Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta: Verses about Sleep

Within these leafless trees,
That bare against the sky,
Their naked branches rear;
Leaves, buds, and blossoms lie.

So beauty's myriad forms,
Within thy soul are sleeping;
While thou, upon their sleep,
A wintry spell art keeping.

But soon the leaves and flowers
Shall burst their living tomb,
And fill the air around
With perfume and with bloom.

And buried in thy heart,
Shall thought's fair blossoms lie,
Forever unrevealed,
To wither and to die?

'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.

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.

In life's freshness, and its fulness, —
In thy womanhood's young bloom,
While thy brow was all unclouded
With a darkening ray of gloom, —
The Angel Death hath said to thee,
'Thy Father calls thee home.'

And, as fades some lovely vision
In the morning's gathering light,
Or as sinks some unsphered radiance
From the starry crown of night,
Or as dies some burst of music, —
Thou hast vanished from our sight.

Far across the foaming waters,
From the country of thy birth,
From thy childhood's friends and memories,
From thy father's silent hearth,
A strange soil unveils its bosom,
And must clasp thee, earth to earth.

But the soft Spring sky bends o'er thee,
As thou goest to thy rest,
And Mount Auburn's green recesses
Soon in beauty will be drest;
And with waving leaves and blossoms,
Welcome in their lovely guest.

And when Summer all her glory
O'er that hallowed scene shall shed,
Then shall come the loved and living,
With hushed voice and noiseless tread;
And with tears bedew the flowers,
In that city of the dead.

There, where winds sigh through the pine trees,
Where the silver water flows;
Where the pale stars keep their vigils,
And the genial sunlight glows,
Oh, how calm will be thy slumber!
How I envy thy repose!

There, young mother, — with thy nursling
Safely pillowed on thy heart,
Safely shielded from the tempest,
From the poison and the dart, —
Ye will fade away together,
As the violets depart.

But not thus, oh gentle stranger,
Shall thy loved remembrance flee;
In the hearts where thou wast cherished,
The sweet memories of thee,
Like the evergreens above thee
Fresh and beautiful shall be.

Eighteen hundred years agone
Was that deed of darkness done -
Was that sacred, thorn-crowned head
To a shameful death betrayed,
And Iscariot's traitor name
Blazoned in eternal shame.
Thou, disciple of our time,
Follower of the faith sublime,
Who with high and holy scorn
Of that traitrous deed dost burn,
Though the years may never more
To our earth that form restore
The Christ-Spirit ever lives -
Ever in thy heart he strives.
When pale Misery mutely calls;
When thy tempted brother falls;
When thy gentle words may chain
Hate, and Anger, and Disdain,
Or thy loving smile impart
Courage to some sinking heart;
When within thy troubled breast
Good and evil thoughts contest;
Though unconscious thou may'st be,
The Christ-Spirit strives with thee.
When he trod the Holy Land,
With his small disciple band,
And the fated hour had come
For that august martyrdom -
When the man, the human love,
And the God within him strove -
As in Gethsemane he wept,
They, the faithless watchers, slept:
While for them he wept and prayed,
One denied and one betrayed!
If to-day thou turn'st aside
In thy luxury and pride,
Wrapped within thyself and blind
To the sorrows of thy kind,
Thou a faithless watch dost keep -
Thou art one of those who sleep:
Or, if waking thou dost see
Nothing of Divinity
In our fallen, struggling race;
If in them thou seest no trace
Of a glory dimmed, not gone,
Of a Future to be won -
Of a Future, hopeful, high -
Thou, like Peter, dost deny:
But if, seeing, thou believest,
If the Evangel thou receivest,
Yet, if thou art bound to Sin,
False to the Ideal within,
Slave of Ease or slave of Gold,
Thou the Son of God hast sold!

Where pilgrims seek the Prophet's tomb
Across the Arabian waste,
Upon the ever-shifting sands,
A fearful path is traced.

Far up to the horizon's verge,
The traveller sees it rise, -
The line of ghastly bones that bleach
Beneath those burning skies.

Across it, tempest and simoom
The desert sands have strewed,
But still that line of spectral white
Forever is renewed.

For while along that burning track,
The caravans move on,
Still do the way-worn pilgrims fall,
Ere yet the shrine be won.

There the tired camel lays him down
And shuts his gentle eyes;
And there the fiery rider droops,
Toward Mecca looks and dies.

They fall unheeded from the ranks: -
On sweeps the endless train,
But there, to mark the desert path,
Their whitening bones remain.

And thus I read the mournful tale,
Upon the traveller's page,
I thought how like the march of life
Is this sad pilgrimage.

For every heart hath some fair dream,
Some object unattained,
And far off in the distance lies
Some Mecca to be gained.

But beauty, manhood, love and power
Go in their morning down,
And longing eyes and outstretched arms,
Tell of the goal unwon.

The mighty caravan of life
Above their dust may sweep,
Nor shout, nor trampling feet shall break
The rest of those who sleep.

Oh! fountains that I have not reached,
That gush far off e'en now,
When shall I quench my spirit's thirst
Where your sweet waters flow.

Oh! Mecca of my life-long dreams,
Cloud palaces that rise
In that far distance, pierced by hope,
When will ye greet mine eyes.

The shadows lengthen toward the East
From the declining sun,
And the pilgrim, as ye still recede,
Sighs for the journey done.

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.

There was no bell to peal thy funeral dirge,
No nodding plumes to wave above thy bier,
No shroud to wrap thee but the foaming surge,
No kindly voices thy dark way to cheer,
No eye to give the tribute of a tear.
Alone, 'unknell'd, uncoffin'd,' thou hast died,
Without one gentle mourner lingering near;
Down the deep waters thou unseen didst glide,
With Ocean's countless dead to slumber side by side.

Thou sleep'st not with thy fathers. O'er thy bed,
The flowers that deck their tombs may never wave;
To plead remembrance for thee o'er thy head
No sculptur'd marble shall arise. Thy grave
Is the dark boundless deep, whose waters lave
The shores of empires. When thou sought'st thy rest
Within their silent depths, they only gave
A circling ripple, then with foaming crest
The booming waves roll'd over their unconscious guest.

'Tis said that far beneath the wild waves rushing,
Where sea-flowers bloom and fabled Peris dwell,
That there the restless waters cease their gushing,
And leave their dead within some sparkling cell,
Where gems are gleaming, and the lone sea shell
Is breathing its sweet music. And 'tis said
That Time, who weaveth over Earth a spell
Of blight and ruin, o'er the Ocean's dead
He passeth lightly on, with trackless, silent tread.

Then, though no marble e'er shall rise for thee,
No monument to mark thy last long home,
Thine ocean grave unhonored shall not be, -
The coral insect there shall rear a tomb
That age shall ne'er destroy; and there shall bloom
The fadeless ocean flowers. And though the glare
Of the bright sunbeams ne'er shall light its gloom,
Yet glancing eyes and forms unearthly fair
Shall throng around thy couch, and hymn a requiem there.

Now fare thee well! I will not weep that thou
Didst pass so soon away; for though thou wert
Still in thy boyhood's prime, and thy fair brow
Undimmed by age; yet sad was thy young heart,
For thou hadst seen the light of life depart,
And Love had thrown his wild and burning spell
Around thee, and with deep, insidious art
Had maddened thee. Then sounded loud the knell
Of all thy bright young dreams. My earliest friend, farewell!

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.

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.