer's flowers, and singers,
And sunshine, long hath fled;
Tis the love for long years cherished,
Yet lingermg, lorn, and lone;
Though its lovelier lights have perished
And its earlier hopes are flown.
Though a weary world hath bound it.
With many a heavy thrall;
And the cold and changed surround it,
It blossometh o'er all.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
A SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES
HOW many are the fancies
That joyous childhood hath!
It stoops to gather flowers
Where’er may be its path.
And age, too, has its fancies,
As earnest, if less sweet;
It makes but stormy weather
When fancies chance to meet.
It is an ancient chamber,
Where he for years has stored
What years have gone to gather—
The antiquary’s hoard.
It is their grandsire’s birthday,
And every child is come
In merriment and secret
To spoil the guarded room.
One trails a mystic garment
That once a mummy wore;
One empties a rich casket
Of coins upon the floor.
In comes the angry grandsire,
His cane is in his hand:
There seems but little terror
'Mid that detected band.
Methinks a pleasant lesson
Is given by the scene—
That age alike and childhood
Delight in what has been.
They will make, those happy children,
The old man’s heart their own—
There never was a pleasure
Could be enjoyed alone.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
THE SPANISH PAGE,
OR, THE CITY'S RANSOM
SHE was a chieftain's daughter, and he a captive boy,
Yet playmates and companions they shared each childish joy;
Their dark hair often mingled, they wandered hand in hand,
But at last the golden ransom restored him to his land.
A lovely town is Seville amid the summer air,
But, though it be a little town, Xenilla is as fair;
Fair are the glittering minarets where the purple daylight falls,
And rosy the pomegranates of the gardens in its walls.
But its pleasant days are over, for an army girds it round,
With the banner of the red cross, and the Christian trumpets sound;
They have sworn to raze the city that in the sunshine stood,
And its silvery singing fountains shall flow with Moslem blood.
Fierce is the Christian leader, a young and orphan lord,
For all the nobles of his house fell by the Moorish sword;
Himself was once a captive, till redeemed by Spanish gold,
Now to be paid by Moorish wealth and life an hundred-fold.
The sound of war and weeping reached where a maiden lay,
Fading as fades the loveliest, too soon from earth away,
Dark fell the silken curtains, and still the court below,
But the maiden's dream of childhood was disturbed by wail and wo.
She questioned of the tumult; her pale slaves told the cause;
The colour mounted to her cheek, a hasty breath she draws,
She called her friends around her, she whispered soft and low,
Like music from a wind-touched lute her languid accents flow.
Again upon her crimson couch she laid her weary head;
They looked upon the dark-eyed maid--they looked upon the dead.
That evening, ere the sunset grew red above the town,
A funeral train upon the hills came winding slowly down;
They come with mournful chanting, they bear the dead along,
The sentinels stood still to hear that melancholy song:
To Don Henrique they bore the corpse--they laid it at his feet,
Pale grew the youthful warrior that pale sweet face to meet.
As if in quiet slumber the Moorish maid was laid,
And her white hands were folded, as if in death she prayed;
Her long black hair on either side was parted on her brow,
And her cold cheek was colder than marble or than snow.
Yet lovelier than a living thing she met the warrior's gaze,
Around her was the memory of many happy days.
He knew his young companion, though long dark years had flown,
Well had she kept her childish faith--she was in death his own.
"Bring ye this here, a ransom for those devoted walls!"
None answered--but around the tent a deeper silence falls;
None knew the maiden's meaning, save he who bent above,
Ah! only love can read within the hidden heart of love.
There came from these white silent lips more eloquence than breath,
The tenderness of childhood--the sanctity of death.
He felt their old familiar love had ties he could not break,
The warrior spared the Moorish town, for that dead maiden's sake.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
HE was a chieftain's daughter, and he a captive boy,
SPEKE HALL
O, FAIR old house—how Time doth honour thee,
Giving thee what to-day may never gain,
Of long respect and ancient poesy ;
The yew-trees at thy doors are black with years,
And filled with memories of those warlike days,
When from each bough was lopped a gallant bow ;
For then the yew was what the oak is now,
And what our bowmen were, our sailors are.
How green the ivy grows upon the walls,
Ages have lent their strength to those frail boughs,
A venerable wreath upon the past,
Which here is paramount ;—the past, which is
Imagination's own gigantic realm.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
STORRS, WINDERMERE LAKE
I WOULD I had a charmed bark,
To sail that lovely lake ;
Nor should another prow but mine
Its silver silence wake.
No oar should cleave its sunny tide;
But I would float along,
As if the breath that filled my sail
Were but a murmured song.
Then I would think all pleasant thoughts ;
Live early youth anew,
When hope took tones of prophecy,
And tones of music too;
And coloured life with its own hues—
The heart's true Claude Lorraine—
The rich, the warm, the beautiful,
I'd live them once again.
Kind faces flit before my eyes,
Sweet voices fill my ear,
And friends I long have ceased to love,
I'll still think loved, and here.
With such fair phantasies to fill,
Sweet Lake, thy summer air;
If thy banks were not Paradise,
Yet should I dream they were.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832
The calm and picturesque scenery of the Lake of Windermere might awake a thousand far more romantic visions than that of the return of the first warm feelings of youth. Shut out as it were from the world, and enshrined in delicious seclusion ; here might the weary heart dream itself away, and find the freshness of the spring-time of the spirit return upon it. Here, at the mansion of Colonel John Bolton—a circumstance which gives interest to the plate—did the late Mr. Canning retire from the whirl of public affairs ; and, to use the words of Fisher's Illustrations of Lancashire, " here was restored, in some measure, the elasticity of a mind, whose lofty energies were ultimately, and for our country we may say prematurely, exhausted in the preservation of a nation's welfare."
STRADA REALE—CORFU
I am weary of the green wood
Where haunteth the wild bee,
And the olive's silvery foliage
Droops o'er the myrtle tree.
The fountain singeth silvery,
As with a sleepy song,
It wandereth the bright mosses,
And drooping flowers among.
I will seek the cheerful city,
And in the crowded street,
See if I can find the traces
Of pleasure's winged feet.
The bells are ringing gayly,
And their music gladdens all,
From the towers in the sunshine,
To the date and orange stall.
Gay voices are around me,
I seem to gladden too ;
And a thousand changing objects
Win my wandering eyes anew.
It is pleasant through the city
In a sunny day to roam ;
And yet my full heart turns to thee,
My own, my greenwood home.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
am weary of the greenwood
STRADA ST. URSULA,—MALTA
" A View of many dwellings, long tenanted by the last remnants of Chivalry."
Young knight, that broidered cloak undo,
And break that golden chain in two ;
Take from your hand its jewels fair,
Shear those bright curls of sunny hair,
And offer up at yonder shrine
All vanities that once were thine.
No more the victor of the ring,
Thy triumphs will the minstrel sing ;
No more upon thy helm the glove
Will ask of fame to sanction love.
The saraband untrod must he,
The lists, the dance are closed for thee.
Look to the past—if present there
Be visible one great despair :
Look to the future—if it give
Nothing which charmeth thee to live.
Then come—the present knows its doom ,
Thy heart already is a tomb.
Thy cheek is pale—thy brow is worn—
Thy lip is bitter in its scorn.
I read in them the signs that tell
The heart's impassioned chronicle.
'Tis past !—and Malta's iron vow
To thee is less than nothing now.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
THE TAJ-MAHAL AT AGRA
THE TOMB OF MUNTAZA ZEMANI
" Aye, build it on these banks," the monarch said,
" That when the autumn winds have swept the sea,
They may come hither with their falling rains,
A voice of mighty weeping o'er her grave."
They brought the purest marble that the earth
E'er treasured from the sun, and ivory
Was never yet more delicately carved :
Then cupolas were raised, and minarets,
And flights of lofty steps, and one vast dome
Rose till it met the clouds : richly inlaid
With red and black, this palace of the dead
Exhausted wealth and skill. Around its walls
The cypresses like funeral columns stood,
And lamps perpetual burnt beside the tomb.
And yet the emperor felt it was in vain,
A desolate magnificence that mocked
The lost one, and the loved, which it enshrined.
Fisher's Drawing Book Scrap Book, 1832
Muntaza Zemani was the wife of Shah Jehan, emperor of Hindostan. The magnificent mausoleum, which it was some consolation to erect, was one of the many human vanities that mock their founders. Shah Jehan past from a prison to his gorgeous tomb. For the last eight years of his life he was confined in the fort of Agra, by his son, Aurungzebe. An Italian artist, who saw this most exquisite specimen of Mahommedan architecture, regretted there was not a glass-case to cover it. The pure whiteness of the marble is powerfully contrasted to the dark green of its avenue of cypresses.
TEMPLE AND FOUNTAIN AT ZAGWHAN
OF the vacant temple
Little now remains,
Lowly are the statues,
Lowly are the fanes,
Filled with worshippers no more.
Heavily the creeper
Traces its green line
Round the fallen altar,
Now no more divine—
As it was in days of yore,
In the days of stately Carthage,
The ocean’s earliest queen.
Still the fragrant myrtle,
And the olive, stand;
Still the kingly palm-tree
Clothes the summer land.
Cool above the gushing rills
Still there flows the fountain
From the silent cave,
Though no more in marble
Is the silver wave
Carried o’er the distant hills,
For the halls of stately Carthage,
The ocean’s earliest queen.
Still there is remaining
Something of the past,
Many a broken column
Down to earth is cast,
Tangled with the long green grass.
Yet some graceful arches
Green with moss and weeds,
Tell where stood the altar
’Mid the sighing reeds—
Sighing, as the night-winds pass,
For the doom of stately Carthage,
The ocean’s earliest queen.
Still the ground is haunted
With those other days,
O’er which memory lingers,
While the mind portrays
Mighty chiefs and deeds of old.
Mighty are the shadows
Flitting o’er the scene;
Earth hath sacred places
Where the dead have been.
Glorious are the names enrolled
On the page of stately Carthage,
The ocean’s earliest queen.
Still their solemn presence
Is upon the air;
And the stars and moonlight
Of the past declare—
So in other days they shone,
When the young avenger
In the temple stood,
Calling on the midnight,
To hear his vow of blood.
Rome nigh trembled on her throne
With the wars of stately Carthage,
The ocean’s earliest queen.
Yet the Roman poet
Hallowed with his song,
Tales of olden warfare,
Still have strife and wrong
Mourned man’s progress over earth.
But the poet lit the darkness
With a gentle light,
Calling forth such beauty
As the morn from night
Calls to sweet and sudden birth.
Such lingers around Carthage,
The ocean’s earliest queen.
In y'on twilight grotto
Might the queen complain
Of the heart’s affection,
Given—and in vain.
As she mourned will many mourn.
Why is it the poet’s sorrow
Touches many a heart?
’Tis the general knowledge
Claiming each their part.
Still those numbers sound forlorn,
Mid the stones of stately Carthage,
The ocean’s earliest queen.
Empire still has followed
The revolving sun;
Earth’s great onward progress
In the East begun—
Ruins, deserts, now are there.
Downfall waits on triumph:
Is such fate in store
For our glorious islands?
Will our English shore
Lie as desolate and bare
As the shores of fallen Carthage,
The ocean’s former queen?
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1841
This fountain supplied the great Aqueduct of Carthage; and the Temple, now in ruins, was erected to the tutelar deity of the Spring. The country is singularly lovely, filled with gardens, brooks, giving motion to numerous mills, and white marabets, whose domes show to great advantage amid the dense green foliage.
THE TEMPLE OF JUGGERNAUT
The winds are stirred with tumult — on the air
Sound drum and trumpet, atabal and gong —
Strong voices loud uplift a barbarous song.
Vast is the gathering — while the priests declare
The seven-headed god is passing there.
On roll his chariot-wheels, while every roll
From prostrate bodies crushes forth a soul :
Rejoicing such last agony to bear.
Such are thy creeds, O man ! when thou art given
To thy own fearful nature — false and stern !
What were we now, but that all-pitying Heaven
Sent us a holier, purer faith to learn ? —
Type of its message came the white-winged dove —
What is the Christian's creed ? — Faith, Hope, and Love.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840
This is the most celebrated and sacred temple in Hindostan, and was built about the year 1108, by Rajah Anonda Bheem Deb, at a cost of £500.000. The principal entrance is the Singha-Devar, or the '' Lion-Gate," immediately in front of which is a beautiful column dedicated to the sun. The chief idol, called Juggernaut, is a huge unsightly figure of wood, bearing some distant resemblance to the human form : it is painted black, with a red mouth, and large red and white circles for eyes. The ceremony of drawing the car takes place in June, and it is calculated that about 200,000 pilgrims, three-fourths of them females, annually resort to this festival, of whom at least 50,000 perish by sickness, hunger, and fatigue, and by voluntarily throwing themselves under its ponderous wheels.
THOMAS CLARKSON, ESQ.
INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX
Not to the many doth the earth
Owe what she hath of good,
The many would not stir life's depths,
And could not if they would.
It is some individual mind
That moves the common cause :
To single efforts England owes
Her knowledge, faith, and laws.
Too much by small low interests bound.
We track our selfish way,
Careless if hope to-day still takes
Its tone from yesterday.
We look upon our daily path,
We do not look beyond,
Forgetful of the brotherhood
In nature's mighty bond.
England, how glorious thine estate !
How lovely thine array !
Thou art the throned Island Queen
Whom land and sea obey.
Responsible is power, and owns
The holiest debt on earth —
A strict account it owes that Heaven
From whence it had its birth.
Can such be rendered up by thee ?
Does neither guilt nor shame —
Guilt to redress — shame to efface —
Shade thy imperial name?
Thou who dost ask for wealth and rule
Wherever rolls the sea,
O Island Queen ! how rests the claim
That millions have on thee.
And yet what grievous wrong is wrought,
Unnoticed and unknown,
Until some noble one stands forth,
And makes that wrong his own !
So stood he forth who first denounced
The slave-trade's cursed gain ;
Such call upon the human heart
Was never made in vain.
For generous impulses and strong
Within our nature lie :
Pity, and love, and sympathy
May sleep, but never die.
Thousands, awakened to the sense,
Have never since that time
Ceased to appeal to God and man
Against the work of crime.
The meanest hut that ever stood
Is yet a human home ;
Why to a low and humble roof
Should the despoiler come?
Grant they are ignorant and weak,
We were ourselves the same:
If they are children, let them have
A child's imploring claim.
The husband parted from the wife,
The mother from the child —
Thousands within a single year,
From land and home exiled.
For what ? — to labour without hope
Beneath a foreign sky ;
To gather up unrighteous wealth —
To droop — decline — and die !
Such wrong is darkly visited ;
The masters have their part —
For theirs had been the blinded eve,
And theirs the hardened heart.
Evil may never spring unchecked
Within the mortal soul ;
If such plague-spot be not removed,
It must corrupt the whole.
The future doth avenge the past—
Now, for thy future's sake,
Oh, England ! for the guilty past
A deep atonement make.
The slave is given to thy charge,
He hopes from thee alone ;
And thou, for every soul so given,
Must answer with thine own.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840
THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.
IF Titania, just wakened from dreams which the rose,
Flung, coloured and fragrant, around her repose,
Yet, haunted by fancies, should ask for a song,
To bear the soft hours of the noontide along—
'Tis thy lute that should keep the bright fairy from sleeping,
The sea-shell had never such tones in its keeping;
Though in its pale chamber of pearl was the birth
Of the earliest music that breathed over earth.
The falling of fountains—the slight summer rain—
The voice of the dove, were less sweet than thy strain;
Till stirred with delight, would her exquisite wings
Beat time on the west wind, to echo thy strings.
But yet to the ear of the fairy, unknown
Were half the deep music that dwells in thy tone:
The patriot's hope, and the minstrel's despair,
To the human heart vibrate—their dwelling is there.
Thy song has its sunshine—perhaps to that sun
It owes half the loveliest wreaths it has won.
It still lofty hopes and sad thoughts has betrayed—
Where on earth is the sunshine that flingeth no shade?
Thou wert not "the wild wind '' * that waked for a while
The music and murmur of "Erin's green isle;"
Ah! no: to thy country thy numbers first brought
The burst of strong feeling—the purpose and thought.
From Memnon's dark statue 'twas morning's glad light
That wakened the melody sleeping through night;
So the soul of thine island arose at thy line,
And to wish for her welfare is wishing for thine.
"Dear harp of my country, in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,
When proudly, my own island harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song.
If the heart of the patriot, soldier, or lover,
Have throbbed at thy song, 'twas thy glory alone;
I was but as the wind passing heedlessly over—
And all the wild sweetness I waked was thine own."
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
Moore's name is a history in itself. Is there a single reader of poetry, to whom "Lalla Rookh" and the "Irish Melodies" are not familiar as household words?
THUBARE, A PORT ON THE ARABIAN COAST
THOU lovely port of Araby,
Of Araby the blest,
I think of the time, when thy summer clime,
Was bright on my midnight rest;
And the gates uprose, which at evening close.
Lest they harbour forbidden guest.
Oh! I must let my thoughts go back,
O'er the charmed spots in memory's track;
Back like a bark that at random sails,
Or the dreamings of those delicious tales.
Now, was not that a beautiful dream,
Of the prince who pined for love,
And who sought on his way, so mournfully,
For the arrow he shot above.
On he went through the gloomy wood,
Where the heavy boughs were sweeping,
Dark with a century's solitude,
Whose watch they had been keeping.
The moss was gray on each aged tree,
And the sound of the branches was that of the sea,
When, girt by the rocks, and stirred by the wind,
It moans like a giant in fetters confined.
Next he came to a gloomy cave,
But, oh! 'twas a cave like night;
For the spars a trembling radiance gave,
Like the stars in the morning light;
And a gentle meteor glided around,
It seemed like a living thing,
So soft was the gleam of its moonlit eyes !
So bright was its shadowy wing.
It moved with a song that was sweet and low,
As the waters when over white pebbles they flow ;
Around and before Prince Ahmed it shone,
And it looked a kind welcome, while guiding him on,
It was a radiant garden,
To which the cavern led,
Heavy with early roses,
A thousand thickets spread ;
Roses that breathe of summer,
To colder climes unknown,
With the burning sigh and colour
Of the lovely southern zone :
And there were silver fountains,
That in the noontide hours,
Fell down o'er marble basins,
In cool and fragrant showers ;
For the dews of evening fed them,
With the life of many a bloom,
Till blended with their waters
Was every flower's perfume.
And there were graceful cypress-trees,
That drooped above a lake;
Oh, love, how much of loveliness
Was given for thy sake!
And buoyant on the liquid plain,
Which threw their image back again ;
A float of water-lilies reared
Their temples to the sun,
Shrines where some insect conqueror keeps
The red gold he has won;
Or it might chance some victor bee
Made them his ivory treasury.
Glittering with light, a palace bright
Now rises on the air,
The meteor's blaze sinks 'mid its rays,
Oh! prince, thy home is there.
He enters, and a thrilling song
Rises those shining halls among ;
The first one was with amber lined,
Like that upon the west,
When one pale line of tender light
Shows where the day hours rest
The next was of the sapphire stone,
The third with precious metals shone;
The fourth was like the midnight sky,
When every star shines out on high;
The roof was bright with pearl and gem,
Golconda's king might choose 'mid them
The glory of his diadem.
A lady leant upon the throne,
But pale with love, and pale with fear;
For love and fear are at her heart,
The bright and mighty mistress here ;
The words are dying on her mouth,
A red rose opening to the south;
The long lash hides her downcast eye,
Downcast, though glorious as the sky :
Whate'er her power, whate'er her will,
A woman is but woman still:
Her raven hair falls o'er her brow,
She's thankful for its shadow now ;
Her white hand clasped within his own,
The prince is kneeling at her throne.
Thou lovely port of Araby,
A vision and a dream,
Is on thine own enchanted shore,
Is on thy charmed stream:
Oh! glory to thy fair date-trees,
And to their thousand memories
Of moonlit walks, of midnight tales;
Of all our earlier world,
When all the colours of its youth
Like banners were unfurled;
And fancy, at whose feet take birth
A thousand blossoms o'er our earth,
Was young, and ardent, and sublime,
Ah! little like our actual time.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
It is scarce necessary to say, that the story to which the above poem refers, is that of the Fairy Pari-Banou and Prince Ahmed.
HOU lovely port of Araby,
TO MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON
I PRAY thee, ladye, turn these leaves,
And gaze upon the face
Whose lineaments no artist’s skill
Methink, could truly trace.
The outline knows art’s fine control,
There are no colours for the soul.
And thou wert his familiar friend,*
Whose kindness and whose care
Bore with, and tenderly would soothe,
The mood it could not share.
Ah! all who feel that poet's powers,
Should thank thee for his pleasant hours.
If I can read that face aright,
’Tis something more than fair:
Ah! not alone the lovely face,
The lovely heart is there.
The smile that seems to light and win,
Speaks of the deeper world within.
Amid Ravenna’s purple woods,
Purple with day’s decline,
When the sweet evening winds around
Were murmuring in the pine—
Did that dark spirit yield to thee
The trouble of its melody.
How gentle and how womanly
Thy soft mind must have reigned,
Before it could have won from him
The confidence it gained!
For chords like his, so finely strung,
With but a single touch are wrung.
Thy own quick feeling must have taught
The key-note to his own;
For only do we sympathize
With what ourselves have known.
The grief, the struggle, and the care,
We never knew until we share.
The proud—the sensitive—the shy—
And of such are combined
The troubled elements that make
The poet’s troubled mind.
He dreameth of a lovelier earth,
But must bide where he had birth.
Beneath that soft Italian sky,
How much must thou have heard
Of lofty hope—of low despair—
Of deep emotions stirred—
Thy woman’s heart became to thee
Memory and music’s master-key.
He must have look’d on that sweet face,
And felt those eyes were kind;
No need to fear from one like thee
The mask, the mock, the blind.
Where he might trust himself he knew—
The instinct of the heart is true.
Thy page is open at my side—
Thy latest one, which tells,**
How in a world so seeming fair
What hate and falsehood dwells.
A dangerous Paradise is ours,
The serpent hides beneath its flowers.
Hatred, and toil, and bitterness,
And envyings, and wrath,
Mask’d, each one in some fair disguise,
Are round the human path.
May every evil thou hast shown
Be safely guarded from thine own!
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
* “Lady Blessington’s “Conversations with Lord Byron.”
** “The Victim’s of Society.”
TO THE QUEEN
WITHIN the page, oh, Royal Ladye ! —seeking
To win but one approving look of thine —
Are pictured shores where foreign waves are breaking ;
And distant hills, where far-off planets shine :
And yet above them is thy rule extending —
The Himalaya mountains own thy sway :
The British flag is with the palm-trees blending,
By the Red Sea, where now we seek our way.
And mixed with these are English scenes and faces,
Our lovely rivers and our summer vales,
Haunted by names whose memory retraces
How moral conquest over time prevails.
Beside thee grows the laurel, from whose branches
Are gathered many wreaths to honour thee :
Victory, that o'er the deep its thunder launches —
The sage's meed — the crown of poesie.
Our volume is a gallery, enshrining
The past and present of our native land.
Vast is the empire Providence assigning
Trusts to thy youthful and thy woman's hand.
Our English history has no hours more glorious
Than when a woman filled the island throne ;
Elizabeth and Anne bequeathed victorious
Illustrious names, high omens of thine own.
The warrior, sage, and poet fill their story
With all the various honours of mankind ;- —
May thy young reign achieve yet truer glory,
The pure, enlightened triumphs of the mind !
Too much in this wide world yet needs redressing ;
But with thy reign Hope's loveliest promise came.
May thy sweet youth be sheltered by the blessing
A nation breathes upon VICTORIA'S name !
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838
THE TOMB OF AURUNGZEBE
" Oh, fleeting honours of the dead,
Oh, high ambition lowly laid."
" A MIGHTY tomb, fit for a mighty king,
One last great mockery, a thousand slaves
Dug marble from the quarry, then arose
The slow foundation—men put forth their skill
In rich devices, and in ornament,
Then towered the rounded column, and the walls
Shone with red gold and many-coloured stones.
Then spread the broidered purple for a pall,
And all for what ?—to hide some grains of dust."
So might the cynic say; so say not I.
It is a glorious thing for man to war
With time, by some great work. Wherefore was skill,
And energy, and industry, bestowed,
If that he use them not ? How many hearts
In the completion of this building throbbed
With the fine pride of art—that pride which leads
To all that can redeem or civilize
Our human nature. Now, what solemn thoughts
Brood here ! an atmosphere from which we draw
Such lessons as the dead alone can give,
And only they when present to the mind,
As they are present in this monument—
Oh, build tombs for the dead, they're mightier there
Than in their living palaces !
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
THE TOMB OF HUMAIOON, DELHI
HE stood alone upon a hill,
Where he had built a tower,
That he might watch in solitude
How worked the midnight hour ;
The blue sky spread above his head,
As if indeed it were
Another world to that sad earth,
Man's heritage of care.
As yet the moon was in her youth,
Her hour of strength untried,
One white cloud round her, like the veil
That hides an earthly bride.
From drooping leaves, and bending flowers,
Exhaled the midnight dews ! $
Like love that from its inmost thoughts
Its own sweet life renews
Like floating islands on the air,
The palm-tree's feathery crest
Rose high and lone ; there was no wind
To stir its shadowy rest.
White as the snow which never falls
On these delicious plains,
The marble city reared aloft
Its palaces and fanes ;
So delicately carved, so fair,**
The graceful buildings stand,
Such as to us are like the dreams
Of some enchanted land.
Our northern shores have sullen skies,
The mist, the frost, the rain,
And soon the fairy fabric wears
The shadow, and the stain.
But here there is a purer air,
There is more genial sky,
As if the sun remembered still
His first bright infancy.
The monarch looked not on the scene,
Although it was so fair,
The stars are out upon the sky,
And every thought fixed there.
He looked upon them as the scrolls
Prophetic of our life,
The chronicles where Fate inscribes
Our sorrow, sin, and strife;
All that we struggle with in vain,
All that we seek to shun,
The weird of that stern destiny,
Whose will must aye be done.
Who may deny that on the soul,
The coming hours may cast
Their shadow, till the future seem
As actual as the past.
There are strange mysteries in night,
Its silence and its sleep ;
The pale moon, with the magic power
She has upon the deep.
What, though our common nature holds
No intercourse on high,
Though given not to common eyes
To read the starry sky;
There may be lofty sympathies
Allowed to lofty minds,
And it may be to such that Fate
Her shining scroll unbinds.
Alas, for them, save misery,
What can such knowledge give ?
Had life no mystery, and no hope,
Oh ! who could bear to live !
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
THE Emperor Humaioon* was the founder of the Mogul dynasty, the father of Akbar, and grandsire of " the magnificent son of Akbar Jehanghire," so well known as the kingly lover of Nourmahal, in " The Feast of Roses." In his early life he was much given to a solitude engrossed by the study of astrology. The rebellion of his brother called his attention from the heavens to the earth: he endured many vicissitudes of fortune, and was at one time an exile in Persia; he, however, triumphed at last, reascended his throne, where he was remarkable for all those finer qualities of mildness and humanity which generally belong to a more advanced period of
civilization.
* Humaioon is the hero of a very interesting poem in Miss Roberts' interesting " Oriental Scenes," a volume, whose vivid descriptions of eastern landscape, could only have been written on the spot.
$ In Sir William Herschell's " History of Natural Philosophy," one of the most delightful volumes that ever had attraction for even so unscientific a reader as myself, there is a theory of the origin of dew, which is there stated to be an exhalation from the plant itself. The many similes which poets have found in " the falling dews," are therefore erroneous; mine may at least claim the merit of truth.
** " The Patans," remarks Bishop Heber, " built like giants, and finished like jewellers.
E stood alone upon a hill,
TOMB OF MAHOMED SHAH
WHAT do they call a happy end,
How did the monarch die ?
The purple for his winding sheet,
His courtiers standing by ;
A shadow upon every brow,
A tear in every eye.
Methinks if I could choose my death,
Such end should not be mine;
I'd rather fall where banners wave,
And muskets glittering shine,
While onwards to its vengeance prest,
My own embattled line.
I could not bear to see around,
The faithful and the fond;
The faces that I dearly loved,
I could not look beyond—
The deep affection of this earth
Would be too dear a bond.
He died, and by his death-bed stood
The wife, the child, the friend,
And saw pale cheek and anxious eye
O'er him in fondness bend.
Oh, agony !—how could they, King,
Call thine a happy end ?
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
THE tomb of the Sultan lies under a wooden canopy, in the centre of the room, on a platform of granite eighty feet square, and is raised four feet above the level of the floor. Over a lofty door-way, through which you enter on the southern side, are some Arabic inscriptions in Togra letters, which are sculptured in alto-relievo. The characters are gilded, and the ground is granited with a liquid preparation of rajaward, or lapis lazuli, which gives the whole an appearance of a beautiful distribution of gold and enamels. All the inscriptions that I shall have occasion to mention are sculptured and ornamented after this fashion ; and being disposed in all varieties of shape and figure, have a very elegant effect. They are said to be all extracts from the Koran, but
the characters are so entwined and interwoven with each other, that the quickest reader of this hand would find some difficulty in deciphering them. I was, however, successful in discovering a Persian inscription line, which is a chronogram on the death of the Sultan Mahomed. The line translated is, " The end of Mahomed was
happy."—Elliot's Views in India
HAT do they call a happy end,
THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS OF GOLCONDA
MORNING is round the shining palace,
Mirrored on the tide,
Where the lily lifts her chalice,
With its gold inside,
Like an offering from the waves.
Early wakened from their slumbers,
Stand the glittering ranks;
Who is there shall count the numbers
On the river's banks?
Forth the household pours the slaves
Of the kings of fair Golconda,
Of Golconda's ancient kings.
Wherefore to the crimson morning
Are the banners spread,
Daybreak's early colours scorning
With a livelier red?
Pearls are wrought on each silk fold.
Summer flowers are flung to wither
On the common way.
Is some royal bride brought hither
With this festival array,
To the city's mountain-hold
Of the kings of old Golconda,
Of Golconda's ancient kings?
From the gates the slow procession,
Troops and nobles come.
This hour takes the king possession
Of an ancient home—
One he never leaves again.
Musk and sandal-wood and amber
Fling around their breath:
They will fill the murky chamber
Where the bride is Death.
Where the worm hath sole domain
O'er the kings of old Golconda,
O'er Golconda's ancient kings.
Now the monarch must surrender
All his golden state,
Yet the mockeries of splendour
On the pageant wait
That attends him to the tomb.
Music on the air is swelling,
'Tis the funeral song,
As to his ancestral dwelling,
Is he borne along.
They must share life's common doom.
The kings of fair Golconda,
Golconda's ancient kings.
What are now the chiefs that gather?
What their diamond mines?
What the heron's snowy feather
On their crest that shines?
What their valleys of the rose?
For another is their glory,
And their state, and gold;
They are a forgotten story,
Faint and feebly told—
Breaking not the still repose
Of the kings of fair Golconda,
Of Golconda's ancient kings.
Glorious is their place of sleeping,
Gold with azure wrought,
And embroidered silk is sweeping,
Silk from Persia brought,
Round the carved marble walls. *
Not the less the night-owl's pinion
Stirs the dusky air,
Not the less is the dominion
Of the earth-worm there.
Not less deep the shadow falls
O'er the kings of fair Golconda,
O'er Golconda's ancient kings.
Not on such vain aids relying,
Can the human heart
Triumph o'er the dead and dying,
It must know its part
In the glorious hopes that wait
The bright openings of the portal,
Far beyond the sky—
Faith, whose promise is immortal,
Life, that cannot die.
These, and stronger than the state
Of the kings of fair Golconda,
Of Golconda's ancient kings.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838
x
The Tombs at Golconda are those of the Kootub Shahee dynasty, and were begun upwards of three centuries ago. They are in that Saracenic style from which, probably, our beautiful Gothic was derived. The designs of all are similar, and the exquisite finish is continued through every part of each. The body of the buildings is quadrangular, and surmounted by a dome : the basement rests upon a spacious terrace, approached by flights of steps, and surrounded by an arcade terminating in a rich balustrade, with a minaret rising at each angle. From the centre of the inner building, or lantern, springs a dome, swelling as it rises, the greatest diameter being one-third of the height. The exterior faces of the terrace are of grey granite, finely wrought, each arch, from the top of the pier, being cut from a single block. The dome is either stuccoed, or covered with tiles of coloured porcelain. The colours retain their brilliancy to this hour, and many of the ornaments, and extracts from the Koran, raised on a purple ground, produce a singular and admirable effect. Near to each mausoleum stands a mosque, where religious offices were performed. Formerly these Tombs enjoyed the privileges of a sanctuary, food was distributed from them to the poor, they were encircled by spacious gardens, the floors were all richly carpeted, the tumuli spread with embroidered satin, and shadowed by canopies of the same material.
* Thevenot gives a splendid description of these tombs. In addition to their architectural decoration, they were hung with embroidered satin.
ORNING is round the shining palace,
THE TOURNAMENT
HIS spur on his heel, his spear in its rest.
The wild wind just waving the plumes on his crest ;
The young knight rides forward—his armour is bright
As that which it mirrors, the morning's clear light.
His steed it is black as the raven that flies
'Mid the tempest that darkens its way through the skies;
From his nostril the white foam is scattered around ;
He knoweth the battle and spurneth the ground.
His master is young—but familiar his hand
Has been from its childhood with axe and with brand.
His gold locks have darkened with blood and with toil,
Where the battle of Ascalon darkened the soil
He is calm, though a youth, save when his blue eye
Sees afar the red banners that sweep through the sky;
It kindles—there waiteth the triumph again—
He poises his lance and he tightens his rein.
The belt of a knight was in Palestine won ;
By the hand of King Richard the belt was bound on.
On his shoulder the cross, by his helmet a glove,
Tell he serveth his God, and his King, and his Love,
On his lip is a song whose last murmur was heard
When the castle's old ivy the summer wind stirred
Low and love-touched the words, that are never so dear
As when battle and danger and triumph are near.
He flings the bright marks from his scarf's silken fold—
What careth the warrior for silver or gold ?
And he bends till his plumes touch his horse's dark mane,
To the minstrel who mingles one name with his strain.
So loyal of heart, and so liberal of hand,
Were the gallant—the high-born—of England's fair land.
But their glory is gathered—their honours are told—
Let the race of to-day match the good knights of old.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838
There was amongst the ranks a champion in black armour, mounted on a black horse, large, tall, powerful, and strong, like the rider by whom he was mounted. This knight bore no device upon his shield, evinced little interest in the event of the day, beat off, with ease, those who attacked him, but neither pursued his advantage, nor assisted any one. This conduct procured him the title of the "Black Sluggard." Suddenly the sluggard, perceiving the leader of his party hard bestead, threw aside his apathy, and rushed like a thunder-bolt to his assistance, exclaiming " Desdichado ! to the rescue !" The sable knight dealt such a stroke to one, as brought both horse and rider to the ground ; then wrenching the battle-axe from the hand of a second, bestowed on him a stunning blow, that laid him senseless on the field. — (Vide Rescue of Ivanhoe, Waverley Novels.)
TOWN AND HARBOUR OF ITHACA
BY another light surrounded
Than our actual sky;
With the purple ocean bounded
Does the island lie,
Like a dream of the old world.
Bare the rugged heights ascending,
Bring to mind the past,
When the weary voyage ending,
Was the anchor cast.
And the stranger sails were furled
Beside the glorious island
Where Ulysses was the king.
Still does fancy see the palace,
With its carved gates;
Where the suitors drained the chalice,
Mocking at the Fates.
Stern, and dark, and veiled are they.
Still their silent thread entwining
Of our wretched life;
With their cold pale hands combining
Hate, and fear, and strife.
Hovers the avenging day
O'er the glorious island
Where Ulysses was the king.
Grant my fancy pardon,
If amid these trees
Still it sees the garden
Of old Laertes,
Where he met his glorious son.
The apple-boughs were drooping
Beneath their rosy fruit,
And the rich brown pears were stooping
To the old man at their foot,
While his daily task was done
In the glorious island,
Where Ulysses was the king;
'Tis a vain and cold invention,
'Tis the spirit's wrong,
Which to some small mind's pretension
Would subdue that song,
Shrined in manhood's general heart.
One almighty mind--one only
Could such strain have sung;
Ever be the laurel lonely,
Where such lyre is hung.
Be the world a thing apart,
Of the glorious island,
Where Ulysses was the king
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
TRERYN CASTLE
A MONARCH, who had lost his crown,
As crowns have been so often lost,
By kindred treachery, or worse,
The price his own fond blindness cost,
Methinks were fitting guest to be
Alone, thou rugged scene, with thee;
Magnificent, yet desolate,
In harmony with thought and fate.
The sky is dark with gathered clouds,
As if night struggled still with day;
A single sea-bird seems to bear
The sunshine on his wings away;
The heavy rocks o'er-hang the flood,
As if the sacrifice of blood,
Poured by the Druids, left the gloom,
That ever haunts the human tomb.
Their shadow falls, while at their feet
Dashes and foams the restless main,
Still beating like the human heart,
And, like that beating, still in vain :
Aye, lean upon the granite stone,
And muse o'er empires overthrown;
How thrones first tremble, and then fall,
And for the purple spreads the pall.
There's nothing here to win the eye,
Or waken calm and pleasant thought;
No early flowers, no springing leaves,
Are ever here by summer brought.
The stormy sky, the sullen sea,
Spread out in drear immensity:
Oh! suited to man's thoughtful mood,
It seems ambition's solitude.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833
Treryn Castle is the name given to some of those gigantic rocks, from which the idea of architecture would seem to have originated; though it is remarkable, that most mighty edifices have always been the work of flat countries. Perhaps those most accustomed to the presence of rock and mountain, shrank abashed before them. There are old legends which give the Druids Treryn Castle; but, as Dr. Paris observes, " Geologists readily discover, that the only chisel ever employed has been the tooth of time—the only artist engaged, the elements."
TUNIS
No more that city's pirate barks
Molest the distant waves;
No more the Moslem idler marks
The sale of Christian slaves.
And yet how much is left undone
These city walls within !
What though the victory may be won,
Its fruit is yet to win.
What should the fruit of victory be ?
What spoil should it command ?—
Commerce upon the sweeping sea,
And peace upon the land.
As when the crimson sunset ends,
In twilight's quiet hours,
The fertilizing dew ascends,
That feeds the fruits and flowers.
A quiet time hath Europe now,
And she should use that time,
The seed of general good to sow,
Eternal and sublime !
Mighty is now the general scope
To mortal views assigned ;
Direct from heaven is the hope
That worketh for mankind.
Too many objects worth its care
The mind has left unwon ;
But who is there that shall despoil
Knowing what has been done ?
The Press, that on the moral world
Has risen, like a star,
The leaves of light in darkness furled
Spread with its aid afar.
Far may it spread !—its influence
Is giant in its might :
The moral world's intelligence
Lives on its guiding light.
To teach, to liberate, to save,
Is empire's noblest worth,
Such be our hope across the wave,
Our triumph o'er the earth !
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838
Tunis, one of the Barbary states, presenting an extended littorale to the Mediterranean, occupies a peninsula containing 72,000 square miles, and about 200,000 inhabitants. Its eastern parts are fertile, of great natural beauty, and highly cultivated. The articles of commerce here are various, and include gold dust, orchilla weed, ostrich feathers, sponge, and ivory, the greater proportion being conveyed hither by caravan from Timbuctoo. Tunis, the capital, is situated at the head of a noble bay, about ten miles S. W. from the site of the ancient “Carthago, contra Italiam,” on a plain, overhung on all sides, except the east, by considerable heights, and encircled by lakes and marshes. The streets are irregular and narrow, but the palace of the bey, the chief mosque, and piazza of 3,000 shops, are on a scale of much magnificence. The dwellings of the Europeans are all insulated, and built in a defensive style ; the Moorish houses are of only one story, with flat roofs, and cisterns to receive and collect rain water. The citadel, El Gassa, which frowns over the view, is now much neglected, and fallen to decay, but the Goletta, the harbour and citadel, six miles to the west, strongly fortified. After the destruction of Carthage, the Romans built a new city, near the site of modern Tunis ; it was colonized by the conquerors, and soon became one of the most important commercial cities of the ancient world.
THE UNKNOWN GRAVE
THERE is a little lonely grave
Which no one comes to see,
The foxglove and red orchis wave
Their welcome to the bee.
There never falls the morning sun,
It lies beneath the wall,
But there when weary day is done
The lights of sunset fall,
Flushing the warm and crimson air
As life and hope were present there.
There sleepeth one who left his heart
Behind him in his song;
Breathing of that diviner part
Which must to heaven belong.
The language of those spirit chords,
But to the poet known,
Youth, love, and hope yet use his words,
They seem to be his own:
And yet he has not left a name,
The poet died without his fame.
How many are the lovely lays
That haunt our English tongue,
Defrauded of their poet's praise
Forgotten he who sung.
Tradition only vaguely keeps
Sweet fancies round his tomb;
Its tears are what the wild flower weeps
Its record is that bloom;
Ah, surely nature keeps with her
The memory of her worshipper.
One of her loveliest mysteries
Such spirit blends at last
With all the fairy fantasies
Which o'er some scenes are cast.
A softer beauty fills the grove,
A light is in the grass,
A deeper sense of truth and love
Comes o'er us as we pass;
While lingers in the heart one line,
The nameless poet hath a shrine.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
HERE is a little lonely grave
THE UPPER LAKE OF KILLARNEY
(or KATE KEARNEY)
Why doth the maiden turn away
From voice so sweet, and words so dear ?
Why doth the maiden turn away
When love and flattery woo her ear ?
And rarely that enchanted twain
Whisper in woman's ear in vain.
Why doth the maiden leave the hall ?
No face is fair as hers is fair,
No step has such a fairy fall,
No azure eyes like hers are there.
The maiden seeks her lonely bower,
Although her father's guests are met;
She knows it is the midnight hour,
She knows the first pale star is set,
And now the silver moon-beams wake
The spirits of the haunted Lake.
The waves take rainbow hues, and now
The shining train are gliding by,
Their chieftain lifts his glorious brow,
The maiden meets his lingering eye.
The glittering shapes melt into night;
Another look, their chief is gone,
And chill and gray comes morning's light,
And clear and cold the Lake flows on ;
Close, close the casement, not for sleep,
Over such visions eyes but weep.
How many share such destiny,
How many, lured by fancy's beam,
Ask the impossible to be,
And pine, the victims of a dream.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832
The romantic story of Kate Kearney, " who dwelt by the shore of Killarney," is too well known to need repetition. She is said to have cherished a visionary passion for O'Donoghue, an enchanted chieftain who haunts those beautiful Lakes, and to have died the victim " of folly, of love, and of madness."
THE VALE OF LONSDALE
Lancashire
I COULD not dwell here, it is all too fair,
Too sunny, too luxuriant ; those green fields,
With the rich shadows of their old oak trees,
Or the more graceful sweep of the light ash;
Fields where the skylark builds amid the grass,
Trees where the thrush's nest is on the boughs ;
Those human dwellings, looking peace at least,
In gardens, with their growth of cultured flowers;
The quiet winding of that tideless stream,
Whose very movement is repose, whose waves
Are rarely stirred save by the falling rain,
Which comes when sunshine asks relief from showers;
I could not dwell here, it is far too fair,
For my heart feels the contrast all too much,
Between the placid scene, and its unrest.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832
VALETTA, CAPITAL OF MALTA
The vessel swept in with the light of the morn,
High on the red air its gonfalon borne ;
The roofs of the dwellings, the sails of the mast
Mixed in the crimson the daybreak had cast.
On came the vessel :—the sword in his hand,
At once from the deck leapt a stranger to land.
A moment he stood, with the wind in his hair,
The sunshine less golden—the silk was less fair.
He looked o'er the waters—what looked he to see !
What alone in the depths of his own heart could be.
He saw an old castle arise from the main,
The oak on its hills, and the deer on its plain.
He saw it no longer ; the vision is fled ;
Paler the prest lip, and firmer the tread.
He takes from his neck a light scarf that he wore;
'Tis flung on the waters, that bear it from shore.
'Twas the gift of a false one ;—and with it he flung
All the hopes and the fancies that round it had clung.
The shrine has his vow—the Cross has his brand ;—
He weareth no gift of a woman's white hand.
A seal on his lip, and an oath at his heart,
His future a warfare—he knoweth his part.
The visions that haunted his boyhood are o'er,
The young knight of Malta can dream them no more.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837
he vessel swept in with the light of the morn,
VALLEY OF LINMOUTH, NORTH DEVON
‘Tis a gloomy place, but I like it well ;
There would I choose, alone, to dwell ;
The rocks around should friends supply,
Less cold, less hard than those I fly.
I do not care for the rosy flowers,
On them is the shadow of other hours.
I gathered a rose beneath the sun,
In an hour its lovely life was done.
No ! here I will find for myself a cave,
Half a home, and half a grave ;
Dark in the noontide hour 'twill be—
Dark—and the darker the fitter for me.
The hills are rough, and the hills are bare,
More like the heart that harboureth there.
I shall hear the storm as it rolleth by,
I shall watch the clouds that shadow the sky.
All I ask is never to hear
Of human hope or of human fear ;
I have had enough of both in my day,
And I know how their seeming passes away.
The wind may sometimes bear along
The distant sound of the shepherd's song ;
I shall rejoice that no more I share
In fancies and follies that make his care.
The falling leaves will make my bed,
The granite stone will pillow my head ;
The cave in the rock is a fitting shrine
For heart so wither'd and worn as mine.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836
THE VALLEY OF ROCKS:
Near Linton, Devonshire
Summer, thou hast lost thy power;
Nor thy sunshine, nor thy shower,
Can, from out the stubborn earth.
Call the beautiful to birth !
Never springs the green grass here,
Filled with insects, and with flowers,
Musical and fragrant life,
Making glad the passing hours ;
Groweth not one ancient tree
Here ; the eye can only see
Broken mass of cold gray stone ;
Never yet was place so lone !
Yet the heart hath many a mood
That would seek such solitude,
When the summer earth and sky
Mock those who but pine to die.
Wherefore should the flowers be bright,
When they yield us no delight ?
What avails the gladsome spring !
Misery is a selfish thing;
And the wretched one would fain
That all nature shared his pain.
Then, the piled and riven rock,
Of earth's agony the sign,
And the lone and barren place,
Seem like sorrow's fitting shrine.
Gloomy vale! if thou couldst be
Haunt for human misery,
Half our life were spent with thee.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832
This valley is bounded by huge naked rocks, piled one upon the other, and resembling extensive ruins : vast fragments overspread the ground, and exhibit on every side awful vestiges of convulsion and desolation.
THE VILLAGE BELLS
" How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling, at intervals, upon the ear
In cadence sweet, — now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on !
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where mem'ry slept."
Cowper.
There is a lovely English sound
Upon the English air,
It comes when else had silence found
Its quiet empire there.
All ordinary signs of life
To-day are hushed and still ;
No voice of labour or of strife
Ascends the upland hill.
The leaves in softer music stir,
The brook in softer tune ;
Life rests, and all things rest with her
This Sabbath afternoon.
How fair it is ! how English fair !
No other land could show
A pastoral beauty to compare
With that which lies below.
The broad green meadow-lands extend
Up to the hanging wood,
Where oak and beech together blend,
That have for ages stood.
What victories have left those trees,
What time the winged mast
Bore foreign shores and foreign seas
St. George's banner past.
Each oak that left yon inland wood
In some good ship had part,
And every triumph stirred the blood
In every English heart.
Hence, each green hedge that winds along
Filled with the wild flowers small,
Round each green field, is safe and strong
As is a castle wall.
God, in his own appointed time,
Hath made such tumult cease ;
There ringeth now in that sweet chime
But only prayer and peace.
How still it is ! the bee — the bird —
Float by on noiseless wing.
There sounds no step — there comes no word,
There seems no living thing.
But still upon the soft west wind
These bells come sweeping by,
Leaving familiar thoughts behind,
Familiar, and yet high.
Ringing for every funeral knell,
And for the marriage stave ;
Alike of life and death they tell,
The cradle and the grave.
They chronicle the hopes and fears
Upon life's daily page ;
Familiar to our childish years,
Familiar to our age.
The Sabbath bells upon our path,
Long may their sound endure ;
The sweetest music England hath —
The music of the poor.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
VILLAGE OF KOGHERA
NEAR THE CHOOR MOUNTAIN
SHE raised her palace of the snows
Upon the mighty hills,
Whence, in the languid summer, flows
A thousand shining rills;
And Nature said, This place I’ll take,
My deepest solitude to make.
A thousand nameless years went by,
As silent as their birth;
The clouds that wandered o’er the sky
Beheld no change on earth:
With one unbroken chronicle,
A thousand years left nought to tell.
The winds afar off heard the voice
Of man’s tumultuous life;
The vultures hurried to rejoice
O’er its perpetual strife:
With clanging wing and crimson beak,
They gathered round, their dead to seek.
The days were loud with war and toil,
The nights with fear and care;
The dragon’s teeth within the soil
Made tumult every where.
And senates, met to talk of peace,
Aided the turmoil to increase.
The stars went down amid the deep,
The sun rose up at morn;
There was no quiet for their sleep,
The sounds of life were borne
Far o’er the inhabitable main
Varied for man’s warfare or man’s gain.
But here no tumult ever past,
The wild wind brought no sound,
Saving the mighty music cast
By the dark pine-trees round;
And Nature had one hour's repose
Amid the silence of the snows.
The foot of man these heights hath sought—
What will his coming bring?
What hath his coming ever brought
The world where he is king?
Cares, toils, the universal dower
Both of his presence and his power
But yet those cares have high reward,
Those toils a noble scope;
Each year that passes has unbarred
The gates of some great hope;
Each height that man can gain brings near
The shadow of a higher sphere.
Hope is a solemn creed and true,
And still keeps looking on;
We only judge what man can do
By that which he has done.
Hope’s shadow is before it cast—
The prophet’s mirror is the past.
Let none despair, and say, How vain
Man’s labour and man’s care!
Each hour that passes must sustain
The spirit that would dare.
For not on an unthankful soil
Has man bestowed his time and toil.
Still are his blessings on increase,
If they be borne aright:
Where there was war, there now is peace—
Where darkness, there is light;
And science yieldeth, every hour,
Those gifts to knowledge which are power.
My glorious country! thou whose feet
Are on the mountain’s height.
So may thy onward progress meet
The morning’s mighty light;
Still to they great advance be given
The steps that bring thee nearer heaven.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839
This Indian village is distinguished for the remarkable variety of beautiful shrubs and evergreens that are indigenous to its mountain vicinity, and for the noble trees called pinus deodora, which not infrequently attain a height of 180 feet. The base of the Choor mountains, which hangs over this sequestered spot, is carpeted with anemones, ranunculuses, violets, cowslip, and daisies, while the adjacent forest-scene is luxuriant in the highest degree. The rhododendron with its scarlet blossoms, is succeeded by oak, walnut, birch, elm and lastly pine. The higher parts of the mountain being snow-clad the greater portion of the year are destitute of verdure. When the snow has dissolved, juniper and currants make their appearance; at an elevation of eleven thousand feet above the sea, the noblest pine-trees in existence rear their heads; and, some thousand feet lower down, a species of bamboo.
Parts of my source are indecipherable.
THE VILLAGE OF KURSALEE
HIGH in the azure heavens, ye ancient mountains,
Do ye uplift your old ancestral snows,
Gathering amid the clouds those icy fountains,
Whence many a sunny stream through India flows.
Flows with a lovely and unceasing motion,
That only rocks the lotus on its wave ;
Unknown the various storms that rend the ocean—
Ocean, each river's mighty home and grave.
Lost in a world of undistinguished waters,
Where are the lovely memories of the past,
The leaves—the flowers—the Brahmin's dark-eyed daughters,
Whose images were on its mirror cast ?
All fair humanities behind it leaving :
For little knows the sea of human things,
Save a few ships their lonely progress cleaving,
And the white shadows of the sea-bird's wings.
‘Tis strange how much of this wide world is lonely,
Earth hath its trackless forests dark and green,
And its wild deserts of the sand, where only
The wind, a weary wanderer, hath been.
The desert and the forest, lone and solemn,
May know in time the work of mortal hand ;
There may arise the temple, tower and column,
Where only waved the tree, or swept the sand.
But on the ocean never track remaining
Attests the progress of the human race ;
The ship will pass without a wave retaining
The lovely likeness mirrored on its face.
And thus, O Time, that hast our world in keeping,
So dost thou roll the current of thy years ;
Away, away, in thy dark waters sweeping,
All mortal cares and sorrows, hopes and fears.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838
Kursalee is an Indian village near the source of the Jumna, on the south side of the great snowy peaks of Jumnoutri, seen from Saharunpoor, and estimated at 25,000 feet above the level of the sea. The building in the centre of the engraving is a Hindoo temple, built entirely of wood, and ornamented with elaborate carved work : the outer area surrounding it is paved with thick slate, the inner with granite. The snow in the Jumnoutri mountains endures eternally ; sometimes concealing the stream of the Jumna for a breadth of sixty yards, and often found in detached masses forty feet in thickness.
THE VISIONARY
I Pray thee do not speak to me
As you are speaking now,
It brings the colour to my check,
The shadow to my brow.
I pray thee do not look at me,
I cannot bear that gaze ;
Though downcast be my eye, it still
Too much my heart betrays.
I feel the past is written there,
The past, long since gone by—
The past, where feelings, fancies, hopes,
Alike unburied lie ;
Unburied, for their restless ghosts
Still haunt the sad domain,
And mockeries of their former selves,
Come thronging back again.
But changed as I and thou art changed,
Or rather me alone,
I never had your heart—but mine,
Alas ! was all your own.
O, magic of a tone and word,
Loved all too long and well,
I cannot close my heart and ear
Against their faithless spell—
I know them false, I know them vain,
And yet I listen on—
And say them to myself again,
Long after thou art gone.
I make myself my own deceit,
I know it is a dream,
But one that from my earliest youth
Has coloured life's deep stream ;
Frail colours flung in vain, but yet
A thousand times more dear
Than any actual happiness
That ever brightened here.
The dear, the long, the dreaming hours
That I have past with thee,
When thou hadst not a single thought
Of how thou wert with me—
I heard thy voice—I spoke again—
I gazed upon thy face,
And never scene of breathing life
Could leave a deeper trace,
Than all that fancy conjured up,
And made thee look and say,
Till I have loathed reality,
That chased such dream away.
Now, out upon this foolishness,
Thy heart it is not mine ;
And, knowing this, how can I waste
My very soul on thine ?
Alas ! I have no power to choose,
Love is not at my will ;
I say I must be careless, cold,
But find I love thee still.
I think upon my wasted life,
And on my wasted heart,
And turn, ashamed and sorrowful,
From what will not depart.
Thy haunting influence, how it mocks
My efforts to forget !
The stamp love only seals but once
Upon my life is set.
I hear from others gentle words,
I scarcely heed the while ;
Listened to, but with weariness,
Forgotten with a smile.
But thine, though chance and usual words
Are treasured, as we keep
Things lovely, precious, and beloved,
O'er which we watch and weep.
I scarcely wish to see thee now,
It is too dear a joy :
It is such perfect happiness,
It must have some alloy.
I dream of no return from thee—
Enough for me to love ;
I brood above my silent heart,
As o'er its nest the dove.
But speak not, look not, mock me not,
With light and careless words ;
It wounds me to the heart, it jars
My spirit's finest chords.
I'll not forget thee ;—let me dream
About thee as before.
But, farewell, dearest ; yes, farewell,
For we must meet no more.
Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834
