Lady Jane Wilde: Verses about Freedom

Mine eye is dull, my hair is white,
This arm is powerless for the fight,
Alas! alas! the battle’s van
Suits not a weak and aged man.
Thine eye is bright, thine arm is strong
’Tis Youth must right our country’s wrong.
Arise, my son, and proudly bear
This sword that I was wont to wear;
Firm grasp the hilt, fling down the sheath
A thousand years vears their wrongs bequeath

To thy young heart, thy hot revenge—
Kneel down, and swear thou wilt avenge.
May thy hand be fierce as Até’s,
Fighting for our old Penates;
May thy glance be lightning flashes,
May thy words be thunder crashes,
May that earnest, haughty frown,
Like weapon, strike the foeman down.
May thy smile of scorn be
Blasting as the Upas tree;
Boldly like Olympian God,
Hurl the tyrants from our sod,
Let their wail be Ichabod!
Be to them destruction glooming
Be to them a vengeance looming,
Hair‐suspended o’er their race,
Like the sword of Damoclés,
Let thy daring right hand free us,
Like that son of old Ægeus,
Who purged his land for evermore
From the blood‐stained Minotaur.
Fear not death, but fear dishonour;
Yield thy country all but honour.
What more fitting warrior’s shroud
Than the foeman’s standard proud?
Heed ye not their glozing words;
Fear ye not their myriad swords;
Never make ye peace with them
’Till ye chant their requiem.
Ha! I hear thy heart’s pulsation
Throbbing vengeance for our nation;
Ha! I see thy dark eyes shine
With a fury leonine
Burning brow and clenchéd hand
Quivering lip and naked brand
Arise! arise! my patriot son,
By hearts like thine is Freedom won!

It was the lark—not the nightingale
Poured forth her notes of warning;
Upwards she flew from the sun‐lit vale,
Awoke by the light of the morning.
The day, the day is bright!

The night
Hath fled that in darkness bound ye;
Fling ye the myrtle of love aside,
And grasp the sword whate'er may betide
For the Foemen are gathering round ye!
It was the lark—not the nightingale
Arouse ye from apathy's slumber!
Few and dull do your watchfires pale,
But they soon shall the stars outnumber.
Awake, awake to life!

The strife
For God and your right advances;
Leave the white arms of weeping beauty,
The van of the battle's your post of duty,
Where glitter the Foeman's lances!
It was the lark—not the nightingale
The gate of the morning uncloses;
She sings of the thundering cannon's hail
She sings of the battle's roses;
On the warrior's breast

They rest
The crimson roses that free the world!
Up, then, in Liberty's cause ye are sent
Let the wide heavens be but one warrior's tent
When the banner of Freedom's unfurled.
It was the lark—not the nightingale
Leave, then, O youth, thy dreaming!
As dashes the torrent adown the vale,
O'er all barriers wildly streaming,
So of thy young heart's blood,

The flood
Pour down on the thirsty land;
And Liberty's cause, that would else have died,
Will bloom afresh from that crimson tide;
So pledge ye your heart and hand.
It was the lark—not the nightingale
Who chanted a Nation's rise;
Borne on the wings of the morning gale,
It peals through the azure skies.
Liberty's torch is bright!

The light
May mock our tyrant's scorning,
For millions of hearts will be kindled ere noon;
And the freedom we dream'd of in darkness, full soon
We'll achieve in the light of the morning!

Wherefore wail you for the harp? Is it broken?
Have the bold hands that once struck it weaker grown?
Can false words, by false traitors spoken,
Blight a cause which we know is God’s own?
No coward hearts are with us that would falter,
Tho’ a thousand tyrants strove to crush us low;
No coward pen the daring words to alter,
That we fling in haughty scorn ’gainst the foe.

Who has doomed, or can dare “doom us to silence?”
In the conscious pride of truth and right we stand;
Let them rave like the ocean round the islands,
Firm as they we stand unmoved for Fatherland.
Ay, we’ll “till,” spite of banded foes who hate us
But to rear the tree of Freedom God hath given;
Ay, we’ll toil—but for triumphs that await us,
If not leading to the Capital—to Heaven.

Shall we mourn if we’re martyrs for the truth?
God has ever tried His noblest by the cross
Let us bless Him that we’re worthy in our youth,
For Country, truth, and right to suffer loss.
So the word that we have spoken be immortal,
Little reck we tho’ no glory may be won;
If of God, it will scorn ban of mortal
Standing ever as the archetypal sun.

True, the path is dark, but ever sunward,
In faith, and love, and hope we journey on;
We may pause in the desert passing onward,
Lay our weary heads to rest upon the stone;

But ever in our visions, low and faintly,
Come the voices of the far‐off angel band,
To earnest souls, in prophecy all saintly,
That the good cause will yet triumph in the land.

Fear not, oh! my brother, then, that any
Will hush Ierne’s harp at man’s command;
For phylacteries of misery too many,
Are bound upon all foreheads in the land.
Let others bow in abject genuflexion
Sue from Pity what they ought to claim as right;
By God’s grace we’ll stand by our election
Freedom, Knowledge, Independence, Truth, and Light!

O Country, writhing in thy chain
With fierce, wild efforts to be free,
Not seeing that with every strain
The bonds close firmer over thee;
Or grasping blindly in thy hate
The temple pillars of the State,
To hurl them down on friend and foe,
Crushed in one common overthrow
Can none of all thy Poet band
Preach nobler aims, loved Ireland?
As David drove with magic chords
The Evil Spirit back to night;
As Moses by his mighty words
Led Egypt’s bondmen up to light;
Hast thou no Poet, strong to calm
Thy troubled soul with holy psalm?
Or trusted Chief, who, safely on
Across the fatal Rubicon,
Could lead thee with pure heart and hand
To Freedom—my own Ireland?
By those doomed men, in dull despair
Slow wasting in a dungeon’s gloom;
By all youth’s fiery heart can dare
Quenched in the prison’s living tomb
By the corroding felon chain,
That tortures with Promethean pain
Of vultures gnawing at the core
Of their lost lives for evermore
I ask you, People of our Land,
Have ye done well for Ireland?
By History traced on dungeon walls,
By scaffolds, chains, and exiles’ tears,
Slow marking, as the shadow falls,
The mournful sequence of the years;

By genius crushed and progress barred,
By noble aspirations marred,
Till with a smouldering fire’s life
They burn in deadly hate and strife
I ask you, Rulers of our Land,
Have ye done well for Ireland?
O Men! these men are brothers too,
Tho’ frenzied by a fatal dream,
Their living souls were meant to do
Some noble work in God’s great scheme,
Perchance to hew down, branch and root,
The tree that bore such bitter fruit;
But, left unguided in the Right,
They grope out blindly in the night
Of their dark passions; striking down
Their Country’s proud hopes with their own.
But now, ye say, the Land hath rest
Aye, with the death weights on her eyes;
And fettered arms across her breast,
And mail’d hands stifling down her cries.
So rests a corpse within the grave
O’er which the charnal grasses wave.
Oh, better far some kindly word
To stay the vengeance‐lifted sword,
Or Love, with queenly, outstretched hand,
To soothe thee—fated Ireland!

Stand on the heights, O Poet! nor come down
Amid the wise old serpents, coiled around
The Tree of Knowledge in Academics.
The Poet’s place is by the Tree of Life,
Whose fruit turns men to Gods, and makes them live,
Not seeking buried treasure in the tombs.
Leave the dim records of a by‐gone age
To those great Archivists, who flash the torch
Of Truth along Time’s mouldering records,
Illuminating all the fading Past,
Like golden letters on an ancient scroll.
The Poet soars with eagles, breathes pure ether,
Basks in the light that suns the mountain peak,
And sings, from spirit altitudes, such strains,
That all the toilers in life’s rugged furrows
Are forced, for once, to lift the bow’d‐down head,
And look on Heaven. Flashes from Poet’s words
Electric light, strong, swift, and sudden, like
The clash of thunder‐clouds, by which men read
God’s writing legibly on human hearts.
On reading his Essay on the Collation of Certain Ancient Spanish Manuscripts, printed from the proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy.

O Poet‐Prophets! God hath sent ye forth
With lips made consecrate by altar fire,
To guide the Future, not to tread the Past;
To chaunt, in glorious music, man’s great hymn,
The watchword of humanity—Advance!
Advance in Wisdom, Nobleness, and Truth,
High aims, high purposes, and self‐control,
Which is self‐reverence, knowing we shall stand
With crownéd angels before God’s great throne
The Poet nerves the arm to do great deeds,
Inspires great thoughts, flings o’er the tears of life
The rainbow arch, to save us from despair;
Quickens the stagnant energies to act,
Bears the advancing banner of the age,
Full in the van of all Humanity;
And, with a strength, God‐given, rolls the stone,
As angels may, from off the Sepulchre
Where souls lie bound, bidding them rise and live.
O Poet! preach this Gospel once again
True Life, true Liberty, God’s gifts to man;
Freedom from servile aims and selfish ends,
That swathe and bind the kingly spirit down,
Like Egypt’s grave‐clothes on the royal dead;
Scatter the golden grain of lofty thoughts
From which spring hero‐deeds—that so, in truth,
Our Future may be nobler than our Past,
In all that makes a nation’s life divine—
This is the Poet’s mission, therefore—Thine.

What of the night, O Watcher on the Tower?
Is the Day dawning through the golden bars?
Comes it through the midnight, over clouds that lower,
Trailing robes of crimson mid the fading stars?
“Through the rent clouds I see a splendour gleaming,
Rolling down the darkness to the far Heaven’s rim,
While through the mist the glorious Dawn upstreaming
Rises like the music of a grand choral hymn.”
From the deep valleys where the whirlwind passes,
Hear you the tramp of the coming hosts of men,
Strong in their manhood, mighty in their masses,
Swift as rushing torrents down a mountain glen?
“Far as eye can reach, where purple mists are lifted,
Thousands upon thousands are gathering in might,
Powerful as tempests when giant sails are rifted,
Beautiful as ocean in the sun’s silver light.”
See you their Banner in the free air proudly
Waving, as an oriflamme a king might bear,
Has it no legend—dare we utter loudly
All that a people may have written there?
“I see their Banner in the red dawn flashing
Haughty is the legend, plain to all men’s sight,
Traced in their heart’s blood, which the breeze upcatching,
Flings out in flame‐words—Liberty and Right!
“Onward they come, still gathering in power,
Serried ranks of men o’er the crimson‐clouded lawn;
Banners glisten brightly in the golden shower
Pouring through the portals of the golden Dawn.

“Each bears a symbol, glorious in its meaning,
Holy as the music of the crown’d Bard’s Psalm:
Faith gazing upward, on her Anchor leaning,
Peace with the Olive, and Mercy with the Palm.”
Long have we waited, O Watcher, for the vision,
Splendid in promise we now can see it rise,
Scattering the darkness, while with hero‐mission
Brave hands uplift Hope’s banner to the skies.
Not with vain clamour, but the soul’s strength revealing
In the golden silence of all great true deeds,
Banded in strength for human rights appealing,
Banded in love for our poor human needs.
Bitter was the Past; let it rest, a new Æon
Preaches a new Gospel to man not in vain,
Earth through all her kingdoms echoes back the Pæan
Chanted once by Angels on the star‐lit plain.
Brotherhood of Nations, disdaining ancient quarrel,
Brotherhood of Peoples, flushed with a nobler rage,
Palm branch and Olive let us mingle with the Laurel
In the radiant future of the coming Age!

Lift up your pale faces, ye children of sorrow,
The night passes on to a glorious to‐morrow!
Hark! hear you not sounding glad Liberty’s pæan,
From the Alps to the Isles of the tideless Ægean?
And the rhythmical march of the gathering nations,
And the crashing of thrones ’neath their fierce exultations,
And the cry of Humanity cleaving the ether,
With hymns of the conquering rising together
God, Liberty, Truth! How they burn heart and brain
These words shall they burn—shall they waken in vain?

No! soul answers soul, steel flashes on steel,
And land wakens land with a grand thunder‐peal.
Shall we, oh! my Brothers, but weep, pray, and groan,
When France reads her rights by the flames of a Throne?
Shall we fear and falter to join the grand chorus,
When Europe has trod the dark pathway before us?
Oh, courage! and we, too, will trample them down,
The minions of power, the serfs of a crown.
Oh, courage! but courage, if once to the winds
Ye fling Freedom’s banner, no tyranny binds.

At the voice of the people the weak symbols fall,
And Humanity marches o’er purple and pall,
O’er sceptre and crown, with a glorious disdain,
For the symbol must fall and Humanity reign.
Onward! then onward! ye brave to the vanguard,
Gather in glory round Liberty’s standard!
Like France, lordly France, we shall sweep from their station
All, all who oppose the stern will of a nation;
Like Prussia’s brave children will stoop to no lord,
But demand our just rights at the point of the sword.

We’ll conquer! we’ll conquer! No tears for the dying,
The portal to Heaven be the field where they’re lying.
We’ll conquer! we’ll conquer! No tears for the slain,
God’s angels will smile on their death‐hour of pain.
On, on in your masses dense, resolute, strong
To war against treason, oppression, and wrong;
On, on with your chieftains, and Him we adore most,
Who strikes with the bravest and leads with the foremost,
Who brings the proud light of a name great in story,
To guide us through danger unconquered to glory.

With faith like the Hebrew’s we’ll stem the Red Sea
God! smite down the Pharaohs—our trust is in Thee;
Be it blood of the tyrant or blood of the slave,
We’ll cross it to Freedom, or find there a grave.
Lo! a throne for each worker, a crown for each brow,
The palm for each martyr that dies for us now;
Spite the flash of their muskets, the roar of their cannon,
The assassins of Freedom shall lower their pennon;
For the will of a Nation what foe dare withstand?
Then Patriots, Heroes, strike! God for our Land!

Oremus! Oremus! Look down on us, Father!
Like visions of Patmos Thy last judgments gather
The angels of doom, in bright, terrible beauty,
Rise up from their thrones to fulfil their stern duty.
Woe to us, woe! the thunders have spoken,
The first of the mystical seals hath been broken.

Through the cleft thunder‐cloud the weird wierd coursers are rushing
Their hoofs will strike deep in the hearts they are crushing;
And the crown'd and the proud of the old kingly races
Fall down at the vision, like stars from their places:
Oremus! Oremus! The pale earth is heark'ning;
Already the spirit‐steeds round us are dark'ning.

With crown and with bow, on his white steed immortal,
The Angel of Wrath passes first through the portal;
But faces grow paler, and hush'd is earth's laughter,
When on his pale steed comes the Plague Spirit after.

Oremus! Oremus! His poison‐breath slayeth;
The red will soon fade from each bright lip that prayeth.

Now, with nostrils dilated and thunder hoofs crashing,
On rushes the war‐steed, his lurid eyes flashing;
There is blood on the track where his long mane is streaming,
There is death where the sword of his rider is gleaming.
Woe to the lands where that red steed is flying!
There tyrants are warring, and heroes are dying.

Oh! the golden‐hair'd children reck nought but their playing,
Thro' the rich fields of corn with their young mothers straying;
And the strong‐hearted men, with their muscles of iron,
What reck they of ills that their pathway environ?
There's a tramp like a knell—a cold shadow gloometh
Woe! 'tis the black steed of Famine that cometh

At the breath of its rider the green earth is blasted,
And childhood's frail form droops down pallid, and wasted;
The soft sunny hair falleth dank on the arm
Of the mother, whose love shields no longer from harm:
For strength is scarce left her to weep o'er the dying,
Ere dead by the loved one the mother is lying.

But can we only weep, when above us thus lour
The death‐bearing wings of the angels of power;
When around are the arrows of pestilence flying
Around, the pale heaps of the famine‐struck lying
—No, brother of sorrow, when life's light is weakest,
Look up, it is nigh the redemption thou seekest.

Still WORK, though the tramp of the weird spirit‐horses,
Fall dull on the ear, like the clay upon corses;

Still Freedom must send forth her young heroes glowing,
Though her standard be red with their life‐current flowing;
Still the preacher must cast forth the seed, as God's sower,
Though he perish like grass at the scythe of the mower.

Still do the Lord's work through life's tragical drama,
Though weeping goes upward like weeping at Rama;
The path may be thorny, but Spirit eyes see us;
The cross may be heavy, but Death will soon free us:
Still, strong in Christ's power we'll chant the Hosanna,
Fling down Christ's defiance—Υπαγε Σατανα!

I see in a vision the shadowy portal,
That leadeth to regions of glory immortal;
I see the pale forms from the seven wounds bleeding,
Which up to God's Throne the bright angels are leading;
I see the crown placed on each saint bending lowly,
While sounds the Trisagion—Holy, thrice Holy!

I have Paradise dreams of a band with palm‐branches,
Whose wavings give back their gold harps' resonances,
And a jewelled‐walled city, where walketh in splendour
Each one who his life for God's truth did surrender.
Who would weep their death‐doom, if such bliss we inherit,
When the veil of the human falls off from the spirit?

The Christian may shrink from the last scenes of trial,
And the woes yet unknown of each mystical vial;
But the hosts of Jehovah will gather beside him,
The rainbow‐crowned angel stoop downward to guide him;
And to him, who as hero and martyr hath striven,
Will the Crown, and the Throne, and the Palm‐branch be given.

Ho! Spaniards! rise for Liberty—your country on ye calls,
To fight to‐day, in proud array, before Granáda’s walls;
A proud array is here to‐day, full fifty thousand strong,
Of Fantassins and Cavaliers Gonzalo leads along.

From Leon to Granáda—from Corunna to Sevílle,
Gather, Spaniards, gather, by the banks of the Xenil!
Eight hundred years of blood and tears beneath a foreign sway
Eight hundred years of blood and tears must be avenged to‐day.

Think of your ancient glory, Oh ye lions of León!
And how in ancient story your great lion name was won;
Think of Zamora’s conquest field, and royal Douro’s flood
How ye bridged with Moslem corses, and swam it in their blood.

And, mountaineers, have ye no tears to be avenged to‐day
Asturians, and Gallicians, and wild dwellers by Vizcày?
Ye, the unconquered remnant of the brave old Celtic race
For ne’er could Roman, Goth, or Moor, your nationhood efface.

Ye, too, proud Gothic nobles! by your memories as men,
Will never fail, or shrink, or quail to meet the Saracen;
Ye, ’fore whose conquering arm were the bravest forced to yield,
Who smote the Suevi in their tent—the Romans in the field.
VI.
Now, now, oh, shame and misery! a stranger rules your lands!
A stranger’s spoil is your native soil—a stranger’s voice commands;
Ye, princes once and chieftains, ere the false foe crossed the flood,
Now, drawers of their water and base hewers of their wood!

And, Adalusian Brothers, of the old Vandalic race,
Will ye alone ’midst Spaniards, be proud of your disgrace?
They flatter, fawn, but hate you, these proud foes to whom you’ve sold
Your Liberty for mocking smiles—your country for their gold.

They own your stately palaces, they desecrate your shrines,
They trample on your vineyards, yet ye stoop to drink their wines;
Ye wear their silk, their gold, their gems, and to their feasts ye run;
Now shame for ye, my brothers, is it thus that Freedom’s won?

Back to your wild sierras, better die there in your homes
Than cringingly bow low beneath your masters’ haughty domes;
Their Syrian silks, their Indian Indiam gems, go—fling them to the Sea,
But keep their Syrian steel, for it will help to set us free.
X.
Oh! by your ancient memories, rise Prince, and Peer, and Chief
Smite down the foe that wrought our woe at Gebel el Taríf.
The robber horde awaits your sword—draw, Spaniards! for your land!
The crown ye lost by Roderic, regain it by Fernand!

No coward fears—eight hundred years ye’ve lived as slaves, not men;
But swords makes bright each chartered right—ye’ll have your own again.
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Brave hearts and leal of proud Castile—Revenge, on Mauritania!
Rend earth and sky with your gathering cry: Charge! Cierra Espana!

As tempests sweep the surging deep, thus on the Moorish ranks
Dashes the Spanish chivalry; they charge on van and flanks.
From Calpe’s rock the thunder‐shock re‐echoes o’er the main
Now, God and Santiago, for our Liberty and Spain!

Little they think of mercy, these slaves of eight hundred years;
Never they spare a foeman, these bold true Iberian spears.
Crescènted hosts your taunting boasts this day find answer meet,
For the light of Heaven is darkened by the dust of your flying feet.

Granàda falls! From the Castle walls tear down the Alien’s rag
On turret and Alcàzar, comrades, up with our ancient flag!
It floats from the proud Alhambra! Thank God, we’ve lived to see
Our ancient standard waving once again above the Free!
Pass out, ye weeping people; aye, weep—for never more
Shall ye gather in Granàda by the sound of Atambór;
For, by the rood, ye Moslem brood, we swore it in Castile,
Never again should Spain be ruled by foreign Alquazil.

O Moorish King! by suffering thou has earned a name to‐day—*
But we give thee life, Abdallah; pass onwards on thy way.
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Accursed race, the foul disgrace thy rule hath brought on Spain,
Is cleansed away in blood to‐day—we drive thee ’cross the main.

By Elvira’s gate he goeth, all solemnly and slow
One last look at Granàda, ere they pass that gate of woe.
“Oh, better far thy scimitar had laid thee with the dead,
Than weep for what thou could’st not keep”—the proud

Allah, Allah Hu Akbar! what sorrow like my sorrows?
Thus he goeth weeping by the way of Alpujarras;
Allah, Allah Hu Akbar! on his tomb is written down
The King who lost a Kingdom when great Spain regained her Crown.

The sin of our race is upon us,
The pitiless, cruel disdain
Of brother for brother, tho’ coiling
Round both is the one fatal chain;
And aimless and reckless and useless
Our lives pass along to the grave
In tumults of words that bewilder,
And the conflicts of slave with slave.

Yet shadows are heavy around us,
The darkness of sin and of shame,
While the souls of the Nation to slumber
Are lulled by vain visions of fame;
True hearts, passion‐wasted, and breaking
With sense of our infinite wrong,
Oh! wake them, nor dread the awaking,
We need all the strength of the strong.

For we rage with senseless endeavours
In a fever of wild unrest,
While glory lies trampled, dishonoured,
Death‐pale, with a wound in her breast;
Had we loosened one chain from the spirit,
Had we strove from the ruin of things
To build up a Temple of Concord,
More fair than the palace of Kings;

Our name might be heard where the Nations
Press on to the van of the fight,
Where Progress makes war upon Evil,
And Darkness is scattered by Light.

They have gold and frankincense and myrrh
To lay at the feet of their King,
But we—what have we but the wine‐cup
Of wrath and of sorrow to bring?

Let us ask of our souls, lying under
The doom of this bondage and ban,
Why we, made by God high as Angels,
Should fall so much lower than man;
Some indeed have been with us would scale
Heav’n’s heights for life‐fire if they dare
But the vultures now gnaw at their hearts
Evermore on the rocks of Despair.

Let us think, when we stand before God,
On the Day of the Judgment roll,
And He asks of the work we have done
In the strength of each God‐like soul;
Can we answer—“Our prayers have gone up
As light from the stars and the sun,
And Thy blessing came down on our deeds
As a crown when the victory’s won.

“We fought with wild beasts, wilder passions,
As of old did the saints of God,
Tho’ our life‐blood ran red in the dust
Of the fierce arena we trod;
We led up Thy people triumphant
From Egypt’s dark bondage of sin,
And made the fair land which Thou gavest
All glorious without and within.

“We changed to a measure of music
The discord and wail of her days,
For sorrow gave garments of gladness,
For scorn of her enemies praise;

We crowned her a Queen in the triumph
Of noble and beautiful lives,
While her chariot of Freedom rolled on
Through the crash of her fallen gyves.”

I ask of you, Princes, and Rulers,
I ask of you, Brothers around,
Can ye thus make reply for our people
When the Nations are judged or crowned?
If not, give the reins of the chariot
To men who can curb the wild steeds
They are nearing the gulf, in this hour
We appeal by our wrongs and our needs.

Stand back and give place to new leaders;
We need them—some strong gifted souls,
From whose lips, never touched by a falsehood,
The heart’s richest eloquence rolls.
True Patriots by grandeur of purpose,
True men by the power of the brain:
The chosen of God to lift upward
His Ark with hands clear of all stain.

We need them to tend the Lord’s vineyard,
As shepherds to watch round His fold,
With brave words from pure hearts outpouring,
As wine from a chalice of gold;
That the souls of the Nation uplifted,
May shine in new radiance of light,
As of old stood the Prophets transfigured
In glory with Christ on the height.

Far out where the grand western sunsets
Flush crimson the mountain and sea,
And the echoes of Liberty mingle
With the roar of the waves on the lea;

Where over the dim shrouded passes
The clouds fling a rainbow‐hued arch,
And through giant‐rent portals a people
Go forth on their sad, solemn march:

I had dreams of a future of glory
For this fair motherland of mine,
When knowledge would bring with its splendours
The Human more near the Divine.
And as flash follows flash on the mountains,
When lightnings and thunders are hurled,
So would throb in electrical union
Her soul with the soul of the world.

For we stand too apart in our darkness,
As planets long rent from the sun,
And the mystical breath of the spirit
Scarce touches our hearts sweeping on.
I appeal from this drear isolation
To earth, to the mountains, and sky
Must we die as of thirst in a desert,
While full tides of life pass us by?

Yet still, through the darkness and sorrow,
I dream of a time yet to be,
When from mountain and ocean to Heaven
Will rise up the Hymn of the Free.
When our Country, made perfect through trial,
White‐robed, myrtle‐crowned, as a Bride,
Will stand forth, “a Lady of Kingdoms,”
Through Light and through Love glorified.

Vain the love that looketh upward; we may worship, may adore;
From the heart's o'erflowing chalice all the tide of feeling pour;
Dash our souls against the barriers that divide us from the shrine;
Fling the incense; pour libations—aye, of life's own ruddy wine;
But, the angel we gaze up to, calm as form of pictured saint,
From its golden mist of glory bendeth never to our plaint plant;
Heedeth not if crushed the temple where the altar fires burned,
For the doom runs through the ages—Love was never yet returned.
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II.
Thus it was he loved a lady: never priest in Ispahàn
So adored when mount and ocean morning's flashing glories span.
Never sun‐god in its glory, marching stately from the east,
Crimson‐robed and cloud‐attended, heeded less the praying priest,
Than the lady that pale lover, while her lonely path she took
O'er the spirit's glittering summits, with her proud and queenly look;
Like that Roman Sybil bearing in her hands the mystic scroll,
And her large eyes looking onward where the future ages roll.

So, in lone and lofty beauty, she stood high above the world,
Never heeding, dashing neathward, how life's stormy billows curled;
As a pine upon the mountain, warring tempests raging round,
As an island peak of ocean, with the starry midnight crowned.
How could she who trod the pathway of the spirit's starry zones
Stoop to listen, bending earthward, to a lover's murmuring tones? —
While her ear was gathering music from Creation's golden chords,
List the human tears low falling, with the pleading human words?

And could he, who tracked the eagle borne on through cloud and light,
With her glorious regnant beauty filling soul and sense and sight,

Stoop to gaze on me, half‐blasted by fierce Passion's fiery skies,
Only Love, the love of woman, burning strangely in my eyes?
Oh! I've watched his glance dilating, as it rested where afar
Rose her lofty brow, as riseth the pale glory of a star;
Heard the world's praise hymning round her, saw his cheek of flushing pride,
Whilst I, writhing in heart‐agony, all calmly sat beside.

No rays of genius crowning, such as brows like hers enrol,
With no flashing thoughts, like North‐lights, rushing up my darkened darkned soul;
Waking but his earnest feelings with, perchance, my graver words,
While her spirit, like a tempest, swept the range of Passion's chords.
Oh, Woman! calmest sufferer! what deep agony oft lies
In thy low, false‐hearted laughter, glancing bright through tearless eyes!
And how little deemed he truly that the calmest eyes he met
Were but Joy's funereal torches, on Life's ruined altar set.

How could I light up his nature, with no glory in my own?
Soul like his, that throbbed and glittered in the radiance of her throne.
Bitter came the words of plaining:—Why should fate to me deny
All the beauty of the mortal, all the soul to deify?
What had she done, then, for Heaven, so that Heaven should confer
Every gift, to make man prostrate at her feet as worshipper?

Raised her high enough to scorn him—aye, to trample in disdain
On the heart flung down before her—heart that I had died to gain!

Trod his love down calmly, queenly, like a mantle 'neath her feet,
While with lordly spirit‐monarchs she moved proudly to her seat,
Grand as eagle in the zenith, with the noonday radiance crowned
Lone and icy as an Alp‐peak, with the circling glaciers round.
But an echo of all beauty through her fine‐toned spirit rang,
As a golden harp re‐echoes to each passing music clang,
Till in thrilling, clear vibrations rang her poet‐words in air,
Summoning souls to lofty duties, as an Angelus to prayer.

Oh! she flung abroad her fancies, free as waves dash off the foam
As the palm‐tree flings its branches on the blue of Heaven's dome,
With a genius‐shadow dark'ning in the stillness of her eyes
With her rainbow‐spirit arching half the circle of the skies,
Like a dark‐browed Miriam chanting songs of triumph on the foe,
As the rushing waters bore them to the Hades halls below,
Till up through the startled ether, down the far horizon's rim,
Clashed the swords of men in music to her lofty prophet‐hymn.

But no beauty thrill'd my nature, noon, or night or sunset skies;
For the only heaven I gazed on was the heaven of his eyes—

I'd have bartered Freedom, Justice, People's rights, or native Land,
All the island homes of Ocean, for one pressure of his hand;
Trembling, weak, a coward spirit, only wishing low to lie,
As a flower beneath his footstep, breathe my life out, and so die.
Yet he liked me—aye, he liked me—'twas the phrase—O saints above!
Cold and cruel sounds this liking from the lips of one we love.

They said that he was dying; could I longer silence keeping,
Only pour forth my deep passion in my chamber lonely weeping?
I reck'd not if 'twere womanly, cold convention little heeding,
But in mine his hand enfolding, said, with tearful raised eyes pleading
"She hath left you, left you lonely—sorrow's harvest death may reap;
I say not—love me; let me only watch here by you and weep! "
Then he said, his pale brow raising, with a faint, unquiet smile,
And with saddest eyes upgazing upon mine for all the while

"Sweetest friend, this sorrow‐blighted, faded form, and searéd heart,
To pale death, I fear, are plighted, yet 'twere bitter now to part;
For the chords of life are shaken by a sympathy so true,
And they tremble, in vibration, with a pleasure strange and new.

Still, no love‐dream may be cherished—ah! the time of love is o'er
Youthful heart, by passion blighted, can be kindled never more;
But if sympathy thou darest with a heart so wrecked as mine,
I will give thee back the rarest kindred souls can inter twine."

And so bending coldly, gently, on my brow he placed his lips;
While, I trembling in the shadow of that faint and brief eclipse,
Murmur'd:—"Tell me, tell me truly, do you love her then so well? "
And the hot tears, all unruly, through my twinèd fingers fell,
And I sank down there unheeding so of maidenhood or wrong,
While I told him, weeping, pleading, how I'd loved him, loved him long;
Seen my hopes all faded, perished, spread around in pale dismay,
Wept their pallid corses over—I alone, like Niobe!

Thank God, that no cruel scorning dimm'd his starry eyes divine,
Softly, tender, earnest gazing down the tearful depths of mine—
But with warmest splendours resting on the paleness of his cheek,
As the roseate tinted sunset on a snowy Alpine peak,
Bent he down upon my shoulder, murmuring loverlike and low,
While his breathing softly trembled on my pale lips lying so:

"Ah! such deep and tender loving hath recall'd me from the grave
And this heart with soft approving bids you keep the life you gave;

"Woman's soothing grief to lighten hath a mystic healing power,
And their sympathy can brighten man's most dark and destined hour.
Let the holy words be spoken that bind soul to soul for life;
Let me place the symbol token on this hand—my wedded wife! "
Oh! never yet did an angel breathe diviner words of bliss,
Never mortal heard evangel of a joy like unto this;
In my gladness, smiling, weeping, knelt I down before him there,
Blessing God with wild words leaping from my full heart's inward prayer;

And a glory, ruddy, golden‐hued, streamed down on me from high,
As with lifted hands enfolden gazed I up into the sky
Ever brighter, flashing downward, till my pained eyes ached with light,
And I turned from gazing sunward back to earth's more calm delight.
But—was it spell, or was it charm? —when I turned me to the room,
Fading seem'd the loved one's form, half in light and half in gloom
Throbb'd my brain in wild confusion, slowly died his words in air,
All around me seemed illusion, save that streaming golden glare.


On my fevered eyelids aching, madly press'd my hands I keep
Then arose like one awaking from a strange and magic sleep;
Round I gazed in wild amazement for the glorious light that shone,
Was morn streaming through my casement, but it shone on me alone!
The last cold words he had written still lay there beside my bed;
The last flowers he had given lay beside them, faded, dead;
Life's lonely bitter desolation was true, for aye, I deem,
But, joy's blessed revelations, that—oh, that—was but a dream!