I.I 1 IRARY 
 
 : I IK 
 
 University of California 
 
 1 
 
 < vi 1-1 OF 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALS WORTH. 
 
 Received October, 18Q4. 
 Accessions No^jf'jS'. Class No. $ 
 
 
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RHYMES OF TRAVEL, 
 
 BALLADS AND POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " VIEWS A-FOOT, ETC. 
 
 NEW- YORK : 
 GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY 
 
 LONDON: PUTNAM'S AMERICAN AGENCY, 
 
 Removed from Paternoster Row to 
 J. Chapman, 142 Strand. 
 
 1849. 
 
 7 IB 
 
 
nyyr- 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, by 
 
 George P. Putnam. 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District 
 of New-York. 
 
 L e a v i t t , Trow & Co., 
 
 Printers and Stereot.ypers, 
 
 49 Ann-street, N. V. 
 
finscrfbeto to 
 JOHN B. PHILLIPS, 
 
 OF BOHEMIA MANOR, MD., 
 
 IN TOKEN OF 
 
 EARLY FRIENDSHIP UNBROKEN, 
 
 AND 
 EARLY CONFIDENCE UNBETRAYED. 
 
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER. 
 
 This volume — the first poetical venture to which I 
 have entrusted a hope of success, for the sake of Poetry 
 alone — seems to require a few words of introduction. 
 
 In collecting the effusions of four or five years for 
 publication in a form which has the semblance of perma- 
 nence, however much it may lack the necessary vital 
 spirit, I have been aware of the great inequality of merit 
 among the poems chosen. The Rhymes of Travel, which 
 give expression to thoughts and emotions inspired by my 
 journey in Europe, are the earliest I have thought proper 
 to include. They are faithful records of my feelings at 
 the time, often noted down hastily by the wayside, and 
 aspiring to no higher place than the memory of some pil- 
 grim who may, under like circumstances, look upon the 
 same scenes. An ivy leaf from the tower where a hero of 
 old history may have dwelt, or the simplest weed, growing 
 over the dust that once held a great soul, is reverently kept 
 
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER. 
 
 for the memories it inherited through the chance fortune 
 of the wind-sown seed ; and I would fain hope that these 
 rhymes may bear with them a like simple claim to recep- 
 tion, from those who have given me their company through 
 the story of my wanderings. 
 
 In the Californian Ballads I have attempted to give a 
 poetical expression to the rude but heroic physical life of 
 the vast desert and mountain region, stretching from the 
 Cordilleras of New Mexico to the Pacific. This country, 
 in the sublime desolation of its sandy plains and stony 
 mountains, streaked here and there with valleys of almost 
 tropical verdure, and the peculiar character of its semi- 
 civilized people, seemed to afford a field, in which the vig- 
 orous spirit of the old ballad might be transplanted, to 
 revive and flourish with a new and sturdy growth. The 
 favor with which some of these ballads have been noticed, 
 on their anonymous publication in the Literary World, 
 encourages me to hope that I have been partly successful. 
 I am conscious, at least, that they were written with no 
 deliberate purpose to seek a new field for poetic effort, but 
 from that impulse which made their expression a necessity 
 and a joy. 
 
 For the imperfections in this volume I offer no apology. 
 That, it contains some poems whose selection was not die- 
 
TITE AUTHOR TO THE READER. 7 
 
 tated by my confidence in their poetic merit, I freely 
 confess ; but, (if the reader will pardon this piece of ego- 
 tism,) in giving to the world a volume which closes the 
 first stage of my experience as an author, the wishes of 
 others to whom they had a pleasant meaning, induced me 
 to retain them. For this, however, I ask no indulgence 
 from those whose province it is to direct the public taste. 
 Poetry is in herself too sacred, to permit the use of any 
 personal considerations, as a plea for an imperfect or 
 unworthy offering at her altar. 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 New- York, December, 1848. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 RHYMES OF TRAVEL. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Poet's Ambition, 15 
 
 The Tomb of Charlemagne, 17 
 
 To One Afar, . . . . ' 20 
 
 Starlight in the Odenwald, 24 
 
 A Song at Dusk, 27 
 
 The Crusades, 29 
 
 The Wayside Dream, 3S 
 
 Steyermark, 36 
 
 To a Bavarian Girl, 38 
 
 In Italy, 41 
 
 To My Mother, 43 
 
 Rome, 46 
 
 The Statue in the Snow, 50 
 
 The Dearest Image, . 53 
 
 Impatience, 55 
 
 Aspiration, 57 
 
 1* 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 PICTURESQUE BALLADS OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 El Canalo, 65 
 
 The Fight of Paso del Mar, 68 
 
 Rio Sacramento, 72 
 
 The Eagle Hunter, 74 
 
 The Bison Track, 77 
 
 The Lay of Las P almas, 80 
 
 LIFE-TONES. 
 
 A Bacchic Ode, 87 
 
 A Funeral Thought, 89 
 
 The Angel of the Soul, 91 
 
 The Enchanted Knight, 95 
 
 An Hour, ; .... 98 
 
 Gautama's Song of Rest, . 102 
 
 The Soul's Song of Action, 105 
 
 An Autumn Thought, ......... 108 
 
 Upward, HO 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 The Norseman's Ride, 117 
 
 The Voice of the Fire, ... 120 
 
 A Voice from Piedmont, 123 
 
 Little Paul, 125 
 
 A Requiem in the North, 127 
 
 Re-Union, 130 
 
CONTENTS. 11 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Continents, 132 
 
 The Mountains, 137 
 
 Freedom, 138 
 
 Life, . _ 139 
 
 Evil, .140 
 
 The Demon of the Mirror, 141 
 
 L'Envoi, 151 
 
I. 
 
 Htjgmes of trawl. 
 
 Wohl auf, noch getrunken den funkelnden Wein ! 
 Ade nun, ihr Lieben, geschieden muss sein ; 
 Ade nun, ihr Berge, du vaterlich Haus, 
 Es treibt nach der Feme mich machtig hinaus. 
 
 Justinus Kerner. 
 
THE POET'S AMBITION. 
 
 A THOUGHT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 No thirst for power, whose fierce and stern desire 
 
 Leads on to guilt and wrong, 
 Moves the pale monarch of the deathless Lyre — 
 
 The laureled lord of Song ! 
 
 Not his the joy, when the trump's braying tells 
 
 Of armies overthrown ; 
 When paeans thunder from cathedral bells, 
 
 Drowning the captive's groan. 
 
 No plaudits from the crowding myriads rise 
 
 Along his glorious march ; 
 For him no blazoned banners flaunt the skies — 
 
 Stands no triumphal arch ! 
 
 But purer, holier, loftier is the aim 
 Born of his gift divine ; 
 
16 T H E POET'S AMBITION. 
 
 His spirit longs to grasp that crown of fame, 
 Whose stars forever shine. 
 
 The love of man — the blessing of the heart 
 To which his bright words stole, 
 
 And breathed the soiace of his godlike art, 
 As to a brother-soul ! 
 
 The prayers of spirits, to whose silent wo 
 
 He gives a voice sublime — 
 And prophet-thoughts, whose lightning pinions go 
 
 Beyond the shores of Time ! 
 
 In the broad realm of human hearts alone, 
 
 He holds eternal sway ; 
 What king sate ever on a prouder throne, 
 
 With vassals such as they ? 
 
 London, 1844. 
 
THE TOMB OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 I stood in that cathedral old, the work of kingly power, 1 
 
 That from the clustered roofs of Aix lifts up its mould'ring 
 tower, 
 
 And, like a legend strange and rude, speaks of an earlier 
 day — 
 
 Of saint, and knight, the tourney's pride and the Minne- 
 singer's lay ! 
 
 Above me rose the pillared dome, with many a statue grim, 
 And through the chancel-oriel came a lustre soft and dim, 
 Till dusky shrine and painting old glowed in the twilight 
 
 wan : 
 Below me was a marble slab — the tomb of Charlemagne ! 
 
 A burst of organ-music rang so grandly, sadly slow, 
 'Twas like an anthem thundered o'er the dead who slept 
 below ; 
 
18 THE TOMB OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 And with the sound, came thronging round the stern men 
 
 of that time 
 When best was he who bravest fought, and cowardice was 
 
 crime ! 
 
 I thought on that far day, when he, whose dust I stood 
 
 upon, 
 Ruled with a monarch's boundless right the kingdoms he 
 
 had won — 
 When rose the broad Alps in his realm, and roared the 
 
 Baltic's wave ; 
 And now — the lowest serf might stand, unheeded, on his 
 
 grave ! 
 
 And ruthless hands despoiled his dust, attired in regal 
 pride, 
 
 The crown upon his fleshless brow, and " Joyeuse " by 
 his side — 
 
 Whose rusted blade, at Ronceval, flamed in the hero's 
 hand, 
 
 In answer to the silver horn of the dying Knight, Ro- 
 land ! 
 
 I stood on that neglected stone, thrilled with the glorious 
 
 sound, 
 While bowed by many a holier shrine, the worshipers 
 
 around — 
 
THE TOMB OF CHARLEMAGNE. 19 
 
 And through the cloud of incense-smoke burned many a 
 
 taper dim, 
 And called the priest to matin prayer — I could but think 
 
 of him ! 
 
 I saw the boy with yellow locks, crowned at St. Deny's 
 
 shrine ; 
 The emperor in his purple stole, the lord of all the Rhine ; 
 The conqueror of a thousand foes, through battle stern 
 
 and hard — 
 The widowed mourner at thy tomb, oh fairest Hildegarde ! 
 
 Long pealed the music of the choir through chancel-arch 
 and nave, 
 
 As folded in the spell of years, I stood upon his grave ; 
 
 And when the morning-anthem ceased and solemn mass 
 began, 
 
 I left that chapel gray and old — the tomb of Charle- 
 magne ! 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, 1844. 
 
TO ONE AFAR. 
 
 The glorious landscape lay below, 
 
 No more in Fancy's dreaming seen — 
 But, basking in the Autumn glow 
 
 Stood town and tower and forest green ; 
 Beneath, the sounding Neckar rolled 
 
 Through hills which bore him purple wine, 
 And glimmered like a chain of gold, 
 
 Through the dim haze, the winding Rhine ! 
 In breezeless rest, the fisher's sail 
 
 Gleamed idly downward with the tide. 
 And songs of peasants in the vale 
 
 Came faintly up the mountain side : 
 In the blue dimness of the air, 
 
 A vague, sweet sense of lingering sound, 
 Like echoes of the chimes of prayer, 
 
 Hallowed the beauty-haunted ground — 
 
T O N E A FAR. 21 
 
 And, through the day's descending hours, 
 Lulled by that faint, ethereal strain, 
 
 I lay amid the heather flowers 
 Listening its echoes in my brain ; 
 
 While, as the slow vibrations died, 
 My soul went back the Past on Memory's lapsing tide. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Again my timid childhood came, 
 
 And boyhood's struggling, doubt and tears, 
 Where one dear hope illumed thy name, 
 
 Beloved of my early years ! 
 And trembled o'er the soul's deep chords 
 
 Sweet memories of their earliest tone — ■ 
 The music of thy gentle words, 
 
 The deep devotion of my own ! 
 I heard thy tender, low replies, 
 
 Beside the rose's breathing bower, 
 When o'er us hung the moonlit skies 
 
 And angels blest our trysting hour ! 
 I felt the dewy winds, whose kiss 
 
 Cooled the quick pulses of my brow, 
 When thrilling with the voiceless bliss 
 
 Of being loved by such as thou — 
 When o'er the cloudy doubts above 
 Stood broad and bright the glorious rainbow — Love ! 
 
22 TO ONE AFAR, 
 
 The hope which yearned for thee afar, 
 
 The boyish worship, treasured long, 
 Dawned on my heart — a morning star 
 
 Before the rising orb of Song ! 
 And the lone stream and solemn grove 
 
 That knew my spirit's gloom and glee, 
 Learned the dear secret of my love, 
 
 Till all their music spoke of thee ! - 
 On the calm midnight's breezy tide 
 
 Came the sweet breath of flowers afar ; 
 The sentries of the forest sighed — 
 
 On the stream's bosom throbbed the star ! 
 Low murmurs from the holy skies 
 
 Haunted, like song, the dreamy air, 
 And from my heart, the fond replies 
 
 Awoke prophetic echoes there ; 
 For boyhood's prayer foretold the hour, 
 When with fulfillment came the blessing and the power ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 I know not how the world may love — 
 How. in a thousand hearts, the fire 
 
 May seem descended from above, 
 And yet in ashy gloom expire ; 
 
TO ONE AFAR. 23 
 
 How, in the passion -hour of youth, 
 
 The lip may speak its holiest vow, 
 Yet shadows dim the spirit's truth 
 
 And pride and coldness change the brow ; 
 I only know, how, from the mist 
 
 Of childhood's dreams, thine image grew 
 
 A flower by Passion's sunbeams kissed 
 
 And fed by Hope's perpetual dew ! 
 I only know how dear a worth 
 
 This restless being wins through thee, 
 Within whose sunshine, o'er the earth, 
 
 All beauty lives eternally ! 
 And if my lays, in after-time, 
 
 Should win men's love, — the holiest fame ; 
 If Sorrow's gifts of sweetest rhyme 
 
 Should brighten round my humble name 
 
 Thy soul will light my footsteps on, 
 
 Up the long path of toil and tears, 
 And share with me the glory won 
 
 Beloved of my early years ! 
 
 Heidelberg, 1844. 
 
STARLIGHT IN THE ODENWALD. 5 
 
 Upon the mountain's rugged crest 
 
 There lingers still a glow, 
 But twilight's gathering gloom has drest 
 
 The valleys far below ; 
 No wild wind sways the mountain pine, 
 
 No breeze bends down the flower, 
 , And dim and faint the star-beams shine 
 
 Upon the vesper hour. 
 
 Here, in the fading sunset light, 
 
 I breathe the upper air, 
 And hear the low, sad voice of Night, 
 
 Inviting Earth to prayer ! 
 Still deeper through the wide profound 
 
 The solemn shadows fall, 
 And rest upon the hills around 
 
 Like Nature's funeral pall. 
 
STARLIGHT IN THE ODENWALD. 25 
 
 Now comes to break the breathless spell, 
 
 In blended evening-hymn, 
 The chime of many a distant bell 
 
 From valleys deep and dim ; 
 And as they fall, the warder-star 
 
 That guards the twilight pale, 
 Looks o'er the eastern hills afar 
 
 And dons his silver mail. 
 
 The shadows deepen, as I stand — 
 
 The rosy glow is gone, 
 And westward, towards my native land. 
 
 The sunset marches on ! 
 Ye stars, with whose familiar glance 
 
 My thoughts are mingling free, 
 Shine, glimmering o'er the wide expanse, 
 
 And bear them home for me ! 
 
 Still all is breathless, as in prayer, 
 
 But to my spirit-ear 
 Kind voices float upon the air — 
 
 Fond eyes are beaming near. 
 The love, whose pinions never rest, 
 
 Soars, constant, o'er the sea, 
 And by the thrill within my breast 
 
 I know they speak of me ! 
 
26 STARLIGHT IN THE ODENWALD. 
 
 The gentle spirit of the hour 
 
 Melts in the dew of tears, 
 And yielding to its spell of power 
 
 I muse on vanished years, 
 Till through the gloom, no more is heard 
 
 The solemn evening-chime, 
 And mourn the pine-boughs, faintly stirred, 
 
 The hurrying march of Time. 
 
 Germany, 1844. 
 
A SONG AT DUSK. 
 
 Oh, gloomy up the welkin's arch 
 
 The night in clouds comes striding on, 
 And gathers Time, on tireless march, 
 
 Another day to myriads gone ! 
 The sun, that in his gray robe drest, 
 
 Stole down the veiled and dark'ning sky, 
 Yet shines behind the clouded West, 
 
 Where the green hills of childhood lie ; 
 My heart goes with him o'er the sea, 
 To gaze, with all his beams, on thee ! 
 
 ii 
 
 Turbid and dark with melted snows. 
 The restless waters by me sweep 
 
28 A SONG AT DUSK. • 
 
 From the far fountains whence they rose. 
 Impatient, to their parent deep ; 
 
 But when the chafing shores are gone 
 And the blue ocean-wastes expand, 
 
 Perchance some storm will bear them on 
 To break upon my Fatherland ! 
 
 With them careering, fast and free, 
 
 My heart speeds homeward, love, to thee ! 
 
 in. 
 
 I hear the winds of evening moan 
 
 Through ivied towers, decayed and old, 
 Waving their tresses o'er the stone 
 
 In desolation, doubly cold ; 
 Yet when o'er thousand leagues they blow, 
 
 Beyond this twilight's dusky line, 
 Their wings may stoop to waken low 
 
 The music of our try sting pine, 
 And, sighing with them in the tree, 
 My heart would whisper, love, to thee. 
 
 Frankfort, Germany, 1845. 
 
THE CRUSADES. 
 
 The red-cross banners moulder here to ashes, 3 
 
 And Godfrey's falchion rusts in dull repose, 
 That pierced the war-cloud with its crimson flashes, 
 
 And clove the helmets of his swarthy foes ; 
 These standards once led Europe^s knights undaunted, 
 
 Their folds upon the winds of Syria flung, 
 As over plains by holy memories haunted 
 
 Their hymns of faith the pilgrim-warriors sung. 
 
 That breastplate once, on Hermon's hallowed mountain, 
 
 With dews from soft Judean skies was wet ; 
 Those plumes have waved beside Bethesda's fountain, 
 
 And stood with Godfrey on Mount Olivet ! 
 And once the banners, now all rent and shivered, 
 
 Waved on the holy walls from Moslems won, 
 Or by the Lion-hearted king have quivered, 
 
 Upon the sands of fated Ascalon ! 
 
30 T HE C R U S A 1) E S . 
 
 The dreams of Romance, that in days departed 
 
 Thrilled through my boyish soul, come back again, 
 As when the blood unto my brow hath started 
 
 At thought of battle on the Syrian plain — 
 When Richard's glory fired my young ambition, 
 
 In sweeping charge to break th' embattled line, 
 And oft I saw, in dream-enraptured vision, 
 
 The deep-blue heaven that burns o'er Palestine ! 
 
 They were but dreams ; yet this old blade has broken 
 
 The spell that bound them in the wondrous Past, 
 For, long ere this, had other voices spoken, 
 
 Nor leaped my heart unto that clarion-blast. 
 All dust and ruin, let those ages moulder 
 
 Like these rent banners crumbling on the wall ; 
 The Earth learns wisdom as she waxes older — 
 
 The proudest glory of the Past shall fall ! 
 
 Not for the land, where dwelt the Meek and Lowly, 
 
 Shall knights anointed crowd the battle-sod. 
 But Earth itself, which God created holy, 
 
 And now so long by unbelievers trod ! 
 For Earth, where, Freedom's sepulchre profaning, 
 
 A brood of tyrants laugh at Mankind's loss, 
 They vow to fight, till Wrong's pale crescent, waning, 
 
 Forever vield to Freedom's hallowed cross ! 
 
THE CRUSADES. 31 
 
 \ 
 
 No more regret o'er chivalry departed — 
 
 No dreams of battles on Judea's strand ! 
 The world has need of many a Lion-hearted, 
 
 And Truth is gathering her Crusader-band. 
 I seize the blade the lofty cause will hallow. 
 
 And swing the banner in the light of morn, 
 Through the long march of Life the cross to follow, 
 
 Which martyred Freedom's holy hands have borne ! 
 
 Oh ! when for ages her Crusade has breasted 
 
 Oppression's armies o'er the groaning Earth, 
 When from the foe her sepulchre is wrested, 
 
 And the raised tombstone lets the captive forth, 
 Will she arise, in beauty such as never 
 
 Dawned on the Poet's most ecstatic dream — 
 A blessing that the soul will clasp forever — 
 
 A world renewed in God's eternal beam ! 
 
 Vienna, 1845. 
 
THE WAYSIDE DREAM. 
 
 The deep and lordly Danube 
 
 Goes winding far below ; 
 I see the white-walled hamlets 
 
 Amid his vineyards glow, 
 And southward through the ether shine 
 
 The Styrian hills of snow ! 
 
 O'er many a league of landscape 
 Sleeps the warm haze of noon ; 
 
 The wooing winds come freighted 
 With fragrant tales of June, 
 
 And down amid the corn and flowers 
 I hear the water's tune. 
 
 The meadow-lark is singing, 
 
 As if it still were morn ; 
 Sounds throng] 1 the dark pine-forest 
 
 The hunter's dreamy horn, 
 
THE WAYSIDE DREAM. 33 
 
 And the shy cuckoo's plaining note 
 Mocks the maidens in the corn. 4 
 
 I watch the cloud-armada 
 
 Go sailing up the sky, 
 Lulled by the murmuring mountain-grass, 
 
 Upon whose bed I lie, 
 And the faint sound of noonday chimes 
 
 That in the distance die ! 
 
 A warm and drowsy sweetness 
 
 Is stealing o'er my brain ; 
 I see no more the Danube 
 
 Sweep through his royal plain — 
 I hear no more the peasant girls 
 
 Singing amid the grain ! 
 
 Soft, silvery wings, a moment 
 
 Seem resting on my brow ; 
 Again I hear the water, 
 
 But its voice is deeper now, 
 And the mocking-bird and oriole 
 
 Are singing on the bough ! 
 
 The elm and linden branches 
 Droop close and dark o'erhead, 
 
34 THE WAYSIDE DREAM. 
 
 And the foaming forest-brooklet. 
 
 Leaps down its rocky bed ; 
 Be still, my heart ! the seas are passed 
 
 The paths of home I tread ! 
 
 The showers of creamy blossoms 
 
 Are on the linden spray, 
 And down the clover-meadow 
 
 They heap the scented hay, 
 And glad winds toss the forest leaves, 
 
 All the bright summer day. 
 
 Old playmates ! bid me welcome 
 
 Amid your brother-band ; 
 Give me the old affection — 
 
 The glowing grasp of hand ! 
 I worship no more the realms of old — 
 
 Here is my Fatherland ! 
 
 Come hither, gentle maiden. 
 
 Who weep'st in tender joy ! 
 The rapture of thy presence 
 
 O'ercomes the world's annoy, 
 And calms the wild and throbbing heart. 
 
 Which warms the wandering boy. 
 
THE WAYSIDE DREAM. 35 
 
 In many a mountain fastness, — 
 
 By many a river's foam, 
 And through the gorgeous cities, 
 
 'Twas loneliness to roam ; 
 For the sweetest music in my heart 
 
 Was the olden songs of home ! 
 
 Ah ! glen and grove are vanished, 
 
 And friends have faded now ! 
 The balmy Styrian breezes 
 
 Are blowing on my brow, 
 And sounds again the cuckoo's call 
 
 From the forest's inmost bough. 
 
 Veiled is the heart's glad vision — 
 
 The wings of Fancy fold ; 
 I rise and journey onward, 
 
 Through valleys green and old, 
 Where the far, white Alps reveal the morn 
 
 And keep the sunset's gold ! 
 
STEYERMARK. 
 
 In Steyermark — green Steyermark, 
 
 The fields are bright and the forests dark — 
 
 Bright with the maids that bind the sheaves. 
 
 Dark with the solemn arch of leaves ! 
 
 Voices and streams and sweet bells chime 
 
 Over the land, in the harvest-time, 
 
 And the blithest songs of the finch and lark 
 
 Are heard in the orchards of Steyermark. 
 
 In Steyermark — old Steyermark, 
 
 The mountain summits are white and stark ; 
 
 The rough winds furrow their trackless snow, 
 
 But the mirrors of crystal are smooth below ; 
 
 The stormy Danube clasps the wave 
 
 That downward sweeps with the Drave and Save. 
 
 And the Euxine is whitened with many a bark, 
 
 Freighted with ores of Steyermark ! 
 
STEYERWARK. 
 
 In Steyermark — rough Steyermark, 
 The anvils ring from dawn till dark ; 
 The molten streams of the furnace glare, 
 Blurring with crimson the midnight air ; 
 The lusty voices of forgemen chord. 
 Chanting the ballad of " Siegfried's Sword," 
 While ponderous hammers the chorus mark — 
 And this is the music of Steyermark ! 
 
 In Steyermark — dear Steyermark, 
 Hearts are glad as the soaring lark : 
 There men are framed in the manly mould 
 Of their stalwart sires, in the times of old. 
 And the sunny blue of the Styrian sky 
 Grows soft in the timid maiden's eye, 
 When love descends with the twilight dark, 
 In the beechen groves of Steyermark. 
 
 In Steyermark — brave Steyermark, 
 The flame of Freedom has left a spark, 
 Whose lingering glow, in her rudest glen, 
 Is kept alive by the iron men ! 
 Ere long, the slaves of a tyrant's breath 
 Shall be driven beyond the Hills of Death, 5 
 And the beacon-snows of her mountains mark 
 The barriers of ransomed Steyermark ! 
 
 37 
 
TO A BAVARIAN GIRL. 
 
 Thou, Bavaria's brown-eyed daughter, 
 
 Art a shape of joy, 
 Standing by the Isar's water 
 
 With thy brother-boy ; 
 In thy day-dream fondly pressing, 
 
 Oft, his ringlets down, 
 While beneath the sun's caressing, 
 
 Glows thy cheek of brown. 
 
 All the kindly thoughts beguiling 
 
 Hours of idle rest, 
 Ever tune thy lips to smiling, 
 
 And to love, thy breast. 
 Never grief for dear vows broken 
 
 Drooped thy tearful lid, 
 Never words of love unspoken 
 
 In thy bosom hid ! 
 
TO A BAVARIAN GIRL. 39 
 
 Woods of glossy oak are ringing 
 
 With the echoes bland, 
 While thy generous voice is singing 
 
 Songs of Fatherland — 
 Songs, that by the Danube's river 
 
 Sound on hills of vine, 
 And where'er the green waves shiver, 
 
 Down the rushing Rhine ! 
 
 Life, with all its hues and changes, 
 
 To thy heart doth lie, 
 Like those dreamy Alpine ranges 
 
 In the southern sky ; 
 Where in haze the clefts are hidden, 
 
 Which the heart should fear, 
 And the crags that fall unbidden, 
 
 Startle not the ear ! 
 
 Where the village maidens gather 
 
 At the fountain's brim, 
 Or in sunny harvest-weather, 
 
 With the reapers trim ; 
 Where the Autumn fires are burning 
 
 On the vintage-hills — 
 Where the mossy wheels are turning, 
 
 In the ancient mills ; 
 
40 T O A BAVARIAN G I R L . 
 
 Where from ruined robber-towers 
 
 Hangs the ivy's hair, 
 And the sweet-lipped foxbell flowers 
 
 On the crumbling stair — 
 Every where, without thy presence, 
 
 Would the sunshine fail, 
 Fairest of the maiden peasants ! 
 
 Flower of Isar's vale ! 
 
 Munich, 1845. 
 
IN ITALY. 
 
 Dear Lillian, all I wished is won ! 
 I sit beneath Italia's sun. 
 Where olive orchards gleam and quiver 
 Along the banks of Arno's river. 
 
 Through laurel leaves, the dim green light 
 Falls on my forehead as I write, 
 And the sweet chimes of vesper, ringing, 
 Blend with the contadina's singing. 
 
 Rich is the soil with Fancy's gold ; 
 The stirring memories of old 
 Rise thronging in my haunted vision, 
 And wake my spirit's young ambition. 
 
 But, as the radiant sunsets close 
 Above Val d'Arno's bowers of rose, 
 My soul forgets the olden glory 
 And deems our love a dearer story. 
 
42 IN ITALY. 
 
 Thy words, in Memory's ear, outchime 
 The music of the Tuscan rhyme; 
 Thou standest here — the gentle-hearted 
 Amid the shades of bards departed ! 
 
 Their garlands of immortal bay, 
 
 I see before thee fade away. 
 
 And turn from Petrarch's passion-glances 
 
 To my own dearer heart-romances ! 
 
 Sad is the opal glow that fires 
 The midnight of the cypress spires, 
 And cold the scented wind that closes 
 The hearts of bright Etruscan roses. 
 
 The fair Italian dream 1 chased, 
 A single thought of thee effaced ; 
 For the true clime of song and sun 
 Lies in the heart which mine hath won ! 
 
 Florence, 1845. 
 
TO MY MOTHER. 
 
 The wind is cold, and dark the sky 
 
 That bends, dear mother ! o'er thy child, 
 
 And cloudy masses, wild and high, 
 In the night-heaven are piled. 
 
 And, sweeping with a mournful sound, 
 I hear the swift wings of the blast, 
 
 Whose rainy cisterns, poured around, 
 Fall drearily and fast. 
 
 Scarce through the midnight's groaning deep 
 The glimmering lights of Florence shine, 
 
 And wintry gusts, incessant, sweep 
 The shrouded Appenine. 
 
 I breathe not Europe's air to-night : 
 
 Gone is the pomp Day spreads around — 
 
 Lost are the vales and seas of light 
 In storm and mingling sound ! 
 
44 TO MY MOTHER. 
 
 Loved scenes, amid the gloom are near ; 
 
 I hear the rush of well-known floods ; 
 The rattling of the rain I hear, 
 
 Through gray, primeval woods. 
 
 I stand, amid the beating blast, 
 
 Where all the haunts of boyhood stand ; 
 
 To-night the sea's wide waste is passed — 
 I walk my native land ! 
 
 The tide of years rolls backward now, 
 Dear mother ! and I seem to feel 
 
 The glow of childhood o'er my brow 
 And through my bosom steal. 
 
 This night of storm recalls the hour 
 I clung for safety to thy side, 
 
 When shadows of the thunder-shower 
 Hunsr o'er the meadows wide. 
 
 i ^ 
 
 I feel that solemn joy again, 
 
 Which filled my soul in autumn hours, 
 When forest-leaves fell like this rain 
 
 And hid the dying flowers. 
 
 1 seek the window, still, to see 
 
 How the wet boughs by storms are tost, 
 
TO MY MOTHER. 45 
 
 That down the fields go drearily, 
 Till all the woods are lost. 
 
 Beneath the sheltered beechen copse 
 
 I couch on mosses, warm and soft, 
 Or, lulled by beat of myriad drops, 
 
 Dream in the dusky loft. 
 
 Those days shall be again no more ; 
 
 I walk amid the world of men, 
 And childhood's soul must learn a lore 
 
 It ne'er foreboded then. 
 
 But in the storm and strife, its wing 
 Shall find thy love a sheltering bough, 
 
 And there with holier trust shall cling 
 To all it worships now. 
 
 Florence, 1845. 
 
R O M E . 
 
 Wreck of the fallen world ! 
 
 Ghost of the mighty Past ! 
 Planet, that, crashing hurled, 
 
 Fell from its orbit vast — 
 How have the later spheres 
 
 Rolled o'er thy ruined home 
 How have a thousand years 
 
 Scattered thy glory, Rome ! 
 Prone, like a godlike form, 
 Stripped by the spoiling worm, 
 Wasted by wind and storm, 
 
 Lieth thy greatness, now ! 
 And in thy rifled grave, 
 Washed by the Tiber's wave, 
 The foot of the meanest slave 
 
 Tramples thy brow ! 
 
ROME. 
 
 II. 
 
 47 
 
 Shadows of centuries glide 
 
 Voiceless, around the scene — 
 Phantoms of power and pride, 
 
 Gazing with mournful mien. 
 Temple and tomb and arch 
 
 Shattered and lonely stand ; 
 Rent by the Vandal's march — 
 
 Spoiled by the robber's hand ! 
 Through the lone Flavian hall 
 Beasts of the desert crawl, 
 And on the Caesar's wall 
 
 Ivy and brambles grow ; 
 Relics of temples lay 
 Heaped by the Appian way — 
 Altars to dull Decay, 
 
 Mouldering slow ! 
 
 in. 
 
 Yet, 'mid the waifs of Time 
 Lingers the fame of old, 
 
 Calling with voice sublime 
 Out from its temple's mould ! 
 
48 ROME. 
 
 What though the pleiad hills 
 
 Look on a fettered land — 
 Slaves by the Sabine rills — 
 
 Slaves on the Tyrrhene strand — 
 Still doth thine empire last, 
 Ghost of a godlike Past ! 
 Still is the broad world cast 
 
 Under thy silent sway ; 
 Though in the flood of years 
 Vanished both realms and spheres. 
 Thine 'mid the blood and tears 
 
 Passed not away ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Viewless, yet potent still 
 
 Reigneth the old renown, 
 Throned on the classic hill — 
 
 Crowned with the deathless crown. 
 There, at its shrine adore 
 
 Breathless, the sons of Art ; 
 Led by the laws of yore, 
 
 States into being start. 
 Bards from a Virgil caught 
 Germs of undying thought — 
 Thunders that Tully wrought 
 
ROME. 49 
 
 Burst upon tyrants now ! 
 Realm of the Living Dead, 
 Reign till by Freedom led, 
 Empires o'er earth shall spread, 
 
 Greater than thou ! 
 
 The Pantheon, Rome, 1846. 
 
THE STATUE IN THE SNOW 
 
 Numb and chill the Savoyard wandered 
 By the banks of frozen Seine, 6 
 
 Oft, to cheer his sinking spirit, 
 
 Singing low some mountain strain. 
 
 But, beside the wintry river, 
 Rose the songs of green Savoy 
 
 Sadder than on Alpine summits, 
 Sung by many a shepherd-boy ! 
 
 From the bleak and distant Vosges 
 Swept the snowy whirlwind down, 
 
 Flinging wide his shifting mantle 
 Over slope and meadow brown. 
 
 Like a corpse, the silent landscape 
 
 Lay all stark and icy there, 
 And a chill and ghostly terror 
 
 Seemed to load the leaden air. 
 
THE STATUE IN THE SNOW. 51 
 
 Still that shivering boy went forward, 
 Though his heart within him died, 
 
 When the dreary night was closing 
 Dull around the desert wide. 
 
 Through the desolate northern twilight 
 
 To his home-sick pining, rose 
 Visions of the flashing glaciers, 
 
 Lifted in sublime repose. 
 
 Horns of Alp-herds rang in welcome, 
 And his mother kissed her boy ! — 
 
 Back his bounding heart was hurried 
 From the vales of dear Savoy ! 
 
 For, amid the sinking darkness, 
 
 Colder, chillier, blew the snows, 
 Till but faint and moaning whispers 
 
 From his stiffening lips arose. 
 
 Then, beside the pathway kneeling, 
 
 Folded he his freezing hands, 
 While the blinding snows were drifted 
 
 Like the desert's lifted sands. 
 
 As in many an old cathedral, 
 
 Curtained round with solemn gloom, 
 
52 THE STATUE IN T H E S N O W . 
 
 One may see a marble cherub 
 Kneeling on a marble tomb ! 
 
 With his face to Heaven upturning, 
 For the dead he seems to pray, 
 
 While the organ o'er him thunders 
 And the incense curls away. 
 
 Thus he knelt, all pale and icy, 
 
 When the storm at midnight passed, 
 
 And the silver lamps of heaven 
 Burned above the pausing blast. 
 
 In that starry-roofed cathedral 
 Knelt the cherub form in prayer, 
 
 While the smoke from snowy censers 
 Drifted upward through the air. 
 
 Though no organ's deep vibration 
 Shook the winds that lingered near, 
 
 Think ye not the hymns of angels 
 Charmed as well his dying ear ? 
 
 Fans, 181H. 
 
THE DEAREST IMAGE. 
 
 I've wandered through the golden lands 
 Where Art and Beauty blended shine — 
 
 Where features limned by painters' hands 
 Beam from the canvass made divine, 
 
 And many a god in marble stands, 
 With soul in every breathing line ; 
 
 And forms the world has treasured long 
 
 Within me stirred the streams of Song. 
 
 Oh ! proudly o'er the spirit came 
 The fervent rapture they inspired, 
 
 As with my feelings all on flame 
 
 I worshiped what the world admired, 
 
 While flashes from those orbs of fame 
 The soul with mutual ardor fired, 
 
 Till Beauty's smile and Glory's star 
 
 Seemed to its grasp no more afar ! 
 
54 THE DEAREST IMAGE. 
 
 Yet, brighter than those radiant dreams 
 Linked with a fame that never dies — 
 
 Where more than earthly beauty beams 
 In sibyls' lips and angels' eyes, 
 
 One image, like the moonlight, seems 
 Between them and my heart to rise, 
 
 And from its dearer, holier ray, 
 
 The stars of Genius fade away ! 
 
 I turn from paintings rich and rare, 
 And life compelled in stone to dwell, 
 
 To gaze on Memory's picture fair, 
 Whose lines I know so fondly well ; 
 
 The touch of Beauty lingers there, 
 
 And Truth, with more than Beauty's spell 
 
 And though the mind may worship Art, 
 
 That dearer image fills the heart. 
 
 London, 1846. 
 
IMPATIENCE. 
 
 Lift up your heavy wings, 
 Ye boding shadows, that upon me rest ! 
 
 Let but a wave from Morn's o'erflowing springs 
 Steal in upon the bound and struggling breast, 
 That like a half-fledged bird, impatient sings, 
 Beating its weary nest ! 
 
 Is't not enough to go 
 Unknown, and scorned perhaps, amid the throng — 
 The curse of want, twin with mistrust, to know, 
 That mocks the pride of ever-soaring song, 
 And drags the soul revolting down, to grow 
 Familiarized with wrong ? 
 
 Is't not enough to feel 
 The spirit's manhood made a thing of scorn ? 
 To conquer Pride's restraining voice, and kneel 
 
56 IMPATIENCE. 
 
 With abject lip before the meaner born, — 
 But must the gathered shadows still conceal 
 The mounting rays of morn ? 
 
 When mind, and heart, and soul 
 Thrill, tremble with their new-awakened might, 
 
 'Tis hard to view afar the shining goal 
 And grope beneath in slow-receding night ; 
 But harder yet, when hostile fates control 
 Life's common beams of light. 
 
 To feel that God-given power 
 Acknowledged, known at last, would calm the brain, 
 
 And for the world, the bright and lavish dower 
 Of thoughts, long-hoarded, were not given in vajn ; 
 But oh, how long must clouds, low-brooding, lower, 
 And noteless rise the strain ? 
 
 London, 1846. 
 
ASPIRATION. 
 
 Glorious Deep ! on the swell of thy surges 
 My soul from the night of its boding emerges, 
 Lifting its front to Life's sorrows, unveering — 
 Boldly as thou to the mad wind's careering ! 
 
 The Past and its burdens from memory I sever, 
 Buried on shores that have vanished forever ! 
 My soul gathers nerve as the billows grow frantic : 
 There's strength in thy heaving, oh stormy Atlantic ! 
 
 Throned on thy waters, in proud exultation, 
 I see the dim land of the Mind's new creation ; 
 Looming sublime as a cloud-hidden summit, 
 That stands in an ocean unsounded by plummet ! 
 
 Oh, for a place on that mount of the spirit, 
 Feeling the breath of Eternity near it — 
 Walking with bards through the spaces Elysian, 
 Where God only baffles their grandeur of vision ! 
 
 On the Atlantic. 
 
 3* 
 
NOTES. 
 
 (') I stood in that cathedral old, the work of kingly power. — Page 19. 
 
 The Cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle was built by Charlemagne, from 796 
 to 804, and after his death a vault under the centre of the dome received 
 his remains. When this was opened, in 1165, by order of the Emperor 
 Friedrich I, his body was found seated on a chair of white marble, with a 
 sceptre in his hand and his good sword " Joyeuse " by his side. His 
 crown, sword, and ivory hunting-horn, which is only less celebrated than 
 that of his nephew, the paladin Roland, are still preserved in an apartment 
 adjoining the choir. 
 
 ( 2 ) Starlight in the Odenwald.— Page 24. 
 
 The Odenwald, or Forest of Odin, one of the loneliest and wildest 
 mountain districts of Germany, is little known to foreign tourists. Lying 
 eastward of the celebrated road from Frankfort to Heidelberg, a wooded 
 chain of lofty hills separates it from the great plain of the Rhine, and the 
 Main and Neckar rivers, frequented in summer for the picturesque beauty 
 of their scenery, only touch its eastern and southern boundaries. In its 
 deep, secluded valleys, threaded by the clearest of streams and overhung 
 by mountains of pine where the deer and wild boar are still hunted by the 
 Counts of Erbach, dwell a rude and simple people, who retain with little 
 change the customs of three centuries past, and preserve a sincere faith 
 in the traditions of former times. Among these hills are the crumbling 
 ruins of Snellert and Rodenstein, between which the Wild Huntsman is 
 still chased by his pack of demon hounds, at the approach of war. Here 
 
(')<) NOTES. 
 
 also is the Giant's Column, a massive relic of the old Teuton races, buried 
 in a wild wood, at the foot of the " Sea of Rocks." It was on the top 
 of the Musau Height, a lonely ridge which the author crossed at nightfall, 
 that the poem was composed. 
 
 ( 3 ) The red-cross banners moulder here to ashes. — Page 29- 
 In the Imperial Armory at Vienna, are still to be seen the hat, sword, 
 and breast-plate of Godfrey of Bouillon, the Crusader-king of Jerusalem, 
 and the tattered fragments of the banners planted by his knights on the 
 walls of the Holy City. Some of the shreds, cut by lances and moulder- 
 ing away by age, retain outlines of the Red Cross and the Virgin and 
 Child. 
 
 ( 4 ) Mocks the maidens in the corn. — Page 33. 
 
 The cuckoo sings in the deepest and darkest shade of the woods, and 
 though its mournful note is heard all day long, the bird itself is rarely seen. 
 There is a custom among the peasant girls to count the number of cries 
 which it repeats without pausing, when they are at work in the harvest- 
 fields, since they believe this corresponds with the number of years they 
 are to live. There is a pretty German pastoral of one of the old poets, de- 
 scribing a young maiden listening to a cuckoo, which, to her surprise, pro- 
 longs its cries much beyond the usual number. When, however, it reached 
 a hundred, she grew angry, and went into the woods to frighten the bird 
 from its song ; but instead of finding it, she was caught in the arms of her 
 lover who, to tease her, had imitated its tone. 
 
 ( 6 ) Shall be driven beyond the Hills of Death.— Page 37. 
 The Todtengelirge (Mountains of Death) divide the Alpine province 
 of Steyermark from that of Austria proper. 
 
 ( 6 ) By the ba?iks of frozen Seine. — Page 50. 
 
 An incident similar to that described in the poem, occurred a short time 
 before the author's journey through France. A young Savoyard boy, 
 traveling from Paris to Dijon in the dead of winter, was overtaken by a 
 snow storm at nightfall, and perished. He was found the next morning, 
 near the road, kneeling and with clasped hands, vet frozen to a statue. 
 
NOTES. 61 
 
 ( 7 ) Impatience. — Page 55. 
 
 This poem was written under the pressure of somewhat trying cir- 
 cumstances, and from the impulse of an impatient spirit. It has been re- 
 tained for the lesson it bears to the author, rather than any poetic merit. 
 That the feeling which it expresses is not habitual with him, is shown by 
 the poem which succeeds it. 
 
II. 
 
 JJictuttsque JJallata of California. 
 
 " Over the hills 
 Away we go ! 
 Through fire and snow, 
 And rivers, whereto 
 All others are rills. 
 Through lands of silver, 
 And lands of gold ; 
 Through lands untrodden 
 And lands untold!" 
 
 Festus. 
 
[Three of the ballads which follow, originally appeared in the Literary 
 World, under fictitious initials, and accompanied by a letter dated from 
 St. Louis, in which it was stated that they had been translated from the 
 rude songs of California, by a Western naturalist who had resided on the 
 Pacific Coast. This ruse, however, was only partially successful ; they 
 were attributed by journals in other cities, to Mr. Hoffman, then Editor of 
 the Literary World, and frequently published under his name. Several 
 other ballads having since been written, the author now corrects this error, 
 so flattering to himself, and gives them together to the public] 
 
EL CANALO. 
 
 Now saddle El Canalo 1 — the freshening wind of morn 
 Down in the flowery vega, is stirring through the corn ; 
 The thin smoke of the ranches grows red with coming 
 
 day, 
 And the steed's impatient stamping is eager for the way ! 
 
 My glossy-limbed Canalo, thy neck is curved in pride, 
 Thy slender ears pricked forward, thy nostril straining 
 
 wide ; 
 And as thy quick neigh greets me, and 1 catch thee by the 
 
 mane, 
 I'm off with the winds of morning — the chieftain of the 
 
 plain ! 
 
 I feel the swift air whirring, and see along our track, 
 From the flinty-paved sierra, the sparks go streaming 
 back ; 
 
66 EL CANALO. 
 
 And I clutch my rifle closer, as we sweep the dark defile. 
 Where the red guerilla watches for many a lonely mile ! 
 
 They reach not El Canalo ; with the swiftness of a dream 
 We've passed the bleak Nevada, and Tide's icy stream ; 
 But where, on sweeping gallop, my bullet backward sped, 
 The keen-eyed mountain vultures will circle o'er the dead ! 
 
 On ! on, my brave Canalo ! we've dashed the sand and 
 
 snow 
 From peaks upholding heaven, from deserts far below — 
 We've thundered through the forest, while the crackling 
 
 branches rang, 
 And trooping elks, affrighted, from lair and covert sprang ! 
 
 We've swam the swollen torrent — we've distanced in the 
 
 race 
 The baying wolves of Pinos, that panted with the chase ; 
 And still thy mane streams backward, at every thrilling 
 
 bound, 
 And still thy measured hoof-stroke beats with its morning 
 
 sound ! 
 
 The seaward winds are wailing through Santa Barbara'? 
 
 pines, 
 And like a sheathless sabre, the far Pacific shines ; 
 
EL CANALO. 67 
 
 Hold to thy speed, my arrow ! at nightfall thou shalt lave 
 Thy hot and smoking haunches beneath his silver wave ! 
 
 My head upon thy shoulder, along the sloping sand 
 We'll sleep as trusty brothers, from out the mountain land ; 
 The pines will sound in answer to the surges on the shore, 
 And in our dreams, Canalo, we'll make the journey o'er ! 
 
THE FIGHT OF PASO DEL MAR 
 
 Gusty and raw was the morning, 
 
 A fog hung over the seas, 
 And its gray skirts, rolling inland, 
 
 Were torn by the mountain trees ; 
 No sound was heard, but the dashing 
 
 Of waves on the sandy bar, 
 When Pablo of San Diego 
 
 Rode down to the Paso del Mar. 
 
 The pescador, out in his shallop, 
 
 Gathering his harvest so wide, 
 Sees the dim bulk of the headland 
 
 Loom over the waste of the tide ; 
 He sees, like a white thread, the pathway 
 
 Wind round on the terrible wall, 
 Where the faint moving speck of the rider 
 
 Seems hovering close to its fall ! 
 
THE FIGHT OF PASO DEL MAR. 
 
 Stout Pablo of San Diego 
 
 Rode down from the hills behind ; 
 With the bells on his gray mule tinkling, 
 
 He sang through the fog and wind. 
 Under his thick, misted eyebrows, 
 
 Twinkled his eye like a star, 
 And fiercer he sang, as the sea-winds 
 
 Drove cold on the Paso del Mar. 
 
 Now Bernal, the herdsman of Corral, 
 
 Had traveled the shore since dawn, 
 Leaving the ranches behind him — 
 
 Good reason had he to be gone ! 
 The blood was still red on his dagger, 
 
 The fury was hot in his brain, 
 And the chill, driving scud of the breakers 
 
 Beat thick on his forehead in vain. 
 
 With his blanket wrapped gloomily round him, 
 
 He mounted the dizzying road, 
 And the chasms and steeps of the headland 
 
 Were slippery and wet, as he trode : 
 Wild swept the wind of the ocean, 
 
 Rolling the fog from afar, 
 When near him a mule-bell came tinkling, 
 
 Midway on the Paso del Mar ! 2 
 
 69 
 
70 THE FIGHT OF PASO DEL MAR. 
 
 " Back !" shouted Bernal, full fiercely, 
 
 And " back !" shouted Pablo, in wrath ; 
 As his mule halted, startled and shrinking, 
 
 On the perilous line of the path ! 
 The roar of devouring surges 
 
 Came up from the breakers' hoarse war ; 
 And " back, or you perish !" cried Bernal, 
 
 " I turn not on Paso del Mar !" 
 
 The gray mule stood firm as the headland ; 
 
 He clutched at the jingling rein, 
 When Pablo rose up in his saddle 
 
 And smote till he dropped it again. 
 A wild oath of passion swore Bernal, 
 
 And brandished his dagger, still red, 
 While fiercely stout Pablo leaned forward, 
 
 And fought o'er his trusty mule's head. 
 
 They fought, till the black wall below them 
 
 Shone red through the misty blast ; 
 Stout Pablo then struck, leaning farther, 
 
 The broad breast of Bernal at last. 
 And, frenzied with pain, the swart herdsman 
 
 Closed round him with terrible clasp, 
 And jerked him, despite of his struggles, 
 
 Down from the mule, in his grasp. 
 
THE FIGHT OF PASO DEL MAR. 
 
 They grappled with desperate madness 
 
 On the slippery edge of the wall ; 
 They swayed on the brink, and together 
 
 Reeled out to the rush of the fall ! 
 A cry of the wildest death-anguish 
 
 Rang faint through the mist afar, 
 And the riderless mule went homeward 
 
 From the Fisrht of the Paso del Mar ! 
 
RIO SACRAMENTO. 3 
 
 Sacramento ! Sacramento, 
 
 Down the rough Nevada foaming, 
 
 Fain my heart would join thy water 
 In its glad, impetuous roaming, 
 
 For thy valley's fairest daughter 
 Watches oft to see thee coming ! 
 
 Sacramento ! Sacramento ! 
 
 From the shining threads that wove thee 
 From the mountain woods that darken 
 
 All the mountain heaven above thee, 
 Teach her ear thy song to hearken 
 
 And, for what it says, to love thee ! 
 
 Sacramento ! Sacramento ! 
 
 Lead me downward to the glory 
 Of thy green and flowery meadows ; 
 
 I will leave the deserts hoary, 
 
RIO SACRAMENTO. 73 
 
 For thy grove of quiet shadows 
 And my love's impassioned story. 
 
 Sacramento ! Sacramento ! 
 
 Every dancing rainbow broken 
 When thy falling waves are shattered, 
 
 Is a glad and beckoning token 
 Of the hopes so warmly scattered 
 
 And the vows that we have spoken ! 
 
 Sacramento ! Sacramento '. 
 
 She, beside thee, waits my coming ; 
 Teach my step thy bounding fleetness, 
 
 Towards the bower of beauty roaming, 
 Where she stands, in maiden sweetness, 
 
 Gazing idly on thy foaming ! 
 
THE EAGLE HUNTER. 
 
 Storm and rain are on the mountains, 
 And the pines and torrents thunder, 
 And the black and driving shadows 
 
 Make a night along the plain : 
 Now the herds are grouped for shelter, 
 And the herdsmen wind their lassos. 
 Towards the distant hacienda, 
 
 Speeding homeward through the rain ! 
 
 From the icy Cordilleras 
 Crashing leap the avalanches, 
 By the hands of mining waters 
 
 Loosened from their lofty hold ; 
 And the mountain sheep are scattered 
 By the firs and larches falling, 
 And the wild wolves howling gather 
 
 In the caverns dark and cold ! 
 
THE EAGLE HUNTER. 75 
 
 On the mighty summit, beaten 
 By the wintry sleet, I wander, 
 For I seek the monarch-eagle 
 
 In his eyrie of the rock ; 
 And I shout in fierce exulting, 
 When his gray wing on the darkness 
 Of the cloud above me flashes, 
 
 Wheeling 1 downward to the shock ! 
 
 Nearer, with his keen eye burning, 
 And his hungry beak extended — 
 With a shriek of anger swooping 
 
 Comes the storm-defying bird : 
 Yet as steady and unswerving, 
 Upward flies the fatal arrow, 
 And his death-cry on the sweeping 
 
 Of the sounding winds is heard ! 
 
 From his wing I rob the plumage, 
 And it crowns me like a chieftain, 
 And his talons stud my girdle 
 
 Like the scales of olden mail ; 
 Never wears the wild ranchero 
 Such a trophy on the vega, 
 Or the fiery-eyed Navajo, 
 
 In the Colorado's vale ! 
 
76 THE EAGLE HUNTER. 
 
 I am come of nobler lineage, 
 And my realm is far above them, 
 Where the cradles of the rivers 
 
 Have been hollowed in the snow ; 
 And I drink their crystal sources, 
 Where the Bravo and Nebraska 
 To their thousand leagues of travel, 
 
 O'er the desolate prairies go ! 
 
 In the meeting of the thunders, 
 When the solid crags are shivered, 
 Firm and fearless and rejoicing 
 
 On the snowy peak I stand ; 
 For my foot lias learned the lleetness 
 Of the ibex on the ridges, 
 And my voice the stormy music 
 
 Of the lofty Mountain Land ! 
 
THE BISON TRACK. 
 
 Strike the tent ! the sun has risen ; not a cloud has 
 
 ribbed the dawn, 
 And the frosted prairie brightens to the westward, far and 
 
 wan : 
 Prime afresh the trusty rifle — sharpen well the hunting 
 
 spear — 
 For the frozen sod is trembling, and a noise of hoofs I 
 
 hear ! 
 
 Fiercely stamp the tethered horses, as they snuff the morn- 
 ing's fire, 
 
 And their flashing heads are tossing, with a neigh of keen 
 desire ; 
 
 Strike the tent — the saddles wait us ! let the bridle-reins 
 be slack, 
 
 For the prairie's distant thunder has betrayed the bison's 
 track ! 
 
78 THE BISON TRACK. 
 
 See ! a dusky line approaches ; hark, the onward-surging 
 
 roar. 
 Like the din of wintry breakers on a sounding wall of 
 
 shore ! 
 Dust and sand behind them whirling, snort the foremost 
 
 of the van, 
 And the stubborn horns are striking, through the crowded 
 
 caravan. 
 
 Now the storm is down upon us — let the maddened horses 
 
 go! 
 We shall ride the living whirlwind, though a hundred 
 
 leagues it blow ! 
 Though the surgy manes should thicken, and the red 
 
 eyes' angry glare 
 Lighten round us as we gallop through the sand and 
 
 rushing air ! 
 
 Myriad hoofs will scar the prairie, in our wild, resistless 
 race, 
 
 And a sound, like mighty waters, thunder down the desert 
 space : 
 
 Yet the rein may not be tightened, nor the rider's eye 
 look back — 
 
 Death to him whose speed should slacken, on the mad- 
 dened bison's track ! 
 
THE BISON TRACK. 79 
 
 Now the trampling herds are threaded, and the chase is 
 
 close and warm 
 For the giant bull that gallops in the edges of the storm : 
 Hurl your lassos swift and fearless — swing your rifles as 
 
 we run ! 
 Ha ! the dust is red behind him — shout, my brothers, he 
 
 is won ! 
 
 Look not on him as he staggers — 'tis the last shot he will 
 
 need ; 
 More shall fall, among his fellows, ere we run the bold 
 
 stampede ; — 
 Ere we stem the swarthy breakers, while the wolves, a 
 
 hungry pack, 
 Howl around each grim-eyed carcass, on the bloody Bison 
 
 Track ! 
 
THE LAY OF LAS PALMAS 
 
 A LEGEND OF OLD CALIFORNIA. 
 
 High on the summit, 
 Over the waters, 
 Fronting the sunset 
 
 Lingered the maid ; 
 Below, through the flashing 
 Of blue billows dashing, 
 Glided the shallop 
 
 Storms had delayed ! 
 
 Ere the white pebbles 
 On the keel grated, 
 Leaped the young boatman 
 
 Shoreward amain ; 
 And in the blessing 
 Of love's quick caressing, 
 Soon were forgotten 
 
 Peril and pain. 
 
T H E L A Y F LAS PALMAS. 81 
 
 Rustled the palm-trees 
 Low in the twilight ; 
 Night on the waters 
 
 Deepened afar ; 
 Under their cover 
 Clasped she her lover, 
 While their hearts' throbbings 
 
 Answered each star ! 
 
 Sad was the parting 
 Under the palm-trees — 
 Dark was the midnight 
 
 When he had gone ! 
 Tempests uprisen 
 Burst their cloud-prison ; 
 Under their lightnings, burned 
 
 Dimly the dawn. 
 
 Shattered the palm lay, 
 Rent by the red bolt, 
 While its lone brother 
 
 Sighed in the gale : 
 Shattered the shallop 
 Sank in the surges ; 
 Wild was the maiden's 
 
 Desolate wail ! 
 
82 THE LAY OF LAS P A L M A S 
 
 Perished the blighted 
 Palm of the summit ; 
 Faded the maiden's 
 
 Life with its own : 
 Now on the rocky 
 Front of Las Palmas, 
 Mourn the wild sea-gusts, 
 
 Drear and alone. 
 
NOTES 
 
 (*) Now saddle El Canalo. — Page 65. 
 
 El Canalo, or the cinnamon-colored, is the name of the choicest breed 
 of the Californian horse. These animals are capable of extraordinary 
 speed and endurance, and between them and their riders exists the same 
 constant friendship which characterizes the Arab and his steed. The noted 
 ride of Col. Fremont from Pueblo de los Angeles to Monterey furnishes 
 an evidence of what these horses have accomplished. 
 
 ( 2 ) Midway on the Paso del Mar ! — Page 69. 
 
 A pass, similar to that described in the ballad, has been found on the 
 Pacific Coast. There is a story told of two Highland Chieftains having 
 met their death in a like quarrel, from a precipice on the Northern shore 
 of Scotland. 
 
 ( 3 ) Rio Sacramento. — Page 72. 
 
 The valley of the Sacramento River is the garden of California, and 
 contains the most flourishing American settlements which have been made 
 in that region. The fall of the river from its source to its mouth, is very 
 great, and its current is constantly broken by rapids and cataracts. 
 
III. 
 
 Glissez comme une main sur la harpe qui vibre 
 
 Glisse de corde en corde, arrachant a la fois 
 
 A chaque corde une ame, a chaque ame une voix !" 
 
 Lamartine. 
 
A BACCHIC ODE. 
 
 Wine — bring wine ! 
 
 Let the crystal beaker flame and shine, 
 
 Brimming o'er with the draught divine ! 
 
 The crimson glow 
 
 Of the lifted cup on my forehead throw. 
 
 Like the sunset's flush on a field of snow ! 
 
 I burn to lave 
 
 My eager lip in the purple wave ; 
 
 Freedom bringeth the wine so brave ! 
 
 The world is cold : 
 
 Sorrow and pain have gloomy hold, 
 
 Chilling the bosom warm and bold. 
 
 Doubts and fears 
 
 Veil the shine of my morning years — 
 
 My life's lone rainbow springs from tears ! 
 
88 A BACCHIC ODE. 
 
 But Eden-gleams — 
 
 Visit my *oul in immortal dreams, 
 
 When the wave of the goblet burns and beams. 
 
 Not from the Rhine 
 
 Not from fields of Burgundian vine 
 
 Bring me the bright Olympian wine ! 
 
 Not with a ray 
 
 Born where the winds of Shiraz play. 
 
 Or the fiery blood of the ripe Tokay ! 
 
 Not where the glee 
 
 Of Falernian vintage echoes free, 
 
 Or the Chian gardens gem the sea ! 
 
 But wine — bring wine 
 
 Flushing high with its growth divine, 
 
 In the crystal depth of my soul to shine : — 
 
 Whose glow was caught 
 
 From the warmth which Fancy's summer brought 
 
 To the vintage-fields in the Land of Thought ! 
 
 Rich and free 
 
 To my thirsting soul will the goblet be, 
 
 Poured by the Hebe, Poesy. 
 
A FUNERAL THOUGHT. 
 
 When the pale Genius, to whose hollow tramp 
 
 Echo the startled chambers of the soul, 
 Waves his inverted torch o'er that wan camp 
 
 Where the archangel's marshaling trumpets roll, 
 I would not meet him in the chamber dim, 
 
 Hushed, and o'erburthened with a nameless fear, 
 When the breath nutters and the senses swim, 
 
 And the dread hour is near. 
 
 Though Love's dear arms might clasp me fondly then, 
 
 As if to keep the Summoner at bay, 
 And woman's woe and the calm grief of men 
 
 Hallow at last the still, unbreathing clay — 
 These are Earth's fetters, and the soul would shrink, 
 
 Thus bound, from Darkness and the dread Unknown, 
 Stretching its arms from Death's eternal brink. 
 
 Which it must dare alone ! 
 
90 A FUNERAL THOUGHT. 
 
 But in the awful silence of the sky, 
 
 Upon some mountain summit, never trod, 
 Through the bright ether would 1 climb, to die 
 
 Afar from mortals and alone with God ! 
 To the pure keeping of the stainless air 
 
 Would I resign my feeble, failing breath, 
 And with the rapture of an answered prayer 
 
 Welcome the kiss of Death ! 
 
 The soul, which wrestled with that doom of pain, 
 
 Prometheus-like, its lingering portion here, 
 Would there forget the vulture and the chain 
 
 And leap to freedom from its mountain-bier ! 
 All that it ever knew of noble thought, 
 
 Would guide it upward on the glorious track, 
 Nor the keen pangs by parting anguish wrought 
 
 Turn its bright glances back. 
 
 Then to the elements my frame would turn ; 
 
 No worms should riot on my coffined clay, 
 But the cold limbs, from that sepulchral urn 
 
 In the slow storms of ages w T aste away ! 
 Loud winds and thunder's diapason high 
 
 Should be my requiem through the coming time, 
 And the white summit, fading in the sky, 
 
 My monument sublime. 
 
THE ANGEL OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Una Stella, una notte, cd una croce. 
 
 Antonio Bisazza. 
 
 Silence hath conquered thee, imperial Night! 
 
 Thou sitt'st alone within her void, cold halls, 
 
 Thy solemn brow uplifted, and thy soul 
 
 Paining the space with dumb and mighty thought. 
 
 The dreary wind ebbs, voiceless, round thy form. 
 
 Following the stealthy hours, that wake no stir 
 
 In the hushed velvet of thy mantle's fold. 
 
 Thy thoughts take being : down the dusky aisles 
 
 Go shapes of good, and beckoning ghosts of crime, 
 
 And dreams of maddening beauty — hopes, that shine 
 
 To darken, and in cloudy height sublime, 
 
 The spectral march of some approaching Doom ! 
 
 Nor these alone, oh ! Mother of the world, 
 
 People thy chambers, echoless and vast ; 
 
 Their dewy freshness like ambrosia cools 
 
 Life's fever-thirst, and to the fainting soul 
 
 Their porphyry walls are touched with light, and gleams 
 
 Of shining wonder dazzle through the void, 
 
92 THE ANGEL OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Like those bright marvels which the traveler's torch 
 Wakes from the darkness of three thousand years, 
 In rock-hewn sepulchres of Theban kings. 
 Prophets, whose brows of pale, unearthly glow 
 Reflect the twilight of celestial dawns, 
 And bards, transfigured in immortal song, 
 Like eager children, kneeling at thy feet, 
 Unclasp the awful volume of thy lore. 
 
 My soul goes down thy far, untrodden paths, 
 
 To the dim verge of Being. There its step 
 
 Touches the threshold of sublimer life, 
 
 And through the boundless empyrean leaps 
 
 Its prayer, borne like a faint, expiring cry, 
 
 To angel-warders, listening as they pace 
 
 The crystal walls of Heaven. Down the blue fields 
 
 Of the untraveled Infinite, they come : 
 
 Beneath their wings one sweet, dilating wave 
 
 Thrills the pure deep, and bears my soul aloft, 
 
 To walk amid their shining groups, and call 
 
 Its guardian spirit, as an orphan calls 
 
 His vanished brother, taken in childhood home : 
 
 " White through my cradled dreams thy pinions waved, 
 Lost Angel of the Soul ! thy presence led 
 The babe's faint gropings through the glimmering dark 
 And into Being's conscious dawn. Thy hand 
 
THE ANGEL OF THE SOUL. 93 
 
 Held mine in Childhood, and thy beaming cheek 
 Lay close, like some fond playmate's, to mine own. 
 Up to that boundary, whence the heart leaps forth 
 To Life, like some wild torrent when the rains 
 Pour dark and full upon the cloudy hills, 
 Thy gentle footsteps wandered near to mine. 
 Be with me now ! Oh, in the starry hush 
 Of the deep night, that holds the earthly down 
 In all my nature, bring to me again 
 The early purity, which kept thy hand 
 From the entrancing harp it held in Heaven ! 
 Through the warm starting of my hoarded tears, 
 Let me behold thine eyes divine, as stars 
 Gleam through the twilight vapors of the sea ! 
 
 " Not yet hast thou forsaken me. The prayer 
 Whose crowning fervor lifts my nature up 
 Midway to God, may still evoke thy form. 
 Thou hast been with me, when the midnight dew 
 Clung damp upon my brow, and the broad fields 
 Stretched far and dim beneath the ghostly moon ; 
 When the dark, awful woods were silent near, 
 And with imploring hands toward the stars 
 Clasped in mute yearning, I have questioned Heaven 
 For the lost language of the book of Life. 
 Oh, then thy face was glorious, and thy hair 
 On the white moonbeam floating, veiled thy brow. 
 
94 THE A N G E L OF T II E SOUL. 
 
 But in the holy sadness of thine eye 
 Which held my spirit, tremblingly I saw 
 Through rushing tears, the sign of angel-grief 
 O'er the false promise of diviner years. 
 From the far glide of some descending strain 
 Of tenderest music, I have heard thy voice ; 
 And thou hast called amid the stormy rush 
 Of grand orchestral triumph, with a sound 
 Resistless in its power. 1 feel the light 
 Which is thine atmosphere, around my soul, 
 When a great sorrow gulfs it from the world. 
 
 " Come back ! come back ! my heart grows faint, to know 
 
 How thy withdrawing radiance leaves more dim 
 
 The twilight borders of the night of Earth. 
 
 Now when the bitter truth is learned ; when all 
 
 That seemed so high and good but mocks its seeming 
 
 When the warm dreams of youth come shivering back, 
 
 In the cold chambers of the heart to die — 
 
 When, with the wrestling years, familiar grows 
 
 The merciless hand of Pain, desert me not ! 
 
 Come with the true heart of the faithful Night, 
 
 When I have cast away the masquing garb 
 
 Of hollow Day, and lain my soul to rest 
 
 On her consoling bosom ! From the founts 
 
 Of thine exhaustless light, make clear the road 
 
 Through toil and darkness, into God's repose !" 
 
THE ENCHANTED KNIGHT. 
 
 In the solemn night, when the soul receives 
 The dreams it has sighed for long, 
 
 I mused o'er the charmed, romantic leaves 
 Of a book of German Song. 
 
 From stately towers I saw the lords 
 
 Ride out to the feudal fray ; 
 I heard the ring of meeting swords 
 
 And the Minnesinger's lay ! 
 
 And, gliding ghost-like through my dream, 
 Went the Erl-king with a moan, 
 
 Where the wizard willow o'erhung the stream 
 And the spectral moonlight shone. 
 
 I followed the hero's path, who rode 
 
 In harness and helmet bright, 1 
 Through a wood where hostile elves abode, 
 
 In the glimmering noon of night. 
 
96 THE ENCHANTED KNIGHT. 
 
 Banner and bugle's call had died 
 
 Amid the shadows far, 
 And a misty stream, from the mountain side, 
 
 Dropped like a silver star. 
 
 Thirsting and flushed, from the steed he leapt, 
 And quaffed from his helm unbound ; 
 
 Then a mystic trance o'er his spirit crept 
 And he sank to the elfin ground. 
 
 He slept in the ceaseless midnight cold 
 
 By the faery spell possessed, 
 His head sunk down, and his gray beard rolled 
 
 On the rust of his armed breast ! 
 
 When a mighty storm-wind smote the trees 
 
 And the crashing thunder fell, 
 He raised the sword from its mould'ring ease 
 
 And strove to burst the spell. 
 
 And thus may the fiery soul, that rides 
 Like a knight to the field of foes, 
 
 Drink of the chill world's tempting tides 
 And sink to a charmed repose. 
 
 The warmth of the generous heart of Youth 
 Will die in the frozen breast — 
 
THE ENCHANTED KNIGHT. 97 
 
 The look of Love and the voice of Truth 
 Be charmed to a palsied rest ! 
 
 In vain will the thunder a moment burst 
 
 The chill of that torpor's breath ; 
 The slumbering soul shall be wakened first 
 
 By the Disenchanter. Death ! 
 
AN HOUR. 
 
 I've left the keen, cold winds to blow 
 
 Around the summits bare ; 
 My sunny pathway to the sea 
 
 Winds downward, green and fair, 
 And bright-leaved branches toss and glow 
 
 Upon the buoyant air ! 
 
 The fern its fragrant plumage droops 
 
 O'er mosses crisp and gray, 
 Where on the shaded crags I sit, 
 
 Beside the cataract's spray, 
 And watch the far-off, shining sails 
 
 Go down the sunny bay ! 
 
 I've left the wintry winds of life 
 
 On barren hearts to blow — 
 The anguish and the gnawing care, 
 
 The silent, shuddering woe ! 
 
AN HOUR. 99 
 
 Across the balmy sea of dreams 
 My spirit-bark shall go ! 
 
 Learned not the breeze its fairy lore 
 Where sweetest measures throng ? 
 
 A maiden sings, beside the stream, 
 Some chorus, wild and long. 
 
 Mingling and blending with its roar 
 Like rainbows turned to song. 
 
 I hear it, like a strain that sweeps 
 
 The confines of a dream ; 
 Now fading into silent space, 
 
 Now with a flashing gleam 
 Of triumph, ringing through the deeps 
 
 Of forest, dell and stream ! 
 
 Away ! away ! I hear the horn 
 
 Among the hills of Spain : 
 The old, chivalric glory fires 
 
 Her warrior-hearts again ! 
 Ho ! how their banners light the morn, 
 
 Along Grenada's plain ! 
 
 I hear the hymns of holy faith 
 The red Crusaders sang, 
 
1 00 AN HOUR. 
 
 And the silver horn of Ronceval, 2 
 
 That o'er the tecbir rang 
 When prince and kaiser through the fray 
 
 To the paladin's rescue sprang ! 
 
 A beam of burning light I hold ! — 
 
 My good Damascus brand, 
 And the jet-black charger that I ride 
 
 Was foaled in the Arab land, 
 And a hundred horsemen, mailed in steel, 
 
 Follow my bold command ! 
 
 Through royal cities speeds our march 
 The minster-bells are rung ; 
 
 The loud, rejoicing trumpets peal, 
 The battle-flags are swung, 
 
 And sweet, sweet lips of ladies praise 
 The chieftain, brave and young. 
 
 And now, in bright Provencal bowers, 
 
 A minstrel-knight am I : 
 A gentle bosom on my own 
 
 Throbs back its ecstasy ; 
 A cheek, as fair as the almond flowers, 
 
 Thrills to my lips' reply. 
 
AN HOUR. 101 
 
 I tread the fanes of wondrous Rome, 
 
 Crowned with immortal bay, 
 And myriads throng the Capitol 
 
 To hear my lofty lay, 
 While, sounding o'er the Tiber's foam, 
 
 Their shoutings peal away ! 
 
 Oh, triumph such as this were worth 
 
 The Poet's doom of pain, 
 Whose hours are brazen on the earth, 
 
 But golden in the brain : 
 I close the starry gate of dreams, 
 
 And walk the dust again. 
 
GAUTAMA'S SONG OF RESTV 
 
 How long, oh ! all-pervading Soul of Earth, 
 Ere Thy last toils on this worn being close, 
 
 And trembling with its sudden glory-birth, 
 Its wings are folded in the lost repose ! 
 
 Thy doom, resistless, on its travel lies 
 
 Through weary wastes of labor and of pain, 
 
 Where the soul falters, as its Paradise 
 In far-off mirage fades and flies again. 
 
 From that pure realm of silence and of joy, 
 The quickening glories of Thy slumber shine, 
 
 Kindling to birth the lifeless world's alloy, 
 Till its dead bosom bears a seed divine. 
 
 Through meaner forms the spirit slowly rose, 
 Which now to meet its near Elysium burns ; 
 
 Through toilsome ages, circling toward Repose, 
 The sphere of Being on its axle turns ! 
 
SONG OF REST. 103 
 
 Filled with the conscious essence that shall grow. 
 
 Through many-changed existence, up to Man, 
 The sighing airs of scented Ceylon blow, 
 
 And desert whirlwinds whelm the caravan. 
 
 On the blue bosom of th' eternal deep 
 
 It moves forever in the heaving tide ; 
 And, throned on giant Himalaya's steep, 
 
 It hurls the crashing avalanche down his side ! 
 
 The wing of fire strives upward to the air, 
 Bursting in thunder rock-bound hills apart, 
 
 And the deep globe itself, complains to bear 
 The earthquake beatings of its mighty heart ! 
 
 Even when the waves are wearied out with toil, 
 And in their caverns swoon the winds away, 
 
 A thousand germs break through the yielding soil, 
 And bees and blossoms charm the drowsy day. 
 
 In stillest calms, when Nature's self doth seem 
 Sick for the far-off rest, the work goes on 
 
 In deep old forests, like a silent dream, 
 
 And sparry caves, that never knew the dawn. 
 
 From step to step, through long and weary time, 
 The struggling atoms rise in Nature's plan, 
 
104 <;autama's song of rest. 
 
 Till dust instinctive reaches mind sublime — 
 Till lowliest being finds its bloom in Man ! 
 
 Here, on the borders of that Realm of Peace, 
 The gathered burdens of existence rest, 
 
 And like a sea whose surges never cease 
 
 Heaves with its care the weary human breast. 
 
 Oh ! bright effulgence of th' Eternal Power, 
 Break the worn band, and wide thy portals roll ! 
 
 With silent glory flood the solemn hour 
 
 When star-eyed slumber welcomes back the soul ! 
 
 Then shall the spirit sink in rapture down, 
 
 Like some rich blossom drunk with noontide's beam, 
 
 Or the wild bliss of music, sent to crown 
 
 The wakening moment of a midnight dream. 
 
 Through all the luminous seas of ether there, 
 Stirs not a trembling wave, to break the rest ; 
 
 But fragrance, and the silent sense of prayer, 
 Charm the eternal slumber of the Blest ! 
 
THE SOUL'S SONG OF ACTION. 
 
 Like the silver wing of starlight, sweeping on its silent 
 
 race, 
 Widening forward and forever through eternities of space, 
 Moves the human soul in longings and in thought and 
 
 deed sublime, 
 On from summit unto summit, o'er the solemn hills of 
 
 Time ! 
 
 Earth would sink to Night and Chaos, were that golden 
 draught no more 
 
 From the sun's o'erbrimming chalice on the thirsty gloom 
 to pour, 
 
 And the spirit-planet darkens in its orbit blind and chill, 
 
 When its flaming wings are folded and its pulse of light- 
 ning still. 
 
 Not with sweat of weary labor, as we shed on earthly soil. 
 But with thrills of power and glory, goes the spirit to its 
 toil — 
 
 5* 
 
1 06 T H E S D L [ S SO N G O P A C T ION. 
 
 To the long and eager striving for the grasp of things 
 
 afar. 
 Like the throbbing of the firefly for the lustre of the 
 
 star ! 4 
 
 Toil and Grief and Self-denial, must its burdened pinions 
 
 bear, 
 Beating vainly for the freedom of the far empyreal air ; 
 But above Earth's wail and struggling, like a trumpet in 
 
 the van, 
 Through the dim and listening ages, speaks the Destiny 
 
 of Man ! 
 
 From the living soul of Nature comes an echo to the hearty 
 Filled with deep, resistless longing, when the fading beams 
 
 depart — 
 When the holy shadows gather and the stars are in the sky, 
 And a saddened fire of feeling kindles in the dewy eye. 
 
 "When the noon of night is silent, and the silvery moon- 
 light falls 
 
 On the forest's branching columns, on its broken foliage- 
 walls — 
 
 Comes that starry presence nearer, hushing all the fearful 
 air. 
 
 Till the soul has prophet-glimpses of the glory it shall 
 wear. 
 
Not within the sick wind's sighing, nor in sleeping sea and 
 
 field — 
 Outward types of weary toiling — are its oracles revealed ; 
 But in shadows and in whispers from the void and vast 
 
 Unknown, 
 And in thoughts whose holy beauty seems to come from 
 
 God alone. 
 
 Far-away appears the gleaming of a radiant star of bliss, 
 As if that sublime existence were foreshadowed unto this ; 
 And the spirit, onward speeding, to the summit yet untrod, 
 Sees the shining path of angels leading upward unto God. 
 
 Through the hushed and solemn portal, where a silent 
 
 warder stands, 
 Rests its purer gaze, rejoicing, on the shores of better lands ; 
 In the Night it triumphed over, lie the fetters it has worn, 
 And it floats with wing unshackled on the golden tides of 
 
 morn ! 
 
 With a kingly grasp of knowledge shall it mount before 
 the sun, 
 
 Adding realms of conquered Darkness to the wide do- 
 minion won : 
 
 There the lore of Truth Eternal shall the angel-mind 
 employ, 
 
 And in active being blossom the immortal flowers of Joy ! 
 
AN AUTUMN THOUGHT. 
 
 Here arches high the forest's golden ceiling, 
 
 And hides the heaven of blue, 
 Save where a dim and lonely ray is stealing 
 
 The twining branches through. 
 
 Here mossed with age, stands many a hoary column, 
 
 To prop the mighty hall ; 
 Nought breaks the silence, undisturbed and solemn, 
 
 Save when the dry leaves fall. 
 
 The world's annoyance to the wide air flinging, 
 
 Alone I tread its floor ; 
 What joy, to feel a purer thought upspringing, 
 
 Within the wood once more ! 
 
 Here, the good angels that my childhood guarded, 
 
 Come to my side again, 
 And by their presence is my soul rewarded 
 
 For many an hour of pain. 
 
AN AUTUMN THOUGHT. 109 
 
 The Summer's beauty, by the frosts o'ershaded, 
 
 May be with sadness fraught, 
 Yet, wandering through her long pavilions faded, 
 
 I read a joyous thought. 
 
 Hopes that around us in their beauty hover, 
 
 Fall like this forest-rain ; 
 But, the stern winter of Misfortune over, 
 
 They bloom as fresh again ! 
 
 The spring-like verdure of the heart may perish 
 
 Beneath some frosty care, 
 But many a bud which Sorrow learned to cherish 
 
 Will bloom again as fair. 
 
 Keep but the artless and confiding spirit 
 
 That beamed on Childhood's brow, 
 And when thy soul Life's Autumn shall inherit, 
 
 Thou shalt rejoice as now ! 
 
 1845. 
 
UPWARD! 
 
 Cease your wild fluttering, Thoughts that fill the soul ! 
 
 Silence awhile, 'tis hut the hour of hirth ! 
 Spurn not impatiently the mind's control, 
 
 Nor seek the clouds ere ye have looked on earth ! 
 Still your strong beating till the day has gone 
 And starry eve comes on ! 
 
 Why would you sweep so proudly through the sky, 
 With fearless wing the snow-crowned hills above, 
 
 Where the strong eagle scarcely dares to fly 
 
 And the cloud-armies thunder as they rove — 
 
 Make in the solitude of storms your path 
 
 And tempt the lightning's wrath ? 
 
 Will ye not linger in the earth's green fields 
 Till the first feebleness of youth is o'er, 
 
UPWARD! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Clasp the fresh joy that young existence yields 
 In the bright Present, and desire no more ? 
 Lulled among blossoms, down Life's morning stream 
 Glide, in Elysian dream ? 
 
 I pause. In might the thronging Thoughts arise : 
 Hopes unfulfilled and glory yet afar, 
 
 Vague, restless longings, that would seek the skies, 
 And back in flame come like a falling star. 
 
 I hear ye in the heart's loud beating seek 
 A voice wherewith to speak. 
 
 " Say, can the children of a loftier sphere 
 
 Find on the earth the freedom they desire ? 
 
 Can the strong spirit fold its pinions here 
 
 And give to joy the utterance of its lyre ? 
 
 Can the fledged eaglet, born where sunbeams burn, 
 Back into darkness turn 1 
 
 " Must not the wing that would aspire to sweep 
 
 Through realms undarkened by the breath of sin, 
 
 Dare in its earliest flight the trackless deep, 
 Nor faint and feebly on the earth begin — 
 
 Mount as a soaring lark, in morning's glow, 
 And leave the mists below ? 
 
112 upward! 
 
 " No soul can soar too loftily, whose aim 
 
 Is God-given Truth and brother-love of man ; 
 
 Who builds in hearts the altars of his fame, 
 And ends in love what sympathy began. 
 
 Spirit, ascend ! though far thy flight may be, 
 God then is nearer thee. 
 
 1845. 
 
NOTES 
 
 ( l ) In harness and helmet bright. — Page 95. 
 This old legend is told in Uhland's beautiful ballad, commencing : 
 " Vor seinem Heergefolge ritt 
 DeralteHeldHarald— " 
 
 (2) And the silver horn of Eongeval.-Pa.ge 100. 
 " In spite of all the noise of the battle, the sound of Roland's horn 
 broke over it like a voice out of the other world. They say that birds fell 
 dead at it, and that the whole Saracen army drew back in terror." — Or- 
 lando Furioso. 
 
 ( 3 ) Gautama's Song of Rest. — Page 102. 
 
 The Hindoo philosopher Gautama, now worshiped under the name of 
 Buddha, lived in the fifth century before Christ. He taught the unity of 
 God and Nature, or rather, that the physical and spiritual worlds are merely 
 different conditions of an Eternal Being. In the spiritual state, this Being 
 exists in perfect and blissful rest, whose emanations and overflowings enter 
 the visible world, first in the lowest forms of nature, but rising through 
 gradual and progressive changes till they reach man, who returns after 
 death to the original rest and beatitude. 
 
 ( 4 ) Like the throbbing of the firefly for the lustre of the star.— Page 106. 
 
 " The desire of the moth for the star — 
 Of the night for the morrow ; 
 The devotion for something afar 
 From the sphere of our sorrow !" 
 
 Shelley 
 
IV. 
 
 miscellaneous Poems. 
 
 " And many a verse of such strange influence, 
 That we must ever wonder how and whence 
 
 It came." 
 
 Keats. 
 
THE NORSEMAN'S RIDE. 
 
 The frosty fires of Northern starlight 
 
 Gleamed on the glittering snow. 
 And through the forest's frozen branches 
 
 The shrieking winds did blow ; 
 A floor of blue and icy marble 
 
 Kept ocean's pulses still, 
 When, in the depth of dreary midnight, 
 
 Opened the burial hill. 
 
 Then while a low and creeping shudder 
 
 Thrilled upward through the ground, 
 The Norseman came, as armed for battle, 
 
 In silence from his mound ; 
 He, who was mourned in solemn sorrow 
 
 By many a swordsman bold, 
 And harps that wailed along the ocean, 
 
 Struck by the Skalds of old ! 
 
118 
 
 Sudden, a swift and silver shadow 
 
 Came up from out the gloom — 
 A charger that with hoof impatient, 
 
 Stamped, noiseless, at the tomb. 
 " Ha, Surtur I 1 let me hear thy tramping, 
 
 My fiery Northern steed, 
 That, sounding through the stormy forest, 
 
 Bade the bold Viking heed !" 
 
 He mounted : like a North-light streaking 
 
 The sky with flaming bars, 
 They, on the winds so wildly shrieking, 
 
 Shot up before the stars. 
 " Is this thy mane, my fearless Surtur, 
 
 That streams against my breast? 
 Is this thy neck, that curve of moonlight 
 
 Which Helva's hand caressed ? 
 
 " No misty breathing strains thy nostril, 
 Thine eye shines blue and cold, 
 
 Yet, mounting up our airy pathway, 
 I see thy hoofs of gold ! 
 
 Not lighter o'er the springing rainbow 
 Walhalla's gods repair, 
 
 Than we, in sweeping journey over 
 The bending bridge of air ! 
 
the Norseman's ride. 119 
 
 " Far, far around, star-gleams are sparkling 
 
 Amid the twilight space ; 
 And Earth, that lay so cold and darkling, 
 
 Has veiled her dusky face. 
 Are those the Nornes that beckon onward, 
 
 As if to Odin's board, 
 Where by the hands of warriors nightly 
 
 The sparkling mead is poured ? 
 
 " 'Tis Skuld ! her star-eye speaks the glory 
 
 That wraps the mighty soul, 
 When on its hinge of music opens 
 
 The gateway of the Pole — 
 When Odin's warder leads the hero 
 
 To banquets never o'er, 
 And Freya's glances fill the bosom 
 
 With sweetness evermore ! 
 
 " On ! on ! the Northern lights are streaming 
 
 In brightness like the morn, 
 And pealing far amid the vastness, 
 
 I hear the Gjallarhorn ! 
 The heart of starry space is throbbing 
 
 With songs of minstrels old, 
 And now, on high Walhalla's portal 
 
 Gleam Surtur's hoofs of gold !" 
 
THE VOICE OF THE FIRE. 
 
 They sat by the hearth-stone, broad and bright, 
 Whose burning brands threw a cheerful light 
 On the frosty calm of the winter's night. 
 
 Her radiant features wore the gleam 
 
 Which childhood learns from an angel-dream, 
 
 And her bright hair stirred in the flickering beam. 
 
 Those tresses soft to his lips were pressed, 
 Her head was leaned on his happy breast, 
 And the throb of the bosom his soul expressed ; 
 
 And ever a gentle murmur came 
 
 From the clear, bright heart of the wavering flame, 
 
 Like the faltering thrill of a worshiped name. 
 
 He kissed her on the warm, white brow, 
 And told her in fonder words, the vow 
 He whispered under the moonlit bough ; 
 
; THE VOICE OF THE FIRE. 121 
 
 And o'er them a steady radiance came 
 
 From the shining heart of the mounting flame, 
 
 Like a love that burns through life the same. 
 
 The maiden smiled through her joy-dimmed eyes, 
 As he led her spirit to sunnier skies. 
 Whose cloudless light on the Future lies — 
 
 And a moment paused the laughing flame, 
 And it listened awhile, and then there came 
 A cheery burst from its sparkling frame. 
 
 He visioned a home by pure love blest, 
 Clasping their souls in a calmer rest, 
 Like woodland birds in their leafy nest. 
 
 There slept, foreshadowed, the bliss to be, 
 When a tenderer life that home should see 
 In the wingless cherub that climbed his knee. 
 
 And the flame went on with its flickering song 
 And beckoned and laughed to the lovers long, 
 Who sat in its radiance, red and strong. 
 
 Then broke and fell a glimmering brand 
 To the cold, dead ashes it fed and fanned, 
 And its last gleam leaped like an infant's hand. 
 
 G 
 
122 THE VOICE OF THE FIRE. 
 
 A sudden dread to the maiden stole, 
 
 For a cloudy sorrow seemed to roll 
 
 O'er the sunny landscape within her soul. 
 
 But hovering over its smoldering bed, 
 Its ruddy pinions the flame outspread, 
 And again through the chamber its glory shed 
 
 And ever its chorus seemed to be 
 The mingled voices of household glee, 
 Like the gush of winds in a mountain-tree. 
 
 The night went on in its silent flow, 
 
 As through the waving and wreathed glow 
 
 They watched the years of the Future go. 
 
 Their happy spirits learned the chime 
 
 Of its laughing voice and murmured rhyme — 
 
 A joyous music for after-time. 
 
 They felt a flame as glorious start, 
 Where, side by side, they dwelt apart, 
 In the quiet homestead of the heart. 
 
A VOICE FROM PIEDMONT. 
 
 " Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine Mountains cold." 
 
 Milton — Sonnet on the Massacres in Piedmont. 
 
 Bend from that Heaven, whose visioned glories gave, 
 Thou blind old Bard, the splendor of thy song, 
 
 And give the godlike words which mortals crave, 
 To speak, exulting, o'er the fallen Wrong ! 
 
 For lo ! the Avenger of that hour of blood 
 
 Has heard at last thy summons, stern and grand — 
 
 Has freed the children of the slaughtered brood, 
 In the cold Alpine land ! 
 
 O ! at the tardy word, whose thunder broke 
 The chains of ages from that suffering flock, 
 
 Methinks the mountain's giant soul awoke, 
 And thrilled beneath th' eternal ribs of rock ! 
 
 The ancient glaciers brightened in the sky ; 
 
 Beneath them, shouting, burst the jubilant rills, 
 
 And the white Alps of Piedmont made reply 
 To the free Vaudois hills ! 
 
124 A VOICE FROM PIEDMONT. 
 
 And far below, in the green pasture-vales, 
 The Waldense shepherd knelt upon the sod, 
 
 While chapel-bells chimed on the mountain gales 
 And every chalet sent its hymn to God ! 
 
 Matron and sire, and sweet-voiced peasant maid, 
 And the strong hunter from the steeps of snow, 
 
 Looked up to Him, whose help their fathers prayed, 
 Through years of blood and woe. 
 
 Build now the sepulchres of martyrs old : 
 Gather the scattered bones from every glen 
 
 Where the red waves of pitiless slaughter rolled, 
 When fell those brave and steadfast-hearted men ! 
 
 Piedmont is free ! and brightening with the years, 
 Shall Freedom's sun upon her mountains shine ; 
 
 While her proud children say, with joyous tears, 
 " The glory, Lord, be Thine !" 
 
"LITTLE PAUL." 
 
 Through the curtains poured the sunlight 
 
 With a sudden gush of joy, 
 Where, upon his bed of weakness, 
 
 Lay the dying little boy. 
 On the rising airs of Evening 
 
 Balmy sounds of Summer came, 
 And a Voice amid their music 
 
 Seemed to call him by his name : 
 And the golden waves were dancing 
 
 On the flooded chamber- wall — 
 On the sunny hair of Florence 
 
 And the brow of little Paul ! 
 
 As the sunset's tide, receding, 
 
 Ebbed again into the sky, 
 Passed the faint hue from his features 
 
 And the lustre from his eye ; 
 As if up the rosy surges 
 
 Of that shining river's flow, 
 
126 "LITTLE PAUL." 
 
 Went his spirit to the Angel 
 Who had claimed it long ago ! 
 
 Fonder still, and full of yearning, 
 Seemed to come her gentle call, 
 
 And the throb of life grew fainter 
 In the heart of little Paul ! 
 
 But the fond arms of a sister 
 
 Like a link around him lay, 
 Chaining back his fluttering spirit 
 
 To the love which was its stay ; 
 And his own weak arms were folded 
 
 In a clinging, dear embrace, 
 Till his cheek and dewy forehead 
 
 Rested gently on her face. 
 Slowly sank his weary eyelids ; 
 
 One faint breathing — that was all, 
 And no more the kiss of Florence 
 
 Thrilled the lips of little Paul ! 
 
A REaUlEM IN THE NORTH. 
 
 Speed swifter, Night ! — wild Northern Night, 
 
 Whose feet the Arctic islands know, 
 When stiffening breakers, sharp and white, 
 
 Gird the complaining shores of snow / 
 Send all thy winds to sweep the wold 
 
 And howl in mountain-passes far, 
 And hang thy banners, red and cold, 
 
 Against the shield of every star ! 
 
 For what have I to do with morn, 
 
 Or summer's glory in the vales — 
 With the blithe ring of forest-horn, 
 
 Or beckoning gleam of snowy sails ? 
 Art thou not gone, in whose blue eye 
 
 The fleeting summer dawned to me ? — 
 Gone, like the echo of a sigh 
 
 Beside the loud, resounding sea ! 
 
128 A REQUIEM IN THE NORTH. 
 
 Oh, brief that time of song and flowers, 
 
 Which blessed, through thee, the Northern Land ! 
 I pine amid its leafless bowers 
 
 And on the black and lonely strand. 
 The forest wails the starry bloom 
 
 Which yet shall pave its shadowy floor, 
 But down my spirit's aisles of gloom 
 
 Thy love shall blossom nevermore ! 
 
 And nevermore shall battling pines 
 
 Their solemn triumph sound for me ; 
 Nor morning fringe the mountain-lines, 
 
 Nor sunset flush the hoary sea ; 
 But Night and Winter fill the sky 
 
 And load with frost the shivering air, 
 Till every gust that hurries by 
 
 Chimes wilder with my own despair ! 
 
 The leaden twilight, cold and long, 
 
 Is slowly settling o'er the wave ; 
 No wandering blast awakes a song 
 
 In naked boughs, above thy grave. 
 The frozen air is still and dark ; 
 
 The numb earth lies in icy rest ; 
 And all is dead save this one spark 
 
 Of burning grief, within my breast. 
 
A REdUIEM IN THE NORTH. 1 £9 
 
 Life's darkened orb shall wheel no more 
 
 To Love's rejoicing summer back ; 
 My spirit walks a wintry shore, 
 
 With not a star to light its track. 
 Speed swifter, Night ! thy gloom and frost 
 
 Are free to spoil and ravage here ; 
 This last wild requiem for the lost, 
 
 I pour in thy unheeding ear ! 
 
RE-UNION. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF KARL CHRISTIAN TENNER. 
 
 The sun descends — in the chamber 
 Sit father and mother and boy ; 
 
 So fondly in love united, 
 
 Their hearts run over with joy. 
 
 The sun descends — at the portal 
 What may the knocking be ? 
 
 Knocking and quietly calling : 
 " Come, father, come to me !" 
 
 The sun descends — and the father 
 
 Struggles with fevered pain, 
 Clasping the mournful mother 
 
 And trembling child in vain. 
 
 The sun descends — at the portal 
 What may the knocking be ? 
 
RE -UN I ON. 131 
 
 Knocking and quietly calling : 
 " Come, mother, come to me ! ! 
 
 The sun descends — and the mother 
 Holdeth the boy to her heart, 
 
 Closely and warm, as if never 
 Her fond embrace would part. 
 
 The sun descends — there's a whisper 
 In the leaves of the threshold-tree, 
 
 Sadly and quietly calling : 
 
 " Come, brother, come to me !" 
 
 The sun descends — and smileth 
 The boy in the fading beam ; 
 
 And, folding his small hands meekly, 
 He sinks to a peaceful dream. 
 
 The sun descends — in the chamber 
 'Tis silent, as ne'er before : 
 
 There echo the dear home-voices 
 From lips of love no more. 
 
 The sun descends — in the darkness 
 The night-wind, cold and wild, 
 
 Sweeps over the gleaming grave-stones 
 Of father and mother and child. 
 
THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 I had a vision in that solemn hour, 
 
 Last of the year sublime, 
 Whose wave sweeps downward, with its dying power 
 
 Rippling the shores of Time ! 
 On the bleak margin of that hoary sea 
 
 My spirit stood alone, 
 Watching the gleams of phantom History 
 
 Which through the darkness shone : 
 
 Then when the bell of midnight, ghostly hands 
 
 Tolled for the dead year's doom, 
 I saw the spirits of Earth's ancient lands 
 
 Stand up amid the gloom ! 
 The crowned deities, whose reign began 
 
 In the forgotten Past, 
 When first the glad world gave to sovereign Man 
 
 Her empires green and vast ! 
 
THE CONTINENTS. 133 
 
 First queenly Asia, from the fallen thrones 
 
 Of twice three thousand years. 
 Came with the wo a grieving goddess owns, 
 
 Who longs for mortal tears. 
 The dust of ruin to her mantle clung, 
 
 And dimmed her crown of gold, 
 While the majestic sorrows of her tongue 
 
 From Tyre to Indus rolled : 
 
 " Mourn with me, sisters, in my realm of wo, 
 
 Whose only glory streams 
 From its lost childhood, like the arctic glow 
 
 Which sunless Winter dreams ! 
 In the red desert moulders Babylon, 
 
 And the wild serpent's hiss 
 Echoes in Petra's palaces of stone 
 
 And waste Persepolis ! 
 
 Gone are the deities who ruled enshrined 
 
 In Elephanta's caves, 
 And Brahma's wailings fill the odorous wind 
 
 That stirs Amboyna's waves ! 
 The ancient gods amid their temples fall, 
 
 And shapes of some near doom, 
 Trembling and waving on the Future's wail, 
 
 More fearful make my gloom !" 
 
134 THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 Then from her seat, amid the palms embowered 
 
 That shade the Lion-land, 
 Swart Africa in dusky aspect towered — 
 
 The fetters on her hand ! 
 Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse, 
 
 The mighty Theban years, 
 And the deep anguish of her mournful lips 
 
 Interpreted her tears. 
 
 " Wo for my children, whom your gyves have bound 
 
 Through centuries of toil ; 
 The bitter wailings of whose bondage sound 
 
 From many a stranger-soil ! 
 Leave me but free, though the eternal sand 
 
 Be all my kingdom now — 
 Though the rude splendors of barbaric land 
 
 But mock my crownless brow !" 
 
 There was a sound, like sudden trumpets blown, 
 
 A ringing, as of arms, 
 When Europe rose, a stately Amazon, 
 
 Stern in her mailed charms. 
 She brooded long beneath the weary bars 
 
 That chafed her soul of flame, 
 And like a seer, who reads the awful stars, 
 
 Her words prophetic came : 
 
THE CONTINENTS. 135 
 
 " I hear new sounds along the ancient shore. 
 
 Whose dull old monotone 
 Of tides, that broke on many a system hoar, 
 
 Wailed through the ages lone ! 
 I see a gleaming, like the crimson morn 
 
 Beneath a stormy sky, 
 And warning throes, my bosom long has borne, 
 
 Proclaim the struggle nigh !" 
 
 O radiant-browed, the latest born of Time ! 
 
 How waned thy sisters old 
 Before the splendors of thine eye sublime, 
 
 And mien, erect and bold ! 
 Pure, as the winds of thine own forests are, 
 
 Thy brow beamed lofty cheer, 
 And Day's bright oriflamme, the Morning Star, 
 
 Flashed on thy lifted spear. 
 
 " I bear no weight," so rang thy jubilant tones, 
 
 " Of memories weird and vast — 
 No crushing heritage of iron thrones, 
 
 Bequeathed by some dead Past ; 
 But mighty hopes that learned to tower and soar 
 
 From my own peaks of snow — 
 Whose prophecies in wave and woodland roar, 
 
 When the free tempests blow ! 
 
136 THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 " Like spectral lamps, that burn before a tomb, 
 
 The ancient lights expire ; 
 I wave a torch, that floods the lessening gloom 
 
 With everlasting fire ! 
 Crowned with my constellated stars. I stand 
 
 Beside the foaming sea, 
 And from the Future, with a victor's hand 
 
 Claim empire for the Free !" 
 
THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 O deep, exulting freedom of the hills ! 
 
 O summits vast, that to the climbing view 
 
 In naked glory stand against the blue ! 
 O cold and buoyant air, whose crystal fills 
 Heaven's amethystine bowl ! O speeding streams, 
 
 That foam and thunder from the cliffs below ! 
 
 O slippery brinks and solitudes of snow 
 And granite bleakness, where the vulture screams ! 
 
 stormy pines, that wrestle with the breath 
 Of the young tempest, sharp and icy horns 
 And hoary glaciers, sparkling in the morns, 
 
 And broad, dim wonders of the world beneath ! 
 
 1 summon ye, and 'mid the glare which fills 
 The noisy mart, my spirit walks the hills ! 
 
FREEDOM. 
 
 Is there no haven, where the heart may rest 
 In the warm folding of its love and truth ? 
 No prairie freedom, where the steed of Youth 
 
 Careers at will, by Life's strong curb unprest, 
 
 Nor spurred to foam by hot Necessity ? 
 Dare the great soul a lavish largess take 
 Of Being, and its own brave journey make 
 
 O'er grandest hills and by the loudest sea ? 
 
 Alas ! a cruel hand is at the rein, 
 
 And the fair heights whose summits lie so near 
 In the thick dust of travel disappear, 
 
 And the fierce spirit chafes its curb of pain ; — 
 
 Yet, having thee, all this the heart may dare. 
 
 In the unbounded freedom of Love's air. 
 
LIFE. 
 
 Life ! O Life ! art thou a mocking- cheat. 
 That, with thy flush and fervor in my blood, 
 Teachest my heart a high, heroic mood 
 
 And passion-joy in all things fair and fleet? 
 
 1 know the trumpet-winds will join no more 
 
 With the high stars and billowed sea, to bring 
 A prouder beat to my soul ; s mounting wing — 
 That when a few warm summers shall be o'er 
 And thy last vintage pours its scanty wine, 
 All these quick flames will die in ashes low, 
 The leaden pulse forget its leaping flow, 
 And faded lie the flowers of Love divine : 
 When these, thy bounties, fail to warm my breath, 
 Leave me, false Life, and send thy brother, Death ! 
 
EVIL. 
 
 Power of Evil, whatsoe'er thou art, 
 What if I shudder with a freezing dread, 
 When, heralded by no far-coming tread, 
 
 1 feel thy sudden shadow on my heart? 
 What if my being, with a shrinking start, 
 
 Cries through the darkness, when thy mocking laugh 
 Readest each broken Hope's sad epitaph ? 
 Though in their ruin thou hast borne thy part, 
 They slumber yet in consecrated ground, 
 Watered by tears my better angel sheds, 
 And when my soul beneath their cypress treads, 
 Deem not thy fierce, dark whispers there may sound : 
 The Good which blessed me, in the very grave 
 Dug by thy hands, is mighty still to save ! 
 
THE DEMON OF THE MIRROR.* 
 
 Where the orange branches mingled 
 
 On the sunny garden-side, 
 In a rare and rich pavilion 
 Sat the beautiful Sicilian — ■ 
 Sat the Count Alberto's bride, 
 Musing sadly on his absence, in the balmy evening-tide. 
 
 She had grown, in soul and beauty, 
 
 Like her own delicious clime — 
 With the warmth and radiance showered 
 On its gardens, citron-bowered, 
 
 And its winds that woo in rhyme : 
 With its fiery tropic fervors, and its Etna-throes sublime ! 
 
 Near her stood the fair Bianca, 
 
 Once a shepherd's humble child, 
 Who with tender hand was twining 
 Through her tresses, raven-shining, 
 
142 THE DEMON OF THE MIRROR. 
 
 Pearls of lustre pure and mild ; 
 And the Lady in the mirror saw their braided gleam, and 
 smiled. 
 
 Falling over brow and bosom, 
 
 Swept her dark and glossy hair ; 
 And the flash on Etna faded, 
 As Bianca slowly braided 
 With her fingers small and fair, 
 While a deeper shadow gathered o'er the chamber's scent- 
 ed air. 
 
 On the jeweled mirror gazing, 
 
 Spake the Lady not a word, 
 When, within its picture certain, 
 Slowly moved the silken curtain, 
 
 Though the breezes had not stirred, 
 And its faintly falling rustle on the marble was unheard. 
 
 Breathless, o'er her tender musing 
 
 Came a strange and sudden fear ; 
 With a nameless, chill foreboding, 
 All her fiery spirit goading, 
 
 Listened she with straining ear ; 
 Through the dusky laurel foliage, all was silent, far and 
 near ! 
 
THE DEMON OF THE MIRROR. 143 
 
 Not a stealthy footfall sounded 
 
 On the tesselated floor ; 
 Yet she saw, with secret terror, 
 Count Alberto, in the mirror, 
 Stealing through the curtained door, 
 Like a fearful, shadowy spirit, whom a curse is hanging 
 
 What ! so soon from far Palermo ? 
 
 Has he left the feast of pride — 
 Has he left the knightly tourney 
 For the happy homeward journey 
 
 And the greeting of his bride? 
 Coldly, darkly, in her bosom, the upspringing rapture died ! 
 
 With a glance of tender meaning 
 
 On the maid he softly smiled, 
 And the answering smile, and token 
 In her glowing blushes spoken, 
 
 Well betrayed the shepherd's child : 
 To her gaze, within the mirror, stood that picture dim and 
 wild I 
 
 Moved again the silken curtain, 
 As he passed without a sound ; 
 
144 THE DEMON OF THE MIRROR. 
 
 Then the sunset's fading ember 
 Died within the lonely chamber, 
 And the darkness gathered round, 
 While in passion's fierce delirium was the Lady's bosom 
 bound. 
 
 Threat'ning shadows seemed to gather 
 
 In the twilight of the room, 
 And the thoughts, vibrating changeful 
 Through her spirit, grew revengeful 
 With their whisperings of doom : 
 Starting suddenly, she vanished far amid the deep'ning 
 gloom. 
 
 In the stillness of the forest 
 
 Falls a timid, trembling gleam, 
 With a ruby radiance sparkling 
 On the rill that ripples darkling 
 
 Through the thicket, like a dream : 
 'Tis from out the secret chamber, where are met the Holy 
 Vehm ! 3 
 
 Wizard rocks around the entrance 
 Dark and grim, like sentries, stand ; 
 
THE DEMON OF THE MIRROR. 145 
 
 And within the ghostly grotto 
 Sits the gloomy Baron Otto, 
 Chieftain of the dreaded band, 
 Who in darkness and in secret ruled Sicilia's sunny land. 
 
 As in sable vestments shrouded 
 
 Sat the ministers of doom, 
 Came a step by terror fleetened, 
 And the dank, foul air was sweetened 
 
 With the orange-buds' perfume, 
 And the starry eyes of jewels shone amid the sullen gloom. 
 
 Then uprose the gloomy Otto — 
 
 Sternly wrinkled was his brow ; 
 " Why this sudden, strange intrusion 
 On the holy Vehm's seclusion ? 
 Why thus madly contest thou, 
 Noble Lady, claiming vengeance from the Brothers of the 
 Vow ?" 
 
 " There is one among your Order 
 
 Whom I dare to sue for aid : 
 Will a brother's dagger falter, 
 When the bridegroom from the altar 
 Hath his bosom's vow betrayed, 
 And the princely bride is slighted for a low-born peasant 
 maid?" 
 
 7 
 
146 THE DEMON OF THE MIRROR. 
 
 Straight the summoned one departed 
 
 Out into the starry air ; 
 Cold the silence seemed, and dreary, 
 And the moments grew more weary, 
 While the Lady waited there 
 With a deep, uncertain anguish, which her spirit scarce 
 could bear. 
 
 Mingled thoughts of love and vengeance 
 
 Madly battled in her brain ; 
 All her bosom's passionate feeling 
 Struggled with the dread revealing, 
 Till her eyes o'ergushed in rain — 
 Then anon they flashed and kindled, and her soul grew 
 stern again ! 
 
 Once a sweet and happy vision 
 
 Nigh her fiery will had won — 
 When the silver lamp of Hesper 
 Twinkled through the silent vesper, 
 And their bosoms beat as one, 
 Thrilling o'er with too much fervor, like a blossom in the 
 sun. 
 
 Olden worlds in music echoed 
 
 Through her heart's forsaken bowers ; 
 
THE DEMON OF THE MIRROR. 147 
 
 But its buds of love were rifled, 
 And the spirit-voice was stifled, 
 Which would tell of tender hours ; 
 Nevermore might second sunshine bid re-bloom its per- 
 ished flowers ! 
 
 Still that dark foreboding lingered 
 
 Over all her pride and hate, 
 Like a stifling mist, that ever 
 Hangs above a burning river 
 
 With its dull and stagnant weight : 
 Slowly up the spectral Future crept the shadows of her 
 fate. 
 
 Now the eastern stars had mounted, 
 And the midnight watch was o'er, 
 When her long suspense was broken 
 By a hasty watchword spoken, 
 And a dark form passed the door. 
 Blood was on his golden scabbard, and the sable robe he 
 wore. 
 
 " By this blade, most noble Lady, 
 
 Have I done thy will aright !" 
 Then, upstarting from her languor, 
 Cried she, in returning anger : 
 
148 THE DEMON OF THE MIRROR. 
 
 " Where reposed the trait'rous knight? 
 Didst thou tear him from her clasping — strike him down 
 before her sight?" 
 
 " Nay, not so ; in bright Palermo. 
 
 Where the tourney's torches shine — 
 In the gardens of the palace, 
 Did the green earth, from its chalice 
 Drink his bosom's brightest wine, 
 And the latest name that faltered on his dying lips, was 
 thine!" 
 
 With a scream, as agonizing 
 
 In its horror and despair, 
 As if life's last hold were started, 
 Ere the soul in torture parted, 
 
 Stood she, pale and shuddering there. 
 With her face of marble lifted in the cavern's noisome air. 
 
 " God of Heaven ! that fearful image, 
 
 On' the mirror's surface thrown ! 
 Not Alberto, but a demon, 
 Looked on her as on a leman, 
 And the guilt is mine alone ! 
 Now that demon-shadow haunts me, and its curse is made 
 my own ! 
 
THE DEMON OF THE MIRROR. 149 
 
 " See ! its dead, cold eyes, are glaring 
 
 Through the darkness, steadily ; 
 And it holds a cloudy mirror, 
 Imaging that scene of terror, 
 
 Which was bloody death to thee ! 
 Mocking now thy noble features, turns its fearful gaze on 
 me ! 
 
 "And I see, beneath their seeming, 
 
 How the demon features glow ! 
 Ghastly shadows rise before me, 
 And the darkness gathers o'er me, 
 With its never-ending wo — 
 Now I feel, avenging spirits ! how your spells of madness 
 grow !" 
 
 With a shriek, prolonged and painful, 
 
 Through the wood she fled afar, 
 Where the air was awed and fearful, 
 And between the boughs the tearful 
 
 Shining of a dewy star 
 Pierced alone the solid darkness which enclosed her as a bar. 
 
 Night by night, in gloom and terror, 
 From the crag and from the glen 
 Came those cries, the quiet breaking, 
 Till the shepherd dogs, awaking, 
 
150 THE DEMON OF THE MIRROR. 
 
 Bayed in loud and mournful pain, 
 And the vintager, benighted, trembled on the distant plain. 
 
 Years went by, and stranger footsteps 
 
 Rang in castle, bower and hall : 
 Yet the shrieks, at midnight ringing, 
 Spoke the curse upon it clinging, 
 
 And they left it to its fall, 
 And an utter desolation slowly settled over all. 
 
 Still, when o'er the brow of Etna 
 
 Livid shades begin to roll, 
 Tell the simple herdsman, daunted 
 By the twilight, terror-haunted, 
 How she felt the fiend's control, 
 And they sign the cross in saying — " God in mercy keep 
 her soul ! ?1 
 
 1847. 
 
L'ENVOI. 
 
 I've passed the grim and threatening warders 
 
 That guard the vestibule of Song, 
 And traced the print of bolder footsteps 
 
 The lengthened corridors along ; 
 Where every thought I strove to blazon 
 
 Beside the bannered lays of old, 
 Was dim below some bright escutcheon, 
 
 Or shaded by some grander fold. 
 
 I saw, in veiled and shadowy glimpses, 
 
 The solemn halls expand afar, 
 And through the twilight, half despairing, 
 
 Looked trembling up to find a star : 
 Till, in the rush of wings, awakened 
 
 My soul to utterance bold and strong, 
 And with impassioned exultation 
 
 I reveled in the rage of song ! 
 
152 
 
 Then, though the world beside, unheeding, 
 
 Heard other voices than my own, 
 Thou, thou didst mark the broken music, 
 
 And cheered its proud, aspiring tone : 
 Thou cam'st in many a glorious vision 
 
 To lead my eager spirit on. 
 Thine eye the morning-star of promise, 
 
 That from heaven's towers beheld the dawn. 
 
 I linger on the haunted threshold 
 
 Where greater poets walk apart, 
 Filling with splendor and with freedom 
 
 The pulses of the world's cold heart ; — 
 Their clarion-voices bid my spirit 
 
 The opening gates behind me cast, 
 For Poesy looks ever forward, 
 
 And never may recall her Past ! 
 
 Why fear to tread those mighty chambers ? 
 
 Thou still art near me, as of old, 
 And half I deem to hear thy welcome, 
 
 When the shrined Presence I behold. 
 Take, then, these echoes of thy being, 
 
 My glowing lips have striven to frame ; 
 For when I speak what thou inspirest, 
 
 I know my songs are nearest fame. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 (') Ha, Surtur ! let me hear thy tramping.— Page 118. 
 This is the name of the Scandinavian God of Fire, and might have 
 been appropriately applied to a spirited steed. Skuld, mentioned in the 
 seventh stanza, was the Nome — or Fate — of the Future, and Freya 
 the Northern Goddess of Love. The Gjallarhorn was supposed to be 
 blown by the sentinels of the rainbow— in Northern Mythology the bridge 
 of the Gods — whenever the divinities of the Walhalla passed over its 
 arch. 
 
 ( 2 ) The Demon of the Mirror. —Page 141. 
 
 This poem was suggested by a ballad which appears in a volume of 
 modern Sicilian poetry, published at Naples in 1845. The author, Anto- 
 nio Bisazza, is quite young, and unknown out of Italy. The plot of the 
 story has been materially changed in the present poem, and the language 
 bears no resemblance to the Italian. For the apparition in the mirror, 
 however, from which the whole story grew, I freely acknowledge my 
 indebtedness to the young Sicilian poet. 
 
 ( 3 ) 'Tis from out the secret chamber, where are met the Holy Vehm ! — 
 
 Page 144. 
 
 I am aware that the name of the Holy Vehm — that dreaded Order of 
 the Middle Ages — belongs properly to Germany ; but as branches of it 
 were known to exist in Italy and Sicily, I have thought best to retain the 
 title. The abject obedience to its laws, imposed by this Order on its mem- 
 bers, made it one of the most powerful, and at the same time the most 
 dreaded body, which sprang from conditions of society during that period. 
 
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