Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta: Verses about Nature

The wail of France comes o'er the sea, -
She mourns for thee, departed chief;
And we, the children of the Free,
Re-echo back the notes of grief.

Thy course was like the morning sun,
That lights two worlds, the east and west;
Thy brilliant, glorious race is run,
Thou takest thine eternal rest.

Thy fame shall pass from age to age,
From clime to clime, from sire to son;
And History, on her glowing page,
Shall write thy name with Washington.

Securely cabined in the ship below,
Through darkness and through storm I cross the sea,
A pathless wilderness of waves to me:
But yet I do not fear, because I know
That he who guides the good ship o'er that waste
Sees in the stars her shining pathway traced.
Blindfold I walk this life's bewildering maze;
Up flinty steep, through frozen mountain pass,
Through thornset barren and through deep morass:
But strong in faith I tread the uneven ways,
And bare my head unshrinking to the blast,
Because my Father's arm is round me cast;
And if the way seems rough, I only clasp
The hand that leads me with a firmer grasp.

As some dark stream within a cavern's breast,
Flows murmuring, moaning for the distant sun,
So ere I met thee, murmuring its unrest,
Did my life's current coldly, darkly run.
And as that stream, beneath the sun's full gaze,
Its separate course and life no more maintains,
But now absorbed, transfused far o'er the plains,
It floats, etherealized in those warm rays;
So in the sunlight of thy fervid love,
My heart, so long to earth's dark channels given,
Now soars, all pain, all doubt, all ill above,
And breathes the ether of the upper heaven:
So thy high spirit holds and governs mine;
So is my life, my being, lost in thine!

The mountain lake, o'ershadowed by the hills,
May still gaze heavenward on the evening star,
Whose distant light its dark recesses fills,
Though boundless distance must divide them far;
Still may the lake the star's bright image bear,
Still may the star, from its blue ether dome,
Shower down its silver beams across the gloom,
And light the wave that wanders darkly there.
Star of my life! thus do I turn to thee
Amid the shadows that above me roll;
Thus from thy distant sphere thou shinest on me;
Thus does thine image float upon my soul,
Through the wide space that must our lives dissever
Far as the lake and star, ah me! forever.

The planted seed consigned to common earth,
Disdains to moulder with the baser clay;
But rises up to meet the light of day,
Spreads all its leaves, and flowers, and tendrils forth;
And, bathed and ripened in the genial ray,
Pours out its perfume on the wandering gales,
Till in that fragrant breath its life exhales.
So this immortal germ within my breast
Would strive to pierce the dull, dark clod of sense,
With aspirations wingéd and intense;
Would so stretch upward, in its tireless quest,
To meet the Central Soul, its source, its rest;
So in the fragrance of the immortal flower,
High thoughts and noble deeds, its life it would outpour.

Go, ye sweet messengers,
To that dim-lighted room,
Where lettered wisdom from the walls
Sheds a delightful gloom;

Where sits in thought profound,
One in the noon of life,
Whose flashing eye and fevered brow
Tell of the inward strife;

Who in those wells of lore,
Seeks for the pearls of truth,
And to Ambition's fever dream
Gives his repose and youth.

To him, sweet ministers,
Ye shall a lesson teach, -
Go in your fleeting loveliness
More eloquent than speech.

Tell him in laurel wreaths
No perfume e'er is found,
And that upon a crown of thorns
Those leaves are ever bound.

Thoughts fresh as your own hues
Bear ye to that abode, -
Speak of the sunshine and the sky,
Of Nature and of God.

When Summer o'er her native hills
A veil of beauty spread,
She sat and watched her gentle fold,
And twined her flaxen thread.

The mountain daisies kissed her feet,
The moss sprung greenest there;
The breath of Summer fanned her cheek,
And tossed her wavy hair.

The heather and the yellow gorse
Bloomed over hill and wold,
And clothed them in a royal robe
Of purple and of gold.

There rose the sky-lark's gushing song;
There hummed the laboring bee;
And merrily the mountain stream
Ran singing to the sea.

But while she missed from those sweet sounds,
The voice she sighed to hear;
The song of bee, and bird, and stream,
Was discord to her ear.

Nor could the bright green world around
A joy to her impart,
For still she missed the eyes that made
The summer of her heart.

The brilliant west is glowing,
With sunset's farewell ray;
The silver waves are flowing,
On to the distant sea;

The pale bright stars are keeping
Their watch through night's still hours;
The dews in joy are weeping
Above the new-born flowers;

The city's hum is dying
Upon the perfumed breeze,
That wanders, softly sighing,
Among the flower-crowned trees.

But my vagrant thoughts are roaming
To loved ones far away;
I heed not twilight's coming,
Nor flowers, nor winds at play.

Of a low, sweet voice I'm dreaming,
More soft than the southwinds are,
Of a gentle eye that is beaming,
More bright than the Evening Star;

And I read as many pages
In the depths of that hazel eye,
As were read by the Chaldean sages,
In the glittering stars on high;

And the dreams that float under the cover
Of those snowy lids of thine,
The thoughts in that young heart that hover,
I have magic power to divine.

Where the dark primeval forests
Rise against the western sky
And 'the Father of the Waters'
In his strength goes rushing by:

There an eagle, flying earthward
From his eyrie far above,
With a serpent of the forest
In a fierce encounter strove.

Now he gains and now he loses,
Now he frees his ruffled wings;
And now high in air he rises;
But the serpent round him clings.

In that death embrace entwining,
Now they sink and now they rise;
But the serpent wins the battle
With the monarch of the skies.

Yet his wings still struggle upward,
Though that crushing weight they bear;
But more feebly those broad pinions
Strike the waves of upper air.

Down to earth he sinks a captive
In that writhing, living chain;
Never o'er the blue horizon
Will his proud form sweep again.

Never more in lightning flashes
Will his eye of terror gleam
Round the high and rocky eyrie,
Where his lonely eaglets scream.

Oh majestic, royal eagle,
Soaring sunward from thy birth,
Thou hast lost the realm of heaven
For one moment on the earth!

Maiden! in whose kindling eye,
Burns the fire of prophecy,
On whose brow its glories shine,
Priestess at the hidden shrine;
Tell me what fair visions rise,
As the future greets thine eyes.
Thither where thou still dost turn,
Does a bright Shekinah burn?
Does thy outstretched, beckoning hand,
Point us to a promised land,
Where the rage of War no more
Shall drench the crimsoned earth with gore?
Where no more, with features gaunt,
Shall stalk the haggard form of Want,
Nor Misery's wail, nor Famine's cries
Upon the ear of Plenty rise,
When the voice of Liberty
Shall bid the earth's oppressed go free?
Thou, on whom the Future beams,
Tell me, are these idle dreams?

'As the messenger went forth,
Seeking o'er the deluged earth,
So, my gaze hath wandered wide,
O'er the Future's troubled tide.
As across the waters dark,
The bird returned to that lone bark,
With the leaf of olive tree,
So return I unto thee.
Not yet do wind and wave subside;
Not yet do land and sea divide;
No verdant earth the vision cheers,
No peak of Ararat appears;
But spanning all that troubled sky,
The Bow of Promise shines on high.'

Plant of a hundred years! destroying Time
Passes thy gentle race with hurrying trend,
Leaves their bright petals colorless and dim,
Strews with their withered leaves the mossy bed,
And sweeps them onward with the countless dead,
Ere the swift passing of the summer hour -
But, beauteous flower, above thy towering head
An age hath passed and left no trace of power:
Plant of a hundred years, thou seem'st Time's favorite flower!

I would that he had passed less lightly o'er thee,
And on thy polished leaves some record made,
Of all the scenes that long since passed before thee,
When round thee waved a forest, in whose shade
The Indian lover wooed his dusky maid, -
When the red warriors lit their council fires,
As peal'd the war-cry over hill and glade,
And then in triumph raised the funeral pyre
Of the ill-fated captive, bride, or son, or sire.

Alas, fair flower! they've vanished from the earth,
That wronged and injured race, and none are here
Of all the friends that knew thee at thy birth, -
No longer near thee rests the wearied deer,
Thy sister flowers have faded with each year;
Still thou remainest, though they all have flown,
Like some strange being from another sphere,
Or like some aged man, sad and alone, -
May I not linger here, when those I love are gone!

There was a fountain in my heart
Whose deeps had not been stirred;
A thirst for music in my soul
My ear had never heard; -

A feeling of the incomplete
To all bright things allied;
A sense of something beautiful,
Unfilled, unsatisfied.

But, waked beneath thy master-hand,
Those trembling chords have given
A foretaste of that deep, full life
That I shall know in Heaven.

In that resistless spell, for once,
The vulture of Unrest,
That whets its beak upon my heart,
Lies, charmed, within my breast.

Pale Memory and flushed Hope forget;
Ambition sinks to sleep;
And o'er my spirit falls a bliss
So perfect that I weep.

Oh, Stranger! though thy Farewell notes
Now on the breeze may sigh,
Yet, treasured in our thrilling hearts,
Their echo shall not die.

Thou'st brought us from thy Northern home
Old Norway's forest tones,
Wild melodies from ancient lands,
Of palaces and thrones.

Take back the 'Prairie's Solitude,'
The voice of that dry sea,
Whose billowy breast is dyed with flowers,
Made audible by thee.

Take back with thee what ne'er before
To Music's voice was given,
The anthem that 'Niagara' chaunts
Unceasingly to Heaven; -

The spirit of a People waked
By Freedom's battle cry;
The 'Memory of their Washington,'
Their song of victory.

Take back with thee a loftier Fame,
A prouder niche in Art,
Fresh laurels from our virgin soil,
And - take a Nation's heart!

'Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.'

Bury me by the sea,
When on my heart the hand of Death is press'd.
If the soul lingers ere she join the bless'd,
And haunts awhile her clay,
Then 'mid the forest shades I would not lie,
For the green leaves, like me, would droop and die.

Nor 'mid the homes of men,
The haunts of busy life, would I be laid:
There ever was I lone, and my vexed shade
Would sleep unquiet then:
The surging tide of life might overwhelm
The shadowy boundaries of the silent realm.

No sculptured marble pile,
To bear my name, be reared upon my breast, —
Beneath its weight my free soul would not rest;
But let the blue sky smile,
The changeless stars look lovingly on me,
And let me sleep beside this sounding sea —

This ever-beating heart
Of the great Universe; here would the soul
Plume her soiled pinions for the final goal,
Ere she should thence depart, —
Here would she fit her for the high abode, —
Here, by the sea, she would be nearer God.

I feel His presence now,
Thou mightiest of his vassals, as I stand
And watch beside thee on the sparkling sand,
Thy crested billows bow;
And, as thy solemn chant swells through the air,
My spirit, awed, joins in thy ceaseless prayer.

Life's fitful fever o'er,
Here then would I repose, majestic sea;
E'en now faint glimpses of eternity
Come o'er me on thy shore:
My thoughts from thee to highest themes are given,
As thy deep distant blue is lost in Heaven.

As once I dreamed, methought I strayed
Within a snow-clad mountain's shade;
From whose far height the silence bore
One charméd word, 'Excelsior!'

And, as upon my soul it fell,
It bound me with a fearful spell;
It shut the sweet vale from my sight,
And called me up that dazzling height.

I could not choose but heed its tone,
And climb that dreary path alone;
And now around me hung the gloom,
Where the storm-spirit makes his home.

Upon my head the tempests beat;
Dark caverns opened at my feet;
The thunders rolled, the lightnings flashed
And fierce the swollen torrents dashed.

'Twas gained, that mountain's stormy pass;
But, chilled beside a _mer de glace,_
My heavy heart in vain would soar, -
The heart hears not 'Excelsior!'

The heart's home is the vale below,
Where kind words greet, where fond eyes glow;
It withers 'neath those frozen skies,
Where the aspiring thought would rise.

Above me the eternal snows
In the cold sunlight's glare arose,
And a dread Presence seemed to brood
O'er the appalling solitude.

But now, on that unquiet dream,
Did one of stateliest aspect beam;
Whose brow thought's kingly impress bore,
Whose soul thrilled to 'Excelsior!'

Though but one moment o'er my way
Did the bright form beside me stay;
In that pale brow and speaking eye,
Methought I saw _my Destiny!_

And as, far up the heaven-crowned height,
Thou seem'dst to vanish from my sight;
Thine image yet beside me stood,
And filled the voiceless solitude.

No longer drear that mountain waste.
For o'er its snows thy steps had passed;
No longer dread, in upper air,
That mountain's crest, for thou wert there!

Oh Sun! oh glorious Sun!
The spell of winter binds me strong and dread
In the dark sleep, the coldness of the dead;
And song and beauty from thy haunts are gone.

The skies above me lower,
The frozen tempests beat upon my breast,
That wearily by its snow-shroud is prest;
And the wild winds rave o'er me in mad power.

At thine averted gaze,
Benumbed and desolate, I droop and die:
Life of my life! Lord of my destiny!
Shine on me with thy life-imparting rays.

Look from thy radiant throne,
And o'er this waste, drear and unlovely now,
Young summer's gorgeous loveliness shall glow,
And beauty clasp me in her magic zone.

Fair landscapes shall arise,
O'er which a sky of tenderest blue shall bend,
Where forest, hill, and vale, and stream shall blend
In beauty like a dream of Paradise.

And in thy living beams
The flowers shall wake, and every dewy cup
Shall send the homage of its perfume up,
And give thy brightness back in rosy gleams.

A full deep symphony,
The voice of streams, the air's melodious sighs,
Songs from all living things shall mingling rise
In one eternal hymn of love to thee.

* * * * * *

In vain, oh Earth, in vain; -
What heeds the Sun, if light or shadow rest
Upon the bosom in his smile so blest,
Or if thou perish in thine icy chain.

If from the shining host,
Like the lost Pleiad, thou wert stricken down,
He would not miss thee from his starry crown -
He would not mark one ray of brightness lost.

Then for the song and bloom,
The untold wealth of beauty, buried deep
Within thy frozen heart, in death-like sleep,
Oh! mourn thou not within thy conscious tomb.

As when untaught and blind,
To the mute stone the pagan bows his knee,
Spirit of Love! phantom of my own mind!
So have I worshipped thee!

When first a laughing child,
I gazed on nature with a wondering eye,
I learned of her in calm and tempest wild,
This thirst for sympathy.

I saw the flowers appear,
And spread their petals out to meet the sun,
The dew-drops on their glistening leaves draw near
And mingle into one.

And if a harp was stirred
By the soft pulses of some wandering sound,
Attuned to the same key, then I have heard
Its chords untouched respond.

Fast through the vaulted sky,
Giving no sound or light, when storms were loud,
I saw the electric cloud in silence fly, -
Seeking its sister cloud.

I saw the winds, the sea,
And all the hosts of heaven in bright array,
Governed by this sweet law of sympathy,
Roll on their destined way.

  And then my spirit pined,
And, like the sea-shell for its parent sea,
Moaned for those kindred souls it could not find,
And panted to be free.

And then came wild despair,
And laid her palsying hand upon my soul,
And her dread ministers were with her there,
The dagger and the bowl.

Oh God of life and light,
Thou who didst stay my hand in that dread hour,
Thou who didst save me in that fearful night,
Of maddening passion's power!

Before thy throne I bow;
I tear my worshipped idols from their shrine;
I give to thee, though bruised and aching now,
This heart, - oh! make it thine.

I've sought to fill in vain
Its lonely, silent depths with human love:
Help me to cast away each earthly claim
And rise to thee above.

Sweet Tivoli! upon thy grassy side,
Whene'er I linger through the summer day,
And the soft music of thy silvery tide
So sweetly wiles the lagging hours away,
I cannot deem but thou are e'en as fair
As that Italian vale whose name thy waters bear.

O'er the old rocks thou boundest on thy way,
and wood, and glen, re-echo to thy song;
And then thy waters, weary of their play,
Through the long grass glide silently along,
So slow, and calm, as scarce to break the rest
Of the young flowers that sleep upon thy placid breast.

And sure no flowers are lovelier than these
That bloom so sweetly on thy grassy side,
And none more fair than the young forest trees,
That bathe their branches in thy crystal tide;
No sounds are sweeter than the winds at play
Amid these trembling pines at close of summer day.

Here by thy side I cannot feel alone;
Above my head the sheltering branches bend,
And at my feet the flowers; and thy low tone
Breathes softly in my ear, and, like a friend
Soothing my spirit, comes the perfumed air,
To kiss my fevered brow and play amid my hair.

Oh! when I turn me from the busy throng,
Chilled with their frozen words and heartless smiles,
I wander here, and thy melodious song,
And this sweet scene, my sadder mood beguiles;
And when I mingle with the crowd again,
More calm and holy thoughts flow through my burning brain.

Oft as I wander in these shadowy groves
My wayward fancy spreads her truant wing,
And through the past delightedly she roves,
From its recesses many a scene to bring
Of that far time, when, 'mid the deepening shade,
The Indian lover wooed, and won, his dusky maid.

And then she bears me on through future years,
When her frail prison will have passed away,
And she will look, with eyes undimmed by tears,
Upon the glories of a brighter day;
And still thy waves will glide as soft along;
And still thy praise be sung in many a sweeter song.

Greece! hear that joyful sound,
A stranger's voice upon thy sacred hill;
Whose tones shall bid the slumbering nations round,
Wake with convulsive thrill.
Athenians! gather there; he brings you words
Brighter than all your boasted lore affords.

He brings you news of One,
Above Olympian Jove. One, in whose light
Your gods shall fade like stars before the sun.
On your bewildered night,
That UNKNOWN GOD of whom ye darkly dream,
In all his burning radiance shall beam.

Behold, he bids you rise
From your dark worship of that idol shrine;
He points to Him who reared your starry skies,
And bade your Phoebus shine.
Lift up your souls, from where in dust ye bow;
That God of gods commands your homage now.

But brighter tidings still!
He tells of One whose precious blood was spilt,
In lavish streams upon Judea's hill,
A ransom for your guilt, -
Who triumphed o'er the grave, and broke its chain;
Who conquered Death and Hell, and rose again.

Sages of Greece! come near -
Spirits of daring thought and giant mould.
Ye questioners of Time and Nature, hear
Mysteries before untold!
Immortal life revealed! light for which ye
Have tasked in vain your proud philosophy.

Searchers for some first cause,
'Midst doubt and darkness - lo! he points to One,
Where all your vaunted reason, lost, must pause,
And faint to think upon, -
That was from everlasting, that shall be
To everlasting still, eternally.

Ye followers of him
Who deemed his soul a spark of Deity!
Your fancies fade, - your master's dreams grow dim
To this reality.
Stoic! unbend that brow, drink in that sound!
Skeptic! dispel those doubts, the Truth is found.

Greece! though thy sculptured walls
Have with thy triumphs and thy glories rung,
And, through thy temples and thy pillared halls,
Immortal poets sung, -
No sounds like these have rent your startled air,
They open realms of light, and bid you enter there.

Those spirits God ordained,
To stand the watchmen on the outer wall,
Upon whose souls the beams of truth first fall;
They who reveal the ideal, the unattained,
And to their age, in stirring tones, and high,
Speak out for God, Truth, Man, and Liberty -
Such prophets, do they die?

When dust to dust returns,
And the freed spirit seeks again its God,
To those with whom the blessed ones have trod;
Are they then lost? No, still their spirit burns
And quickens in the race; the life they give,
Humanity receives, and they survive,
While Hope and Virtue live.

The landmarks of their age,
High Priests, Kings of the realm of mind, are they,
A realm unbounded as posterity;
The hopeful future is their heritage;
Their words of truth, of love, and faith sublime,
To a dark world of doubt, despair, and crime,
Re-echo through all time.

Such kindling words are thine,
Thou, o'er whose tomb the requiem soundeth still,
Thou from whose lips the silvery tones yet thrill
In many a bosom, waking life divine;
And since thy Master to the world gave token
That for Love's faith the creed of fear was broken,
None higher have been spoken.

Thy reverent eye could see,
Though sinful, weak, and wedded to the clod,
The angel soul still as the child of God,
Heir of His love, born to high destiny:
Not for thy country, creed, or sect speak'st thou,
But him who bears God's image on his brow
Thy _brother_, high or low.

Great teachers formed thy youth,
As thou didst stand upon thy native shore,
In the calm sunshine, in the ocean's roar;
Nature and God spoke with thee, and the truth,
That o'er thy spirit then in radiance streamed,
And in thy life so calmly, brightly beamed,
Shall still shine on undimmed.

Ages agone, like thee,
The faméd Greek with kindling aspect stood,
And blent his eloquence with the wind and flood,
By the blue waters of the Egean Sea;
But he heard not their everlasting hymn;
His lofty soul with error's cloud was dim,
And thy great teachers spake not unto him.

Thou glorious lamp of Space! Thou that dost flood
The void of heaven with brightness! in thy glow
Unnumbered worlds, age after age, have trod
In their appointed paths, and yet the flow
Of brightness hath not ebbed. - Before thy brow
The stars still veil themselves; thy burning glance
Is all unquenched, undimmed, unchanged e'en now,
As when the finger of Omnipotence
Pointed to thee thy throne amid the vast expanse.

Yes, all unchanged. - As on that morn when rang
The shout of joy as forth thy rays were spread,
While all the morning stars together sang,
So thou art now. The morning stars have fled,
The towering hill with age has bowed its head,
The sea has changed its home with the dry land,
The earth has gathered in her countless dead,
Again and yet again - but thou dost stand,
Exhaustless and unmoved, upheld by God's own hand.

Thy beams rest not alone where monarchs dwell,
They linger round the cottage of the poor,
And pierce the grating of the captive's cell;
And when thou lookest on the lowliest flower
That lifts its head to thee for one short hour,
Thy glances just as mildly, gently burn
As when thou gazest on the loftiest tower,
Or on the countless worlds that round thee turn.
Oh! what a lesson here might human frailty learn.

Thou look'st upon the earth, and in thy rays
She brings her increase forth. Thine early light
Unfolds the bud, and thy intenser gaze
The blushing summer flower. Thou takest thy flight
And o'er the earth then walks the starry night;
Thou guidest the waters of the unquiet main,
Whose billows foam and tremble in their might -
For o'er the winds of heaven thou hold'st thy reign,
From the soft, flower-kissed breeze to the wild hurricane.

When I behold thy bright, alchemic glance
A flood of gold-light o'er the landscape throw,
And every cloud that decks the blue expanse,
Beneath thy gaze with deeping blushes glow;
Or when I see thee tint the heavenly bow,
Or in thy gaze the icebound waters melt,
As spring returns before thy burning brow,
I wonder not that Persia's children knelt,
And deemed thou was the Heaven wherein the Eternal dwelt.

Thou isle of brightness 'mid an azure sea!
As oft I gaze on thee at closing day,
I feel my spirit fluttering to be free, -
To cast its bonds of ignorance away,
And learn thy mysteries; and then I say,
Peace, restless spirit! - yet a little time
And your frail prison will have changed to clay,
And thou shalt stand before the throne of Him
To whose veiled brow of light this glorious lamp is dim!

THE flowers of romance that I cherished,
Around me lie withered and dead;
The stars of my youth's shining heaven,
Were but meteors whose brightness misled;
And the day-dreams of life's vernal morning,
Like the mists of the morning have fled.

But one flower I have found still unwithered;
Like the night-scented jasmin it gleams;
And beyond where the fallen stars vanished,
One light pure and hallowed still beams;
One love I have found, deep and changeless,
As that I have yearned for in dreams.

Too often the links have been broken,
That bound me in friendship's bright chain
Too often has fancy deceived me
To blind or to charm me again;
And I sigh o'er my young heart's illusions,
With a sorrow I would were disdain.

But now, as the clouds return earthward,
From the cold and void ether above;
As on pinions all drooping and weary,
O'er the waste flew the wandering dove;
O'er the tide of the world's troubled waters,
I return to the ark of thy love.

Here, at length, my tired spirit reposes;
Here my heart's strongest tendrils entwine;
Here its warmest and deepest affections
It lays on earth's holiest shrine
Dearest mother, receive the devotion
Of the life thou hast given from thine.

Here, pressed to thy bosom, the tempests
That sweep over life's stormy sea,
Have beat, in their impotent fury, —
They were winged with no terror for me;
If I shrank from the fearful encounter,
If I trembled — it was but for thee.

The spirit of Song that lies buried
In silence or sleep in the breast,
Unlike the wild music of Memnon,
Is changed by the sunshine to rest;
In the clash of contending emotions
Are its harmonies only expressed.

When, at moments, my soul has been shaken,
In the strife with the world's rushing throng;
Or moved by some holier impulse,
As borne by its current along;
This spirit aroused, has responded,
And uttered these fragments of song.

I know they are but passing echoes,
For which time has no place and no name;
But hereafter, in loftier numbers,
Might I seek for the guerdon of fame —
Might I gather its evergreen laurels —
I would twine them around thy loved name.

But I mark now a pallor that deepens,
And spreads o'er thy brow and thy cheek;
And, filled with a fearful foreboding,
My strong heart grows nerveless and weak;
And shrinks back appalled from the anguish,
The blow beneath which it would break.

Oh, leave me not yet, gentle spirit,
Though our loved and our lost, gone before,
In the Better Land watch for thy coming,
And call thee away to that shore;
These clasped arms are strong to detain thee —
Leave, leave me not yet, I implore!

Oh God! let this cup but pass from me,
When thy bitterest draught would be thrown;
Not yet those sweet ties rend asunder
Heart with heart, life with life that have grown!
Not yet can I bear life's great burden,
And tread its dark wine-press alone.

Darkness sat brooding o'er the infant world,
That in chaotic gloom and silence lay,
Till from the throne of Light the sun was hurled;
Then that eternal night was changed to day,
And his effulgent, life-imparting ray,
O'er the wide waste of waters moved along:
The land and sea divided, and away
From out their depths young Nature startled sprung,
And in the light rejoiced till the blue heavens rung.

Even thus, oh! Science, hath thy glorious light
Rolled the dark clouds of Ignorance away,
Dispelled the darkness of a deeper night,
Than that which once o'er chaos thickly lay -
The darkness of the mind; and thy mid-day
Is still far distant - yet nor time nor space
Is unillumined with thy heavenly ray:
The clouds are rent that shrouded Nature's face,
And now she stands unveiled in all her loveliness.

Onward thou movest on thy tireless wing,
Through air and sea to Earth's remotest shore,
And givest a name to every living thing,
The beast, the bird, the insect or the flower,
The jewel of the mine, the sparkling ore.
Thou knowest the mysteries of the unseen air;
Thou lightest the caverns of the deep, whose floor
Yields to thy hand its pearls and treasures rare,
And every tinted shell that breathes its music there.

Now on the bosom of the swelling flood
That clasps the earth, and by whose wave-worn side
In ages past our trembling fathers stood,
Nor dared to breast the deep and trackless tide,
Our floating palaces majestic ride,
Their canvas whitening every foreign strand;
For thou, oh Science, thou art there our guide -
Like that bright pillar reared at God's command,
To light his wandering sons through Egypt's desert land.

And by the radiance of that heavenly light
Now man may mark the wandering comet's way.
Measure the swiftness of the sunbeam's flight,
Command the elements and they obey.
O'er the whole earth he holds his godlike sway;
He bids the river from its course be driven,
And lo! it flows where'er he points the way;
And from the skies the lightning he has riven,
As erst Prometheus stole the sacred fire from heaven.

Science! illumined by thy living rays,
A brighter glory lights the dome of night;
There thou dost open to our wondering gaze
System on System round those worlds of light,
In silence winging their harmonious flight.
And when weak sense returns to earth again,
There we behold, when thou dost guide our sight,
Above, around, where'er our gaze hath been,
'Infinity without, Infinity within.'

Here hath thy sister, Art, upreared for thee
A stainless shrine where fair young spirits led
To seek thy smile, shall bow the willing knee:
They would not ask the radiance thou didst shed
Around a Newton's or a Franklin's head;
Albeit a milder and a gentler ray,
That through this world with loveliness o'erspread,
They may not roam along the sunny way
In dark and dreary night while all around is day.

May time tread lightly through these classic halls;
Long may their columns stand through coming years,
When we who kneel within these snowy walls
Have passed away to yonder blessed spheres,
Secure from change, from parting, and from tears,
Where our enfranchised spirits shall explore
Those boundless realms beyond the tide of years,
Rapt, at the shrine of all creating power,
Through endless time to learn, and wonder, and adore.

On what sweet shore the blue AEgean laves,
Where loveliness is wedded to decay, -
Beauty to desolation, - 'mid the graves
Of an immortal race, and ruins, gray
With the dim veil of years, a sleeper lay; -
And in his dream, Time's never-ebbing tide
Rolled back, and bore him to that earlier day,
When Greece was decked in beauty, like a bride,
Glory upon her path and freedom by her side.

Against the radiance of her azure sky,
Rose many a pillared fane, divinely wrought,
Whose marble forms defied mortality; -
There pale Philosophy unveiled, and taught
Her mystic lore, and waged her war of thought,
And all her bright and baseless visions wove; -
There Art her never-dying treasures brought:
He saw Apelles' glowing canvas move,
And at Pygmalion's prayer the statue wake to love.

Then came her bards, her orators and sages; -
Once more he heard those voices that had rung
Down through the vista of succeeding ages:
'The blind old bard of Scio's isle' there strung
His matchless lyre, and breathed the earliest song:
And now Demosthenes before him stood,
Pouring his tide of eloquence, that strong,
Deep and o'erwhelming, swayed the multitude,
As the invisible wind sways the wild ocean's flood.

Armed warriors too were there, their helmets gleaming
On deathless Marathon's green, sea-girt plain,
That now with Persia's choicest blood was streaming:
Thermopylae's 'three hundred' fought again;
Again its pass was piled with countless slain,
From the invader's host, as on that day
When Sparta's bravest sons had vowed to drain
Their heart's best blood for her. There, as he lay,
These glorious visions passed, in beautiful array.

The dreamer woke, - he rested there alone,
By that high temple whence had Pallas fled:
Where once she lingered, now the crescent shone,
And round him wandered many a turbanned head,
Treading in mockery o'er the immortal dead;
And conscious Nature there, as if to screen
The nakedness of Ruin, had ouspread
Her gayest flowers to deck her saddest scene,
And hung, o'er mouldering walls, her tapestry of green.

And many a Grecian slave to Turkish foe
In hopeless bondage bowed the unwilling knee,
And, all too weak to strike the avenging blow,
To rend the galling chains of slavery,
And write their names once more among the free,
But humbled in despair, unmoved behold
Their shrine defaced, their altars borne away,
By every plunderer, even the hallowed mould
Of Marathon itself, exchanged for foreign gold.

And as he mused upon her buried worth,
'Mid her fallen columns and her ruined fanes, -
That none were there to lead her children forth;
To strike with them, and burst their servile chains,
And with their blood to wash away the stains
That their great name on Freedom's record dyed, -
He touched his harp, and the enchanting strains,
The world was hushed to hear - and then aside
Bade Poesy retire, and made sad Greece his bride.

A fitting bride for one like him, who stood
On that high steep, where few have dared their flight;
Against whose name Time's all resistless flood
Shall dash in vain; who, through decay and blight
And desolation, dazzled with the light
That fast consumed him, where he stood on high,
Like a lone star on the dark brow of night: -
He sleeps upon that shore - a Grecian sky,
For a high soul like his, were fitting canopy.

Rest, warrior bard! Above thy head shall bloom
The greenest laurel of Peneus' tide; -
Genius shall come a pilgrim to thy tomb,
And for her champion Freedom turn aside,
To weep the bitter tears she may not hide;
And thy young handmaid, Poesy, shall shed
Her brightest halo there; and Greece, thy bride,
Shall give to thee (and oh, can more be said!)
A name to live with hers - a home among her Dead.

Hail! thou eternal flood, whose restless waves
Roll onward in their course, as wild and free,
As if the shores they lashed were not the graves
Of mouldering empires; When I think of thee,
Thou dost remind me of that ebbless sea -
The sea of Time, whose tide sweeps unconfined,
Its channel Earth, its shores Eternity;
Whose billows roll resistless o'er mankind; -
Like that thou rollest on, nor heed'st the wrecks behind.

Thy shores were empires; but the tide of Time
Rolled o'er them, and they fell; and there they lie,
Wrecked in their greatness, mouldering, yet sublime
And beautiful in their mortality.
And god-like men were there, the wise and free;
But what are they who now look o'er thy waves?
They're but as worms that feed on their decay;
They kneel to stranger lords - a land of slaves,
Of men whose only boast is their ancestral graves.

Upon thy shores the Holy Prophets trod,
  And from their hill-tops came the voice of One
Whom _thou_ obeyest, even the Eternal God;
And on thy breast the star of Bethlehem shone:
That star, though quenched in blood, hath risen a sun,
And other climes are radiant with its light;
But thy fair shores, alas! it shines not on,
Save when some land, with its effulgence bright,
Reflects the heavenly rays upon their moral night.

Philosophy hath decked her form divine,
In all her loveliest draperies, and wrought
Her brightest dreams by thee, thy shores her shrine,
Thy sons her oracles, the kings of thought;
But they have passed, and, save their names, are naught,
And their bright dreams are buried like their clay,
Or shattered, like the fanes where they were taught.
But though religions, empires, men decay,
Thou, restless, changeless flood - thou dost not pass away.

There Poesy hath woven such fair dreams,
That man hath deemed them bright reality;
There she hath peopled hills, and vales, and streams,
And thy blue waters with her phantasy;
And fabled gods left heaven to roam by thee:
There she embodied passions of the heart,
In such fair forms, that frail morality
Failed to conceive, until triumphal Art
Bade from the Parian stone the immortal image start.

The loftiest bards, whose names illume the past,
Have sung upon thy shores; and thy deep tone
Ceased at their Orphean lyres; - but now the last,
'The pilgrim bard,' whose matchless song alone
Had made thy name immortal as his own, -
A stranger of the north, but, 'as it were
A child of thee,' his spirit too hath flown.
Thus have the greatest passed. Thine azure air
Still echoes to their song, but thou alone art there.

Thine empires, one by one, have fall'n, and now
The last is crumbling in decay: - yes, she,
The coronet upon thy furrowed brow,
The mistress of the world, the queen of thee,
The paradise of earth, sweet Italy;
Stript of her queenly robes, in dust she lies,
Enchained by _slaves,_ nor struggling to be free.
There hath she fallen, as the dolphin dies,
More brightly beautiful in her last agonies.

But though thy shores are sepulchres, that Time
Hath peopled with dead empires; though they are
But shattered wrecks, and every other clime
Hath sprung from their decay; yet Nature there
Hath made their _pall_ of beauty sadly fair;
And they shall be, while thy blue waves shall foam,
The Mecca of the world, - the altar, where
Science, Devotion, Genius, Art shall come,
And feel as Moslems feel above their prophet's tomb.

And thou, unchanging flood, that wanderest on,
Through that dark path of ruin and decay,
Still must thou roll untended and alone.
Men shall arise, and shine, and pass away,
Like the bright bubbles of thy glittering spray;
And thrones shall totter, kingdoms be laid waste -
Yea, empires rise and fall along thy way,
Like the dark heavings of thy troubled breast;
But thou shalt still roll on - for thee there is no rest.

THERE are countless fields the green earth o'er,
Where the verdant turf has been dyed with gore;
Where hostile ranks in their grim array,
With the battle's smoke have obscured the day;
Where hate has stamped on each rigid face
As foe met foe in the death embrace;
Where the groans of the wounded and dying rose,
Till the heart of the listener with horror froze,
And the wide expanse of the crimsoned plain
Was piled with its heaps of uncounted slain: —
But a fiercer combat, a deadlier strife,
Is that which is waged in the Battle of Life.

The hero that wars on the tented field,
With his shining sword and his burnished shield,
Goes not alone with his faithful brand,
Friends and comrades around him stand;
The trumpets sound and the war-steeds neigh,
To join in the shock of the coming fray,

And he flies to the onset, he charges the foe,
Where the bayonets gleam and the red tides flow;
And he bears his part in the conflict dire,
With an arm all nerve, and a heart all fire.
What though he fall! at the battle's close,
In the flush of victory won, he goes,
With martial music and waving plume,
From a field of fame to a laurelled tomb.
But the hero that wars in the Battle of Life,
Must stand alone in the fearful strife;
Alone in his weakness or strength must go,
Hero or craven to meet the foe;
He may not fly, — on that fated field,
He must win or lose, he must conquer or yield.
Warrior who com'st to this battle now,
With a careless step and a thoughtless brow,
As if the field were already won;
Pause, and gird all thy armor on.
Myriads have Come to this battle-ground,
With a valiant arm and a name renowned,
And have fallen vanquished, to rise no more,
Ere the sun was set, or the day half o'er.

Dost thou bring with thee hither a dauntless will,
An ardent soul that no blast can chill;
Thy shield of Faith hast thou tried and proved;
Canst thou say to the mountain — ' Be thou moved;'
In thy hand does the sword of truth flame bright;
Is thy banner emblazoned — 'For God and the Right;'
In the might of prayer, dost thou strive and plead?
Never had warrior greater need.
Unseen foes in thy pathway hide;
Thou art encompassed on every side.
There Pleasure waits, with her syren train,
Her poison flowers and her hidden chain;
Hope, with her Dead Sea fruits, is there;
Sin is spreading her gilded snare;
Flattery courts, with her hollow smiles;
Passion with silvery tone beguiles;
Love and Friendship their charmed spells weave:
Trust not too deeply, they may deceive.
Disease with a ruthless hand would smite,
and Care spread o'er thee a with'ring blight;
Hate and Envy, with visage black,
And the serpent Slander are on thy track;
Guilt and Falsehood, Remorse and Pride,
Doubt and Despair in thy pathway glide;
Haggard Want, in her demon joy,
Waits to degrade thee and then destroy;
Palsied Age in the distance lies,
And watches his victim with rayless eyes;
And Death, the insatiate, is hovering near,
To snatch from they grasp all thou holdest dear.
No skill may avail, and no ambush hide,
In the open field must the champion bide,
And face to face, and hand to hand,
Alone in his valor confront that band.
In war with these phantoms that gird him round,
No limbs dissevered may strew the ground;
No blood may flow, andno mortal ear
The groans of the wounded heart may hear,
As it struggles and writhes in their dread control,
As the iron enters the riven soul.
But the youthful form grows wasted and weak,
And sunken and wan is the rounded cheek;
The brow is furrowed, but not with years;
The eye is dimmed with its secret tears,
And streaked with white is the raven hair:
These are the tokens of conflict there.

The battle is over; the hero goes,
Scarred and worn, to his last repose.
He has won the day, he has conquered Doom,
He has sunk unknown to his nameless tomb.
For the victor's glory no voices plead,
Fame has no echo, and earth no meed.
But the guardian angels are hovering near;
They have watched unseen o'er the conflict here,
And they bear him now, on their wings away,
To a realm of peace, — to a cloudless day.
Ended now is the earthly strife,
And his brow is crowned with the Crown of Life.