I come with mightier things! Who calls me silent?—I have many tonesThe dark skies thrill with low, mysterious moans, Borne on my sweeping wings. I waft them not alone From the deep organ of the forest shades, Or buried streams, unheard amidst their glades, Till the bright day is done; But in the human breast A thousand still small voices I awake, I bring them from the past: From true hearts broken, gentle spirits torn, From crushed affections, which, though long o'erborne, Make their tones heard at last. I bring them from the tomb; O'er the sad couch of late repentant love The fixed and solemn stars Wake, rushing winds! this breezeless calm is death! Ye watch-fires of the skies! The stillness of your eyes Looks too intensely through my troubled soul: An earth-load on my breast- I am your own, your child, And kingly tempests!-will ye not arise? That knows not to rejoice But in the peal of your strong harmonies. By sounding ocean-waves, And flashing torrents, I have been your mate; Of the olden Apennines, They pass-though low as murmurs of a dove-In your dark path stood fearless and elate: Like trumpets through the gloom. I come with all my train: Who calls me lonely?-Hosts around me tread, The intensely bright, the beautiful,-the dead,Phantoms of heart and brain! Looks from departed eyes— These are my lightnings!-filled with anguish vain, Or tenderness too piercing to sustain, They smite with agonies. I, that with soft control, Shut the dim violet, hush the woodland song, I, that shower dewy light Through slumbering leaves, bring storms!-the tempest-birth Of memory, thought, remorse:-Be holy, earth! I am the solemn night!* THE STORM PAINTER+ IN HIS DUNGEON. Where of ye, O tempests, is the goal? Are ye like those that shake the human breast? Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest? Childe Harold. MIDNIGHT, and silence deep! The air is filled with sleep, Your lightnings were as rods, That smote the deep abodes Of thought and vision-and the stream gushed free; Come, that my soul again May swell to burst its chainBring me the music of the sweeping sea! Within me dwells a flame, It springs to sudden power, Then, then, the canvass o'er, The lava-waves and gusts of my own soul! Dreams, worlds, of pictured strife;Wake, rushing winds, awake! and, dark clouds, roll! Wake, rise! the reed may bend, The forest branch give way before your might Call, summon, wait you here,Answer, my spirit!-answer, storm and night! tures of storms. "His compositions," says Lanzi, "inspire a real horror, presenting to our eyes death-devoted ships overtaken by tempests and darkness; fired by lightning; now rising on the mountain wave, and again submerged in the With the stream's whisper, and the citron's breath; abyss of ocean." During an imprisonment of five years in 'Originally published in the Winter's Wreath, for 1830. Genoa, the pictures which he painted in his dungeon were marked by additional power and gloom.-See Lanzi's His • Pietro Mulier, called II Tempesta, from his surprising pic-tory of Painting, translated by Roscoe. “Thy bark may rush through the foaming deep, «Thou art gone home, gone home!" then, high Thy steed o'er the breezy hill; But they bear thee on to a place of sleep, "Was the voice I heard, thy voice, O Death? And is thy day so near? Then on the field shall my life's last breath "Banners shall float, with the trumpet's note, Above me as I die! And the palm tree wave o'er my noble grave, "High hearts shall burn in the royal hall, When the minstrel names that spot; And the eyes I love shall weep my fall, Death, Death! I fear thee not!" "Warrior! thou bearest a haughty heart; But I can bend its pride! How shouldst thou know that thy soul will part In the hour of victory's tide? "It may be far from thy steel-clad bands, It may be lone on the desert sands, "It may be deep amidst heavy chains, I have slow dull steps and lingering pains, "Death, Death! I go to a doom unblest, But the cross is bound upon my breast, and clear, Warbled that other Voice: "Thou hast no tear Again to shed. Never to fold the robe o'er secret pain, "Thou art gone home! from that divine repose Never to roam! Never to say farewell, to weep in vain, "Sound, clarion, sound!-for my vows are given To read of change, in eyes beloved, again— To the cause of the holy shrine; I bow my soul to the will of Heaven, O Death!-and not to thine !" THE TWO VOICES. Two solemn Voices, in a funeral strain, Thou art gone home! "By the bright waters now thy lot is cast,Joy for thee, happy friend! thy bark hath past The rough sea's foam! Now the long yearnings of thy soul are stilled,Home! home!-thy peace is won, thy heart is filled. -Thou art gone home!" Blue seas that roll on gorgeous coasts renowned, By night shall sparkle where thy prow makes way; Strange creatures of the abyss that none may sound, From hills unknown, in mingled joy and fear, A long farewell!-Thou wilt not bring us back, Some wilt thou leave beneath the plantain's shade, Where through the foliage Indian suns look bright; Some, in the snows of wintry regions laid, "And the merry-men of wild and glen, In the green array they wore, “And the minstrel, resting in my shade, "But now the noble forms are gone, That walked the earth of old; The soft wind hath a mournful tone, The sunny light looks cold. "There is no glory left us now, I would that where they slumber low Oh! thou dark Tree, thou lonely Tree, That mournest for the past! A peasant's home in thy shades I see, Of laughter meets mine ear; For the poor man's children sport around A happy summer-glow; And the village bells are on the breeze, YE have been holy, O founts and floods! Hallowed by man, and his dreams of old, Therefore the flowers of bright summers gone, Have ye swept along in your wanderings free, Nor seems it strange that the heart hath been | And the ivyed chapels of colder skies. On your wild banks arise. For the loveliest scenes of the glowing earth, Are those, bright streams! where your springs have birth; Whether their caverned murmur fills, With a tone of plaint the hollow hills, Or whether ye gladden the desert-sands, Where a few lone palm-trees lift their heads, Or whether, in bright old lands renowned, Voices and lights of the lonely place! There sucks the bee, for the richest flowers But the wild sweet tales, that with elves and fays These are your charms, bright streams! Now is the time of your flowery rites, -And the woods again are lone. Yet holy still be your living springs Making the heart a shrine! THE VOICE OF THE WIND. There is nothing in the wide world so like the voice of a spirit-Gray's Letters. Thou art come from long-forsaken homes, wherein our young days flew, Thou hast found sweet voices lingering there, the loved, the kind, the true; Thou callest back those melodies, though now all changed and fled, OH! many a voice is thine, thou Wind! full many Be still, be still, and haunt us not with music from the dead! Are all these notes in thee, wild Wind? these many notes in thee? Far in our own unfathomed souls their fount must surely be; Yes! buried, but unsleeping, there Thought watches, Memory lies, From whose deep urn the tones are poured, through all Earth's harmonies. THE VIGIL OF ARMS.* A SOUNDING step was heard by night Thou hast been o'er solitary seas, and from their As a mail-clad youth, till morning's light, wastes brought back Midst the tombs his vigil kept. Each noise of waters that awoke in the mystery of He walked in dreams of power and fame, thy track; He lifted a proud, bright eye, The chime of low soft southern waves on some For the hours were few that withheld his name green palmy shore, The hollow roll of distant surge, the gathered bil lows roar. Thou art come from forests dark and deep, thou mighty rushing Wind! And thou bearest all their unisons in one full swell combined; The restless pines, the moaning stream, all hidden things and free, Of the dim old sounding wilderness, have lent their soul to thee. Thou art come from cities lighted up for the conqueror passing by, Thou art wafting from their streets a sound of haughty revelry; The rolling of triumphant wheels, the harpings in the hall, The far-off shout of multitudes, are in thy rise and fall. Thou art come from kingly tombs and shrines, from ancient minsters vast, Through the dark aisles of a thousand years thy lonely wing hath passed; Thou hast caught the anthem's billowy swell, the stately dirge's tone, From the roll of chivalry, Down the moon-lit aisles he paced alone, The crowned and helmed that were, But no dim warning of time or fate That youth's flushed hopes could chill, He looked to the banners on high that hung, And a royal masque of splendour seemed The candidate for knighthood was under the necessity of keeping watch, the night before his inauguration, in a For a chief, with sword, and shield, and helm, to church, and completely armed. This was called "the Vigil his place of slumber gone. of Arms." |