And in sickness, if night had been sparing of sleep,
How cheerful, at sunrise, the hill where I stood,
Looking down on the kine, and our treasure of sheep
That besprinkled the field-'t was like youth in my
blood!
THE AFFLICTION OF MARGARET.
WHERE art thou, my beloved Son,
Where art thou, worse to me than dead?
Oh find me, prosperous or undone !
Or, if the grave be now thy bed,
Why am I ignorant of the same
That I may rest; and neither blame
Nor sorrow may attend thy name?
Seven years, alas! to have received
No tidings of an only child;
To have despaired, and have believed,
And be for evermore beguiled;
Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
I catch at them, and then I miss;
Was ever darkness like to this?
He was among the prime in worth,
An object beauteous to behold;
Well born, well bred; I sent him forth
Ingenuous, innocent, and bold:
If things ensued that wanted grace,
As hath been said, they were not base;
And never blush was on my face.
Ah! little doth the Young-one dream,
When full of play and childish cares,
What power is in his wildest scream,
Heard by his Mother unawares!
He knows it not, he cannot guess:
Years to a Mother bring distress;
But do not make her love the less.
Neglect me! no, I suffered long
From that ill thought; and, being blind,
Said, "Pride shall help me in my wrong:
Kind mother have I been, as kind
As ever breathed:" and that is true;
I've wet my path with tears like dew,
Weeping for him when no one knew.
My Son, if thou be humbled, poor,
Hopeless of honour and of gain,
Oh! do not dread thy mother's door;
Think not of me with grief and pain:
I now can see with better eyes;
And worldly grandeur I despise,
And fortune with her gifts and lies.
Alas! the fowls of Heaven have wings,
And blasts of Heaven will aid their flight;
They mount-how short a voyage brings
The Wanderers back to their delight!
Chains tie us down by land and sea;
And wishes, vain as mine, may be
All that is left to comfort thee.
Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan,
Maimed, mangled by inhuman men;
Or thou upon a Desert thrown
Inheritest the Lion's den;
Or hast been summoned to the deep,
Thou, Thou and all thy mates, to keep
An incommunicable sleep.
I look for Ghosts; but none will force
Their way to me:-'tis falsely said
That there was ever intercourse
Between the living and the dead;
For, surely, then I should have sight
Of Him I wait for day and night,
With love and longings infinite.
My apprehensions come in crowds;
I dread the rustling of the grass;
The very shadows of the clouds
Have power to shake me as they pass:
I question things, and do not find
One that will answer to my mind;
And all the world appears unkind.
Beyond participation lie
My troubles, and beyond relief:
If any chance to heave a sigh,
They pity me, and not my grief.
Then come to me, my Son, or send
Some tidings that my woes may end;
I have no other earthly friend!
THE COTTAGER TO HER INFANT.
THE days are cold, the nights are long,
The north-wind sings a doleful song;
Then hush again upon my breast;
All merry things are now at rest,
Save thee, my pretty Love!
The kitten sleeps upon the hearth,
The crickets long have ceased their mirth;
There's nothing stirring in the house
Save one wee, hungry, nibbling mouse,
Then why so busy thou?
Nay! start not at that sparkling light;
'Tis but the moon that shines so bright
On the window pane bedropped with rain:
Then, little Darling! sleep again,
And wake when it is day.
THE SAILOR'S MOTHER.
ONE morning (raw it was and wet,
A foggy day in winter time)
A Woman on the road I met,
Not old, though something past her prime: Majestic in her person, tall and straight; And like a Roman matron's was her mien and gait
The ancient Spirit is not dead;
Old times, thought I, are breathing there;
Proud was I that my country bred
Such strength, a dignity so fair:
She begged an alms, like one in poor estate;
I looked at her again, nor did my pride abate.
When from these lofty thoughts I woke,
"What treasure," said I, "do you bear,
Beneath the covert of your Cloak,
Protected from the cold damp air?"
She answered, soon as she the question heard, "A simple burthen, Sir, a little Singing-bird"
And, thus continuing, she said,
"I had a Son, who many a day
Sailed on the seas, but he is dead;
In Denmark he was cast away:
And I have travelled weary miles to see
If aught which he had owned might still remain for me.
"The Bird and Cage they both were his: "T was my Son's Bird; and neat and trim He kept it: many voyages
This Singing-bird had gone with him: When last he sailed, he left the Bird behind; From bodings, as might be, that hung upon his mind.
"He to a Fellow-lodger's care Had left it, to be watched and fed, And pipe its song in safety; - there I found it when my Son was dead; And now, God help me for my little wit! I bear it with me, Sir, he took so much delight in it."
THE CHILDLESS FATHER.
"UP, Timothy, up with your Staff and away!
Not a soul in the village this morning will stay;
The Hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,
And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds."
Thine eyes are on me-they would speak,
I think, to help me if they could.
Blessings upon that soft, warm face,
My heart again is in its place!
While thou art mine, my little Love,
This cannot be a sorrowful grove;
Contentment, hope, and Mother's glee,
I seem to find them all in thee:
Here's grass to play with, here are flowers;
I'll call thee by my Darling's name;
Thou hast, I think, a look of ours,
Thy features seem to me the same;
His little Sister thou shalt be;
And, when once more my home I see,
I'll tell him many tales of Thee."
The following tale was written as an Episode, in a work from which its length may perhaps exclude it. The facts are true; no invention as to these has been exercised, as none was needed.
O HAPPY time of youthful lovers (thus
My story may begin) O balmy time,
In which a love-knot on a lady's brow
Is fairer than the fairest star in heaven!
To such inheritance of blessed fancy
(Fancy that sports more desperately with minds
Than ever fortune hath been known to do)
The high-born Vaudracour was brought, by years
Whose progress had a little overstepped
His stripling prime. A town of small repute,
Among the vine-clad mountains of Auvergne,
By ready nature for a life of love,
For endless constancy, and placid truth;
But whatsoe'er of such rare treasure lay
Reserved, had fate permitted, for support
Of their maturer years, his present mind
Was under fascination; - he beheld
A vision, and adored the thing he saw.
Arabian fiction never filled the world
With half the wonders that were wrought for him.
Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;
Life turned the meanest of her implements,
Before his eyes, to price above all gold;
The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine;
Her chamber window did surpass in glory
The portals of the dawn; all paradise
Could, by the simple opening of a door,
Let itself in upon him; pathways, walks,
Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,
Surcharged, within him, - overblest to move
Beneath a sun that wakes a weary world
To its dull round of ordinary cares;
A man too happy for mortality!
So passed the time, till, whether through effect
Of some unguarded moment that dissolved
Virtuous restraint - ah, speak it- think it not!
Deem rather that the fervent Youth, who saw
So many bars between his present state
And the dear haven where he wished to be
In honourable wedlock with his Love,
Was in his judgment tempted to decline
To perilous weakness, and entrust his cause
To nature for a happy end of all;
Deem that by such fond hope the Youth was swayed
And bear with their transgression, when I add
That Julia, wanting yet the name of wife,
Carried about her for a secret grief
Was the Youth's birth-place. There he wooed a Maid The promise of a mother.
Who heard the heart-felt music of his suit
With answering vows. Plebeian was the stock,
Plebeian, though ingenuous, the stock,
From which her graces and her honours sprung:
And hence the father of the enamoured Youth,
With haughty indignation, spurned the thought
Of such alliance. - From their cradles up,
With but a step between their several homes,
Twins had they been in pleasure; after strife
And petty quarrels, had grown fond again;
Each other's advocate, each other's stay;
And strangers to content if long apart,
Or more divided than a sportive pair
Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are hovering
Within the eddy of a common blast,
Or hidden only by the concave depth
Of neighbouring billows from each other's sight.
Thus, not without concurrence of an age Unknown to memory, was an earnest given
The threatened shame, the parents of the Maid
Found means to hurry her away by night,
And unforewarned, that in some distant spot
She might remain shrouded in privacy,
Until the babe was born. When morning came,
The Lover, thus bereft, stung with his loss,
And all uncertain whither he should turn,
Chafed like a wild beast in the toils; but soon
Discovering traces of the fugitives,
Their steps he followed to the Maid's retreat.
The sequel may be easily divined
Walks to and fro - watchings at every hour;
And the fair Captive, who, whene'er she may,
Is busy at her casement as the swallow
Fluttering its pinions, almost within reach,
About the pendent nest, did thus espy
Her Lover!-thence a stolen interview,
Accomplished under friendly shade of night.
I pass the raptures of the Pair;-such theme
Is, by innumerable poets, touched
In more delightful verse than skill of mine
Could fashion, chiefly by that darling bard
Who told of Juliet and her Romeo,
And of the lark's note heard before its time,
And of the streaks that laced the severing clouds
In the unrelenting east. - Through all her courts
The vacant city slept; the busy winds,
That keep no certain intervals of rest,
Moved not; meanwhile the galaxy displayed
Her fires, that like mysterious pulses beat
Aloft; -momentous but uneasy bliss!
To their full hearts the universe seemed hung
On that brief meeting's slender filament!
They parted; and the generous Vandracour
Reached speedily the native threshold, bent
On making (so the Lovers had agreed)
A sacrifice of birthright to attain
A final portion from his Father's hand;
Which granted, Bride and Bridegroom then would flee
To some remote and solitary place,
Shady as night, and beautiful as heaven,
Where they may live, with no one to behold
Their happiness, or to disturb their love.
But now of this no whisper; not the less,
ever an obtrusive word were dropped
Touching the matter of his passion, still,
'n his stern Father's hearing, Vaudracour
Persisted openly that death alone
Should abrogate his human privilege
Divine, of swearing everlasting truth,
pon the altar, to the Maid he loved.
“You shall be baffled in your mad intent
there be justice in the Court of France,"
Muttered the Father. From these words the Youth onceived a terror,— and, by night or day, Stirred nowhere without weaponsthat full soon Found dreadful provocation: for at night When to his chamber he retired, attempt Was made to seize him by three armed men, Acting, in furtherance of the Father's will, ader a private signet of the State. One, did the Youth's ungovernable hand Assault and slay;-and to a second, gave A perilous wound, he shuddered to behold The breathless corse; then peacefully resigned His person to the law, was lodged in prison, And wore the fetters of a criminal.
That, from the dandelion's naked stalk,
a tuft of winged seed
Mounted aloft, is suffered not to use
Its natural gifts for purposes of rest,
Driven by the autumnal whirlwind to and fro
Through the wide element? or have
The heavier substance of a leaf-clad bough,
Within the vortex of a foaming flood,
Tormented? by such aid you may conceive The perturbation of each mind: - ah, no!
Desperate the Maid - the Youth is stained with blood; But as the troubled seed and tortured bough
Is Man, subjected to despotic sway.
For him, by private influence with the Court
Was pardon gained, and liberty procured;
But not without exaction of a pledge,
Which liberty and love dispersed in air.
He flew to her from whom they would divide him—
He clove to her who could not give him peace-
Yea, his first word of greeting was,—“ All right
Is gone from me; my lately-towering hopes,
To the least fibre of their lowest root,
Are withered; - thou no longer canst be mine,
I thine the Conscience-stricken must not woo
The unruffled Innocent, I see thy face,
Behold thee, and my misery is complete!"
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Doomed to a third and last captivity,
His freedom he recovered on the eve
Of Julia's travail. When the babe was born,
Its presence tempted him to cherish schemes
Of future happiness. "You shall return,
Julia," said he, "and to your Father's house
Go with the Child. You have been wretched, yet
The silver shower, whose reckless burthen weighs
Too heavily upon the lily's head,
Oft leaves a saving moisture at its root.
Malice, beholding you, will melt away.
Go! 't is a Town where both of us were born;
None will reproach you, for our truth is known;
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