OPINIONS OP THE PRESS. 
 
 I " ..... - Mini K<-a\-. hy G. IHckinson. Tliis i- a very pretty \<>lmne. with 
 
 content- ni varied character and interest. ...... . . The author .- 
 
 n\vn poems have a pure and harmonious ri;,;;. ana in making hia selection* 
 
 for ex:iiM|>le ;!iul ill 11-1 rar inn he lias yi \ en u.-the lie-! work of (lie hcsi work 
 ers. It is. however, a an essayist that he shows the best, ami his thought 
 ful, CHI 11 1 1 n -he MS i\ -i ..... ij il ui tii iis in tli is line a re .very i list met ive and enter 
 taining. The viiliini... an A Whole, i8 pure and elevated intone, and perfect 
 in detail." Hn.-t/ini J axt. 
 
 "It is a well printed volume r_"_ ., pa yes. in which the reader will find good 
 and pleasant poem. \\ can quote only one or t\vo extra. -is ...... 
 
 There is a poem of ,20 stanzas on Meraprlei of chiidliooii \\hich ue should 
 like to quote, il our space allowed." 
 
 Tin- /><t//i/ >/,//, }\ iirr, .-ili-r, Mii.t.i. 
 
 "Messrs. A. \Yillifim- ,x t o.. ISoston. have issued a very u. -Iconic volume 
 
 of Poems and Essays. 1>> <\. IMokinson. Th selections are ot course hm a 
 
 Mart of the many which I lie author has written ......... Th- 
 
 , -arly |io.-nis were Written i.: hi.- youny days, some of them he! ore he was six- 
 
 e,irs old. The [ ran.- hit ions from the (iernian u ill he read with ini 
 
 .-..ilarly hy thos.- \\ 1m are familiar with the oi-i^inals. J he essay on lial- 
 
 lad-l oetry. with its lium. .rous and alii quotations, \nlladd lo the value ol 
 
 the volume." *itl<in J. i fjtxt* r. 
 
 "The two essays, Minstrels _and Minstrelsy of the Middle A^esand Karly 
 Ballad-l iietry, will !>.- r>::nl with interest hy lovers of old Kn^lisli literature. 
 Many <>f tlie poems ha VO. already seen the li^ht in ilitferent jimrnals. and rep 
 resent not only the .liftei-ent Stages " ! poetic .l.-\ elopmeni through which 
 
 the writer has passed, bm also the various, moods Of hi- poetic experience," 
 
 Hiixtnii Tr<ni.-riii1. 
 
 The volume inehid. ~ a numher of what the author terms earl\ or juvenile 
 poems, which posses* mnt-uai interest as sueli and show the talent ot the 
 writer at an early p-ri. ..1. The poem dedi. -ate, 1 u. Henry \\". l.on^fellou . 
 on the occasion ot hi- ;.. LD birthday, is particularly tine. K was scarcely a 
 month alter it traa written that the^n-ai poet passed away and the verse bjj 
 singularly appropriate. Accompanying the poems are several eay.- 
 
 bearing directly up .n i le- -uh.jei-t of the verses. The descriol ion of Kar l\ 
 
 Iiallad L oetrj of aill>rfiil Nations, shows deep research and tlie many a;.- 
 
 pcopriati \ tracts \\ ii h \\ liich the text is illustrated show that the. author lias 
 
 :.u.i c.-.r. i ally. Asa whole the work shows pain-taking cai-e. 
 
 and \\iil give plesisuretomany a reader who appreciates works ol character 
 in these times whi IS the most careless of all modern professions." 
 
 
 
 Ml-. \)\ -\ :ahle toilie anthor and will he plea.-in^ 
 
 n ,,l iinlv ti) many readers, iioodsentinient. in fair versili- 
 
 ; . i- expi-es-ed in all I lie poem-, \\hile a praif.e\\ orthv a in hi lion to court 
 
 er acquaintance Hh the -Vluse is every where manifest ....... 
 
 Tli.. essay on Minstrels and Minstrelsy of the Middle Aye- contains u ..... 1 
 reading." ]ii>xtnii Siimlni/ (,!,,!. 
 
 This volume open- ilh an eiuht-pa^e odi ..... the death of ( iarliehl. evi- 
 
 y written when at the death of the chief, strong expressions u ere common. 
 
 historical souvenir, this piece is not \\ithout\alue. There follows it, 
 
 .,., ( -;iv on Minstrel* :i ,l \Iin-l r. lsy of the Middle .\ire-, that is well 
 
 \\,,rlh\ of prrn-alan.l -ludy .......... Then comes another 
 
 excellent e--:i\ oil el-1 oetry ol dill erciit Nations. After a poem 
 
 \ i.-torical note- oti Kenilworth, come some capital poems which have 
 
 ired in the lln- on I, -iveller. hut are pleasant to see ayain. A larfre 
 
 number o| luhcrpoen.- !o !o\v, of varying merits. Inn alioundinu in stirring 
 
 .,il full of worthy suggestions. In many of them one reads lie- 
 
 illie lines : i may or may not haxeheen in i lie poet s mind, 
 
 hut which render ;!.;- \ line a pleasant and n-"ful one io have at hand." 
 
 I ll, I lt.l J ll/IH/i, f.nl T/l, ,V".~.V. 
 
 "Poems and fcssay*. hv<;. Dickinson, is another hid for the poet s fame. 
 
 and the author shou - large poetic feeling and. skill in -verse. The siih.jcct> 
 
 are handled in a ple;u-y nt ana interesting way, and the themes have music 
 
 :\..!!-. The translations are very gqpd ......... 
 
 oticii a poetic nature can put forth more power in prose than inverse 
 at least here is an illn-iralion. for the -t vie is clear, kirc.ihle and full of 
 interest." llo.<tii CU.H ii in irriilt/i. 
 
 "To jud.i;e from tie- 
 >! art jnust n 
 
 h,,ok it? 
 
 sale will he laryv. as every love 
 
 / /n nllljtflil/illlit.
 
 UBRARY 
 
 ltlVERS t* 4* 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 POEMS AND ESSAYS: 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 THE FALLEN CHIEF, THE MINSTREL S CURSE, 
 
 KENILWORTH, TRIBUTES TO HOLMES AND 
 
 LONGFELLOW, BOOTH AS HAMLET, 
 
 THE WIZARD S GRAVE. 
 
 EARLY AND JUVENILE POEMS, AND TRANSLATIONS 
 FROM THE GERMAN; 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ana gpinsttelty of tlje 
 
 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY OF DIFFERENT 
 NATIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 GIDEON DICKINSON. 
 
 "It is the voice of years that are gone; 
 They roll before me with all their deeds." 
 
 "Sic bolbere 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 A. WILLIAMS AND COMPANY, 
 
 It) Corner Bookstore. 
 
 1883.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1883, 
 BY GIDEON DICKINSON. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 PRESS OP RAND, AVERT, AND COMPANY, 
 BOSTON.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE following poems are a part of many which have 
 been composed by the author, during his hours of leisure, 
 while practicing an uncongenial and perplexing profes 
 sion. Some of them were called forth by passing events 
 of the times; while others are the mere offspring of his 
 own fancy in hours of meditation. The longer ones are, 
 with few exceptions, of comparatively recent composition; 
 but to them are added a few which were composed in the 
 early years of the author s life, from his sixteenth year 
 upward, and which may therefore be termed " early " 
 and "juvenile" poems. In selecting from his manu 
 scripts those which were to be given to the public in this 
 little volume, the author was not always moved by the 
 belief that the ones selected were better, or possessed 
 more merit, than others which might be given in their 
 places. But, merely, he chooses to publish these at the 
 present time, and to withhold others, which may perhaps 
 possess more literary merit, from the fact that they con 
 tain allusions to persons yet living, which it would be
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 more proper to make public after they cease to be actors 
 on the world s stage. The author is by no means blind 
 to the imperfections of these trifles, and especially is he 
 aware of the defects of the ones composed in early youth ; 
 and he could easily give to them now a better dress and 
 more finished appearance : but that is what he least 
 wishes to do ; for then they would cease to be the famil 
 iar children and companions of his early years. 1 In their 
 present form they bring back ever to his mind the mem 
 ory of other days and years now passed and gone for 
 ever, repeopling them with dear delightful friends, now 
 changed or far away, or sadder still too often re- 
 peopling them with dear, dear friends now dead and 
 gone for ever. Therefore he chooses to see such early 
 poems in the old familiar dress they always wore; for, to 
 him, 
 
 " A stone unturned 
 
 Is sweeter than a strange or altered face; 
 
 A tree that flings its shadow as of yore 
 
 Will make the blood stir, sometimes, when the words 
 
 Of a long-looked-for lip fall icy cold." 
 
 1 In regard to the poems written in boyhood and early youth, I could 
 say with Wordsworth on a similar occasion, that "it would be easy 
 to amend them now both as to sentiment and expression ; " but, in the 
 case of early and juvenile poems, such emendations are always made 
 "at the risk of injuring those characteristic features which, after all, 
 will be regarded as the principal recommendation of all juvenile poems."
 
 PREFACE. 5 
 
 If it shall be asked, " "Why publish them at all?" the 
 author will answer, that, being inclined to studious habits 
 and somewhat given to meditation, he could not always 
 resist the temptation of putting his thoughts into written 
 form; and, such being the case, they have accumulated to 
 such an extent that it has now become necessary to make 
 some disposition of them; and so, with the distinguished 
 author of " A Fable for Critics," he will say, that 
 
 " These trifles, composed to please only himself 
 And his own private fancy, were laid on the shelf, 
 Till some friends, who had seen them, induced him, by 
 
 dint 
 
 Of saying they liked them, to put them in print; 
 That is, having come to that very conclusion, 
 He consulted them when it could make no confusion." 
 
 And, if these trifles shall meet with the same kind con 
 sideration which has been accorded to some already given 
 to the public, the author will soon publish another volume, 
 containing a series of poems upon Scottish subjects, 
 poems descriptive of Scottish scenes, personages, and 
 events, which were composed during a journey through 
 some of the most picturesque portions of that land of 
 chivalry, romance, and song, where the pilgrim ever walks 
 upon enchanted ground, a land made deeply interesting
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 by deeds of historic fame, and filled with decaying ruins 
 of moldering palaces and crumbling towers, time-worn 
 cathedrals, and castles in decay. 
 
 G. D. 
 
 December, 1882.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 L ENVOi 10 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FALLEN CHIEF . 11 
 
 THE FALLEN CHIEF 14 
 
 MINSTRELS AND MINSTRELSY OF THE MIDDLE AGES . 22 
 
 THE MINSTREL S CURSE. (From the German) . . 27 
 
 MIGNON 34 
 
 MIGNON. (From the German) 36 
 
 THE MAIDEN S LAMENT. (From the German) ... 38 
 
 MAN. (From the German) 40 
 
 OF Us THERE ARE SEVEN. (From the German) . . 43 
 
 THE RICHEST PRINCE. (From the German) ... 47 
 
 THE Two LITTLE WINDOWS. (From the German) . . 49 
 
 CRADLE SONG. (From the German) .... 51 
 
 THE CASTLE BY THE SEA. (From the German) . . 53 
 
 THE MINSTREL. (From the German) .... 55 
 
 I THINK OF THEE. (From the German) .... 58 
 
 THE CASTLE OF BONCOURT. (From the German) . 60 
 
 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY OF DIFFERENT NATIONS . . 63 
 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POEM OF KENIL- 
 
 WORTH 105 
 
 KENILWORTH 109
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 APPENDIX TO THE POEM OF KENILWORTH . . . 117 
 
 THE WIZARD S GRAVE 121 
 
 To EDWIN BOOTH AS HAMLET 126 
 
 TRIBUTE TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES . . . 132 
 
 OLIVER AND JAMES 136 
 
 THE GREEN, THE GOLD CORN, AND THE SHEAVES . 140 
 
 THE FADED FLOWER 143 
 
 THESE BUDS AND FLOWERS 146 
 
 LITTLE MAIDEN SWEET AND FAIR 148 
 
 TIME S LESSON 151 
 
 THERE WAS A TIME 153 
 
 THE SUN OF HOPE 155 
 
 METEMPSYCHOSIS 158 
 
 THAT SULTRY FOURTH OF JULY 161 
 
 HEAVEN S ARTILLERY, OR WAR AND PEACE . . . 163 
 
 MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD 167 
 
 THE HEART THAT IN SILENCE is BREAKING . . . 173 
 
 TO MlSS ON RECEIVING HER PICTURE . . . 177 
 
 STANZAS. To Miss 180 
 
 ETHEL GRAY 181 
 
 THE POWER OF SONG 184 
 
 THE FRIARS GRAY 185 
 
 THE MORNING WALK 187 
 
 THE EVENING WALK 189 
 
 THE BROKEN Vow 191 
 
 SONG: I LL DREAM OF THEE 193 
 
 STAKZAS. To 195 
 
 MY BARK ROCKS IN THE BAY BELOW .... 198 
 
 MUSINGS . . 201
 
 CONTENTS. 9 
 
 PAGE 
 To ANNA, WITH A COPY OF LONGFELLOW S "VOICES OF 
 
 THE NIGHT" 203 
 
 THE APOLOGY 205 
 
 GIVE ME BACK MY BREAKING HEART .... 207 
 
 To MARY, DEPARTED 210 
 
 OH, ASK ME NOT WHEN I AM SAD 213 
 
 FAREWELL TO MY LITTLE SCHOOLMATE . . . 215 
 
 THE SUMMER DAYS OF 81 217 
 
 To HENRY "W. LONGFELLOW ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH 
 
 BIRTHDAY 219 
 
 WHEN THE POET DIES . . . 223
 
 L ENVOI. 
 
 Child of my brain and offspring of the heart, 
 The fleeting hours have rolled o er thee and me, 
 Till now the hour has come when we must part ; 
 And thou alone shalt dare the world s dark sea, 
 While I must vainly wait and watch for thee, 
 Fearing lest evil tidings from thee come : 
 For well I know the dangers of that sea 
 Where thou, unaided, art compelled to roam, 
 Seeking, perchance in vain, for sympathy and home. 
 
 But go thou forth into the heartless world, 
 And meet its scorn and hatred with a smile ; 
 For scorn and hatred at thee shall be hurled, 
 Yet bear thee bravely on thy course the while ; 
 And, if with flattering speech some should beguile, 
 Prove well their fair words ere thou deeni st them true , 
 For hatred often lurks beneath a smile, 
 And poisoned fruits are fairest to the view : 
 But, trusting thee to Fate, I bid thee now adieu.
 
 POEMS AND ESSAYS. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE 
 FALLEN CHIEF. 
 
 JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD was the twentieth President 
 of the United States. 1 He was born in the little town of 
 Orange, Ohio, on the 19th of November, 1831. He suf 
 fered, in his youth, all the privations and hardships of 
 Western pioneer life. Left an orphan in earliest life, he 
 succeeded, by his own efforts, in obtaining a collegiate 
 education; and became, afterwards, first a teacher of 
 Latin and Greek, and then a college president. He also 
 studied law, and was admitted to the bar. When the 
 civil war broke out, he entered the Union army as colo 
 nel of the 42d Ohio Volunteers, and was ordered to the 
 front in December, 1861. In the army he was distin 
 guished as a brave and very competent officer. His mili 
 tary record was a brilliant one. He took part in the 
 great battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga, and was made 
 
 1 He was the seventeenth President, counting only those persons 
 who were regularly chosen to the office of President; but three former 
 Vice-Presidents became Presidents by reason of the death of the Presi 
 dents of their times. 
 
 11
 
 12 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 a major-general of volunteers "for gallant and merito 
 rious services " in the last-named battle. 
 
 He afterwards served several years in the Congress of 
 the United States as a member from the State of Ohio. 
 And, at the Republican National Convention which met 
 at Chicago in June, 1880, General Garfield \vas chosen, 
 after the convention had been sitting for ten days, as the 
 candidate of the party for the presidency. At the na 
 tional election, November, 1880, he -was elected by a 
 handsome majority to the presidency of the United States. 
 In the spring of 1881 he left his happy home in Mentor, 
 Ohio, to go on to Washington and assume the duties 
 of President, and took the oath of office and was in 
 augurated on Friday, the 4th of March, 1881, with 
 ceremonies of unusual magnificence. But, alas! that 
 happy home in dear old Mentor, where he had passed 
 some of the happiest years of his life, surrounded by his 
 mother, wife, and loving children, that happy home 
 which he had so recently left with regret and a heavy 
 heart, that happy home he was doomed never again to 
 revisit in life; for, on the 2d of July following, while 
 passing through the railroad depot in Washington, to 
 take the cars with the intention of making a trip north 
 ward for rest and recreation, he was shot down from 
 behind, and mortally wounded, by a miserable assassin, 
 one Guiteau, a disappointed and crack-brained poli 
 tician, who confessed to have been dogging him for weeks 
 with the intention of killing him. The assassin was 
 immediately arrested, and imprisoned to suffer the pen 
 alty of his crime. The wounded President was carefully 
 taken up, and tenderly cared for; and from that fatal 2d 
 of July, until the nineteenth day of September, he lin-
 
 THE FALLEN CHIEF. 13 
 
 gered on through eighty long and heart-rending days of 
 suffering, pain, and sorrow, where faint rays of hope often 
 alternated with shadows of despair, till exhausted nature 
 at length gave out; and, surrounded by his anxious, weep 
 ing wife and children, he calmly breathed his last, and 
 was at rest ; and a united nation, bowed down in 
 sorrow, mourned his loss with quivering lips and floods 
 of burning tears.
 
 THE FALLEN CHIEF. 
 
 " After life s fitful fever, he sleeps well ; 
 Treason has done his worst : nor steel, nor poison 
 Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, 
 Can touch him further ! " 
 
 Macbeth, Act iii. Scene 2. 
 
 O GOD, behold a prostrate State ! l 
 
 O Christ, incline thy gracious ear ! 
 O God, avert such dreadful fate ! 
 
 O Christ, in mercy, wilt thou hear? 
 O God, a nation bends the knee ! 
 
 O Christ, behold a nation s grief! 
 O God, a nation prays to thee ! 
 
 O Father! Saviour ! spare our Chief ! 
 
 Such, such the praj er, the suppliant cry, 
 
 Which a united nation gave : 
 Their mingled voices, through the sky, 
 
 Pra3*ed God their honored Chief to save. 
 
 1 While President Garfield was slowly hut surely sinking from the 
 effects of his mortal wound, a day of public fasting and prayer was 
 appointed to be held, in which both churches and people heartily joined 
 in prayers to God for his recovery. All places of business were closed; 
 all labor suspended for the day, which was universally and solemnly 
 observed. 
 
 14
 
 THE FALLEN CHIEF. 15 
 
 A nation s women poured their tears 
 Their burning tears in sight of Heaven, 
 
 And sighed their tender, soul-felt prayers, 
 That life to him might yet be given. 
 
 But not a nation s burning tears 
 
 Could change the fixed decrees of Heaven, 
 And to a nation s mingled prayers 
 
 No answer from on high was given. 
 Weak man, rejoice ! God s ways are sure : 
 
 Effect shall ever follow cause ; 
 Millions of worlds all rest secure 
 
 Through his unchanged, unchanging laws. 
 
 Then why repine at what he sends ? 
 
 Why pray to change his fixed decree ? 
 Whate er is best for noble ends, 
 
 God, and God only, can foresee ! 
 Tis true, our noble, honored Chief 
 
 By an assassin s hand lies low ; 
 Tis true, our hearts are bowed with grief: 
 
 But God for good decreed it so. 
 
 He died with honor, and his bed 
 Is with the noble, sainted dead, 
 And the world s history shall enshrine 
 His noble deeds and death sublime. 
 He died but wrote his shining name 
 The highest on the scroll of fame,
 
 16 THE FALLEN CHIEF. 
 
 And ever there his name shall shine 
 A beacon-light through coming time. 
 
 A hundred bards have sung his fame, 
 
 Bards of renown and noble name ; 
 
 The gray-haired bards, before whose eyes 
 
 The visioned future open lies ; 
 
 And infant bards, whose souls of fire 
 
 Are toying with the unproved l} T re. 
 
 The} T all have brought both young and old - 
 
 Their harp s rich treasures, songs of gold ; 
 
 And shall I humblest of the throng 
 
 Forget to weave a requiem song? 
 
 Shall I sit sorrowing in gloom, 
 
 Nor weave one garland for his tomb ? 
 
 No ! let my harp her slumbers break, 
 
 And let poetic thought awake ! 
 
 Let my hand wake each tuneful string 
 
 While I my humble tribute bring, 
 
 A tribute for our noble Chief, 
 
 And her whose heart is bowed in grief, 
 
 A chaplet for our Chiefs dark tomb, 
 
 And her whose soul is wrapped in gloom. 
 
 The autumn winds, hoarse, loud, and strong. 
 Shall sing his solemn requiem song ; 
 The drifting snows, in winter gloom, 
 Shall spread their mantle o er his tomb ;
 
 THE FALLEN CHIEF. 17 
 
 But never shall his palsied ear 
 The solemn winds of autumn hear, 
 And never shall he wake to know 
 The chill of winter s drifted snow, 
 And never can he feel the sting 
 That Malice poisoned words can bring. 
 
 " After life s fitful fever, he 
 
 Sleeps well in calm tranquillity ; 
 
 " Treason has done his worst," and now 
 
 No care can cloud his noble brow ; 
 
 " Malice domestic " ne er can come 
 
 To sting him in his happy home ; 
 
 Nor " foreign levy," on strange shore, 
 
 " Nor steel, nor poison, touch him " more. 
 
 He sleeps in peace ; and we must all 
 
 Deplore his sad, untimely fall. 
 
 But, bowed with grief, we saj r , with pride, 
 A hero lived ! a martyr died ! 
 For his loved countr}* Garfield gave 
 His life, and filled a mart}T s grave ; 
 And Freedom s goddess, free from stain, 
 Now consecrates his noble name. 
 His body sleeps beneath the sod ; 
 His soul, in peace, rests with his God. 
 
 For what he was and what he dared, 
 Remember him for a} e ;
 
 18 THE FALLEN CHIEF. 
 
 And that his memor}- be spared, 
 We evermore will pray. 
 
 Let a united country bend, 
 And give him grateful tear ; 
 
 Let party strife for ever end ; 
 Let concord re-appear ! 
 
 No North, no South, no East, no West 
 
 He died alike for all ! 
 United, they are strong and blest ; 
 
 Divided, they would fall. 
 
 Let politicians cease their strife, 
 Their vulture-greed forego : 
 
 Their shameless quarrels cost his life, 
 His, and poor Lincoln s, too. 
 
 Oh, let all discord in the State 
 
 For ever buried be ! 
 Let love fraternal, free from hate, 
 
 Our future motto be. 
 
 The world will blush for shame to see, 
 And Freedom s sun go down, 
 
 If Freedom s price so oft must be 
 A martyr s bloody crown !
 
 THE FALLEN CHIEF. 19 
 
 Give we our pity now to those 
 
 Whose cup is filled with earthly woes : 
 
 His aged mother, bowed with } ears, 
 
 What words can dry her burning tears ? 
 
 She, who so fondly doted on 
 
 Her lost and murdered darling son, 
 
 What words can paint the wretched woe 
 
 That her last, saddened years must know ? 
 
 Weighed down with years, and bowed with grief, 
 
 E en death to her would bring relief; 
 
 And she will pray full soon to meet 
 
 Her dear lost son at Jesus feet. 
 
 She loved, as only mothers love : 
 
 With him she soon shall meet above. 
 
 But his poor widowed wife ! what eye 
 Can view her grief, and still be dry ? 
 Her bursting heart, ah ! who can weigh 
 
 o / o 
 
 Its anguish when he passed away ? 
 When, kneeling by his lifeless form, 
 To her caress came no return : 
 Then joy expired, and hope sank low, 
 And her sad soul was wrapped in woe ; 
 And, ever now, in darkened gloom 
 She dwells, as in a living tomb. 
 To her, oh ! how can minstrel sing? 
 To her, what comfort can he bring? 
 I strike the chords of hope, and, lo ! 
 My wailing harp gives notes of woe !
 
 20 THE FALLEN CHIEF. 
 
 Her sole remaining hope to rear 
 His darling children, loved and dear, 
 And clasp them to a mother s heart, 
 Feeling that they of him are part : 
 Back in their dear old Mentor home, 
 What feelings to their souls must come, 
 "When they at eve are gathered there, 
 And gaze upon his vacant chair ! 1 
 And then, perchance, his infant s tongue 
 Will stammer, " When will papa come? " 
 And quivering lips give faint reply, 
 While burning tears fill every eye ; 
 And one " his loved and petted child," 
 His " Mollie dear " with grief is wild ! 2 
 And, oh ! how many hearts draw nigh 
 To theirs in human s} mpathy ! 
 
 The air is filled with mournful lamentation 
 
 For our great Chieftain s fall ! 
 The heartfelt tribute of a mighty nation, 
 And s3-mpathy from all ! 
 
 1 After the death of President Garfield, his wife and children re 
 turned to their home in Mentor, Ohio, which remained just as the} left it 
 a few months before, when they went to reside at Washington. Their 
 feelings at the sight of each familiar object in their once happy home 
 now made desolate by the loss of that dear husband and father may 
 perhaps be imagined, but can never be described. 
 
 * President Garfield left five living children, four sons, and one only 
 daughter, Mary, who, as such, was his petted child. She was fourteen 
 years old at his death. He called her by the pet name of " Mollie." She 
 was deeply affected by his sickness and sufferings, and overwhelmed 
 with grief at his untimely death.
 
 THE FALLEN CHIEF. 21 
 
 From far-off lands, across the sobbing ocean, 
 
 Comes many a kindly word : 
 The heart of England s Queen, with soft emotion 
 
 And sympathy, is stirred. 1 
 
 She sends kind greeting to a sister woman, 
 
 Although to her unknown, 
 Showing that woman s heart is very human, 
 
 Though mounted on a throne. 
 
 Oh, may it comfort their unbounded sorrow, 
 
 And dr}- their tear-stained e} es ! 
 The prostrate soul from sympathy will borrow, 
 
 At times, new strength to rise. 
 
 The world is full of bleeding hearts, and broken ; 
 
 Some bleed and heal again ; 
 While some live on, and give no outward token 
 
 Of their undying pain. 
 
 Not by the orphan s God are they unheeded : 
 
 He heeds each sparrow s fall ; 
 The " balm in Gilead," when most sorely needed, 
 
 He sendeth unto all. 
 
 1 President Garfield s sufferings and death elicited many kind expres 
 sions of sympathy and regret from the governments and crowned heads 
 of the Old World; and Queen Victoria sent more than one letter to Mrs. 
 Gariield, expressing, in the kindest manner, her sympathy and condo 
 lence.
 
 MIXSTRELS AND MINSTRELSY OF THE 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 THE fine old German ballad, " The Minstrel s Curse," 
 presents to the imagination a vivid picture of customs, 
 personages, and rude events of the Middle Ages. It re 
 counts, in sonorous and highly poetic language, the hard 
 experience which the wandering minstrels of old some 
 times met with, among the half-barbarous kings and 
 barons of the warlike tribes of Scandinavia and Ger 
 many, in the rude and far-off ages now long since past 
 and gone. And it tends to show how the rapt and in 
 spired utterances of the bard or scald or minstrel were 
 received as prophetic by the rude, credulous, and half- 
 barbarous inhabitants of earth in those far-off, supersti 
 tious times. The minstrels (called in Germany "minne 
 singers") were a class of men peculiar to the Middle 
 Ages, who united in themselves the arts of poetry and 
 music; and they were accustomed to sing, to the accom 
 paniment of the harp or lute or cithern, their own poetic 
 compositions or the compositions of others. 
 
 They were called in Germany "minnesingers," from 
 the ancient German word minne, which originally de 
 noted love and friendship, sometimes even divine love; 
 and during the Middle Ages the German poets expressed 
 by it particularly a pure, faithful, and generally happy 
 love between the sexes. Love was the vital element of 
 22
 
 MINSTRELS AND MINSTRELSY. 23 
 
 chivalry; and, with the German poets, it was held to be 
 something purer, more ideal, and more elevating, than 
 among the French. 
 
 Thus the name of minnesingers was given to the Ger 
 man lyric poets of the Middle Ages, because love was the 
 principal subject of their poems. These erotic poets (epu$, 
 love) flourished in Germany for about two hundred years, 
 that is, from about 1150 to 1350, and especially 
 under the Suabian emperors of the house of Hohenstau- 
 fen, whence they were sometimes called the Suabian 
 poets, and because the Suabian dialect prevailed in their 
 poems. This same class of poets, during the Middle Ages, 
 in the south of Europe, flourished extensively : and in 
 France, Northern Italy, and parts of Spain, they were 
 called trouveurs, troveres, or troubadours, from the French 
 \vordtrouver, " to find," " invent; " that is, they were the 
 inventors, the makers, because they exercised the high and 
 creative faculty of embodying sentiments and circum 
 stances which had no existence except in their own im 
 aginations, and, by their lofty and original poetic powers 
 arid creative faculties, they could impress the minds of 
 their hearers with scenes and sentiments which often 
 owed their reality of appearance only to the high creative 
 art of the minstrel-poet. All these the minstrels, 
 minnesingers, trouveurs, or troubadours seem to have 
 been the genuine successors and inheritors of the ancient 
 bards. Bard was the name that was given to the earliest 
 poets of Greece, as well as to those inspired persons of 
 the Celtic tribes of Western Europe, who, in the earliest 
 times, raised the war-cry of their tribes in battle; and 
 who, in times of peace, sang the exploits of their heroes, 
 and celebrated the attributes of their gods, and chronicled
 
 24 MINSTRELS AND MINSTRELSY 
 
 the important events in the history of their tribes. The 
 ancient bard was accustomed to deliver his rapt utter 
 ances in moments of high mental excitement, accom 
 panied by the music of his harp or other musical instru 
 ment; and at such times he claimed to be inspired, and 
 to speak and create things unknown to ordinary mortals: 
 and this high creative faculty gained for him, in Greece, 
 the appellation UoiijTfc, "a maker," "creator" (of a poem), 
 fromthe verbTHMco," I make," "produce," "create," "bring 
 to pass." Strabo tells us that the ancient bards were treated 
 with a respect approaching to veneration; and we learn 
 from the histories of the earliest times, that among the 
 Celtic tribes of Western Europe especially in Wales, Ire 
 land, and Scotland the bards were looked upon as the 
 natural priests, lawgivers, and heralds of the wild and 
 barbarous tribes which occupied the ancient forests of 
 those countries in the earliest times. And for centuries 
 they were the honored companions and advisers of kings 
 and princes, whose fame they have outlived; and some of 
 their names are even celebrated at this late day. Among 
 the earliest of the Welsh bards are Taliesin and Llywarch, 
 who flourished during the sixth century: but their lan 
 guage is now nearly obsolete and forgotten ; and the last 
 echoes of their inspired harps, like those of their brother 
 bards, have long since died away in the dim distance of 
 forgotten time ; and never, in all the coming ages of the 
 future, shall their inspired tones be heard again, except 
 it be in the faint and feeble echoes from out the dim past, 
 which, in some rapt moments, reach and vibrate upon 
 the intellectual tympanum of the poetic antiquary and 
 scholar. 
 
 To the bards of pagan times, the minnesingers and
 
 OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 25 
 
 minstrels of the Middle Ages seem to be natural and gen 
 uine successors; and although, in the light of dawning 
 civilization and early Christianity, they were not accorded 
 all the distinctive qualities of inspiration and veneration 
 which had been given by the barbarians to the bards 
 of pagan times, still the minstrels of the Middle Ages 
 were looked upon generally as men of a superior order, 
 whose rapt vision could, in moments of poetic ecstasy, 
 pierce the dark curtain that conceals the future from 
 the eyes of ordinary mortals; and that to them, in their 
 ecstatic moments of mental inspiration, were yielded 
 glimpses into the dim future; and that to them some 
 times 
 
 "Coming events cast their shadows before." 
 
 The minstrels of the Middle Ages were generally of 
 noble descent, and the honored companions of kings, 
 princes, and nobles; and kings themselves sometimes 
 exercised the minstrel s art. It is well known to all 
 readers of history how Richard I. of England (Richard 
 Coaur de Lion) practiced the minstrel-art, and how (when 
 he had been cast into prison on his return from the Holy 
 Land through the dominions of the Duke of Austria) his 
 favorite minstrel, Blondel, in despair at his long absence, 
 set forth and wandered from castle to castle, found him 
 at last by means of singing, under the walls of his prison, 
 the minstrel-song which King Richard and he had for 
 merly composed and sung together. This happened about 
 A.D. 1193. In the golden days of minstrelsy the min 
 strels usually dwelt as honored guests and companions in 
 the palaces and castles of kings and nobles, where their 
 society was much esteemed, because, by their songs and
 
 26 MINSTRELS AND MINSTRELSY. 
 
 harpings, they exalted and fostered the romantic and 
 chivalric spirit of the times. But, in later times, as the 
 minstrel-art declined with the decline of chivalry, the art 
 of the minstrel came to be practiced by persons of less 
 noble descent, who chanced to be endowed with high 
 poetic talents. And then the minstrels often wandered 
 from castle to castle, like those in the ballad of " The 
 Minstrel s Curse," where they were usually honorably 
 and kindly received ; and where they sang their ininstrel- 
 songs, in old baronial halls, to the music of their harps, 
 lutes, or citherns, for the amusement and diversion of 
 listening lords and ladies, by whom they were admired in 
 those rude times; and where they long supplied the want 
 of needed entertainment; and where, it is to be hoped, 
 for the sake of humanity s honor, as well as for the honor 
 of chivalry and the profession of arms, they seldom or 
 never received the harsh and bloody treatment that those 
 poor minstrels met with, in the ballad, as a hard meed 
 for all their golden songs, and in revenge for which the 
 gray-haired old minstrel, pointing to the pale, disfigured 
 countenance of his murdered son, utters in the rapt 
 ecstasy of poetic frenzy " The Minstrel s Curse."
 
 THE MINSTREL S CURSE. 
 
 AN ANCIENT BALLAD. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 
 I. 
 
 THERE stood once in the olden time a castle high 
 
 and grand : 
 Its lofty towers looked on the sea, and far upon the 
 
 land ; 
 All round it fragrant gardens smiled, like garlands 
 
 of rare worth, 
 Wherein, with rainbow-splendor, burst full many a 
 
 fountain forth. 
 
 n. 
 
 In lands and conquests rich and proud, a king of 
 
 ancient race 
 Once sat upon that castle s throne, with dark and 
 
 faded face ; 
 His musings full of darksome fears, his looks were 
 
 full of rage, 
 His every word was like a curse writ on a bloody 
 
 page. 
 
 27
 
 28 THE MINSTREL S CURSE. 
 
 III. 
 Once journeyed towards that castle proud a noble 
 
 minstrel-pair, 
 The one with youthful golden locks, the other gray 
 
 of hair : 
 The elder one, with noble harp, on gallant steed did 
 
 ride ; 
 The blooming youth, with active step, held ever by 
 
 his side. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The elder minstrel, speaking, said, " Be ready now, 
 
 my son ! 
 Think of our noblest songs of love ; sound every 
 
 plaintive tone ; 
 Exert thy soul to paint the power of pleasure and 
 
 of pain ; 
 Be it our aim to move with love the king s hard 
 
 heart again." 
 
 v. 
 
 Now in the lofty-columned hall the minstrels ready 
 stand, 
 
 With king and queen upon their thrones, and cour 
 tiers on each hand, 
 
 The king in threatening splendor, like the flaming 
 northern lights ; 
 
 The queen as sweet and mild as the fair moon in 
 summer nights.
 
 THE MINSTREL S CURSE. 29 
 
 VI. 
 The gray-haired minstrel swept the chords : twas 
 
 wonderful to hear 
 How richer, ever richer, swelled their notes upon 
 
 the ear ; 
 Then, with a heavenly sweetness, rose that younger 
 
 minstrel s tones, 
 Joined by the deep voice of his sire, like mournful 
 
 spirit-moans. 
 
 VII. 
 
 They sing of blessed golden times, of early love and 
 
 spring ; 
 Of freedom, manly worth and truth and holiness, 
 
 they sing ; 
 They sing of all the tender thoughts that soothe the 
 
 heart to rest ; 
 They sing the high and noble deeds that thrill the 
 
 human breast. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 That courtly throng around the king forgot all hate 
 and scorn ; 
 
 The king s stern warriors bowed the head to God 
 that summer morn ; 
 
 The sweet queen s tender heart was moved with sad 
 ness and with joy : 
 
 She cast the roses from her breast down to that 
 minstrel-boy.
 
 30 THE MINSTREL S CURSE. 
 
 IX. 
 
 "Ye have misled my people, and allured my wife s 
 
 weak choice," 
 The raging king cried sternly out, with trembling 
 
 limbs and voice. 
 Drawing his shining sword, he pierced that younger 
 
 minstrel s breast : 
 Forth springs the blood-stream, and his golden 
 
 songs are hushed to rest. 
 
 x. 
 
 Scattered is all that courtly throng, like leaves by 
 
 autumn blast ; 
 And in his father s arms the dying minstrel breathed 
 
 his last : 
 The father wrapped him in his cloak, and placed him 
 
 on his steed ; 
 Holding him firmly there, he left that castle s court 
 
 with speed. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The gray -haired minstrel halts beneath that portal- 
 arch and wall, 
 
 And, seizing there his precious harp, most price 
 less harp of all, 
 
 Upon a marble column tall he dashed that harp s 
 sweet chords, 
 
 And called till courts and castle all re-echoed with 
 his words :
 
 THE MINSTREL S CURSE. 31 
 
 XII. 
 
 Woe to }*ou and your lofty halls ! May never more 
 be heard 
 
 Within these walls a harp s sweet tone, or song of 
 minstrel-bard ! 
 
 Oh, here be only sighs and groans, and timid slave- 
 steps old ! 
 
 Avenging ghosts you and your walls tread down to 
 dust and mould ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Woe to }-ou and your gardens sweet here in the 
 
 fair May-light ! 
 
 I show you here this dead one s face, this pale dis 
 figured sight, 
 
 That }*e thereat may wither, and these fountains 
 cease to pi a}* ! 
 
 That, petrified and perished, ye shall lie in future 
 day ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 " Woe to thee, cursed murderer ! thou curse of min- 
 
 strelsie ! 
 Thy strivings after crowns of bloody fame in vain 
 
 shall be ; 
 Thy name shall be forgotten, and in endless night 
 
 go out ; 
 And thou shalt be like dying groan in empty air 
 
 breathed out !
 
 32 THE MINSTREL S CURSE. 
 
 XV. 
 
 The old man s curse is spoken now, and Heaven 
 
 has heard his praj-er : 
 That lofty castle s walls lie low ; its ruined halls are 
 
 bare. 
 One lofty column only tells of splendor past and 
 
 gone, 
 And that already thunder-riven shall soon be 
 
 lying prone. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Instead of fragrant gardens there, are desolate 
 
 heath-lands ; 
 No tree now scatters grateful shade, no fountains 
 
 cool the sands. 
 Of that king s name, no hero-book 1 or song gives 
 
 any word : 
 Sunk and forgotten, all are lost! the minstrel s 
 
 curse was heard ! 
 
 1 Hero-book ; i.e., the German " Heldcnbuch," or " Book of Heroes." 
 The " Heldenbuch "is a very celebrated collection of old German poems, 
 in which arc embodied many national traditions of Germany in very 
 remote times, and wherein are recorded in song the exploits and ad 
 ventures of the most celebrated knights and heroes of Germany. 
 
 These poems have become world-renowned, and interest and excite 
 the imagination, not only from their antiquity and rude poetic beauties, 
 hut also by their vivid and romantic tales of love and war in the olden 
 times, when love and war were almost the only occupations of knights, 
 nobles, and heroes; and for a knight or king not to be honorably men 
 tioned in song and hero-book, was simply to be consigned to a nameless 
 and dishonorable grave. The poems of which the "Ileldenbuch" is 
 composed were written by the earliest poets of Germany, who, like the
 
 THE MINSTREL S CURSE. 33 
 
 ancient minstrels of England and Scotland, probably wandered from 
 castle to castle, and sang them to the accompaniment of the harp or cith 
 ern, in old baronial halls, to delighted audiences of lords and ladies. 
 These poems were composed by various authors at different times, and 
 were afterwards collected together into a sort of continuous history, as the 
 Iliad is said to have been in Greece. Many of them relate to the Suabian 
 period; and they, together with the " Nibelungen Lied," another very 
 celebrated collection of German national songs, about which Mr. Car- 
 lyle wrote much, are to Germany what the Iliad of Homer is to 
 Greece; and, indeed, the " Nibelungen Lied" is often called the Ger 
 man Iliad. These old heroic poems, says Mr. Carlyle, "are strangely 
 intertwisted, and growing out of and into one another; and they show 
 to the Germans that they too, as well as the Greeks, have their heroic 
 age ; and round the old Valhalla, as their northern Pantheon, are grouped 
 a world of demi-gods and wonders. ... A strange charm lies in these 
 old tones [songs], where, in gay dancing melodies, the sternest tidings 
 are sung to us ; and deep floods of sadness and strife play lightly in little 
 curling billows, like seas in summer."
 
 MIGNOX. 
 
 MIGNON is one of the sweet and interesting characters 
 
 perhaps the most interesting in Gothe s " Wilhelm 
 Meister." In her earliest childhood of which she still 
 retains some faint and imperfect memories she had 
 been stolen from her noble home and parents by a band 
 of strolling gipsies or jugglers, and secretly carried from 
 her own sunny Italy, across the Alps, into Germany. As 
 she grew up she was taught by her harsh masters to 
 sing, dance, and perform feats on the rope, etc., to gain 
 money for those who had stolen her. But, through all 
 her hardships, she still retained a faint remembrance of 
 her early, happy childhood in a beautiful home in warm 
 and sunny Italy, where she had been loved and petted, 
 
 with a deep and longing desire to return thither again. 
 And she remembered more vividly her sad and dark jour 
 ney over the dangerous and fearful Alps, with their misty 
 cloud-paths and dreadful avalanches, which had probably 
 filled her childish and terror-stricken mind with horror. 
 Wilhelm Meister happened one day to witness the per 
 formances of Mignon and her troupe, during which 
 Mignon was unmercifully abused. This so aroused his 
 sympathy for the child, that he obtained possession of 
 her, and became her protector. One morning, soon after, 
 he was surprised at finding her before his door singing 
 the following song to the accompaniment of a cithern, 
 
 34
 
 MIGNON. 35 
 
 which had accidentally fallen into her hands. On finish 
 ing the song for the second time, she stood silent for a 
 moment, looked keenly into Wilhelm s face, and asked 
 him, " Know st thou the land? " " It must be 
 Italy," said Wilhelm, musingly ; but the child s his 
 tory was yet a mystery to him. " Where didst thou 
 get the little song? " said he. "Italy, " said Mignon, 
 with a sad and earnest air: "if thou go to Italy, take 
 me along with thee, for I am too cold here." " Hast 
 thou been there already, little dear ? " said Wilhelm. 
 But the child was silent, and nothing more could he 
 learn from her.
 
 MIGNON. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 
 I. 
 
 KNOW ST thou the land where the fair citrons grow ? 
 Through foliage dark golden oranges glow, 
 Where the blue heavens breathe fragrant, balmy air, 
 And modest myrtle stands with laurel fair? 
 
 Know st thou it well? then thither, oh ! 
 
 Would I with thee, my own beloved one, go ! 
 
 n. 
 
 Know st thou the house, with columns ranged around ? 
 The great hall shines ; the rooms with gilt abound ; 
 And marble statues stand and gaze on me, 
 And say, " Poor child, what have they done to 
 
 thee?" 
 
 Know st thou it well? then thither, oh ! 
 Would I with thee, my dear protector, go ! 
 36
 
 MIGNON. 37 
 
 III. 
 
 Know st thou the mountain where the cloud-paths 
 
 stray ? 
 
 The muleteer seeks in mist his doubtful way ; 
 In the deep cavern dwells the dragon s brood ; 
 Down plunge the rocks, and over them the flood. 
 
 Know st thou it well? then thither, oh ! 
 
 Goes our own way ! O father, let us go !
 
 THE MAIDEN S LAMENT. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 
 THE oak forests roar, 
 
 And the dark clouds sail by ; 
 On the green of the shore 
 
 Sits a maiden to sigh ; 
 And the wild waves are breaking with power and 
 
 might, 
 While the maiden sighs out in the dark, gloomy 
 
 night, 
 And her eyes are all reddened with weeping. 
 
 n. 
 
 The heart sad and broken ; 
 
 Life, empty and vain, 
 Now gives her no token 
 
 Or comfort in pain : 
 
 " Thou Holy One, call now thy child back again ! 
 I have tasted earth s pleasures ; no more now re 
 main : 
 
 I have lived, and loved one who is sleeping." 
 38
 
 THE MAIDEN S LAMENT. 39 
 
 III. 
 
 But the course of her tears 
 Is all fruitless and vain ; 
 The lamenting for years 
 
 Wakes the dead not again. 
 
 Oh ! tell what can comfort and heal the sick heart 
 When sweet vanished love leaves us only its smart : 
 I, the heavenly one, will not deny it. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Let in vain be the course 
 
 Of the tears that are shed ; 
 Let laments have no force 
 
 To awaken the dead ; 
 Still the sweetest of pleasure for hearts that must 
 
 mourn, 
 
 When love s vanished pleasure no more can return, 
 Is love s hallowed grief. All must try it.
 
 MAN. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 I. 
 
 IN the world, outcast and lonely, 
 Stands weak man, forsaken here, 
 
 Storms and winds around him raging ; 
 Nothing to his heart is dear. 
 
 Lovingly the stars call to him, 
 
 And the sweet flowers whisper, too, 
 
 "Look not sadly on the future, 
 We, O man, are one with you ! " 
 
 And he presses, with deep longing, 
 Earth and heaven to his heart ; 
 
 And, in warm and tender tear-drops, 
 Love relieves his keenest smart. 
 40
 
 MAN, 41 
 
 IV. 
 
 But the north-wind sweeps the meadows ; 
 
 All the flowerets fade and die ; 
 While, with pilgrim-staff, he wanders 
 
 Earth, and puts his trust on high. 
 
 v. 
 
 And, with heart and soul still hoping, 
 Looks he to heaven s starry train ; 
 And the tender blossoms, bursting 
 From the bleak earth, bloom again. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Youth s companions, from him fleeing, 
 Give him o er to want and pain ; 
 
 No one sharing now his sorrows, 
 Old age weighs him down amain. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Lastly, seeks he for the threshold 
 Where his cradle once did stand ; 
 
 But the place is strange and altered : 
 No one takes him by the hand. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Trustingly he gazes upwards 
 To the heavens, as once before : 
 
 " Oh ! my course on earth is ended ; 
 Youth to me will come no more.
 
 42 MAN. 
 
 IX. 
 
 " Many things with time may perish ; 
 
 Still some must immortal be : 
 One there is, and I will trust Him, 
 One, whom those bright stars can see ! 
 
 x. 
 
 " I can love, believing, hoping : 
 
 Through the darkness shines a light, 
 And I see the heavens opening 
 
 When breaks the heart in endless night."
 
 OF US THERE ARE SEVEN. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 
 I. 
 
 SURROUNDED with fair flowers, sat a child beside a 
 
 grave, 
 Where in the morning wind her long, dark flowing 
 
 hair did wave : 
 Her cheeks were glowing fresh and fair, like cherries 
 
 in sweet May ; 
 Her fair eyes beaming clear and bright, like stars at 
 
 close of day. 
 
 n. 
 
 Never was bird more lovely seen that in the 
 
 branches sings ; 
 Never gazelle more joyful was that through the 
 
 greenwood springs : 
 " Of brothers and of sisters dear, how many are }"e, 
 
 pray ? 
 " Seven in all there are of us," the child did quickly 
 
 say. 
 
 43
 
 44 OF US THERE ARE SEVEN. 
 
 III. 
 "Two planting in the garden are; two sleep in 
 
 green graves here ; 
 And two are fishing on the lake ; seven are we, sir, 
 
 tis clear ! " 
 " If two are fishing on the lake, and in the garden 
 
 two, 
 Then are ye certainly not seven : my darling child, 
 
 speak true ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Yes, two of us are sleeping in these little green 
 
 graves here : 
 Therefore we surely seven are, yes, seven, sir, tis 
 
 clear!" 
 If two of j ou lie buried here beneath these 
 
 flowerets wild, 
 Then are ye surely only five, my good and darling 
 
 child!" 
 
 v. 
 
 "Oh, no! oh, no! not five, kind sir! seven, cer 
 tainly, are we ; 
 
 For brother dear, and sister dear, come often back 
 to me ! 
 
 Oh, long and patiently lay sister dear with failing 
 breath, 
 
 And smiled upon us tenderly, as closed her eyes in 
 death.
 
 OF US THERE ARE SEVEN. 45 
 
 VI. 
 
 " She taught mo often of God s love, to turn my 
 thoughts from vice, 
 
 Till God called her unto himself to dwell in Para 
 dise ; 
 
 Then came I often to her grave I and my brother 
 dear 
 
 To cover it with fragrant flowers, and sit beside her 
 here. 
 
 VII. 
 
 " But when cold Winter killed the flowers, and the 
 
 white snow was here, 
 Then God called little brother, too, to dwell with 
 
 sister dear : 
 Now I come here to deck their graves with flowers 
 
 red and white, 
 And knit, and pray, and eat my evening meals in 
 
 the twilight. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " And oft, when weary by this cross I lie in slum 
 bers light, 
 
 Then come they down from heaven in forms all 
 wonderful!}- bright : 
 
 The} leave beside me heavenly flowers that in God s 
 garden grow, 
 
 Where with the pure white lambs of God the shin 
 ing angels go.
 
 46 OF US THERE ARE SEVEN. 
 
 IX. 
 " Oh, gladly would I there remain ; but, vanishing, 
 
 they sa}*, 
 Be brave, dear sister, till we meet again some 
 
 future day ! 
 Therefore not five, but seven, sir, in all, are we, tis 
 
 clear, 
 In garden and upon the lake, and in these green 
 
 graves here."
 
 THE RICHEST PRINCE. 
 
 (From the German. 
 
 I. 
 
 LOUDLY praising in fine speeches 
 Their rich countries, great and small, 
 
 Once sat many German princes 
 In Worms high imperial hall. 
 
 n. 
 
 Proudly spake the King of Saxons : 
 " Richest land? Why, that is mine ! 
 
 Endless treasures, in her mountains 
 Buried, lie in many a mine." 
 
 in. 
 
 " See my land in rich abundance ! " 
 Cried the proud Prince of the Rhine : 
 
 Golden harvests fill her valleys ; 
 On her hills, rich grapes for wine." 
 
 47
 
 48 THE RICHEST PRINCE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Might} cities and rich convents " 
 Ludwig, King of Baiern, 1 said 
 
 " Cause my land of all } our vaunted 
 Treasures not to stand in dread." 2 
 
 v. 
 
 Eberhard, he of the dark beard, 
 "VVurternberg s beloved lord, 
 
 Said, " My land has but small cities, 
 And her hills no silver hoard. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " But she holds one hidden treasure, 
 In all kingdoms none so great, 
 
 I can lay my head with safety 
 In each lap within my State ! " 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Then," cried out the Prince of Saxons, 
 King of Baiern, Lord of Rhine, 
 
 " Bearded count, thou art the richest ! 
 No land can compare with thine." 
 
 1 Bavaria. 
 
 2 ,,Scf)nffen bafj tnein 2anb ben euren 
 
 2Boi)l nidjt ftct)t on Sd)afcen nacfj."
 
 THE TWO LITTLE WINDOWS. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 
 I. 
 
 THERE is a grand and stately house, 
 With but two windows small ; 
 
 And through them all the world looks in, 
 From out them one sees all. 
 
 n. 
 
 And ever there a painter sits 
 Who knows his art all through ; 
 
 And he paints all things rapidly, 
 Wliite, black, red, green, and blue. 
 
 in. 
 
 He paints things square, round, short, or long. 
 
 As he the fancy takes ; 
 And no one could name half the shades 
 
 And forms which there he makes. 
 
 49
 
 50 THE TWO LITTLE WINDOWS. 
 
 He s a magician, I aver, 
 Who can earth s secrets see, 
 
 And paint them on a little spot 
 No larger than a pea ! 
 
 What that house s lord implores or thinks, 
 On those two panes paints he ; 
 
 So that each one who passes by 
 It plainly there can see. 
 
 VI. 
 
 If that house s lord at home is gay, 
 
 Or if he suffers pain, 
 Then pearl} drops oft show themselves 
 
 Upon each little pane. 
 
 VII. 
 
 In pleasant weather, sunny days, 
 Then are they clear and bright ; 
 
 But if it freezes, storms, and snows, 
 Then darkened is their light. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And, when that house s lord goes to rest, 
 
 No light he needs to take ; 
 For then Death slams the shutters to, 
 
 And, oh ! the windows break !
 
 CRADLE SONG. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 
 I. 
 
 SLEEP, my heart s treasure ! My darling art thou ! 
 Close thy sweet blue eyes in soft slumber now ; 
 All is as quiet and still as the grave : 
 Sleep while I watch, and the flies from thee wave. 
 
 n. 
 
 Now is th} golden time, free from all pain : 
 Later, oh, later is never the same ; 
 Once, by thy couch, let care place itself here 
 Ne er wilt thou slumber so sweetly, my dear. 
 
 in. 
 
 Angels from heaven, as lovely as thou, 
 Hover around thee, and smile on thee now : 
 Later, indeed, they may come to thee here, 
 But only to wipe away many a tear. 
 
 51
 
 52 CRADLE SONG. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sleep, m} T heart s treasure ! Come night when it will, 
 Mother sits by thee and watches thee still ! 
 Be it late, be it early, however time flies, 
 Mother s love, darling, ne er slumbers or dies !
 
 THE CASTLE BY THE SEA. 
 (From the German.) 
 
 I. 
 
 HAST thou seen that stately castle 
 Standing by the moaning sea ? 
 
 Golden, rose-tinged clouds hang o er it, 
 Moving there mysteriously. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Seemingly it would plunge downward 
 Through the clear flood at its base, 
 
 Or would struggle and mount upward 
 Where the red clouds glow in space." 
 
 in. 
 
 Yes, indeed, I well have seen it, 
 That high castle by the sea, 
 
 And the round moon o er it sailing 
 Through the mists mysteriously." 
 
 53
 
 54 THE CASTLE BY THE SEA. 
 
 " And the wind s and sea s low moaning, 
 
 Gave they not a wondrous sound? 
 Heard st thou from those halls of grandeur 
 Tuneful harps and songs resound? " 
 
 All the winds and all the wavelets, 
 They were hushed in quiet rest : 
 
 Mourning songs, from that proud castle, 
 Heard I there, with tears oppressed." 
 
 VI. 
 
 Saw st thou, moving through that castle, 
 The proud king and stately queen? 
 
 Saw st thou waving of red mantles, 
 Or of golden crowns the sheen ? 
 
 " With delight, were thej- not leading 
 
 A young maiden sweet and rare, 
 Radiant as the beams of morning, 
 In her golden tresses fair? " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " Ay, indeed, I saw the parents ; 
 
 But no shining crowns were there : 
 They were in black mourning-garments ; 
 But no maiden saw I there ! "
 
 THE MINSTREL. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 
 The following exquisite ballad is from the German of Gothe. It very 
 happily exemplifies some of the genuine characteristics of the true 
 ballad style, in which the poet often gives us general outlines of the 
 story and events to he related, leaving it to the reader s own imagination 
 to supply and fill in all that is left unexpressed; wbile the poet, with 
 effective brevity of expression and great boldness of transition from 
 thought to thought, projects his rapidly succeeding poetic pictures upon 
 the mental canvas of the reader s mind in concise, and often very ellip 
 tical, sentences. 
 
 I. 
 
 " WHAT hear I by our castle-gate? 
 
 What notes upon the drawbridge ring? 
 Doth there some wandering minstrel wait 
 
 Before us in our hall to sing? " 
 Thus spake the king. His page ran out, 
 
 And soon returned, with jo}"ous shout, 
 Leading a gray-haired minstrel in. 
 
 n. 
 " Hail, noble king and lords ! " he cried ; 
 
 " Hail, ladies fair of high degree ! 
 Oh, what a heaven ! stars side by side ! 
 Who knows what all their names may be ? 
 
 55
 
 56 THE MINSTREL. 
 
 In lordly hall, where splendors shine, 
 
 Be closed mine eyes : here is no time 
 With wondering delight to gaze." 
 
 m. 
 
 The minstrel closed his wondering eyes, 
 And swept the sounding chords along : 
 
 Bold knights beheld, with deep surprise ; 
 
 Fair dames, with bowed head, heard the song ; 
 
 The king, well pleased with his strain, 
 Would give the minstrel golden chain 
 
 As guerdon for his miustrelsie. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Oh, give to me no golden chains : 
 Let them to thy bold knights be given, 
 
 By whose brave arms, on battle-plains, 
 Thine enemy s array is riven ; 
 
 Or on thy chancellor bestow, 
 
 And let him still the golden show 
 
 With other weighty burdens bear. 
 
 v. 
 
 " I sing, as sings the summer bird 
 
 Whose home is in the greenwood tree : 
 
 The songs, from mine own bosom poured, 
 Are rich rewards, enough for me ;
 
 THE MINSTREL. 57 
 
 But, might I claim one gift as mine, 
 
 Then be one draught of noblest wine 
 
 To me in golden goblet given." 
 
 VI. 
 
 He took the wine ; he drank it all : 
 
 O draught as sweet as light from heaven ! 
 
 Oh, happy be the princely hall 
 
 Where such sweet gifts are freely given ! 
 
 While well ye fare, oh, think of me ! 
 And thank God freely, as I ye, 
 
 For this rich draught of wine, now thank."
 
 I THINK OF THEE. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 
 I. 
 
 I EVER think of thee 
 When through the greenwood tree 
 The nightingale s sweet note 
 Is poured from muffled throat : 
 When thinkest thou of me ? 
 
 n. 
 
 I ever think of thee 
 Where in the glow I see 
 The evening shades appear, 
 By shad}* fountains clear : 
 Where thinkest thou of me ? 
 
 I ever think of thee, 
 With kind thoughts, painfull} , 
 While longing anxiously, 
 With warm tears flowing free : 
 How thinkest thou of me? 
 
 58
 
 / THINK OF THEE. 59 
 
 Oh, dearest ! think of me 
 Until I meet with thee 
 Upon that better star ; 
 And, be I near or far, 
 I ll ever think of thee.
 
 THE CASTLE OF BONCOURT. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 
 This pathetic little ballad is from the German of Adalbert de Cham- 
 isgo, a naturalist and poet of considerable note, who circumnavigated 
 the globe. The Castle of Boncourt, in Champagne, France, was long 
 the family residence of Chamisso s ancestors, who ranked among the 
 first families of France, and at the Castle of Boncourt C hamisso was 
 born in 1781; but during the great Revolution the castle was assailed, 
 and razed to the ground ; and the impoverished family, with the boy 
 Chamisso, fled to Germany. Knowing the history of the author s life, 
 we can the better appreciate the sweetness and beauty of the sentiments 
 in these touching memories of his childhood, when, in the reveries of 
 age, he beholds, in imagination, the obliterated castle of his fathers 
 again all perfect, as he had known it in his youth. 
 
 I. 
 
 IN dreams I go back to my childhood, 
 And bow down my head in deep pain : 
 
 O visions of youth long forgotten ! 
 How comes it ye seek me again? 
 
 n. 
 
 From shady inclosures, high rising, 
 
 I see a grand castle of state : 
 Those battlements towers well I know them ; 
 
 That bridge of dark stone, and that gate. 
 
 60
 
 THE CASTLE OF BON COURT. 61 
 
 III. 
 
 And from that escutcheon all sadly 
 
 The lions look down upon me ; 
 Their faces familiar, I greet them, 
 
 And hasten the courtyard to see. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The sphinx still lies there by the fountain, 
 And there is the fig-tree still green ; 
 
 And there are the windows and chamber, 
 
 Where first I dreamed out life s young dream. 
 
 I seek, in the old castle-chapel, 
 
 The graves which my ancestors fill : 
 
 Behold them, where from lofty columns 
 Their noble escutcheons hang still ! 
 
 Not well can my dim eyes decipher 
 The inscriptions in characters dim, 
 
 Though clearly, through richly stained windows, 
 The light from above them shines in. 
 
 vn. 
 
 Thus stands, of my fathers, the castle 
 
 In memory s land firm and good, 
 Though, truly, from earth it has vanished, 
 
 And plows turn the ground where it stood.
 
 62 THE CASTLE OF BONCOURT. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Be fruitful, O fields of my fathers ! 
 
 I bless you, though deep is my pain, 
 And bless whomsoever is guiding 
 
 The plow on my ancestral plain. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But I I will quickly arouse me, 
 
 And, with my loved harp in my hand, 
 
 Will wander the wide world all over, 
 While singing from land unto land.
 
 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY OF DIFFERENT 
 NATIONS. 
 
 HE who said, "Let me make a nation s ballads, and 
 I care not who makes her laws," was wiser than he even 
 dreamed of being ; for many an old ballad, upon some 
 touching and popular theme, will live, and bear its 
 " maker s " name to future ages, when the nation, as 
 such, with all its laws, has ceased to exist for ever. 
 The word "ballad," we are told, is akin to "ballet;" 
 being derived from the Greek /Ja/Uew, to throw or 
 move rapidly," and may indicate that the "makers" 
 and singers of the first rude rhymes among ancient 
 nations were in the habit of dancing while they sang, 
 as a forcible illustration to these early songs. 
 
 The word " ballad " meaning "a short epic poem " 
 is from the Italian ballata, which was used to express an 
 old kind of song of a lyric nature; and ballata is derived 
 from the Italian verb ballare, "to dance." Now this 
 word ballata was borrowed from the Italians by the 
 troubadours, or minstrel-poets of Provence ; and, by the 
 Norman poets, it was carried northward in Europe, as 
 well as into England and Scotland, being applied by 
 them all to those short heroic poems and love-songs 
 which were composed to celebrate the deeds of their 
 heroes, and recount the adventures and passions of 
 knights and lovers. 
 
 63
 
 64 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 All the Scandinavian nations took great delight in this 
 species of poetry; and their minstrel-poets often cele 
 brated the deeds of heroes, and the passions and adven 
 tures of lovers, in these short epic songs or ballads. 
 Although the name "ballad" has an Italian origin, still 
 that species of poetry never flourished to any great extent 
 iii Italy; for Italian poetry has, on the other hand, always 
 retained a certain classical spirit of antiquity. It seems 
 to be conceded by some of the best authors upon the 
 subject, that the species of poetry which we now under 
 stand by the word " ballad" is of Teutonic origin; and 
 yet, in the south of Europe, the Spaniards have a species 
 of songs or ballads of great excellence and beauty, and 
 which appear to be at least of equal antiquity with the 
 ballads of Northern nations. 
 
 The early home of the English ballad seems to have 
 been in " the North Countrie," that is, in the northern 
 parts of England and the south of Scotland ; and, even 
 after the Conquest, the Normans who settled there, and 
 who did not understand the language of the native bards, 
 and therefore affected to despise it, left it to the com 
 mon people, among whom the native songs and ballads 
 long flourished, and retained their popular character and 
 simplicity. 1 
 
 Later, indeed, the feudal wars of the Norman knights, 
 and their chivalric spirit, gave new subjects to the ballad- 
 
 1 After the Norman Conquest, the king and great lords and barons 
 made an effort to extirpate the English language, and to substitute the 
 Norman French among the conquered people; and, to aid this project, 
 it was ordered that all legal proceedings should be carried on in French, 
 and that the records of the courts of law should be kept in the same 
 language. But neither the influence of the great lords, in whose petty
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 65 
 
 poetry of the country, and contributed to modify its 
 character. The former bards gradually became minstrels, 
 who attached themselves to the great lords and knights, 
 and, composing songs in honor of their exploits, waited 
 upon them, and devoted themselves to their amusement, 
 receiving from them pecuniary rewards and hospitality. 
 In ancient times the ballad seems not to have been so 
 popular with the people in Germany as it was in Eng 
 land and Scotland; but in more modern times the Ger 
 man ballads are often accounted the best, and some of 
 the greatest of the poets of Germany have indulged in 
 their composition, such as Gothe, Schiller, Burger, 
 Uhland, Schreiber, Kerner, and many others. 
 
 But in exquisite and delicious ballad-poetry there is 
 no country in all Europe that can surpass sunny, romantic 
 Spain, that land of serenade and song, of haughty dons 
 and dark-eyed donnas; the land of chivalry, romance, and 
 love; the land alternately of Christians and of Moors; 
 and in this same sunny land of Spain are to be found 
 the richest stores of ancient ballad-poetry. 
 
 It has well been said that those who have the making 
 of a nation s ballads can well dispense with the honor of 
 making her laws: for a nation s laws are but ephemeral 
 indeed in comparison to the duration of a nation s bal 
 lads; and to their ballad-poetry are all nations greatly 
 indebted for the preservation of a knowledge of their 
 ancient manners and customs, and, in the earliest times, 
 
 courts French was exclusively spoken, nor the authority of the king, 
 even, could change the language of an entire people; and, after it had 
 been tried about three hundred years, the attempt was given up, and 
 since that time English has been the language of the law-courtB as well 
 as of the people at large. Some French words are, however, retained in 
 legal phraseology.
 
 66 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 for the preservation even of their most important his 
 torical events. 
 
 Where, for instance, can be found to-day so true a 
 picture of the manners and customs of the Greeks and 
 Trojans of three thousand years ago as in the poems of 
 Homer? "the blind old bard of Scio s rocky isle !" 
 who, as has been maintained, was probably only a 
 wandering singer, a bard, a minstrel, a troubadour of 
 prehistoric times; who, it has been suggested, collected 
 the most important ballads of his own and previous 
 times, and, by creations and additions of his own, wove 
 them into a sort of continuous history of the great 
 events that stirred the world of Greece and Asia Minor 
 more than a thousand years before the birth of Christ; 
 doing in the East what (more than a thousand years 
 afterwards) another blind old bard did for the West, 
 when Ossian the rhapsodist, the minstrel, the great 
 troubadour of the Gaelic tribes of the W r es tern world 
 sang the historic deeds of his own and former times in 
 the pure, classic strains of his own bold and figurative 
 Gaelic tongue, a language as pure, as poetical, and as 
 rich in compound epithets and startling metaphor, as 
 that in which the Grecian bard of old sang his undying 
 strains to the ravished ears of all the world for all time 
 to come. And so we owe a debt of gratitude and love 
 to the bards and minstrels of all times and tongues; for, 
 long before the days of authentic history, the bards and 
 minstrels of all nations wove the important events of 
 their own times into short rhythmical histories, which 
 were handed down from generation to generation, often 
 perhaps undergoing some slight changes in the oral 
 transmission, but, in the main, true (in most cases at
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 67 
 
 least) to the facts and customs of the ages now gone by. 
 And, as meter was the form of language best adapted 
 to the oral transmission of passing events, it was natural 
 that poetry, in the literary history of all nations, should 
 have an earlier origin than prose; and, even in a low 
 state of social and literary advancement, the art of 
 poetry might attain, in the keeping of the bards, to a 
 considerable degree of excellence, and even to a lofty 
 elevation of thought and language. Such, indeed, is the 
 case with the poetry of Ossian ; for in his works there 
 is a great degree of regularity and poetic art, wherein 
 the deepest tenderness and delicacy of sentiment are 
 often found, as well as the fire and enthusiasm which 
 belong to bards of the earliest times. 
 
 The Goths under which name are comprehended 
 all the ancient Scandinavian tribes were a fierce and 
 warlike people, and not noted for a knowledge of the 
 liberal arts; and yet they had their bards and their 
 songs from the most remote times, songs which re 
 counted the deeds of their heroes, and the traditions of 
 their countries and tribes. And many of those ancient 
 songs, called vyses, were found engraven upon the rocks, 
 "in a sort of Runic rhyme," cut there by the poets 
 of the Scandinavian tribes, who were called scalders, 
 in the ancient Runic characters of the times; and the 
 more ancient the songs of the scalders, says Dr. Percy, 
 the more they were believed to be connected with true 
 history. There is a very curious specimen of the poetry 
 of the scalders preserved by Olaus Wormius, a learned 
 Dane, who was skilled in the antiquities of Denmark 
 and Norway. This literary curiosity is preserved in 
 his work, " De Literatura Runica." The specimen here
 
 68 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 meant is the epicediwn, or funeral song, which was 
 composed by King Regner Lodbrog of Denmark. This 
 Lodbrog was a celebrated warrior of the piratical class 
 in the eighth century, who had the misfortune to finally 
 fall into the power of his enemy, by whom he was im 
 prisoned, and condemned to death. Being a celebrated 
 scalder, he consoled himself in prison by composing this 
 epicediutn, or funeral song, in which he recounted the 
 warlike exploits of his early life, and declared the forti 
 tude with which he should meet death, and his hopes 
 and expectations of an exalted and happy position in 
 the halls of Odin, saying, "In the house of the mighty 
 Odin no brave man laments death. I come not with the 
 voice of despair to Odin s hall." The entire composition 
 is a remarkable and curious specimen of the customs and 
 feelings predominant among men in those far-off ages, 
 and of the poetic attainments of those times. What the 
 scalders were to the ancient Scandinavians, the bards 
 were to the ancient Britons and Celts. The Celtse were 
 a numerous and warlike people, distinct from the Goths 
 and Teutons, who, in the earliest times, held dominion 
 over a large portion of Western Europe, and established 
 themselves firmly in ancient Gaul ; and, among the 
 Celtae or Gauls, there were found, from the earliest 
 times, two orders of men, who were held in the highest 
 estimation. These were the druids, who were their 
 philosophers and priests, and, to some extent, their law 
 givers; and the bards, whose office it was to compose 
 songs in honor of the heroic deeds of great chieftains 
 and in celebration of important events, and to recite 
 them to the assembled people on public occasions. The 
 druids dwelt together in societies; and, philosophizing
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 69 
 
 upon the destiny of man, they asserted the immortality of 
 the human soul. The bards, in their character of poets 
 and historians of their people, among whom the office 
 was hereditary, came to be so numerous, that every 
 chieftain of note was accustomed to have his own par 
 ticular bard, who was considered a member of his house 
 hold, and held a position of importance in his little court. 
 On all important occasions the bards were messengers 
 between contending tribes, and ambassadors between the 
 courts of princes and chieftains. Their persons were held 
 sacred upon all occasions; for, as says Ossian, "though the 
 soul of Cairbar was dark, he feared to stretch his sword 
 to the bards." " Loose the bards: they are the sons of 
 other times ; their voices shall be heard in other ages, 
 when the kings of Temora have failed." Thus the 
 Celtic nations of remote times had their bards, to whom 
 the minstrels of the Middle Ages seem to have been the 
 genuine successors; and the Gothic nations of earliest 
 ages had their scalds, or scalders (smoothers or polishers 
 of language), to whom succeeded the minnesingers of 
 the Middle Ages throughout Germany: but there was, in 
 the south of Europe, one nation whose poetry in its early 
 stages was, for hundreds of years, tinged by lasting 
 influences from another quarter of the globe. That coun 
 try was Spain, which, as has already been stated, is 
 unsurpassed by any country in Europe in the rich stores 
 of its ballad-poetry ; but the character of that poetry was 
 early tinged by Oriental influences. 
 
 In order fully to understand the reasons for this, it is 
 necessary to look, for a moment, at the physical features 
 and geographical situation of the peninsula of Spain, 
 and to take into consideration the characters of the differ-
 
 70 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 ent peoples who contributed to make up its ancient in 
 habitants. Spain, including Portugal, is surrounded on 
 three sides by the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic 
 Ocean; while more than one-half of its northern portion 
 is washed by the Bay of Biscay, and its remaining part 
 is separated from the rest of Europe by the lofty chain 
 of the Pyrenees Mountains, thus rendering it, in ancient 
 times, more isolated than other European countries. 
 
 Spain was anciently called Iberia; and the ancient 
 Iberians, who had been driven towards the West, formed 
 the basis of the population of Spain, including ancient 
 Lusitania (now Portugal). Their original language is 
 said to still exist in the Basque. Later still came in the 
 Celt*, who were mingled to some extent with them. 
 Thus the Spanish people were descended from Iberians 
 and Celts, somewhat mingled with Carthaginian and 
 Roman colonists; for, as early as the third century before 
 the Christian era, Home and Carthage contended for the 
 possession of the Spanish peninsula. 1 Later still, after 
 a struggle of near two hundred years, Agrippa, the gen 
 eral of Augustus, overcame the Spanish inhabitants, and 
 
 1 In the primitive ages the different tribes of men were named from 
 gome characteristic of the people, or from the place of their residence. 
 Thus, to the primitive inhabitants of the west of Europe the Greeks 
 gave the name of KeArot, i.e., Celts, a word which signified woodsmen. 
 These were said to be descended from the name ancestors as the Greeks 
 and Romans, but they had early migrated into Gaul and Spain ; and the 
 primitive occupiers of these countries bad been pushed forward, by suc 
 cessive hordes of men, till they were stopped by the ocean or impassa 
 ble mountain-chains, and there their descendants are at present to be 
 found. And, of these, are a part of the inhabitants of the north of Spain, 
 with those of France south of the River Garonne, called by the Romans 
 Ganimna flumen, and the inhabitants they called Aquilani and Can- 
 tabri ; but more modern historians called them Cantabrians, Gascoigns, 
 and Basques, and these still retain their ancient native language.
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 71 
 
 Spain was subjected to the Roman power; and Augustus 
 himself founded the colony of Caesar Augusta (Sara- 
 gossa), and for nearly four hundred years the Roman 
 language and manners prevailed in the peninsula After 
 the irruption of the barbarians into the Roman Empire, 
 the Vandals, Suevi, and Alans spread themselves over the 
 Spanish peninsula. In the fifth century Wallia founded, 
 in Spain, the kingdom of the Visigoths; and the Vandals, 
 from whom Andalusia received its name, withdrew into 
 Africa. In the latter part of the fifth century the 
 great Euric extended the kingdom of the Visigoths in 
 Spain, and, driving out the Romans, gave them their 
 first written laws. Nearly a hundred years later, Leo- 
 wigild overturned the kingdom of the Suevi in Galicia; 
 and his successor introduced the Catholic religion about 
 A.D. 586, and that, in time, gave the corrupt Latin lan 
 guage a predominance over the Gothic. 
 
 The Romans called that part of Western Africa which 
 lies opposite to Spain, Mauritania; and the inhabitants 
 thereof they called Moors. This territory of Mauritania 
 was long under the dominion of the Vandals, who had 
 established there, at one time, a powerful kingdom, 
 which was, however, overthrown in the first half of the 
 sixth century. During the seventh century the Sara 
 cens (Arabians), who were followers of Mohammed, 
 extended their conquests over this part of Africa from 
 the East, and Mauritania came to be governed by a 
 deputy of the Caliph of Damascus. The Saracens, or 
 Arabians, being firmly established and powerful in Mau 
 ritania, opposite to the Spanish peninsula, they, in the 
 beginning of the eighth century, took advantage of the 
 disorders of the Visigoths in Spain, and reduced a large
 
 72 EARL 7 BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 part of the peninsula under their yoke, holding it in sub 
 jection for nearly eight hundred years thereafter, with 
 the exception of some of the northern provinces and por 
 tions of the sea-coast; and thus the greater part of Spain 
 was for a time a province of the caliphs of Bagdad. 
 
 But, the power of the caliphs declining in time, the 
 different governors became after a while independent, 
 and assumed the title of kings; and Arabian princes 
 reigned at Saragossa, Toledo, Valencia, and Seville; and 
 the Moorish language and customs became almost uni 
 versal where the Arabians held sway. 
 
 Meanwhile the Visigoths long and steadily maintained 
 their freedom in the mountainous districts of the north, 
 until the Moorish dynasties became weakened by ages of 
 dissensions; and then the Christian kings wrested one 
 portion of the country after another from their Arabian 
 conquerors, until only the Moorish kingdom of Granada 
 remained to them; and that was obliged to acknowledge 
 the Castilian supremacy, and was finally conquered by 
 Ferdinand and Isabella A.D. 1491; and the Moorish 
 dominion in Spain was ended, after nearly eight hundred 
 years of duration. The Spanish writers gave the name 
 of Moors to their Arabian conquerors, on account of their 
 former residence in Mauritania; but during the dominion 
 of the Moors in Spain, and while the rest of Europe was 
 steeped in barbarism, learning and the arts flourished 
 with unusual glory among the polished and learned 
 Arabians in the Spanish peninsula. The universities 
 and libraries which they established and maintained at 
 Cordova ("the Delphi of the peninsula") and other 
 places, were resorted to, even by Christians, as the seat 
 of Greco-Arabic literature, where the Aristotelian phil-
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 73 
 
 osophy was taught by Arabian scholars of the most pro 
 found learning; and it is even said that Europe received 
 from them the knowledge of the present arithmetical 
 characters, 1 as well as much other useful knowledge. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the Spanish people of the 
 Middle Ages were descended from ancient Iberians, Celts, 
 Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, and Visigoths, whose 
 peculiarities were all heightened and tinged by Oriental 
 influences during their hundreds of years of mixture and 
 intercourse with the Arabians, or Moors, who were a 
 polished, gallant, and chivalrous people. 
 
 The oldest language in all Spain was that of the 
 ancient Cantabrians, 2 the bravest and rudest of the 
 
 1 The learned Arabians brought the science of algebra with them 
 from tbe East, and first introduced it into Spain, whence it was carried 
 into other European countries. The oldest known work upon the science 
 of algebra which we possess is said to be the one by Diophantus of 
 Alexandria, a geometrician who is supposed to have lived in the fourth 
 century : butthe science is of Oriental discovery, as its name from the 
 Arabic, al gabron plainly indicates; and Europe is indebted to the 
 learned Arabians, who brought it into Spain, for its first acquaintance 
 with this wonderful and useful science, as well as for much other useful 
 and curious knowledge. 
 
 2 The Cantabrian, which is also called the Basque, language spoken 
 by the inhabitants of the Pyrenees is one of the purest specimens of 
 the original language of the ancient KeAroi, or Celts. They were the 
 primitive inhabitants of the west of Europe. The Basque and the 
 lliberno-Celtic, or primitive language of Ireland, with the Gaelic, or 
 native language of the Highlanders of Scotland, are said to be the 
 purest remains of the ancient Celtic language now in existence; and 
 they are almost the only ones : between the Hiberno-Celtic and the 
 Scottish Gaelic, when correctly written, there is really but very little 
 difference. The language of the Welsh, who were descended from the 
 f imbri, or primitive inhabitants of Jutland, is said to bear a strong 
 resemblance to the Celtic; and also the Armoric, spoken by the descend 
 ants of the primitive inhabitants of Brittany, in France, is said to be 
 of Celtic origin. There was once a language called the Cornish, which
 
 74 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 Iberian tribes who inhabited ancient Hispania. They 
 were the descendants of the primitive inhabitants of the 
 northern mountains of Spain ; and their language is said 
 to exist still in the Basque language, spoken by the 
 people of the Pyrenees. To this were added Phoenician 
 and Carthaginian words, and the whole was modified 
 by the Latin during the sway of the Romans; 1 while, 
 under the Visigoths, there was developed a dialect which 
 was called the Romanzo, or Romance language, which 
 seems to have been more or less mixed with the Latin 
 down to the time of the Moorish invasion. When the 
 Moors had conquered a large part of Spain, their dialect 
 a fine one, and much cultivated in poetry was 
 adopted, and soon spoken with fluency, by the people in 
 all parts of the peninsula where the Moors held sway. 
 
 was also of Celtic origin : it was spoken by the ancient inhabitants of 
 the county of Cornwall, in the extreme south-west corner of England; 
 but it has now passed out of existence. 
 
 1 The modern Spanish and Portuguese, as well as the modern French 
 and Italian, are composed to a large extent of Latin words, many of 
 which are derived from the Greek ; but they are generally much changed 
 In their orthography, as well as in their inflections. Many of them were 
 borrowed from the Greek by the Romans, and by them carried into 
 Gaul, and there naturalized during the five or six hundred years that 
 the Romans held sway; and, as they held Spain in subjection even 
 longer, they firmly established a large percentage of Latin words in the 
 Spanish. Still the Spanish and Portuguese, as well as the French and 
 Italian, retained many of their original Celtic words. But it must be 
 remembered that the Spanish and Portuguese contain, moreover, many 
 words which were introduced by Carthaginian colonists long before 
 Spain came under the Roman sway, as well as many which were after 
 wards brought in by the Arabians, or Moors, who held the greater part 
 of the peninsula in subjection for hundreds of years long after the Roman 
 sway; and the Goths, who drove out the Romans, also introduced into 
 the Spanish very many words of Gothic origin.
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 75 
 
 But the descendants of the Visigoths retired before the 
 conquering Moors to the northern and mountainous 
 portions of the peninsula, and along the shores of the 
 Atlantic, where several small kingdoms or principalities 
 were formed, which were more or less united in their 
 long struggles against their common enemy. This divis 
 ion of the old inhabitants into several small kingdoms 
 had its influence upon the Spanish language; for there 
 were as many dialects of the Spanish Romanzo as there 
 were kingdoms ; but these dialects gradually blended 
 with each other as the kingdoms became united against 
 the common enemy. One dialect of the Romanzo devel 
 oped itself, and took the name of the Galician, and 
 afterwards became the language of the Portuguese, and 
 remained their language when Portugal, in the twelfth 
 century, formed a separate kingdom. 
 
 The Catalonian dialect flourished, and spread to the 
 kingdom of Arragon, but was superseded by the Cas- 
 tilian dialect when Arragon and Castile were united under 
 one sceptre. In the mountainous districts of Castile, 
 there dwelt a hardy and valiant race, among whom the 
 noble Spanish character was highly developed; and their 
 language and ballad-poetry in time obtained a predomi 
 nance over that of the neighboring kingdoms, until the 
 Castilian came to be considered the standard Spanish of 
 the united courts of Arragon and Castile, and was ac 
 cepted as the language of the learned, while the others 
 became dialects only of the common people. 
 
 Thus we see that the languages of Spain, like her 
 ancient inhabitants, became blended and united, while 
 the Moors and their language were finally expelled from 
 the peninsula; but the Spanish language remained deeply
 
 76 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 imbued with the Oriental clement, on account of the hun 
 dreds of years of neighborhood and intercourse both 
 in times of peace and war with the Arabian Moors, 
 who were a people of far more learning and culture than 
 the original inhabitants whom they overcame, and who 
 were subjected to Arabian influences for the better part 
 of a thousand years. Having thus taken a glance at the 
 condition of Spain and her inhabitants during the early 
 and middle ages, and considered the influences which 
 operated in forming the character of her people and 
 language, we are the better prepared to appreciate the 
 character and style of her ancient ballad-poetry, which 
 flourished in Oriental glory during the time of the long 
 and bloody struggles between the Christians and their 
 Moorish invaders. 
 
 If we are to credit all that has been asserted concern 
 ing the antiquity of Spanish ballads, we may believe that 
 there have been ballads in Spain from the most remote 
 ages; for one writer upon the subject and he a Span 
 iard contended that Tubal, son of Japhet and grand 
 son of Xoah, arrived in Spain a hundred and forty years 
 after the Deluge, and twenty-one hundred and sixty-three 
 years before the birth of Christ, and gave the nations 
 " a code of laws in couplets; " and Humboldt, travelling 
 in the Basque provinces, collecting materials for his work 
 on the aboriginal inhabitants, was shown some stanzas 
 which had been discovered in manuscript of the time 
 of Augustus, and still intelligible to the Basque high- 
 landers. 
 
 But our purpose is only to take a hasty glance of 
 Spanish ballad-poetry during the time that Spain was 
 partly in possession of the Moors.
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 77 
 
 The early influences towards a more modern literature 
 were given by the Provencal poets of the eleventh, 
 twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, in the south of France 
 and in Spain. They were sometimes called Romans, 
 Troubadours, Trouvatori; and the Provencal language 
 was called the Romana, Romanzo, Romance. It was 
 derived in a great measure from the Latin, being, in 
 fact, the corrupt Latin which was generally spoken by 
 the inhabitants of the south of Europe after the over 
 throw of the Western Roman Empire; and it was the 
 language in which the troubadour poets sang their fab 
 liaux and romanzos, those lays of chivalry, romance, 
 and love. 
 
 The oldest of the troubadours, whose name and 
 poems are known with certainty, was William, Count of 
 Poitiers and Guienue (born A.D. 1071), though some 
 poems of the same kind, and of an earlier date, are said 
 to still exist: but these are earlier than any of the ballads 
 now remaining in the English language; for, if we may 
 believe the authority quoted by Bishop Percy, the oldest 
 ballad now remaining in the English language is one 
 called " Cuckow Song," beginning thus: 
 
 " Sumer is icurnen in, 
 Llmde sing cuccu ; 
 Groweth sed J and bloweth med, 2 
 And spingeth 3 the wde 4 nu." 5 
 
 And this is no earlier than the time of Henry III., 
 which was in the thirteenth century, being nearly contem 
 porary with the oldest Scottish metrical romance known to 
 exist, the celebrated lay of " Sir Tristrem," composed by 
 
 1 Seed. 2 Mead. s Springeth. 4 Wood. 6 Anew.
 
 78 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 Thomas of Erceldoune (the earliest Scottish minstrel), 
 called Thomas the Rhymer, which metrical romance 
 was preserved in manuscript for hundreds of years, and 
 is now in the Advocates Library at Edinburgh, Scotland, 
 having been presented to the library by its possessor, 
 Lord Auchinleck, some hundred and fifty years ago. 
 
 The oldest Spanish ballads are mostly on the subjects 
 of love and war, recounting the adventures of knights 
 and heroes, and the passions, pains, and delights of 
 lovers. They differ very much from the early English 
 and Scottish ballads both in spirit and tone, as well as 
 in construction: for, while the English ballads are usually 
 in iambic meter, the Spanish romanzo is generally tro 
 chaic, though some of it is really iambic; and a great 
 peculiarity of Spanish versification is in the assonance, 
 whicli the Spanish poets carried to the greatest perfec 
 tion, sometimes, indeed, carrying it through entire lines, 
 as not being satisfied with assonant rhymes alone. The 
 stanzas are usually composed of four octo-syllabic lines: 
 but a fifth and sixth line were added whenever it suited 
 the poet s convenience, or to continue the story; and 
 lines were added of six, of seven, or even of more sylla 
 bles. Although the stanzas are usually of four octo 
 syllabic lines, still the second and fourth lines terminat 
 ing in the same rhyme, or in an assonant rhyme, are 
 frequently catalectic, having only three and a half 
 trochaic feet, and terminating in an imperfect trochee; 
 for the artless troubadours, or minstrel-poets, paid little 
 attention to the correctness of quantity when weaving 
 some well-known heroic story or tender tale of love into 
 stanzas, which they sang to delighted and uncritical 
 audiences, and usually with the accompaniment of the
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 79 
 
 " guiterne Moresche," or guitarra, an instrument re 
 sembling the cithera, or Ki6apa, of the ancients, as their 
 Carthaginian or Egyptian ancestors had done thousands 
 of years before. 1 
 
 As has already been said, there are extensive and rich 
 stores of ballads in the Spanish language, great numbers 
 of which originated during the long and bloody struggles 
 of the Christians against the Moors, and which recount 
 the chivalrous deeds of both Moors and Christians. While 
 many of these are truthfully historical, some of them are 
 evidently highly romantic; such, for example, as the 
 ballad of " The Moorish Calaynos," and the one of the 
 " Count Arnaldos," where "more is meant than greets 
 the ear." All of the stanzas in "Count Arnaldos" are 
 so truly poetical and sonorous, that the entire ballad will 
 be given here, even at the risk of spinning out this arti 
 cle to a wearisome length. It is as follows: 
 
 " Who had ever such adventure, 
 
 Holy priest or virgin nun, 
 
 As befell the Count Arnaldos 
 
 At the rising of the sun ? 
 
 " On his wrist the hawk was hooded; 
 
 Forth with horn and hound went he, 
 When he saw a stately galley 
 Sailing on the silent sea. 
 
 " Sail of satin, mast of cedar, 
 
 Burnished poop of beaten gold, 
 Many a morn you ll hood your falcon 
 Ere you such a hark behold. 
 
 1 Musical stringed instruments, very similar in form to the guitar, 
 were depicted upon Egyptian tombs of more than two thousand years 
 before the birth of Christ.
 
 80 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 " Sails of satin, masts of cedar, 
 
 Golden poops may come again, 
 But mortal ear no more shall listen 
 To yon gray-haired sailor s strain. 
 
 "Heart may beat, and eye may glisten, 
 
 Faith is strong, and Hope is free ; 
 But mortal ear no more shall listen 
 To the song that rules the sea. 
 
 "When the gray-haired sailor chanted, 
 
 Every wind was hushed to sleep ; 
 Like a virgin s bosom, panted 
 All the wide-reposing deep. 
 
 " Bright in beauty rose the star-fish 
 
 From her green cave down below, 
 Right above the eagle poised him, 
 Holy music charmed them so. 
 
 " Stately galley ! glorious galley! 
 
 God hath poured his grace on thee ! 
 Thou alone mayst scorn the perils 
 Of the dread devouring sea! 
 
 " False Almeria s reefs and shallows, 
 
 Black Gibraltar s giant rocks, 
 Sound and sand-bank, gulf and whirlpool, 
 All my glorious galley mocks! 
 
 " For the sake of God, our maker ! 
 
 (Count Arnaldos cry was strong,) 
 Old man, let me be partaker 
 In the secret of thy song!
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 81 
 
 " Count Arnaldos ! Count Arnaldos! 
 
 Hearts I read, and thoughts I know; 
 Wouldst thou learn the ocean secret, 
 In our galley thou must go. " 
 
 That is poetry ! poetry, indeed, wherein is shadowed 
 forth some religious allegory; but Religion never yet 
 called to her aid a sweeter muse. 
 
 Not less beautiful than the foregoing, although of 
 an entirely different character, is the Moorish ballad, 
 "The Bull-Fight of Gazul," wherein is described very 
 minutely one of those bull-fights which were once the 
 favorite amusement of the ancient inhabitants of the 
 Spanish peninsula, in whose exciting dangers the Moors, 
 after the conquest, learned to take as much delight as 
 did the native Spaniards. The bull-fight here described 
 seerns to have been held in Granada, that last proud 
 city that was held by the Moors in Spain ; and by it we 
 can see how surely an ancient ballad can preserve, and 
 depict to future ages, the customs and manners of com 
 munities in ages long gone by. For want of space, only 
 certain stanzas selected from this ballad can be given 
 here. The Alcayde Gazul, who is the hero of this bal 
 lad, was a Moorish knight of renown, who figures in the 
 " Ilistoria de las Guerras Civiles de Granada; " and the 
 bravery and dexterity with which he meets and van 
 quishes the furious and enraged bulls, is repaid by the 
 plaudits of the noble spectators, and the graceful smiles 
 of his proud " ladye fayre," who bestows upon him 
 first "the scarf whiter than the snow," and, afterwards, 
 " the ring of price," from her own fair hand:
 
 82 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 "King Almanzor of Granada, he liath bid the trumpet 
 
 sound ; 
 He hath summoned all the Moorish lords from hills and 
 
 plains around : 
 
 From Vega and Sierra, from Betis and Xenil, 
 They have come with helm and cuirass of gold and twisted 
 
 steel. 
 
 " Eight Moorish lords of valor tried, with stalwart arm and 
 
 true, 
 The onset of the beasts abide as they come rushing 
 
 through : 
 The deeds they ve done, the spoils they ve won, fill all with 
 
 hope and trust; 
 Yet, ere high in heaven appears the sun, they all have bit 
 
 the dust! 
 
 "Then sounds the trumpet clearly, then clangs the loud 
 
 tambour: 
 Make room, make room for Gazul ! throw wide, throw wide 
 
 the door ! 
 Blow, blow the trumpet clearer still! more loudly strike 
 
 the drum ! 
 The Alcayde of Algava to fight the bull doth come. 
 
 " And first before the king he passed, with reverence stoop 
 ing low, 
 
 And next he bowed him to the queen, and the infantas all 
 a-row ; 
 
 Then to his lady s grace he turned, and she to him did 
 throw 
 
 A scarf, from out her balcony, was whiter than the snow.
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. S3 
 
 "With the life-blood of slaughtered lords all slippery is the 
 
 sand, 
 
 Yet proudly in the center now hath Gazul ta en his stand; 
 And ladies look with heaving breast, and lords with anxious 
 
 eye; 
 But firmly he extends his arm, his look is calm and 
 
 high. 
 
 "Three bulls against the knight are loosed, and two come 
 
 roaring on ; 
 
 He rises high in stirrup, forth stretching his rejon ; 
 Each furious beast upon the breast he deals him such a 
 
 blow, 
 He blindly totters, and gives back across the sand to go. 
 
 " Turn, Gazul, turn! the people cry. The third comes 
 up behind ; 
 
 Low to the sand his head holds he, his nostrils snuff the 
 wind ; 
 
 The mountaineers that lead the steers without stand whis 
 pering low, 
 
 Xow thinks this proud Alcayde to stun Harpado l so ! 
 
 " Dark is his hide on either side; but the blood within doth 
 
 boil, 
 And the dun hide glows as if on fire, as he paws to the 
 
 turmoil; 
 
 His eyes are jet, and they are set in crystal rings of snow, 
 But now they stare with one red glare of brass upon the 
 
 foe. 
 
 1 The name of the bull.
 
 84 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 "Now stops the drum; close, close they come; thrice meet, 
 and thrice give back ; 
 
 The white foam of Harpado lies on the charger s breast of 
 black, 
 
 The white foam of the charger on Harpado s front of 
 dun: 
 
 Once more advance upon his lance, once more, thou fear 
 less one ! 
 
 "Once more, once more, in dust and gore to ruin must 
 
 thou reel ! 
 In vain, in vain, thou tearest now the sand with furious 
 
 heel! 
 
 In vain, in vain, thou noble beast! I see, I see thec stagger: 
 Now keen and cold thy neck must hold the stern Alcayde s 
 
 dagger! 
 
 "They have slipped a noose around his feet, six horses are 
 
 brought in, 
 
 And away they drag Harpado with a loud and joyful din : 
 Now stoop thee, lady, from thy stand, the ring of price 
 
 bestow 
 Upon Gazul of Algava that hath laid Ilarpado low! " 
 
 As the last cadence of this spirit-stirring song rings 
 in the memory of the imaginative reader, so vivid, thrill 
 ing, and truly poetic are the descriptions, that, in imagi 
 nation almost can there be heard an echo from those 
 plaudits of five hundred years agone; and the excited 
 eye of fancy will behold that brilliant audience of rich- 
 robed lords and " ladyes f ayre ; " and the excited mind 
 will be cognizant of the sudden hush and silence when
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 85 
 
 the loved one of Gazul "stoops from the stand" to 
 bestow " the ring of price" upon her noble and proud 
 Moorish cavalier. 
 
 I regret the want of space within the intended limits 
 of this article to give additional specimens from the 
 rich mines of Spanish ballad-poetry that lie open to the 
 literary explorer. 
 
 Hundreds of them have been translated into the Ger 
 man and English, as well as into other languages: but, 
 to be appreciated, they should be read and understood 
 in their own peculiar and musical native Spanish rhymes ; 
 for, so read, they possess a charm that is lost even in the 
 best of translations. But I cannot close even a hasty 
 account of the early ballad-poetry of Spain, and leave a 
 theme so deeply interesting, without some short comment 
 upon the numerous ballads which relate to the times and 
 history of the great and immortal Spanish hero, the 
 world-renowned and ever-invincible Cid, Ruy Diaz de 
 Bivar, called, by his own king, El Campeador, " the hero 
 without an equal; " and, by the Moorish kings whom he 
 vanquished, El mio Cid. The ballads that sing his fame 
 are reckoned by the hundreds; for he, in conjunction 
 with his noble and far-famed war-horse Babieca, has 
 become the central figure of his time in all Spanish 
 history, romance, and song. In him were concentrated 
 all the elevated and noble qualities of the best age of 
 chivalry, an elevated valor that knew no fear, united 
 with a noble generosity towards the weak or vanquished ; 
 a deep and unwavering loyalty to his king and country, 
 joined to an unshaken fervor and devotion to his religion ; 
 a lofty and noble pride and self-reliance, wherein was 
 mingled a deep and lasting scorn for every thing that
 
 86 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 was dishonorable or base; and, blended with all the 
 noble qualities which made hitn the beau ideal of knight- 
 errantry, was an indomitable and childlike love of truth, 
 and a deep and unwavering love and devotion to the 
 fair, which made him, above all others, " a chevalier sans 
 peur et sans reproche " 
 
 The great and immortal Cid Ruy Diaz, or to give 
 him his name and cognomen in full Don Rodrigo Diaz 
 de Bivar, el mio Cid, Campeador, was the flower of 
 Spanish chivalry, and the model of all the heroic virtues 
 of his age; and he has been celebrated in chronicle, 
 romance, and soug, for the past eight hundred years. 
 He was born at Burgos, A.D. 1025 or 1026; for authori 
 ties differ as to the precise year. 
 
 At the time of his birth the greater part of Spain was 
 in the possession of the Arabians, or Moors, who had 
 invaded it nearly four hundred years before; and, con 
 quering city after city and province after province, had 
 driven the ancient inhabitants before them into the 
 northern and mountainous portions of the peninsula, 
 where they maintained several petty kingdoms or princi 
 palities. 
 
 The county of Castile anciently called Burgos be 
 came a separate kingdom in 1028; and Ferdinand I. 
 became its king, thereby founding the Castilian mon 
 archy; and for him the great Cid conquered a part of 
 Portugal, and wrested many fair cities and provinces 
 from the Moors, which, by the valor of his arms, were 
 joined to the territories of his king; and, upheld and 
 borne onwards by his prowess, the ancient Gothic in 
 habitants, who had remained unconquered in the north 
 ern counties, made gradual and constant progress, and
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 87 
 
 reconquered many fair cities and provinces which had 
 long been held by their Moslem invaders, to whom the 
 name and person of the Cid became a lasting terror and 
 a signal of sure defeat; for he soon gained the name of 
 the invincible, and whomsoever he attacked he was sure 
 to vanquish; for, as say or sing the ballads which re 
 count his fame, he was a 
 
 "Mighty victor never vanquished, 
 
 Bulwark of his native land; 
 Shield of Spain, her boast and glory, 
 
 Knight of the far-dreaded brand; 
 Venging scourge of Moors and traitors, 
 
 Mighty thunderbolt of war, 
 Mirror bright of chivalry, 
 
 Ruy el Cid, Campeador!" 
 
 The life and exploits of the Cid were in time made 
 more familiar to the European world by the celebrated 
 tragedy of the great Corneille, "Le Cid," which has 
 held its place upon the classic stage of France for nearly 
 three hundred years, and i& familiar to all scholars who 
 pretend to a knowledge of the French language the 
 world over. 
 
 The Cid s father was Don Diego Lainez, a renowned 
 warrior in his day, and descended from the great Lain 
 Calvo, who represented one of the most ancient and 
 noble families of Spain; and his mother was also nobly 
 descended: so Rodrigo had the best and purest of Span 
 ish blood in his veins. 
 
 While he was yet a youth, under twenty years of age, 
 his father, who, through age and infirmities had become 
 incapable of longer bearing arms, was grossly insulted
 
 88 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 \ 
 
 by the proud and domineering Count of Gormaz, who 
 went so far as to even give him a soitfflet, or slap of 
 the hand upon the face; and that, too, in presence of the 
 king and court, an indignity which, in the case of an 
 hidalgo of Spain, only blood could wash away, and over 
 which the Cid s father brooded so deeply after his return 
 from court to his own castle, that 
 
 "Sleep was banished from his eyelids; 
 
 Xot a mouthful could he taste ; 
 
 There he sat with downcast visage: 
 
 Direly had he been disgraced. 
 
 "Never stirred he from his chamber; 
 
 With no friends would he converse, 
 Lest the breath of his dishonor 
 Should pollute them with its curse." 
 
 When Rodrigo learned the cause of his father s gloom, 
 his noble blood was fired by the disgrace which had been 
 cast upon his family; and, arming himself, he went forth 
 in search of the haughty offender, who was none other 
 than the father of Ximena Gomez, his own fair lady 
 love; but, obeying the dictates of honor rather than 
 those of love, he sought out the offending lord, and ad 
 dressed him in this wise: 
 
 " How durst thou to smite my father ? 
 
 Craven caitiff ! know that none 
 Unto him shall do dishonor 
 While I live, save God alone. 
 
 " For tins wron.sc I must have vengeance : 
 
 Traitor, here I thee defy ! 
 With thy blood alone my sire 
 Can wash out his infamy ! "
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 89 
 
 The haughty Count of Gormaz, laughing at the Cid s 
 youth and inexperience, affected to despise his threats, 
 whereupon Rodrigo told him that those who had noble 
 escutcheons would never brook a wrong; and, calling 
 upon him to defend himself, he set upon him so valiantly 
 that the imperious count was soon overthrown and slain. 
 Cutting off the head of his antagonist, he bore it to his 
 own father, whom he addressed thus : 
 
 "Lay aside this grievous sorrow: 
 
 Lo ! thine honor is secure; 
 Vengeance hast thou now obtained, 
 From all stain of shame art pure. 
 
 "Well have I avenged thee, father! 
 "Well have sped me in the fight; 
 For to him is vengeance certain 
 Who doth arm himself with right." 
 
 The father of Rodrigo, deeming his lost honor restored 
 by the avenging arm of his brave son, thus addresses 
 Rodrigo: 
 
 " At the chief place of my table, 
 
 Sit thee henceforth in my stead; 
 He who such a head hath brought me, 
 Of my house shall be the head." 
 
 But Rodrigo, when he came to reflect upon what he 
 had done, was himself plunged in gloom; for, although 
 he had by his valor and prowess vindicated the honor 
 of his house, and vanquished the haughty and renowned 
 Don Gomez in fair fight, yet he felt, that, in so doing, 
 he had taken the life of the father of his own fair and
 
 90 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 well-beloved Ximena, who was dearer to him than all 
 the world beside; and how could he hope now to ever 
 possess her as his bride, with his own hands red with her 
 father s blood, although that blood had been shed in all 
 honor, and according to the code of the times which 
 governed the actions of all honorable men? And now, 
 although he despaired, for the time being, of possessing 
 her for his bride, yet he found himself utterly unable to 
 resign all hopes of eventually regaining her, and equally 
 unable to drive her fair image from his tortured mind; 
 for, in the language of one of the greatest of modern 
 bards, 
 
 " He who stems a stream with sand, 
 And fetters flame with flaxen band, 
 Has yet a harder task to prove, 
 By firm resolve to conquer love!" 
 
 We shall see how Rodrigo sped him in such difficult 
 extremity. The ballads relate, that, when the fair Ximena 
 learned by whose hand her father had been "done to 
 death," she felt herself also in honor bound to take coun 
 sel of her head rather than of her heart; and so, in due 
 time, she presented herself before the good King Fer 
 nando, clothed all in weeds of deepest mourning, and 
 followed by her train of maidens in similar array, to 
 claim vengeance upon him who had deprived her of a 
 father so deeply loved; and, falling upon her knees before 
 the king, she thus cried out for justice: 
 
 " Justice, king! I sue for justice, 
 
 Vengeance on a traitorous knight. 
 Grant it me! so shall thy children 
 Thrive, and prove thy soul s delight.
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 91 
 
 " Like to God himself are monarchs 
 
 Set to govern 011 the earth, 
 All the vile and base to punish, 
 And to guerdon virtuous worth. 
 
 " But the king who doth not justice 
 
 Ne er the scepter more should sway, 
 Ne er should nobles pay him homage, 
 Vassals ne er his bests obey." 
 
 But the good king since he was notable to restore 
 her father to life, and not wishing to punish or banish 
 so valorous and useful a knight as Rodrigo was begin 
 ning to show himself to be -puts off the fair Ximena, 
 most likely with many fair promises, never intended to 
 be fulfilled, trusting, like a wise monarch, to time and 
 circumstances to soften and change her mind; and, as 
 the sequel proved, he did not " lean upon a broken reed." 
 Nevertheless Ximena, impatient of delay, feminine 
 trait, returns again and again to urge her complaints 
 against Rodrigo, whom she still, however, dearly, though 
 secretly, loves ; as the king, in truth, all along suspects. 
 Finally, on the occasion of one of those dolorous visits to 
 urge her suit against poor Rodrigo, she breaks out in this 
 wise: 
 
 " King! six moons have passed away 
 
 Since my sire was reft of life 
 By a youth whom thou dost cherish 
 For such deeds of murderous strife. 
 
 " Four times have I cried thee justice; 
 
 Four times have I sued in vain : 
 Promises I get in plenty; 
 Justice, none can I obtain.
 
 92 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 "Every day, at early morning, 
 To despite me more, I wist, 
 He who slew my sire doth ride by 
 With a falcon on his fist. 
 
 " At my tender doves he flies it; 
 Many of them hath it slain: 
 See! their blood hath dyed my garments 
 With full many a crimson stain." 
 
 The good king, seeing by this that Rodrigo was flying 
 his falcon at her doves, really with an eye to their mis 
 tress, hesitated no longer, but came at once pat to the 
 point, as the ballads relate, in this wise: 
 
 " Say no more, O noble damsel! 
 
 Thy complaints would soften down 
 Bosoms were they hard as iron, 
 Melt them were they cold as stone. 
 
 " If I cherish Don Rodrigo, 
 
 For thy weal I keep the boy! 
 Soon, I trow, will this same gallant 
 Turn thy mourning into joy." 
 
 And so, in fact, it proved, to the great satisfaction of 
 all concerned; for the quarrel like most love-quarrels, 
 when rightly managed by older heads, who know, of 
 course, just what is wanted was easily made up: and 
 the happy pair were in due time united in those bonds 
 which give full liberty to quarrel in the future ad libitum 
 without the interference of king, commons, or neighbors. 
 And the lovers, made happy after long months of separa 
 tion, met, and embraced each other tenderly: this was
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 93 
 
 before their marriage, mind you; and Rodrigo, gazing 
 fondly upon his fair fiancee, thus addressed her: 
 
 " I did slay thy sire, Ximena, 
 
 But, God wot, not traitorously; 
 T\vas in open fight I slew him: 
 Sorely had he wronged me. 
 
 " A man I slew, a man I give thee: 
 
 Here I stand thy will to bide! 
 
 Thou, in place of a dead father, 
 
 Hast a hushand by thy side." 
 
 And Ximena, like a sensible and good girl as she 
 really was, blushed and smiled, and smiled and blushed; 
 and thought, no doubt, as many a pretty maiden has 
 thought since, that a young and valiant husband was 
 far better, in her case, than an old father. And so the 
 nuptials of the happy pair were celebrated with great 
 pomp and rejoicing, the bishop himself tying the hy 
 meneal knot, to make sure of its strength, and the king 
 giving away the bride; and the streets through which 
 they were to pass were strewed with sweet cypress, and 
 the windows of the houses along their route were hung 
 with cloth of gold; while the women showered wheat 
 upon the bride as she passed along, in token of a wish 
 that she might prove prolific; and, to adopt the language 
 of a modern distich, slightly altered to make it fit the 
 occasion, 
 
 " Minstrels sang, and music played. 
 To think how happy she was made." 
 
 While, as to Rodrigo, the ballads of those times re 
 count that
 
 94 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 "All approved well his prudence 
 And extolled him with zeal: 
 Thus they celebrate the nuptials 
 Of Rodrigo of Castile." 
 
 But we must leave the song half sung, and the tale half 
 told; for the purpose of this essay is, not to give a history 
 of the Cid s life, but only to call the attention of the 
 reader to the very many early Spanish ballads upon the 
 subject, and at the same time give a few quotations from 
 them to exemplify their literary value and poetic beauty; 
 for it is well known that Dr. Southey has spoken of them 
 in very disparaging terms. But we cannot help believing 
 that he has unjustly undervalued their real worth and 
 poetic beauty; for historical worth and real poetic beauty 
 many of them certainly possess, as a large proportion of 
 readers who take the pains to make their acquaintance 
 will, without doubt, be convinced. Aside from the 
 numerous ballads relating thereto, the life and adven 
 tures of the Cid also form the subject of one of the 
 oldest, if not the oldest, long and continuous Castilian 
 poem now extant, " Poema del Cid el Campeador; " but 
 with that we are not at present concerned, as this essay 
 has for its subject only ballad-poetry. 
 
 Although we are not writing the Cid s history, still it 
 may not be uninteresting to the reader to be told that 
 his life was long, and, for the most part, a prosperous 
 one, though slanderous tongues often did him wrong; and 
 those who were envious and jealous of his great valor 
 and illustrious fame, often succeeded, for a time, in 
 bringing upon him the disfavor of his king, so that he 
 felt, at times, to the fullest extent, the truth of the great 
 poet s dictum, that
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 95 
 
 " He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find 
 
 The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow; 
 He who surpasses or subdues mankind 
 Must look down on the hate of those below! " 
 
 But he never failed to re-appear in time with all his 
 truth and valor and loyalty so resplendent as to burst 
 through and dissipate all the dark clouds that calumny 
 had been able to gather, for a time, around his name and 
 fame; and in the end he could truthfully say, like royal 
 Richard, 
 
 "Now all the clouds that lowered upon our house 
 Are in the bosom of the ocean buried." 
 
 The Cid spent the long years of his vigorous manhood 
 and old age in almost continuous warfare against the 
 Moslem invaders of Spain, and the enemies of his king; 
 and one of his latest great achievements was the wrest 
 ing of the rich and proud city of Valencia from the 
 Moors, after a long and bloody siege of many months; 
 and of Valencia he held possession till his dying day, 
 although the Arabians, more than once, exerted them 
 selves boldly to regain it. And at one time the great 
 King of Tunis came to besiege it, landing on the Spanish 
 shores with a numberless host of foot, and fifty thousand 
 horse; but, nothing daunted, the Cid prepared to meet 
 and repel them, saying, that "the greater the number 
 of the enemy, the greater would be the spoils;" and, 
 taking Ximena and his two daughters to the top of the 
 citadel, he pointed out to them with great delight the 
 innumerable hosts of their invaders; and, as the ladies
 
 96 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 were alarmed at such a warlike array, he said, to cheer 
 and comfort them , 
 
 "Fear thou not, my loved Ximena; 
 Fear not ye, my daughters dear! 
 While I live to wield Tix.ona, 
 Ye, I wot, have naught to fear." 
 
 Tizona was the famous sword which he won in battle 
 from a Moorish king years before. It was a blade so cele 
 brated, and of such superior quality and worth, that he 
 never failed to wield it himself in all his battles after 
 wards, and always with unfailing success. Xo wonder 
 that the ladies were alarmed at the immensity of the host 
 now arrayed against them; for the ballads say, that 
 
 " Toward the sea they cast their own eyes, 
 
 Foes did swarm along the coast; 
 Round about the town they looked, 
 Everywhere a mighty host. 
 
 "Tents were pitching, trenches digging, 
 
 All to battle did prepare; 
 Shouts of men, and war-steeds neighing, 
 Drums and trumpets rent the air." 
 
 But the Cid, nothing daunted, prepared himself and 
 his own invincible warriors to repel the invading hosts; 
 for, says the ballad, 
 
 " But my good Cid, all perceiving, 
 
 Rushed on the enemy; 
 Gainst their ranks he spurred Babieca, 
 Shouting loud his battle-cry,
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 97 
 
 " Aid us, God and Santiago! 
 
 Many a Paynim he laid low ; 
 To dispatch a foe he never 
 Needed to repeat his blow. 
 
 " Well it pleased the Cid to find him 
 Mounted on his steed once more, 
 With his right arm to the elbow 
 Crimsoned all with Moorish gore." 
 
 And so Valencia was relieved, the Moslems routed, and 
 great were the spoils that were captured with their de 
 serted camps. But we must pass over many interesting 
 incidents in the Cid s life; such as the marriage of his 
 daughters, and his noble vengeance upon their cowardly 
 husbands, his own exile from court, the second marriage 
 of his daughters, etc.; and refrain, for want of space, 
 from quoting many a noble ballad relating thereunto, 
 which it irks us very much to leave unsung, but which, 
 from the necessity of making this notice brief, must be 
 passed over in silence. Still, as we draw toward the close, 
 and prepare to say adieu to a theme so loved, we linger 
 still, and hesitate to lay aside the pen, as one who leaves 
 the threshold that he loves, to wander far and long, will 
 hesitate, and turn, and linger still to take one parting 
 look of things most dear; so we as some old ballad 
 rises in the mind, to stir the blood by means of its deep 
 pathos, or its chivalric memories of scenes and ages long 
 gone by still hesitate, and linger for a moment, and 
 would fain prolong the pleasure which we ourselves have 
 well experienced in studying these old songs, which Dr. 
 Southey, in his unjust condemnation, has pronounced so 
 worthless and so poor.
 
 98 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 Again was the Cid besieged in his own fair city of 
 Valencia, this time by a numerous host of Moslems, 
 headed by a King of Morocco; and it seems, by the tone 
 of the ballads relating to his later years, as if there was 
 a deep, rich strain of melancholy stealing over him 
 toward the close, to permanently pervade and sadden 
 that great soul, once so ardent and so martial. Still, 
 with some of his old-time bearing left, he sends back 
 this reply to the enemy, who demands the surrender of 
 his beloved Valencia: 
 
 " Let your king prepare his battle; 
 I shall straightway order mine: 
 Right dear hath Valencia cost me; 
 Think not I will it resign. 
 
 " Hard the strife and sore the slaughter; 
 
 But I won the victory, 
 Thanks to God and to the valor 
 Of Castilian chivalry! " 
 
 But, notwithstanding this bold reply, we can see that 
 his noble mind is sorely oppressed with unusual sadness ; 
 for, while he is arming himself for the contest, he thus 
 addresses Ximena, who is aiding him in doing on his 
 warlike harness: 
 
 " If, with deadly wounds in battle, 
 
 I this day my breath resign, 
 To San Pedro de Cardefia 
 Bear me straight, Ximena mine. 
 
 " Wail me not, lest some base panic 
 
 On my chiefless warriors seize, 
 But amid the call to battle 
 Make my funeral obsequies.
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 99 
 
 " This, my loved Tizon, whose gloamings 
 
 Every foeman s heart appall; 
 Never let it lose its glory, 
 Ne er to hands of women fall. 
 
 " Should God will that Babieca 
 
 Quit the strife alone this day, 
 And, without his lord returning, 
 At thy gate aloud should neigh, 
 
 " Open to him and caress him, 
 
 Let him well be housed and fed; 
 He who well his master serveth 
 Eight well should be guerdoned. 
 
 " Dear one, give me now thy blessing! 
 
 Dry thine eyes, and cease to mourn ! 
 Then my Cid, he spurred to battle : 
 Grant him, God, a safe return!" 
 
 And he was again victorious, and returned in safety to 
 Ximena, notwithstanding all his gloomy forebodings, so 
 unusual heretofore, in all his warlike career. But, feeling 
 now that he was getting old and feeble, he knew that the 
 end could not be far away; and so, like a good soldier, 
 he made his preparations for the final conflict, and, call 
 ing his friends around him, he thus addressed them: 
 
 "He who spareth no man living, 
 
 Kings or nobles though they be, 
 At my door at length is knocking, 
 And I hear him calling me. 
 
 " Friends, I sorrow not to leave you; 
 
 If this life an exile be, 
 We who leave it do but journey 
 Homeward to our family. "
 
 100 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 But, knowing that their enemies would take advantage 
 of his death to regain Valencia, he gave these directions 
 for the guidance of his friends, when his right arm 
 would no longer be able to shield or succor them: 
 
 " Should the Moorish king assail you, 
 Call your hosts, and man the wall; 
 Shout aloud, and let the trumpets 
 Sound a joyful battle-call. 
 
 " Meantime then to quit this city 
 
 Let all secretly prepare, 
 And make all your chattels ready 
 Back unto Castile to bear. 
 
 " Saddle next my Babieca, 
 
 Arm him well as for the fight; 
 On his back then bind my body, 
 In my well-known armor dight. 
 
 " In my right hand tie Tizona; 
 
 Lead me forth unto the war; 
 Bear my standard fast behind me, 
 As it was my wont of yore. 
 
 " Then, Don Alvar, range thy warriors 
 
 To do battle with the foe; 
 For right sure am I that on you 
 God will victory bestow. " 
 
 And what the Cid foresaw soon arrived, for the Moors 
 soon returned to besiege Valencia; but the Christians, in 
 accordance with the Cid s instructions, had prepared for 
 their own return to Castile, and in the dead of night they 
 led forth Babieca; and, by the glare of many torches,
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 101 
 
 they bound the dead body of the Cid firmly upright in 
 the saddle, with the far-famed Tizona gleaming naked 
 in his stiff right hand. 
 
 " There he sat all stiff and upright, 
 
 So Gil Diaz did contrive ; 
 He who had not known the secret 
 Would have deemed him still alive. 
 
 " By the fitful glare of torches 
 
 Forth they go at dead of night; 
 Headed by their lifeless captain, 
 Forth they march unto the fight." 
 
 And then, by a miraculous interposition, good Santiago 
 came to their aid; and the Moors saw what to them 
 appeared to be an innumerable host, led on by a super 
 natural leader clothed in shining raiment; and, say the 
 ballads, 
 
 "Seventy thousand Christian warriors, 
 
 All in snowy garments dight, 
 Led by one of giant stature, 
 Mounted on a charger white. 
 
 " On his breast a cross of crimson, 
 
 In his hand a sword of fire, 
 With it hewed he down the Paynims, 
 As they fled, with slaughter dire." 
 
 And so they all turned away in dismay before the dead 
 Cid and his miraculous allies; and thousands of them 
 were borne down, and trampled to death in their head 
 long flight, while vast multitudes were drowned in their 
 endeavors to get aboard their own ships.
 
 102 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY 
 
 And then the body of the Cid was borne back, amid 
 mournings and lamentings, to his own native and dearly 
 beloved Castile, where it was finally to repose, with the 
 ashes of his ancestors, in the Convent of San Pedro de 
 Cardena, a few miles to the east of Burgos, and not 
 far from his own village of Bivar, in a tomb which 
 was honored by emperors and kings. 
 
 His faithful Ximena spent the remainder of her days 
 in the same convent, near the dead body of her lord, 
 keeping holy vigils by his tomb, whom she had so faith 
 fully loved in life, and singing masses for the welfare of 
 his soul ; and she and their children were at last interred 
 near him in San Pedro, while around and near them 
 sleep the ashes of their ancestors, surrounded by those 
 of kings, nobles, and other illustrious men. 
 
 Babieca, the noble war-horse that had borne our hero 
 safely on his back through all his bloody battles, now 
 as celebrated as the Bucephalus of Alexander the Great, 
 was kindly cared for till his death; and no one was 
 allowed to ever mount again upon that back which had 
 so faithfully and nobly borne the Cid Rodrigo Diaz, 
 " the honor of Castile and Spain." 
 
 " And neither Spain nor Araby could another charger bring 
 So good as he, or, certes, so worthy of a king; 
 But to behold him truly, and know him to the core, 
 You should have seen him bear the Cid when charging on 
 the Moor." 
 
 He was buried deep beneath the trees in front of the 
 convent where slept the ashes of his master; for the Cid 
 had given directions in his will, that, "when ye bury 
 Bavieca, dig deep; for shameful thing it were that he
 
 OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 103 
 
 should be eaten by curs, who hath trampled down so 
 much currish flesh of Moors." And above the entrance 
 to the Convent of San Pedro is a mounted figure of the 
 Cid, represented as in the act of striking down the 
 Moors beneath the feet of the noble Babieca. 
 
 Thus we hope to have shown, by the few hasty quota 
 tions here given from the early ballads of Spain, and 
 our imperfect historical remarks concerning them and 
 the events which tended to call them forth, that these 
 old songs, with their sweet undertone of sadness, which 
 forms a strong element of their success and beauty, are 
 worthy of a place in the heart and memory of all true 
 lovers of the minstrel art. And had not the want of 
 space, within the intended limits of this article, forbid 
 den it, it would have been right pleasant to have given 
 here, and at length, many another of those old ballads 
 which breathe the chivalric spirit of that age when the 
 warlike deeds of Spain s great hero inspired her unpre 
 tending minstrel-bards to perpetuate, for all time to 
 come, the memory of those heroic deeds in sweet and 
 spirit-stirring songs. 
 
 And it would be both pleasant and profitable to ex 
 amine and recount some of those sad and pathetic ballads 
 of a Moorish origin, which more particularly relate to 
 that period and its events when the united forces of 
 Arragon and Castile, under the successful direction of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, were finally working out the 
 total ruin and downfall of the Moorish power in Spain; 
 and forcing Boabdil, the last weak Moorish King of 
 Granada, to cry out in bitterness of soul, 
 
 " Farewell, farewell Granada! thou city without peer!"
 
 104 EARLY BALLAD-POETRY. 
 
 And then it was that 
 
 " There was crying in Granada when the sun was going 
 down, 
 
 Some calling on the Trinity, some calling on Mahoun! 
 
 Here passed away the Koran, there in the cross was borne, 
 
 And here was heard the Christian bell, and there the Moor 
 ish horn. 
 
 " Te Deura Laudamus! was up the Alcala sung: 
 
 Down from the Alhambra s minarets were all the crescents 
 
 flung; 
 
 The arms thereon of Arragon they with Castile s display; 
 One king comes in in triumph, one weeping goes away! " 
 
 Some of the ballads of this period are the beautiful 
 effusions which flowed from the richest of melancholy 
 fancies, wherein, in strains of deepest pathos, are poured 
 forth the very essence and abstract spirit of many griefs; 
 and, running through them all, there seems to be a con 
 fluence of many sad thoughts, which were all awakened 
 by the same universal sources of national sorrow; and 
 all going, as it were, to make up one national reservoir 
 of pathetic and mournful feelings, embodied in strains 
 of deepest pathos, and tinged by the richest Oriental 
 fancy to mourn the loss and downfall of that " pride of 
 heathendom " and " bane of Christientie," the last and 
 best beloved stronghold of the Moors in Spain, the rich 
 and noble kingdom of Granada.
 
 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POEM 
 OF KENILWORTH. 
 
 THE poem of Kenil worth was composed during a visit 
 made by the author to the ruins of Kenilworth Castle in 
 England. To those who have visited the ruins of Kenil 
 worth, and read Scott s thrilling story of the same name, 
 no word of explanation is necessary; but, to the many 
 who have not yet enjoyed those exquisite pleasures, a 
 word of historical explanation may not be amiss. The 
 ruins of Kenilworth Castle are situated in the town of 
 Kenilworth, county of Warwickshire, England, at about 
 a hundred miles north-west from London. They are 
 among the oldest and most extensive of the time-worn 
 relics of the feudal ages. They date back with certainty 
 to the times of Henry I., son of William the Conqueror, 
 and, perhaps-, much earlier. Henry I. granted the manor 
 to his chamberlain, Geoffroi de Clinton, one of those Nor 
 mans who settled in England after the Conquest. After 
 the last of the de Clintons the castle was again vested 
 in the Crown, as it was many times afterwards in the 
 ages that followed; and for many ages Kenilworth was 
 a place of the first importance, and fills an important 
 place in history. Often vested in the Crown, it was 
 likewise often possessed by some of the greatest of Eng 
 land s nobles, such as the de Montforts, the Bolingbrokes, 
 and the renowned John of Gaunt, " time-honored Lan- 
 
 105
 
 106 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 caster," who had here his favorite residence. Henry 
 VIII. bestowed much cost in repairing and enlarging the 
 castle. And Queen Elizabeth bestowed the castle and 
 manor upon Robert Dudley (son of the Duke of North 
 umberland), whom she created Earl of Leicester, and 
 whom, it has been said, she would willingly have mar 
 ried. In July, 1575, took place the "virgin queen s" 
 celebrated visit to her beloved Leicester in his castle of 
 Kenilworth, when and where were held those world- 
 renowned fetes and tournaments of which Scott has given 
 us such an enchanting description. And, indeed, to the 
 pilgrim and poet the ruins of Kenilworth, grand and 
 beautiful in decay, owe their chief charms to the spells 
 of enchantment and potent attraction that have been 
 thrown around them by the pen of the Scottish novelist ; 
 and a thousand pleasant but saddening memories will 
 rise up in the pilgrim s mind while wandering among 
 these stately and extensive ruins, and his heart will often 
 throb with sorrow and sympathy for the woes and unre 
 quited love of poor Amy llobsart. Although Kenilworth 
 is now in ruins, yet is it grand and noble even in decay, 
 and stands to-day, and long will stand, a proud witness 
 of the pride and splendor of the feudal ages. Occupying 
 acres of ground, it is composed of almost innumerable 
 lofty towers and long lines of connecting buildings, ex 
 tending around and nearly inclosing an extensive court, 
 or tilt-yard, with vast piles of lofty buildings projecting 
 at irregular intervals of its circuit; for almost every one 
 of its noble possessors made, in turn, some extensive alter 
 ations or additions. The Earl of Leicester alone is said 
 to have expended in his time about sixty thousand pounds 
 of English money in additions and repairs, a surn equal
 
 THE POEM OF KENILWORTH. 107 
 
 in value to more than a million of dollars of our present 
 money. The great banqueting hall, adjoining Mervyn s 
 tower, was built by John of Gaunt, a most noble apart 
 ment, nearly a hundred feet in length, and half as wide, 
 and of great height. Its floor was supported on a stone 
 vaulting, resting on parallel rows of massive pillars; and 
 its windows were of great height, filled with tracery, and 
 transomed, with the spaces between them paneled; while 
 they, and the fireplaces on each side, were richly orna 
 mented. It also contained two grand oriel windows, 
 one looking east into the great court, and one looking 
 west into the chase. But Kenilworth has now lain for 
 ages dismantled and in ruins, and reft of all its ancient 
 glory ; but in its day it was a most princely abode. Aside 
 from its banqueting halls and state apartments, it con 
 tained rooms for more than a hundred beds, to accommo 
 date its princely possessors and their retinues. Kenil- 
 worth s final ruin was completed during the civil wars 
 that followed the overthrow of Charles I. ; and, from 
 being a stately and princely palace, it became a vast 
 and dismantled ruin, now all overgrown with aged ivy- 
 branches, which seek to shield its crumbling walls and 
 towers from the beating storms and moaning winds which 
 batter and wear its decaying battlements, and moan 
 through its deserted and ruined halls. After the restora 
 tion, the ruined castle and lands of Kenilworth were 
 granted to a sou of Chancellor Hyde; and, by the mar 
 riage of one of his female descendants, they passed to 
 Thomas Villiers, Baron Hyde, afterwards created Earl 
 of Clarendon, whose descendants are the present possess 
 ors. A few years ago large portions of the ruins showed 
 signs of falling, and Earl Clarendon caused them to be
 
 108 THE POEM OF KENILWORTH. 
 
 strengthened, and partially restored the great hall, and 
 repaired some of the external walls, as well as some parts 
 called Leicester s buildings. In so doing, the workmen 
 discovered underground apartments, cells, and passages 
 which had lain concealed and unknown for ages. And 
 thus to-day stands ruined Keuilworth, grand and state 
 ly, even in decay, with some of its slowly crumbling 
 towers still rising to a height of more than seventy feet, 
 to attest the grandeur and importance of princely Kenil- 
 worth in those far-off days when poor Amy Robsart, 
 whose glowing beauty would well have graced its prince 
 ly halls, was wiping her tear-stained eyes, a close pris 
 oner, beneath one of these lofty towers whose mistress it 
 was her right to be; while Leicester, who should have 
 protected her in that right, was basely paying court to 
 royalty in the person of his sovereign queen. 
 
 " And good Queen Bess was lodged within these towers, 
 Where now the ivy trails, and ruin darkly lowers."
 
 KENILWORTH. 
 
 1 Full many a traveler oft hath sighed, 
 
 And, pensive, wept the countess fall, 
 
 As, wandering onwards, they ve espied 
 
 The haunted towers of Oumnor Hall. 
 
 Now naught was heard beneath the skies : 
 
 The sounds of busy life were still, 
 Save an unhappy lady s sighs 
 That issued from that lonely pile." 
 
 Gumnor Hall, 1 by MICKLE. 
 
 O KENILWORTH ! thy crumbling walls 
 Speak sadl}* of the past to me ; 
 
 Now standing in thy ruined halls, 
 Thy might} 7 past I well can see. 
 
 n . 
 
 I well can see the courtly throng 
 That peopled once thy lordly walls ; 
 
 Gay knights and dames, who trooped along, 
 And woke to mirth thy princely halls. 
 
 1 See Appendix at the end of the poem. 
 109
 
 110 KENILWORTJI. 
 
 III. 
 
 Thy lordly towers that proudly reared 
 Their lofty heads to prop the sky : 
 
 What though those towers have disappeared ? 
 Though walls are rent, and moat is dry? 
 
 rv. 
 What though to-day no banners float 
 
 Proudly o er thy embattled walls ? 
 What though no waters fill thy moat, 
 
 No drawbridge rises now or falls ? 
 
 v. 
 
 What though no warder on thy walls 
 
 Paces to-day his stately round ? 
 What though no echoing bugle-calls 
 
 Through keep and court and tower resound ? 
 
 VI. 
 
 What though no guards or seneschals, 
 With huriying footsteps to and fro, 
 
 Roused by the echoing bugle-calls, 
 Prepare to meet if friend or foe ? 
 
 What though th}" glories all are past ? 
 
 Thou once wert might} , world-renowned, 
 Though now the moaning autumn blast 
 
 Seems thy sad requiem to sound.
 
 KENILWORTH. Ill 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And rent and ruin everywhere 
 
 Fill the beholder s mind with woe, 
 
 Though mantling ivy s shielding care 
 Less ghastly lets thy ruins show. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Here desolation reigns supreme, 
 
 And crumbling ruins strew the ground ; 
 
 Here, where such earthly pomp was seen, 
 Ruin and silence most abound ! 
 
 x. 
 
 N importe! By aid of Fancy s eye, 
 
 I gaze adown the vanished years, 
 And all thy pomp and panoply 
 
 To my rapt vision now appears. 
 
 XI. 
 
 As by some great enchanter s power, 
 The vanished years are backward rolled, 
 
 Till keep and court and lordly tower, 
 Again all perfect, I behold ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Again the warders mount the walls, 
 And princely banners flout the sky ; 
 
 And England s beauties throng thy halls, 
 Guarded by England s chivalry.
 
 112 KEN IL WORTH. 
 
 I see the virgin queen again 
 
 Enthroned in th}* high princely hall, 
 A " virgin queen," at least in name, 
 
 Beloved by some, and feared by all. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And graceful Leicester, bowing low, 
 Pays homage on his bended knee, 
 
 And courts his sovereign with a show 
 Of mingled love and loyalty. 
 
 While England s nobles, standing by, 
 Look smilingly his suit upon, 
 
 Deeming he mounts to royalty, 
 His sovereign s heart already won. 
 
 Little that sovereign deems that here, 
 Within these walls, a lovelier one 
 
 Is pouring now the silent tear, 
 
 To whom thy plighted faith is sworn. 1 
 
 1 During Queen Elizabeth s celebrated visit to Kenilworth, and while 
 the Earl of Leicester was entertaining her with such splendor, and also 
 paying her such marked attention that he was generally considered as 
 her favored and accepted lover, the beautiful but unhappy Amy, to 
 whom he had been secretly married, was confined a close prisoner in a 
 tower of the castle called Mervyn s Bower; and it was only after her 
 escape from her prison, and while she was trying to fly, she knew not
 
 KENILWORTH. 113 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Wily deceiver ! dread the hour 
 
 When all the falsehoods of thy heart 
 
 Are bared to her offended power, 
 Lest thy poor head and bod}* part. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 She is the daughter of a sire 
 
 Who ne er brooked injury or slight ; 
 
 Her soul is filled with Henry s fire : 
 
 Oh, dread the force of her roused might ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The wounded lion, when at bay, 
 Is meek compared to her wild rage 
 
 When jealousy her heart shall sway, 
 
 And vengeance shall her thoughts engage. 
 
 whither, that she was accidentally seen by the queen. And only those 
 who are well acquainted with the character of Elizabeth, and have read 
 Scott s thrilling description of the scene, can imagine or comprehend the 
 terrible force of the queen s rage as she gave way to her roused jealousy 
 and wounded pride; and the explosion of her anger bowed the haughty 
 Leicester to the earth, and shook him like an aspen leaf. " And will 
 he be the better for thy intercession? said the queen, leaving Tressil- 
 ian, and rushing to Leicester, who continued kneeling; the better for 
 thy intercession, thou doubly false, thou doubly foresworn? of thy 
 intercession, whose villany hath made me ridiculous to my subjects, 
 and odious to myself? I could tear out mine eyes for their blindness ! "
 
 114 KENILWORTn. 
 
 XX. 
 
 But not for Leicester, nor for queen, 
 Do wear} pilgrims, year b}* year, 
 
 Seek out this sad and solemn scene 
 To muse in mournful silence here. 
 
 Ah, no ! nor that these ruined walls 
 Once owned de Montfort as their lord, 
 
 Or echoed to wild battle-calls 
 Beneath Plantagenet s own sword. 
 
 Oh, no ! nor that great John of Gaunt 
 " Time-honored Lancaster " dwelt here. 1 
 
 Not for such names do pilgrims haunt 
 
 These scenes, and o er them drop the tear. 
 
 1 Henry, Earl of Derby and Duke of Lancaster, died in peaceful pos 
 session of Kenilworth in the thirty-fifth of Edward III., leaving two 
 daughters as his joint heiresses, Maud, aged twenty-two, and Blanch, 
 nineteen. Maud afterwards married William, Duke of Bavaria; and 
 Blanch brought Kenilworth as her portion of the inheritance, in mar 
 riage, to one of its most illustrious possessors, John of Gaunt, son of 
 Edward III. ; and the king soon after created him Duke of Lancaster, 
 the "time-honored Lancaster" of Shakspeare. Kenilworth Castle be 
 came to him a favorite place of abode, and he added largely to it; and 
 some portions of the ruins still bear his name, and show the magnificence 
 of his tastes.
 
 KENILWORTH. 115 
 
 A deeper charm than all combined 
 
 Is woven round these crumbling stones, 
 
 The spells of a great master mind 
 
 Mingled with injured Beauty s moans. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 When the pale moon in virgin blaze 
 Silvers each crumbling tower and wall, 
 
 And pours a flood of silvery rays 
 Through the old grand baronial hall ; 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Then moving shadows come and go 
 Through ivy-branches rent and torn, 
 
 Which, to the roused-up fancy, show 
 Like flitting maiden s half-seen form. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 And sighing night winds, moaning round 
 Through broken arch and crumbling tower, 
 
 Startle the ear, like distant sound 
 Of maiden s moans in prison-bower. 
 
 xxvu. 
 And softened echoes from the dell, 
 
 Like wavelets on the silver sands, 
 Fall on the ear like distant knell 
 
 Of death-bell rung by spirit-hands !
 
 116 KENILWORTH. 
 
 Then will the pilgrim s throbbing heart 
 The soul s deep sympathy disclose, 
 
 And in the poet s eye will start 
 A tear for Amv Robsart s woes. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 And poet s head and poet s soul 
 
 Will bow in reverence deep and long 
 
 To him who could all hearts control, 
 To Scotland s bard, her king of song ! 
 
 To Scotland s bard, whose might} mind 
 Wove magic spells these ruins round, 
 
 Where woman s love and woes combined 
 Make this forever holy ground !
 
 APPENDIX TO THE POEM OF "KENIL WORTH." 
 
 ALTHOUGH Sir Walter Scott, in his grand romance of 
 " Kenilworth," has represented some of the most deeply 
 interesting scenes in that touching story as passing in 
 Kenilworth Castle, yet the entire tragedy of the murder 
 of the real Countess of Leicester took place at Cumnor 
 Hall, near Oxford, many miles distant from Kenilworth 
 Castle. And it was the beautiful old ballad of " Cumnor 
 Hall," on the tragic death of the real Countess of Leicester, 
 by William Julius Mickle, a Scottish poet of the eigh 
 teenth century, that first suggested to Sir Walter the idea 
 of his noble story. The true history of the tragic death 
 of the real Countess of Leicester is to be found in 
 Ashmole s "Antiquities of Berkshire;" and the entire 
 tragedy took place in Cumnor Hall. 
 
 Three or four miles from Oxford the seat of the 
 great English university are the ruins of Godstow 
 Abbey; but very little is now left of Godstow, and only a 
 few standing walls were to be seen when the writer of 
 this took pains to visit the place a few years ago ; and 
 those sacred remains were then used as a cow-pen : 
 
 " To what base uses we may return, Horatio!" 
 
 But in the neighborhood of ruined Godstow were the 
 broad lands of the ancient manor of Cumnor Hall, once 
 belonging to the monks of Abington. 
 
 117
 
 118 APPENDIX TO 
 
 At the suppression of the monasteries by Henry VIII. 
 in the sixteenth century, the said manor of Cumnor was 
 
 conveyed to one Owen, the possessor of Godstow at 
 
 the time; and, according to Ashrnole s " Antiquities," 
 there was in the said house of Cumnor Hall a chamber 
 called Dudley s chamber, where the Earl of Leicester s 
 wife was murdered, of which murder, according to Ash- 
 mole, the following is, in part, the true story: 
 
 " Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a very goodly per 
 sonage, and singularly well featured, being a great favor 
 ite to Queen Elizabeth, it was thought, and commonly 
 reported, that had he been a batchelor or widower the 
 queen would have made him her husband; to this end, to 
 free himself of all obstacles, he commands, or perhaps 
 with fair flattering intreaties, desires his wife, the Coun 
 tess of Leicester, to repose herself here at his servant 
 Anthony Forster s house, who then lived in the aforesaid 
 manor-house (i.e., in Cumnor Hall), and also prescribed 
 to Sir Richard Varney (a prompter to this design), at his 
 coming hither, that he should first attempt to poison her, 
 and, if that did not take effect, then by any other way 
 whatsoever to dispatch her. 
 
 " This, it seems, was proved by the report of Dr. 
 Walter Bayly, sometime fellow of New College, then 
 living in Oxford, and professor of physic in that uni 
 versity, whom, because he would not consent to take 
 away her life by poison, the earl endeavored to displace 
 him the court. This man, it seems, reported for most 
 certain, that there was a practice in Cumnor among the 
 conspirators to have poisoned this poor innocent lady a 
 little before she was killed, which was attempted after 
 this manner :
 
 THE POEM OF " KEN IL WORTH." 119 
 
 "They, seeing the good lady sad and heavy (as one 
 that well knew by her other handling, that her death was 
 not far off), began to persuade her that her present dis 
 ease was abundance of melancholy and other humours, 
 &c., and therefore would needs counsel her to take some po 
 tion, which she absolutely refusing to do, as still suspect 
 ing the worst, whereupon they sent a messenger on a day 
 (unawares to her) for Dr. Bayly, and entreated him to 
 persuade her to take some little potion by his direction, 
 and they would fetch the same at Oxford, meaning to 
 have added something of their own for her comfort, as 
 the doctor upon just cause and consideration did suspect, 
 seeing their great importunity, and the small need the 
 lady had of physic, and therefore he peremptorily denied 
 their request, misdoubting (as he afterwards reported), 
 lest, if they had poisoned her under the name of his 
 potion, he might have been hanged for a colour of their 
 sin; and the doctor remained still well assured that this 
 way taking no effect, she w r ould not long escape their 
 violence, which afterwards happened thus: 
 
 " For Sir Richard Varney above-said (the chief pro 
 jector in this design), who, by the earl s order, remained 
 that day of her death alone with her, with one man only 
 and Forster, who had that day forcibly sent away all her 
 servants from her to Abington market, about three miles 
 distant from this place. They (I say, whether first stifling 
 her, or else strangling her) afterwards flung her down a 
 pair of stairs and broke her neck, using much violence 
 upon her ; but, however, though it was vulgarly reported 
 that she by chance fell down stairs (but still without hurt 
 ing her hood that was upon her head), yet the inhabitants 
 will tell you there that she was conveyed from her usual
 
 120 THE POEM OF " KENILWORTH." 
 
 chamber where she lay, to another where the bed s head 
 of the chamber stood close to a privy postern door, where 
 they in the night came and stifled her in her bed, bruised 
 her head very much, broke her neck, and at length flung 
 her down stairs; thereby believing the world would have 
 thought it a mischance, and so have blinded their vil 
 lainy." 
 
 Such (in part) is the true story of the murder of the 
 real Countess of Leicester; and Scott, in the preface to 
 his grand romance of "Kenilworth," tells us that he 
 " borrowed several incidents, as well as names, from 
 Ashmole s Antiquities; but that his first acquaintance 
 with the history [of the murder of the real Countess of 
 Leicester] was through the pleasing medium of verse," 
 alluding, thereby, to the fine old ballad of "Cumnor 
 Hall," by Mickle, two stanzas of which I have placed at 
 the head of my poem of " Kenilworth " as a motto. 
 
 G. D. 
 
 1882.
 
 THE WIZARD S GRAVE. 
 
 Each varying shade of many colored life he drew, 
 Exhausted worlds, and then created new." 
 
 I STOOD by Avon s winding stream ; 
 
 And tearful eyes were gazing on 
 A tomb where sleep, in endless dream, 
 
 The ashes of proud " Stratford s Swan. " * 
 And mortal heads were bending low 
 
 In reverence round that humble tomb, 
 Where, flitting ever to and fro, 
 
 Strange throngs of shadowy forms find room. 
 
 ii. 
 
 With Fancy s eye I see them all, 
 A wondrous, shadowy spirit-throng ! 
 
 With aslry lips some seem to call, 
 And some seem chanting aiiy song ; 
 
 1 In an unpretending church in the rural town of Stratford, and near 
 the sweetly gliding River Avon, sleeps, beneath a plain and humhle slab, 
 all that was mortal of the great and immortal Shakspeare, " the sweet 
 Swan of Avon," but infinitely greater in his humble grave than all the 
 kings who lie in gorgeous tombs in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 121
 
 122 THE WIZARD S GRAVE. 
 
 Mouthing and moping here and there, 
 Some glide, all ghostlike, to and fro ; 
 
 While some seem spirits of the air 
 Watching the ways of those below. 
 
 Many with coronets are crowned, 
 
 Some robed like haughty kings and queens ; 
 And one, with gaze bent on the ground, 
 
 In weeds of woe, a mourner seems : 
 In " inky cloak," l his ashen face 
 
 E er thrills me with its solemn stare, 
 While ever by him seems to pace 
 
 A kingly, ghostlike form of air. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Which seeing, he, with wonder thrilled 
 
 And outstretched hands, on bended knee, 
 In supplicating mood, seems filled 
 
 With doubt and dread uncertainty : 
 Thus gazing on that kingly form, 
 
 He seems to list some dreadful tale ; 
 For, like the rack of driving storm, 
 
 Dark shades flit o er his features pale. 
 
 1 " Hamlet. Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 
 Nor customary suits of solemn black, 
 No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, 
 Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief, 
 That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem, 
 For they are actions that a man might play : 
 But I have that within which passeth show; 
 These but the trappings and the suits of woe." 
 
 Hamlet, Act i. Scene 2.
 
 THE WIZARD S GRAVE. 123 
 
 It thrills the soul to see the throngs 
 
 Of airy forms that there find room ; 
 While Fancy s ear hears airy songs 
 
 Sighed out above that wizard s tomb, 
 And Fancy s eye beholds with fear 
 
 Such sights as would appall the brave, 
 The murderer s knife, the victim s tear, 
 
 "Woman s remorse, and maiden s grave. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And one dark form, appalled with fears 
 
 From meditation deep, profound, 
 With sudden " flaws and starts," appears 
 
 To chase an " air-drawn dagger " l round ! 
 And near him a right queenly form 
 
 Her pallid hands appears to lave ; 
 And of " damned spots," of murder born, 
 
 In walking sleep, she seems to rave. 2 
 
 1 " Lady Macbeth. This is the very painting of your fear : 
 This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said, 
 Led you to Duncan. Oh, these flaws and starts 
 (Impostors to true fear) would well become 
 A woman s story at a winter s fire, 
 
 Authorized by her grandam." Macbeth, Act iii. Scene 4. 
 2 "Waiting-woman. Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise ; 
 and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her. 
 
 Doctor. What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands. 
 Waiting -woman. It is an accustomed action with her to seem thus 
 washing her hands : I have known her continue in this a quarter of an 
 hour. 
 
 Lady Macbeth (walking in her sleep and rubbing her hands}. Yet 
 here s a spot. Out, damned spot ! out, I say ! One, two : why, then 
 tis time to do t." Macbeth, Act v. Scene 1.
 
 124 THE WIZARD S GRAVE. 
 
 While weird and withered forms around 
 
 In magic circles seem to turn, 
 Where, rising ghostlike from the ground, 
 
 Blue, lurid flames round caldron burn : l 
 As if by magic, mingle all 
 
 These beings of a wizard s brain ; 
 While airy voices seem to call, 
 
 They pass, and turn, and come again. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Why turn they here in endless round ? 
 
 Why hover ever o er this tomb, 
 Obeying, as by magic bound, 
 
 His ashes in their final home ? 
 Great wizard of the world, sleep on ! 
 
 The world, in reverence, bows to thee ; 
 Millions of ages yet to come 
 
 To thy great name shall bend the knee ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 Reader, go stand beside that grave ! 
 
 The sights I saw shall meet your view : 
 If not, then pray } our soul to save : 
 
 That wizard s charms are not for you ; 
 
 1 " Witches, Round about the caldron go; 
 In the poisoned entrails throw. 
 Double, double toil and trouble ; 
 Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble." 
 
 Macbeth, Act iv. Scene 1.
 
 THE WIZARD S GRAVE. 125 
 
 For there for ever must that throng 
 Of shadowy beings wheel their round, 
 
 And airy voices breathe wild song, 
 
 Where the great wizard s grave is found.
 
 TO EDWIN BOOTH AS HAMLET. 
 
 The following tribute to Edwin Booth, in his great and unrivalled 
 character of Hamlet, was composed in honor of his appearance in that 
 character at the Park Theatre, in Boston, in March, 1880, after an absence 
 of some years. It was published in " The Boston Daily Evening Travel 
 ler," and from that paper copied into others, while Mr. Booth, as Ham 
 let, was nightly crowding the theatre to its utmost capacity with the 
 most fashionable and delighted audiences. 
 
 HAIL ! hail ! all hail ! thy glad return ! 
 For now the classic lamp shall burn 
 Once more to light our modern stage, 
 Undimmed by follies of the age ; 
 And we with joy shall hear again 
 Great Shakspeare s deep impassioned strain, 
 Interpreted with grace refined 
 By thine own loft} , classic mind. 
 
 Too long our stage hath cumbered been 
 By follies of a lighter mien, 
 Where show and jest of simple mood 
 Are served for intellectual food : 
 Shame on the age that thus demands 
 Such nourishment from actors hands ! 
 
 126
 
 TO EDWIN BOOTH AS HAMLET. 127 
 
 Full well we know the stage hath been 
 
 In ever} age the mimic scene 
 
 Where the true temper of the age 
 
 Repeats itself upon the stage. 
 
 In the great days of Greece and Rome, 
 
 The noblest actions there were shown ; 
 
 Yet, long before their overthrow, 
 
 Their stage, like ours, held empty show : 
 
 Effeminacy wrought decay 
 
 Of strength that held the world at bay. 
 
 Not all the powers of foreign foe 
 
 Could lay their power and grandeur low, 
 
 Till love of wealth and show at length 
 
 Had sapped their stern and manly strength. 
 
 And can we hope to scape the doom 
 That gave to Greece and Rome a tomb? 
 And doth not now our modern stage, 
 Like theirs, the same dark fate presage? 
 The stage, with truth, as Shakspeare told, 
 Doth mirror up to nature hold ; 
 And there the body of the times 
 " In form and pressure" truly shines. 
 
 We hail thee with a joyous heart, 
 And long to see thee play thy part : 
 Let Stratford s Swan exalt his crest, 
 And soar in grandeur o er the rest !
 
 128 TO EDWIN BOOTH AS HAMLET. 
 
 Put modern follies all to rout : 
 
 Oblivion s wave shall wash them out ; 
 
 But ne er for wealth or present fame, 
 
 Mingle with them thy noble name, 
 
 That name which long, within the mind, 
 
 Hath been with Shakspeare s intertwined, 
 
 Till unto us, as to our sires, 
 
 It lights the glow of classic fires. 
 
 Descend thou, not from Shakspeare s line, 
 
 To follies of the present time, 
 
 But hold untiringly th}- course, 
 
 Like tried and trusted battle-horse. 
 
 Heed en\y not ! be of good cheer, 
 
 Nor falter in thy high career ! 
 
 For ne er did towering genius soar, 
 
 But raised the envy of the boor ; 
 
 And proof most sure of lofty state, 
 
 When marked by env} and by hate. 
 
 But heed it not, and coming time 
 
 Thy name with laurel wreath shall twine. 
 
 Thousands and thousands eveiywhere 
 Now watch thee in thy great career : 
 Oh, fail us not ! our faith in thee 
 Is firm as human faith can be, 
 Firm as the adamantine rock 
 That meets unmoved the ocean s shock, 
 Where northern tempests roar and rave ; 
 Where bursts the northern ocean s wave :
 
 TO EDWIN BOOTH AS HAMLET. 129 
 
 Yet strength and grandeur, there combined, 
 Meet and hurl back both wave and wind : 
 So let thine own proud soul stand firm, , 
 And hate and envy meet with scorn ; 
 For godlike is the thirst of fame, 
 And the desire for deathless name : 
 And ages yet unborn shall hear 
 The story of thy proud career. 
 
 As old men s memories yet are stirred 
 By thy sire s name as Richard Third, 
 So shall thine own, in coming time, 
 With that of Hamlet ever shine ! 
 And name of Hamlet, shall, in sooth, 
 Bring to the mind the name of Booth ! 
 And millions } et unborn shall say 
 How Booth did Hamlet s woes portray ; 
 How thus, and thus, he played the part ; 
 How fired the soul, how thrilled the heart. 
 
 Is there no art by which are caught 
 The airy lines of changing thought ? 
 No heaven-born art, to catch and trace 
 The doubt and wonder in thy face? 
 When there, upon thy bended knee, 
 A father s ghost thou first dost see? 
 
 And when, in sweet Ophelia s heart, 
 JSo longer sure of lover s part,
 
 130 TO EDWIN BOOTS .45 HAMLET. 
 
 What tender sorrow grief refined 
 lu thy distracted, doubting mind ! 
 And poor Ophelia, doubting too 
 What rightfully to think or do, 
 Bewails thy reason overthrown, 
 " Like sweet bells jangled out of tune ! " 
 Her heart, her hopes, now tempest-tossed, 
 She fades and dies, her reason lost ! 
 Yet, like the swan, she singing dies, 
 Twining sweet flowers with memories ; 
 Her fading sighs, her dying moans, 
 As tender as the wind-harp s tones. 
 
 And when thy mother thou dost chide, 
 While j et she seeks her guilt to hide, 
 Oh God ! is there no art can trace 
 The agony upon tin face? 
 Can trace and give, to coming time, 
 To see that agony sublime ? 
 
 And when at last a father s death 
 
 Is well avenged, and thy last breath 
 
 Is drawn in agony and pain, 
 
 Lest coming time thy action blame, 
 
 Oh, then ! the living thoughts that trace , 
 
 Their lines upon thy dying face ! 
 
 Of all the cunning hands that weave 
 The lines to make cold marble breathe,
 
 TO EDWIN BOOTH AS HAMLET. 131 
 
 Of all those hands, oh ! are there none 
 Can chisel out a dj-ing groan ? 
 Press on ! press on ! Oh, never fear, 
 Nor falter in thy grand career ! 
 Though art may fail, a deathless name 
 Awaits thee with the crown of fame !
 
 TRIBUTE TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. 
 
 When the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes reached the age of seventy 
 years, the publishers of " The Atlantic Monthly" to which. Dr. Holmes 
 had long been a constant contributor gave a reception and breakfast to 
 the veteran poet in honor of the occasion, and many poems were writ 
 ten in celebration of the event; and, among others, the following was 
 written in honor of that occasion, and afterwards published in " The 
 Daily Evening Traveller." 
 
 " How shall an old man keep young? 
 Seek the spell all tribes among 
 In the lore of every tongue; 
 Seek it in the catacombs 
 Buried in Egyptian tombs; 
 Lastly search in Florida 
 For the fount which Leon saw." 
 
 J. F. C. to O. W. II. 
 
 WHY seek dark spells strange tribes among, 
 
 Or mystic lore in foreign tongue ? 
 
 Why search through the dark catacombs, 
 
 Or in old Egypt s mould} 1 tombs? 
 
 Why seek for magic s mystery 
 
 To guard against what ne er can be? 
 
 What need of charm or spell, in sooth, 
 
 Or of the fabled Fount of Youth? 
 
 132
 
 TRIBUTE TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 133 
 
 For be it said with accent bold, 
 Holmes never was nor can be old ; 
 His own sweet songs, of love and truth, 
 Are his unfailing Fount of Youth. 
 
 Whoever heard it said or sung 
 That Homer, Virgil, were not young? 
 Whoever heard it sung or told 
 That Burns or Byron e er grew old? 
 And know you not that lofty mind 
 Was ne er by nature s laws confined? 
 Mind pierces laws of nature through : 
 No need that I tell this to you. 
 
 Holmes bears in his own loving heart 
 
 The magic and the mystic art, 
 
 The glamour and the charm untold, 
 
 By which he never can seem old ; 
 
 He pours from his own dulcet tongue 
 
 The magic words that keep him young ; 
 
 And heart and brain the charm combine 
 
 Which make him your friend and mine. 
 
 Yes, mine he is, although, tis true, 
 
 We ne er had earthly interview : 
 
 The Fates to me that joy ne er gave 
 
 Perchance ne er will this side the grave ; 
 
 And to me it may ne er be given 
 
 To clasp his hand this side of heaven.
 
 134 TRIBUTE TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 N importe! I revel in his song, 
 And my heart bears his love along ; 
 Like you, I prize his mirth and wit, 
 And oft they give me laughing " fit." 
 1 con them o er and o er again, 
 Till every button feels the strain ; 
 And in my heart I bless the man 
 Who " ne er writes funny as he can." 
 
 His songs cheer me on life s rough road : 
 The} ease my heart of weary load, 
 And bring to me the same sweet spell, 
 As if, like you, I knew him well ; 
 My soul warms with poetic fire, 
 Like j ours, whene er he tunes his lyre ; 
 And, when he strikes a sadder strain, 
 We both resist its power in vain ; 
 For, be his strain or sad or free, 
 He charms each heart to sympathy. 
 
 His sweet songs bear no marks of age ; 
 Freshness and youth embalm each page ; 
 In every flowing line we see 
 The fairest flowers of minstrelsy, 
 Untouched by any breath of cold : 
 Then how can he be growing old ? 
 
 Awaj* with such unwelcome word, 
 And let it never more be heard !
 
 TRIBUTE TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 135 
 
 But hail him now, and hail him long, 
 Our dear New England s prince of song ! 
 Oh, may his lyre ne er lose a string, 
 Nor chilling age ai ound it cling 
 To muffle its sweet voice of song ! 
 Which heaven grant ma} cheer us long, 
 May cheer us through life s pilgrimage, 
 And millions more from age to age ! 
 
 Then let us love him while we may, 
 And prize him more from day to da} : 
 His heart for all bears love untold, 
 And never, never can grow old. 
 
 But, oh ! should envious Death appear, 
 And bear him to some higher sphere, 
 We would not sa} that he was dead, 
 But to the starry heavens fled, 
 Where golden lyres for ever sound, 
 Where songs of love and truth resound ; 
 There his great soul and tuneful lyre 
 Shall bear their part in heavenly choir ; 
 Then may our souls be borne afar 
 To meet him on that better star.
 
 OLIVER AND JAMES. 
 
 (First published in " The Daily Evening Traveller.") 
 
 The seventieth birthday of the Rev. James Freeman Clarke was hon 
 ored by a public celebration of the event in the Church of the Disciples ; 
 and Oliver Wendell Holmes in honor of whose seventieth birthday 
 Dr. Clarke had written a poem a few months before wrote, in turn, a 
 very touching poem to his college classmate and life-long friend, in which 
 occurs this stanza: 
 
 "How few still breathe this mortal air 
 
 We called by schoolboy names ! 
 You still, whatever robe you wear, 
 To me are only James! " 
 
 AGAIN we hear the solemn chime, 
 
 Pealed b}* the iron tongue of Time ; 
 
 The solemn chime " His seventieth }*ear " 
 
 Again breaks on the startled ear, 
 
 As if the world had all grown old, 
 
 And Youth was dead, and Hope was cold, 
 
 And gray-haired Time, without a fear, 
 
 Could sound for all a seventieth 3 ear, 
 
 As if the race of living men 
 
 Had donned at once " threescore and ten." 
 
 It seems to me but yesterday 
 That James awoke his tender lay, 
 
 136
 
 OLIVER AND JAMES. 137 
 
 Where Friendship sang, in sweetest strains, 
 For Oliver, the love of James. 
 
 It filled the eye with Pitj- s tears 
 
 When Oliver saw seventy years ; 
 
 And James, to celebrate the da} , 
 
 Awoke for him that tender lay 
 
 Where friendship tried, with artful strain, 
 
 To soothe for Oliver the pain, 
 
 The pain regret perchance the tears, 
 
 That wrapped him with those seventy years. 
 
 Now James, in turn, has reached the age 
 
 Allotted to life s pilgrimage, 
 
 The numbered years, " threescore and ten," 
 
 The Psalmist counts for mortal men ; 
 
 And Oliver, in tender strains, 
 
 Sings back, in turn, to comfort James, 
 
 And strives with all a minstrel s art 
 
 To cheer dear James and soothe his heart ; 
 
 And wreathes his brow and wipes his tears, 
 
 Till he forgets his seventy years. 
 
 And thus, like brothers tried and true, 
 They nobly march life s journey through ; 
 And hand in hand the bard and sage 
 Are winding down life s pilgrimage ; 
 And as they go, to cheer the road 
 And ease the heart of weary load,
 
 138 OLIVER AND JAMES. 
 
 With tender songs and noble speech, 
 Each one, in turn, doth comfort each : 
 With many a look to that dear time 
 When both, in j-outh, began to climb, 
 To climb the shining heights of Fame, 
 Where both have won a noble name, 
 The heights of Fame, where now they stand 
 The noblest in their native land. 
 Oh, may their days be lengthened long, 
 To cheer with counsel and with song ! 
 
 And shall nn T harp be silent now, 
 
 When seventy years wreathe James s brow? 
 
 My harp that woke its feeble lays 
 
 To sound for Oliver meet praise, 
 
 Meet praise for him when seventy years 
 
 Had wrapped him in their weight} cares ? 
 
 If to that harp one chord remains, 
 Now let it sound, in turn, for James ! 
 By noble sage and noble bard 
 Now let its dying notes be shared ! 
 And when for them its dying strain 
 Shall cease, it ne er may sound again. 
 
 Well, let it break : no eye shall weep, 
 Though harp and harper both shall sleep ; 
 And though no breaking chord shall raise 
 A note to sound our dying praise,
 
 OLIVER AND JAMES. 139 
 
 No matter though we die unsung, 
 My poor harp broken, all unstrung, 
 Enough for us, that in our day 
 We woke for them our humble lay ! 
 Enough for us, that here they deign 
 To listen to our humble strain ! 
 
 Who d sing for me when seventy years 
 Should load me with their heavy cares? 
 Nor Oliver nor James would then 
 Walk this fair earth with living men : 
 The sage and bard, then hand in hand, 
 Will walk, in love, " that better land." 
 " That better land ! " Oh, can it be 
 That I both bard and sage shall see, 
 Shall see and press the spirit-hand 
 Of both when in " that better land " ? 
 O happy thought ! and if I may, 
 Then quickly come that welcome day ! 
 And may we all a loving band 
 Meet ne er to part in " better land " !
 
 THE GREEX, THE GOLD CORN, AXD THE 
 SHEAVES. 
 
 " BETWEEN the green corn and the gold," * 
 
 Between life s morning and its noon, 
 How man} ardent loves grow cold ! 
 
 How man} 7 bright hopes cease to bloom ! 
 How manj* fatal changes come, 
 
 How many fatal truths are told, 
 Between life s morning and its noon, 
 
 " Between the green corn and the gold " ! 
 
 ii. 
 
 The things which pleased us when a child 
 
 Ere noon of life neglected lie ; 
 Faces that in life s morning smiled 
 
 Ere noon of life grow pale and die : 
 Ere noon of life life s joys are past ; 
 
 Ere noon of life the heart grows old ; 
 Life s hopes and flowers all wither fast 
 
 " Between the green corn and the gold." 
 
 1 The first line of this poem is quoted from a very pretty little song 
 which I have met with somewhere, but I am unable to say where, or to 
 give its author s name now. 
 140
 
 THE GREEN, THE GOLD CORN. 141 
 
 III. 
 Who has not seen the morning sun 
 
 In blazing splendor climb the sky? 
 And yet, ere half his coarse was run, 
 
 His darkened beams elude the eye. 
 Who has not seen the opening flower 
 
 In morning splendor blooming fair ? 
 And yet, before the noontide hour, 
 
 Its leaves were torn, its stem was bare. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Quick-coming clouds obscure the sun, 
 
 Rude hands will tear the opening flower, 
 And human life, in joy begun, 
 
 Is darkened ere life s noontide hour ; 
 The brightest life will sink in gloom, 
 
 The highest hopes grow dead and cold, 
 Between life s morning and its noon, 
 
 " Between the green corn and the gold." 
 
 v. 
 
 Between the gold corn and the sheaves, 
 
 The gathered sheaves of ripened grain, 
 To the sad heart, life never leaves 
 
 Enough of joy to gild its pain ; 
 Between the noontides and the eves, 
 
 The solemn eves of closing life, 
 Between the gold corn and the sheaves, 
 
 Sorrow and pain alone are rife.
 
 142 TEE GREEN, THE GOLD CORN. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Then friends of early life are dead, 
 
 Or worse than dead estranged and cold 
 And life s last lingering hope has fled, 
 
 And all of life s sad tale is told. 
 Then the lone heart in silence grieves, 
 
 And, breaking, sinks in death and pain ; 
 Then the gold corn is bound in sheaves, 
 
 In gathered sheaves of withered grain.
 
 THE FADED FLOWER. 
 
 (First published in " The Daily Evening Traveller.") 
 
 "What! not receive ray foolish flower? 
 
 Nay, then, I am indeed unblest : 
 On me can thus thy forehead lower? 
 And knowest thou not who loves thee best? " 
 
 THE rose, dear maid, thou gavest to me 
 
 Has faded leaf by leaf, 
 Although I watched it tenderly, 
 
 And saw it fade, with grief; 
 I warmed it with full many a sigh, 
 
 And watered it with tears ; 
 And yet that little flower would die 
 
 In spite of all my cares. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Its tiny stem so slenderly 
 
 The needed life supplied, 
 That though I nursed it tenderly, 
 
 And loved it, yet it died ; 
 
 143
 
 144 THE FADED FLOWER. 
 
 And as I watched its fading leaves, 
 
 All falling one by one, 
 I could but feel how Hope deceives 
 
 The while she leads us on. 
 
 Tis thus, I said, our early hopes 
 
 Are fading day by day ; 
 And Time s swift current never stops, 
 
 But sweeps those hopes away. 
 Life s rosy morn, so sweet and fair, 
 
 With skies so bright and gay, 
 Is soon o ercast with doubt and care, 
 
 Our sky all cold and gray. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And earl} loves will fade and die, 
 
 Howe er the sad heart grieves, 
 And withered hopes around us lie, 
 
 Like these poor withered leaves ; 
 The heart s rich treasures soon are gone, 
 
 All squandered one by one, 
 And leave the heart as cold and lone 
 
 As winter s rayless sun. 
 
 v. 
 
 Oh, will our love thus fade away 
 Or stronger grow with time ?
 
 THE FADED FLOWER. 145 
 
 For thee, mine strengthens day by day : 
 
 How is it, love, with thine ? 
 Let thy love give the life, dear maid, 
 
 Mine give the sighs and tears ; 
 And then our rose shall never fade 
 
 Through all the coming 3 T ears, 
 
 VI. 
 
 But stronger grow, and sweeter too, 
 
 As time shall glide away ; 
 And, as we pass life s journey through, 
 
 Its leaves shall ne er decay ; 
 And never shall its fading bloom 
 
 Be mourned by us at all : 
 Where we shall sleep, within the tomb, 
 
 Its fragrant leaves may fall.
 
 THESE BUDS AND FLOWERS. 
 
 ON RECEIVING A PRESENT OF ROSEBUDS AND FLOWERS 
 ON " NEW-YEAR S DAY." 
 
 THESE buds and flowers, from hands most dear, 
 Come to me with the new-born year : 
 They come in winter s darksome gloom 
 To cheer my heart with sweet perfume ; 
 They come upon this " New- Year s Day " 
 A fair one s tender wish to say, 
 And to my heart a tale the}- tell 
 That words could never paint so well. 
 
 These buds and flowers are dear to me, 
 But dearer would the giver be ; 
 These buds and flowers now claim my care : 
 The giver owns my constant prayer. 
 Since the fair giver comes not now, 
 To buds and flowers I breathe my vow ; 
 And, while they fade in slow decay, 
 For the fair giver s weal I pray. 
 
 Oh, never may this new-born year 
 To her bright eyes bring burning tear ; 
 146
 
 THESE BUDS AND FLOWERS. 147 
 
 And may no pains her pulses stir, 
 Like those I often feel for her ; 
 And may her heart ne er know a gloom 
 Like this which now pervades my room, 
 While here I sit and make my moan 
 And sigh, because I m all alone ! 
 
 These flowers are fair, but now to me 
 
 Far fairer would the giver be ; 
 
 These soothe the brain, whence hot tears start ; 
 
 But she could soothe the aching heart. 
 
 Of all the flowers I e er shall see, 
 
 She is the fairest flower to me : 
 
 Then come, fair maid, and soothe my woe,
 
 LITTLE MAIDEN SWEET AND FAIR. 
 
 TO LITTLE MISS H , FIFTEEN YEARS OLD. 
 
 " Young Peri of the West! tis well for me 
 My years already doubly number thine; 
 My loveless eye unmoved may gaze on thee, 
 And safely view thy ripening beauties shine, 
 Happy I ne er shall see them in decline." 
 
 LITTLE maiden sweet and fair, 
 Girlish face and flowing hair ; 
 Rosebud in the early morn, 
 With the breath of summer born ; 
 Violet wet with morning dew, 
 Tinted all with heavenly hue, 
 Ere thy morning pass away, 
 Let me love thee while I may. 
 
 By thy airy form and grace, 
 By thy spirit-lighted face, 
 By thy clear e}-e s heavenly hue, 
 Showing heart and soul so true, 
 Where no touch of guile is seen, 
 Naught but modest maiden s mien, 
 Ere thy pure looks pass aw a}-, 
 Let me love thee while I may. 
 148
 
 LITTLE MAIDEN SWEET AND FAIR. 149 
 
 Thy fair hair, all unconfined, 
 Floating on the summer wind, 
 Waves around thy tiny form 
 In the breath of early morn ; 
 And thy light step, fair and free, 
 Shows both grace and modesty : 
 Ere these girlish charms decay, 
 Let me love thee while I may. 
 
 Tlry dark tresses soon would be 
 Chains to bind my soul to thee ; 
 Fairy form and girlish face 
 Soon will bloom with woman s grace ; 
 Thy dark eyes and glowing cheek 
 Soon will love s wild language speak : 
 For that hour I dare not stay ; 
 Let me love thee while I may. 
 
 May thy beauty never be 
 Source of after ill to thee ! 
 May God s love protect thee here, 
 Fitting thee for higher sphere ! 
 Such the prayer I pray for thee : 
 Some time give one tear to me : 
 I till death for thee will pray, 
 And will love thee while I may. 
 
 May thy pure soul ever be 
 From all sin and guile kept free !
 
 150 LITTLE MAIDEN SWEET AND FAIR. 
 
 May thy heart s true love be given 
 
 Where well prized, or else to Heaven ! 
 
 May I never live to see 
 
 Sin or sorrow blighting thee, 
 
 Or thy beauties in deca} ! 
 
 Let me love thee, and away.
 
 TIME S LESSON. 
 
 TIME to me one truth has taught 
 One sad truth long past believing ; 
 
 I have found that hearts I thought 
 Truest, best, were most deceiving. 
 
 I have found that one most loved, 
 Dearly loved and deeply trusted, 
 
 False and wayward early proved 
 To a love that should have lasted. 
 
 in. 
 
 Now this heart, once deeply thrilled 
 With the keenest sense of pleasure, 
 
 Evermore with grief is filled, 
 
 Grief no words of song can measure. 
 
 Had she never kindly smiled, 
 Had I never loved and trusted, 
 
 Had she ne er this heart beguiled, 
 
 Heart and hopes had ne er been blasted. 
 
 151
 
 152 TIME S LESSON. 
 
 V. 
 
 May that heart so dearly loved, 
 Dearly loved and deeplj- trusted, 
 
 To some sweet remorse be moved 
 By some memory which lasted ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 May the pangs ruthlessly given, 
 Ruthless pangs all mutely taken, 
 
 In eternity and heaven 
 
 Pangs of deep repentance waken !
 
 THERE WAS A TIME. 
 
 THERE was a time those e}*es of thine, 
 
 With dear affection s tender glow, 
 Beamed sweetly in response to mine ; 
 
 But now, alas ! it is not so : 
 Thy looks are cold, thy ways are changed ; 
 
 For kindly words I wait in vain ; 
 Thy heart is cold, and all estranged, 
 
 And seems to glory in my pain. 
 
 ii. 
 
 From thy unfeeling bosom rise 
 
 Two swelling heaps of dazzling snow, 
 And there, before my wondering eyes, 
 
 Two blushing buds in beaut} grow : 
 How can thy cold, unfeeling breast 
 
 Nourish those rosebuds sweet and fair? 
 How can the} warm and sweetly rest 
 
 When my poor heart is frozen there ? 
 
 153
 
 154 THERE WAS A TIME. 
 
 III. 
 Oh, take thy kisses back again, 
 
 Kisses thy sweet lips freely gave ! 
 Their memory loads my heart with pain, 
 
 And buries hope within the grave ; 
 And hide those dazzling hills of snow, 
 
 Which, lost, would ever fairer seem : 
 Oh, must I those dear charms forego, 
 
 Or is this all a fevered dream ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oh, no, dear maid, it is not true ! 
 Twas but a moody dream of mine : 
 
 Thy swelling bosom meets my view 
 As warm as summer s glowing prime ; 
 
 And those two rosebuds, blushing there, 
 Are fairer than the buds of spring : 
 
 This world holds naught more sweet or fail- 
 Inspiring poet s heart to sing. 
 
 v. 
 So come, dear maid, and be my love ; 
 
 None other e er shall be my bride : 
 If thy dear heart shall constant prove, 
 
 I care not for the world beside ; 
 And years ma} roll, and youth may fade, 
 
 And I will live and die with thee : 
 So let thine eyes, my bonnie maid, 
 
 Ne er turn one chilling glance on me.
 
 THE SUN OF HOPE. 
 
 THE sun of Hope, for one brief hour, 
 
 Burst through the clouds of grief and woe 
 That wrapped my soul with darksome power, 
 
 And warmed me with its fitful glow ; 
 Twas when thou bad st me hope and love, 
 
 And falsely swore to love in turn, 
 As if an angel from above 
 
 Had taught my soul with love to burn. 
 
 ir. 
 
 But when I found thee false as fair, 
 
 And woke from the delusive dream, 
 Then Hope was quenched in dark despair, 
 
 And Desolation reigned supreme ; 
 And Hope s bright sun in endless night 
 
 Sank down, oh, ne er to rise again ! 
 And dark Despair, with magic might, 
 
 Wound round my soul his clanklcss chain. 
 
 155
 
 156 TEE SUN OF HOPE. 
 
 III. 
 And I must wear that chain for aye, 
 
 And feel it festering round the heart, 
 And hide from every human eye 
 
 Its sickening pain, its deadly smart ; 
 And wear within the heart a grief, 
 
 A grief untold through 3 - ears of woe, 
 And feel that time brings no relief, 
 
 And let no tear, in sorrow, flow. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Such the dark fate thou dcal st to me ; 
 
 And yet I bless thy hand the while, 
 And far from hope, and far from thee, 
 
 In desolation seem to smile. 
 I viewed thee not with wanton eye : 
 
 Mine was a more than human love ; 
 Then, oh ! in mercy, tell me why 
 
 Thou could st so false and wayward prove. 
 
 v. 
 
 But let it pass ! Dark years shall roll 
 
 Alike upon thy heart and mine : 
 The desolation of my soul 
 
 May yet extend itself to thine. 
 And yet I pray that God will spare, 
 
 In mercy spare, thee every pain : 
 Let me, all uncomplaining, bear 
 
 The bitter woe, the grief, the blame.
 
 THE SUN OF HOPE. 157 
 
 VI. 
 
 Let life s dark course all quickly roll : 
 
 Oh ! would it were already o er, 
 My heart at rest, and my freed soul 
 
 Where grief and pain can come no more ! 
 There will I wait and watch for thee ; 
 
 And, if thy soul repentant prove, 
 Beyond life s dark and doubtful sea 
 
 We yet may dwell in blissful love.
 
 METEMPSYCHOSIS. 1 
 
 TO MISS . 
 
 I. 
 
 OH, will those bright e}-es ever weep 
 
 One crystal tear when I am low, 
 Or those fair lids e er wake from sleep 
 
 To let one tear in silence flow, 
 Because I ne er may come again, 
 
 Because my heart in death is low? 
 Oh God ! twould soothe this heart s deep pain 
 
 If I might truly deem it so. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Will ttry fair bosom throb with pain 
 
 When I am cold and lowly laid, 
 Because I may not come again 
 
 To cheer and love thee, pretty maid? 
 
 1 The doctrine of the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis) 
 probably had its origin in Egypt. It was connected with the idea of the 
 reward and punishment of human actions, and was taught by 1 ythago- 
 ras and his followers. They held, that, after death, the souls of men pass 
 into other animal bodies; and this doctrine is still prevalent in many 
 parts of Asia. 
 
 158
 
 ME TEMPS YCHOSIS. 159 
 
 Oh God ! twould soothe my aching heart 
 To deem that thou dost love me so ; 
 
 Twould steal from Death his keenest dart, 
 And soothe of life each bitter woe. 
 
 in. 
 
 And yet I would not have thee weep, 
 
 Nor have thy bosom throb with pain ; 
 Though cold in death, I could not sleep 
 
 My soul would fly to earth again ; 
 And I should linger round thee here, 
 
 Forsaking heavenly joys on high ; 
 My soul would drink thy every tear, 
 
 And melt in every tender sigh. 
 
 IV. 
 
 If that old-time philosophy 
 
 Bj- ancients taught should prove the true, 
 Then, by metempsychosis, I 
 
 Ma}- change my form, not quit thy view ! 
 Then, in that feathery songster s breast 
 
 That caged hangs within thy room, 
 I ll nightly sing thee to thy rest, 
 
 And nestle near thee in thy home,
 
 160 METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 V. 
 
 And daily feel thy hand s caress, 
 
 And thrill at thy endearing word, 
 As dail}* thou my cage shalt dress, 
 
 Deeming thou talkest to thy bird ; 
 And, when thine eyes in death shall close, 
 
 I ll fold my wings, and, closing mine, 
 My spirit freed shall seek repose, 
 
 And mingle evermore with thine.
 
 THAT SULTRY FOURTH OF JULY. 
 
 i. 
 
 DOST thou remember, dear, the time 
 
 That sultry fourth of July 
 When fruits and flowers were in their prime, 
 
 And I loved thee so truly ? 
 The golden hours, on pinions bright, 
 
 Flew o er me and my Zara : 
 The memory of that deep delight 
 
 No time or change can vary. 
 
 n. 
 
 I culled thee fruits, I brought sweet flowers 
 
 And twined them with thy tresses, 
 And heeded not the fleeting hours, 
 
 But heeded thy caresses. 
 Ah, woe is me ! why did those hours 
 
 Fly with such ruthless fleetness ? 
 Oh, could ye not, ye heavenly powers, 
 
 Prolong them and their sweetness ? 
 
 161
 
 1G2 THAT SULTRY FOURTH OF JULY. 
 
 I never, never shall forget 
 
 How all the lengthening shadows 
 Closed round us when the sun had set, 
 
 Concealing hills and meadows ; 
 And how I held thee to my heart 
 
 That long, sweet hour of parting : 
 Oh, pleasures past bring present smart, 
 
 And these sad tears now starting ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 When will another day, sweet maid, 
 
 Beam with such hours of gladness? 
 Why do past joys now cast a shade 
 
 So much akin to sadness? 
 Why does fond memoiy always bring 
 
 Thoughts of that day s deep pleasure? 
 Why to it does the fond heart cling 
 
 As to some long-lost treasure ? 
 
 v. 
 
 Well, time may fly, and j-ears may roll, 
 
 And joys and pains may vary ; 
 But never, never shall my soul 
 
 Forget the charms of Zara ! 
 And, till life s latest sun is set, 
 
 I e er shall love thee truly ; 
 And, oh ! I never will forget 
 
 That sultry fourth of July !
 
 HEAVEN S ARTILLERY, OR WAR AND PEACE. 
 
 How the hot, burning sun 
 
 Fiercely doth blaze, 
 While, in his course half-run, 
 
 Darting his rays ! 
 Hung high in the zenith 
 
 O er forest and field, 
 To mortals he seemeth 
 
 Like God s mighty shield. 
 
 H. 
 
 Like God s mighty shield there, 
 
 Inviting to war, 
 While the hot, sultry air 
 
 Blazes afar ; 
 And all the wilting trees, 
 
 Bowing the head, 
 Sigh for the cooling breeze, 
 
 Stifled and dead. 
 
 163
 
 164 HEAVEN S ARTILLERY, 
 
 in. 
 
 Now the black thunder-clouds 
 
 Rise from afar, 
 And, like to armed crowds 
 
 Read} for war, 
 Close up their serried ranks, 
 
 Heavy and dark ; 
 Rise from those thunder-banks 
 
 Mutteriugs stark. 
 
 On they move steadily, 
 
 Slowly at first ; 
 More and more readily, 
 
 Soon they shall burst ! 
 Deep-rolling thunder and 
 
 Banners unrolled 
 Waken the wonder and 
 
 Fear of the world ! 
 
 v. 
 
 Wheeling now rapidly, 
 
 Fearless and stark ; 
 Now mingling vapidly, 
 
 Heav} r and dark : 
 Then, in a moment, they 
 
 Close o er the sun, 
 Quenching his burning ray : 
 
 Battle s begun !
 
 OR WAR AND PEACE. 165 
 
 VI. 
 
 Now the red lightning-flash, 
 
 Fearlessly hurled, 
 Wakes the loud thunder-crash, 
 
 Shaking the world ! 
 Rapidly darting now 
 
 Flash upon flash ! 
 Loud thunders starting, how 
 
 Dreadful the crash ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 Never could mortals, 
 
 In death or in life, 
 Wake from War s portals 
 
 Such horrible strife : 
 All the dark fiends of hell, 
 
 Mingling in war, 
 Charging with shout and yell, 
 
 Wake not such jar. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 How the black masses wheel, 
 
 Mingle, and roar ! 
 How the loud-crashing peal 
 
 Sounds the world o er ! 
 Elements God unbinds 
 
 Leap into life, 
 And the wild, roaring winds 
 
 Join in the strife.
 
 166 HEAVEN S ARTILLERY. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Red lightnings flashing 
 
 The universe o er ; 
 Loud thunders crashing 
 
 With deafening roar ; 
 The big rain is pouring 
 
 A deluge to earth ; 
 Heaven s elements, roaring, 
 
 Give Chaos new birth. 
 
 x. 
 
 How long can the heavens and 
 
 Earth thus endure? 
 Will not God s mighty hand 
 
 Make us secure ? 
 Yes, lo where the bow of 
 
 His promise unfurled 
 Brings hope, and a show of 
 
 His love for the world ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 Elements warring, now 
 
 Cease at His will ; 
 Dark clouds retiring, now 
 
 Thunders are still ; 
 Shines forth His sun again 
 
 With softened ray : 
 Ever, in joy or pain, 
 
 Unto Him pray !
 
 MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN ON REVISITING THE HOME OF MY 
 CHILDHOOD IN WILLIAMSTOWN, VT., AFTER YEARS 
 OF ABSENCE. 
 
 " And other days come back on me 
 With recollected music, though the tone 
 Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan 
 Of dying thunder on the distant wind." 
 
 Childe Ilarold. 
 
 I. 
 
 ONCE more 1 revisit the land of my birth, 
 
 And seek the loved cottage and home-hallowed 
 
 hearth, 
 
 Where, a frolicsome band from anxiety free, 
 We gathered in youth round a dear mother s knee. 
 
 n. 
 
 Where now is that brotherly-sisterly band ? 
 Estranged, and all scattered afar through the land ; 
 And where is that mother, so loved and so dear? 
 Oh, stay, while I water her grave with a tear ! 
 
 167
 
 168 MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 III. 
 
 Oh, never did God, in his mercy and truth, 
 Give a better or dearer to childhood and youth ! 
 I breathe o er her grave many prayer-laden sighs, 
 "While the hot, burning tears pour like rain from the 
 eyes. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oh God ! if I only could see her again 
 
 With these eyes that are reddened with weeping and 
 
 pain, 
 
 And tell her how terribly dark was our home, 
 And how saddened was life when she left us alone ! 
 
 v. 
 
 I have placed o er her grave the white marble to tell 
 Her dear name, and the reason we loved her so well ; 
 And have left by her side ample room, where, in 
 
 time, 
 My ashes shall mingle, dear mother, with thine ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 And, oh ! if thy spirit hath power to come, 
 When my spirit is freed from this temporal home, 
 Then come, dearest mother, and guide me afar 
 To thy own spirit-home on some beautiful star !
 
 MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. 169 
 
 VII. 
 
 Our cottage has crumbled and gone to decay, 
 
 And dark weeds and brambles have choked up the 
 
 way; 
 
 But the darkest of weeds are the weeds of the heart, 
 And the brambles of thought pierce the soul like a 
 
 dart. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The threshold is broken, the hearthstone is bare, 
 
 Where, at evening and bedtime, we all said our 
 prayer, 
 
 As each one, in turn, kissed dear mother "good 
 night," 
 
 And clambered to bed with hearts happy and light. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Where are the familiar old faces and forms 
 That loved us in sunshine, and cheered us in storms? 
 I search the old places, and call them in vain ; 
 For only sad Echo replies to each name. 
 
 x. 
 
 And e en the old schoolhouse seems altered and 
 
 changed, 
 
 Like faces once loved that have long been estranged ; 
 The brook still goes by it with musical flow, 
 But a music how changed from the dear long ago !
 
 170 MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 XI. 
 
 And where are the voices that greeted the ear, 
 When, belated at morn, I came hurrying here? 
 And where is the teacher, so faithful and true, 
 Who even our errors with kindness could view ? 
 
 XII. 
 
 Those voices are hushed, and the teacher is gone ; 
 Here I wander, in sadness and silence, alone, 
 And sigh for the friends of the dear long ago, 
 And mingle my tears with the brook in its flow. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 My dear native land, I must bid thee adieu, 
 And all the loved spots which in boyhood I knew ! 
 My heart with unbearable sorrow is moved 
 When I mark the sad changes in homes which I 
 loved. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Th}" hills and thy valle t ys, so dear to my heart, 
 Tis painful to view them, and painful to part ; 
 How I loved, in my youth, all the glories of shade 
 That thy wide-waving woodlands in summer once 
 made !
 
 MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. 171 
 
 XV. 
 
 Thy mountains are green, as thy name doth imply, 1 
 And in picturesque beauty with any may vie ; 
 And with my loved country what land can compare 
 When the perfumes of autumn embalm thy sweet 
 air, 
 
 XVI. 
 
 When thy woodlands are tinted brown, purple, and 
 
 red, 
 
 And thy mantle of autumn is everywhere spread, 
 Where the scarlet and yellow are mingled with green 
 In colors as gorgeous as ever were seen ? 
 
 XVII. 
 
 O land of sweet lakes and of wild mountain-rills, 
 Of wide-waving woodlands and purple-crowned hills ! 
 Thy maidens are fair, and thy yeomen are brave, 
 And thy soil could ne er nourish the soul of a slave. 2 
 
 xvin. 
 
 Thy mothers are noble ; thy warriors were brave 
 As the bravest that struggled their country to save ; 
 And may God, in his mercy, from danger and harm 
 For ever protect them with his mighty arm ! 
 
 1 Vermont derives its name from two French words, vert mont; I.e., 
 " green mountain." 
 
 2 There was never a slave owned in the State of Vermont. The first 
 constitution of the State prohibited slavery.
 
 172 MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 And all thy dear maidens, so lovely and fair, 
 
 With white, swelling bosoms and long, waving hair, 
 
 May some worthier bard to their praise give his 
 
 breath 
 When my harp and my harpings are silent in 
 
 death, 
 
 xx. 
 
 And I join the great throng of the harpers of old, 
 Where the mightiest bards their high harpings shall 
 
 hold, 
 
 And I sit at their feet, all enraptured, to hear 
 Their golden-toned lyres in heaven s bright sphere !
 
 THE HEART THAT IN SILENCE IS BREAKING. 
 
 " The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun; 
 And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on ! " 
 
 THE heart that in silence is breaking 
 
 Is most to be pitied of all ; 
 When, alone in its desolate aching, 
 
 It drinks of the wormwood and gall. 
 Surrounded by beings called human, 
 
 Yet never, among them, from one 
 Not even from pitying woman 
 
 Doth mercy or sympathy come. 
 
 n. 
 
 As seen on some desolate mountain, 
 
 One lonely and lightning-scathed pine 
 That is fed by no nourishing fountain, 
 
 There biding in silence its time, 
 So the heart, that in silence is breaking, 
 
 Unnourished by pit}- or love, 
 In desolate loneliness aching, 
 
 Hopes only for rest from above. 
 
 173
 
 174 THE HEART THAT IN SILENCE IS BREAKING. 
 
 III. 
 
 There are moments when memory, waking, 
 
 The scenes of the past will recall ; 
 When the heart, in its loneliness breaking, 
 
 Craves mercy and pity from all ; 
 When the desolate soul is surrounded 
 
 By darkness unbroken and drear, 
 Or the sad heart most deeply is wounded 
 
 By one of all others most dear. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then, oh ! if the beings called human 
 
 Would mere} and sympathy lend, 
 Or the God-given angel called woman 
 
 Would o er us in truthfulness bend, 
 It would be to the soul like nepenthe 
 
 By pit} ing angels shed round, 
 As if God in His mercy had sent me 
 
 A balm for the soul s every wound. 
 
 v. 
 
 Oh God ! do I err in believing 
 
 That somewhere on earth may be found 
 One being, who, never deceiving, 
 
 Shall solace and soothe every wound ? 
 In whom the dark soul, in confiding 
 
 Its sorrows, shall sympathy find? 
 Where mercy and truth, all-abiding, 
 
 Shall solace one tempest-tossed mind ?
 
 THE HEART THAT IN SILENCE IS BREAKING. 175 
 VI. 
 
 Oh ! will they for ever pursue me, 
 
 Like vultures pursuing their prey? 
 For ever still strive to undo me, 
 
 Whatever of them I may say ? 
 Ah, yes ! they will seek to defame me, 
 
 Much rather than cherish and love ; 
 And, sooner than praise, they would blame me, 
 
 However to them I might prove. 
 
 VII. 
 
 My faults ! well, I know they are man}-, 
 
 And deeply I mourn for them all ; 
 Yet, though I had never shown any, 
 
 Not less would they strive for my fall. 
 Oh ! would they but search with slight labor, 
 
 Some errors at home might be seen ; 
 But " the mote " in the eye of our neighbor 
 
 Hides always in ours " the beam." l 
 
 VIII. 
 
 But let them war on at their pleasure, 
 
 The many pursuing the one ! 
 For God, in His justice, will measure 
 
 The right and the wrong that is done ; 
 
 1 " And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother s eye, 
 but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 
 
 " Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out 
 of thine eye; and behold a beam is in thine own eye? 
 
 " Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and 
 then shall thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother s eye." 
 
 Matt. vii. 3-5.
 
 176 THE HEART THAT IN SILENCE IS BREAKING. 
 
 Yes, God, in His wisdom, is making 
 A note of each sparrow s sad fall ; J 
 
 And the heart that in silence is breaking 
 May win as much mercy as all ! 
 
 1 " Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall 
 not fall on the ground without your Father. 
 
 "Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." 
 
 Matt. x. 29-31. 
 " There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow." 
 
 Hamlet, Act v. Scene 2.
 
 TO MISS . 
 
 ON RECEIVING HER PICTURE. 
 I. 
 
 Tins little casket, rich and rare, 
 With girlish face so sweet and fair, 
 To me is sweeter, dearer far 
 Than queenly pride and jewels are. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Yet take it back ! it gives deep pain 
 To my sad heart and throbbing brain ; 
 For, while I gaze, I sadly feel 
 The change that time must there reveal. 
 
 in. 
 
 Oh ! couldst thou linger as thou art, 
 With girlish face and girlish heart, 
 Just on the verge of womanhood, 
 Where ever} withered dame once stood, 
 
 177
 
 178 TO MISS 
 
 Then would I hail thee as divine ; 
 Then would I clasp and keep thee mine : 
 Not all the powers of earth should tear 
 From my embrace a gift so rare. 
 
 v. 
 
 And thy fair tresses, unconfined, 
 Now waving in the summer wind, 
 Strong chains and fetters then should be 
 To bind my loving soul to thee. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Oh, that some god the gift would give 
 To bid tlry girlish beaut} live ! 
 It may not be : Time wings his flight ; 
 Thy day is waning into night. 
 
 VII. 
 
 For amulet of safet} , bind 
 Thy soul to knowledge ! store thy mind 
 With sages songs that bards sublime 
 Chant to us from the olden time ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Then, when thy summer days are past, 
 And tlrv heart feels the chilling blast 
 Of age s winter, they shall be 
 Sources of deepest joy to thee.
 
 TO MISS . 179 
 
 IX. 
 
 And I for amulet will wear 
 This fair, sweet face with flowing hair, 
 Bound to my heart in every clime, 
 Through every change of place and time. 
 
 x. 
 
 Happy that I may ne er behold 
 Thy sweet smile fade, thy face grow old, 
 But e er remember thee thus fair 
 With girlish face and flowing hair.
 
 STANZAS. 
 
 TO MISS . 
 
 I. 
 
 Wirr wilt them wound the heart that loved thee so? 
 Why bring upon it all this bitter woe ? 
 Why grieve the heart whose every thought for thee 
 Was love and tenderness and constancy? 
 
 n. 
 
 The da} may come when thou, in turn, shalt know 
 The bitter pangs of an enduring woe, 
 When thou for one heart s truthful love wilt pine, 
 Such as thou knewest in the olden time. 
 
 in. 
 
 When that day comes, oh, sometimes think of me ! 
 Think of my heart s deep, earnest love for thee ; 
 Think of the olden and the happy time 
 When I was all to thee, when thou wert mine. 
 
 Then in thy heart there may arise a pain, 
 A secret wish that I may come again, 
 May yet i-eturn in truthfulness to thee 
 From my long pilgrimage beyond the sea. 
 
 180
 
 ETHEL GREY. 
 
 (Fragment from an Unpublished Poem.) 
 
 OH ! many a weary year ago 
 How man} I dare not say 
 
 A maiden lived, whom you may know 
 By the name of Ethel Gre} . 
 
 But where her home, and who her love, 
 
 It suits me not to sa} ; 
 For she is now in heaven above, 
 
 And he is far away. 
 
 Enough, to know they lived and loved, 
 
 And ne er can love again ; 
 Enough, to know one faithless proved, 
 
 And one now bears the pain. 
 
 In the churchyard, far awaj*, 
 Sleeps the form of Ethel Grey ; 
 There, beneath the cold gray stone, 
 In cold sleep she slecpeth on. 
 
 181
 
 182 ETHEL GREY. 
 
 With her pale hands, o er her breast, 
 Folded in their final rest, 
 Underneath the spreading tree, 
 In her last sleep, sleepeth she. 
 
 Through the branches all the day 
 Flecks of golden sunlight stray ; 
 And her silent, simple grave 
 In their golden beauty bathe. 
 
 Through the sad night s silent hours 
 Moonbeams pale incrtist the flowers, 
 Which, upon her little grave, 
 In the winds of summer wave. 
 
 Thus, while years steal on apace, 
 Rests she in her resting-place ; 
 Moldering in the solemn tomb, 
 Waiting there the trump of doom, 
 
 Which shall break her silent sleep, 
 Calling her to wake and weep, 
 Where all truths are open laid 
 For betrayer and betrayed,
 
 ETHEL GREY. 183 
 
 There to meet the certain doom 
 Waiting all beyond the tomb, 
 There to bow beneath the rod 
 Of a just, all-seeing God. 
 
 Reader, ponder well, and be 
 Thy heart from all guile kept free ! 
 And, when tempted to betray, 
 Pause, and think of Ethel Grey !
 
 THE POWER OF SONG. 
 
 TO . 
 
 I. 
 
 THE power of song within me lies, 
 
 The godlike power of song ! 
 And I will wake its symphonies 
 
 As time shall roll along ; 
 I ll wake a strain to reach thine ear, 
 Which, wondering, thou shalt turn to hear. 
 
 ii. 
 And immortality in song 
 
 The boon I thee will give ! 
 For, by thy name twined in my song. 
 
 Tin 1 memory shall live ! 
 And millions yet unborn shall see 
 The story of my love for thee. 
 
 in. 
 And when long weary years shall roll 
 
 Sadly o er thee and me, 
 And the bright visions of thy soul 
 
 Have faded mournfully, 
 Then o er our past turn back thine eye, 
 And owe me immortality ! 
 184
 
 THE FRIARS GRAY. 
 
 I ENTY them, those friars gray ! 
 They rose at earliest dawn of day, 
 And, with their holy matin-song, 
 Ushered the new-born day along. 
 
 And then, in cloisters quaint and gray, 
 Mused the long summer hours away, 
 Till, with the setting sun of even, 
 The holy vesper-song was given. 
 
 in. 
 
 Then, for the dying and the dead, 
 The midnight Mass was sung or said ; 
 While tapers, burning faint and low, 
 Scarce served the sleeping dead to show. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thus passed their solemn lives away 
 In old cathedrals quaint and gray, 
 
 185
 
 186 THE FRIARS GRAY. 
 
 Like hermits in a living tomb, 
 
 Where dead and living both find room. 
 
 v. 
 
 And thus would I avoid the strife 
 And turmoil of this weary life, 
 And in the cloisters, quaint and gray, 
 Would muse and meditate and pray, 
 
 VI. 
 
 Where pride and fashion ne er could conic 
 To wound me in my solemn home, 
 And wild ambition never there 
 Could mingle with my humble prayer. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And there the glance of Beauty s eye, 
 Disarmed, should harmless pass me by, 
 And Beaut}" s glowing form should be 
 For evermore as dead to me. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Thus living, I prepared might be 
 
 To hail " that day of wrath " with glee, 
 
 " Dies irce, dies ilia 
 
 Solvet scedum in favilla."
 
 THE MORNING WALK. 
 
 Tis sweet the towering hill to climb 
 In the fresh glow of morning prime, 
 And sweet the haunts of men to leave, 
 Nature s untainted breath to breathe, 
 And seek the vocal woodlands wide 
 Where Nature glows in pristine pride. 
 I love some sylvan haunt to tread 
 Where the broad branches overhead 
 Stretch their weird arms twixt heaven and me, 
 And clap their hands in leafy glee, 
 While 3 et the dew is on the grass 
 Sparkling like diamonds as I pass ; 
 And, while I muse in woodland vale, 
 I love to hear the plaintive tale 
 Of gentle thrush and blackbird gay 
 In unpremeditated lay 
 Pouring, in sweetest strains of love, 
 Their grateful praise to God above, 
 A purer and a sweeter praise 
 Than sinful man can CA r er raise. 
 And here, on many a morn of spring, 
 I ve roamed to hear the sweet birds sing, 
 
 187
 
 188 THE MORNING WALK. 
 
 And listened to the mellow note 
 
 Poured from the bluebird s muffled throat, 
 
 And found in Nature s woodlands wild 
 
 Companionship for Nature s child ; 
 
 And here, on many a summer eve, 
 
 I ve loitered, loath to take my leave, 
 
 While night s dark shades of deepened gloom 
 
 Have wrapped me in a living tomb, 
 
 Till through mysterious, endless space 
 
 God s wondrous stars stood forth in place, 
 
 Drawing the heart and soul and ej-e 
 
 From things below to One on high.
 
 THE EVENING WALK. 
 
 N the great sun in golden glow 
 On purple couch is sinking low, 
 And, through the quivering heats of day, 
 The western breezes softh* play, 
 Tis sweet the stifled town to leave, 
 The cooling woodland airs to breathe, 
 And, with some fair one by our side, 
 To roam the country far and wide. 
 Tis sweet the wayside fence to climb, 
 To pluck the rose and eglantine, 
 And bear them to our waiting fair, 
 And twine them with her raven hair, 
 And watch the tender, love-lit smile 
 That lights her heavenly face the while. 
 And if some envious, wicked thorn 
 The hand which culled the flower hath torn, 
 With pin, drawn forth from graceful robe, 
 All tenderly the wound she ll probe ; 
 And, though the wound may smart with pain, 
 We can but wish it probed again : 
 For ne er was " balm of Gilead " found 
 Like her soft touch for throbbing wound. 
 
 189
 
 190 THE EVENING WALK. 
 
 Let cynics smile, and toss the head, 
 Because with them all love is dead ; 
 But never }*et beat manly heart 
 Where woman could not claim a part, 
 And Eden s garden was but sad 
 Till woman came to make it glad. 
 So let cold critics say their sa} , 
 While we, with sweet love, live our day, 
 And, with our fair one by our side, 
 Roam the green fields at eventide ; 
 And cull the rose and eglantine, 
 With her fair, flowing locks to twine ; 
 And feel the smart from envious thorn, 
 And solace by her soft touch borne ; 
 And drink rich draughts of love and pain 
 Through hours which ne er may come again 
 While on Love s altars, freely laid, 
 Youth s untold wealth of love is paid !
 
 THE BROKEN VOW. 1 
 
 " Rammentati ! ne stringe il cielo ! e amor." 
 
 BY the oaths that once were plighted 
 In the sight of God above ; 
 
 By the hopes that once were lighted 
 By the promises of love ; 
 
 n. 
 
 By the God who reigns above thee ; 
 
 By the heaven we hope to gain ; 
 By the demons who could move thee 
 
 To thy perjury and shame ; 
 
 in. 
 
 Can thy unkept vows betoken 
 Aught of peace to thee or me? 
 
 Doth thine oath in heaven, broken, 
 Promise future bliss to thee? 
 
 1 First published in the Daily Evening Traveller. 
 
 191
 
 192 THE BROKEN VOW. 
 
 Oh ! from out the past a starker 
 Phantom-form shall soon appear, 
 
 And ever o er thy heart a darker 
 Shadow bend from year to year ! 
 
 v. 
 
 For thy heart yet holds a treasure, 
 Hoarded by thy willing will. 
 
 Memories of each by-gone pleasure, 
 Memories thou canst not kill. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And the Past, yet in a deeper 
 
 Prophet s tones, shall speak to thee, 
 
 Awaking in th} heart a sleeper 
 Who will whisper oft of me. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And th}- broken oaths shall bend thee 
 To thy tomb with magic power ; 
 
 And the future ne er shall lend thee 
 Hope or solace iu that hour. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 But the past shall ever send thee 
 Tokens of thy broken vow ; 
 
 And the few, who now commend thee, 
 Shall prove false, as thou art now.
 
 SONG: I LL DREAM OF THEE. 
 
 (Lines for Music.) 
 I. 
 
 I LL dream, I ll dream of thee, love ; 
 
 I ll dream we ne er had met, 
 Or, having been with thee, love, 
 
 We were not parted yet. 
 
 ii. 
 
 I ll clasp within my arms, love, 
 Thy fancied form so fair, 
 
 And gaze upon thy charms, love, 
 Till vanished into air. 
 
 And then I ll weep for thee, love ; 
 
 When waking from that dream 
 Thy fanciecl form shall flee, love, 
 
 With morning s early beam. 
 
 193
 
 194 SONG: rLL DREAM OF THEE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I ll curse returning day, love, 
 That steals thee from my arms, 
 
 And for the midnight pray, love, 
 And thy returning charms. 
 
 v. 
 
 And if the years should roll, love. 
 
 And we ne er meet again, 
 Oh, then my very soul, love, 
 
 Will sink in endless pain ! 
 
 And I shall never cease, love, 
 To weep and pray for thee, 
 
 Until, in endless peace, love, 
 Our spirits joined shall be.
 
 STANZAS. 
 
 ERE the passing da}- is done, 
 Ere goes down the evening sun, 
 Ere that sun shall rise again, 
 I shall be upon the main ; 
 But, though now from thee I flee, 
 Shall my spirit be with thee ; 
 And in future thou shalt feel 
 What thy heart would not reveal. 
 
 n. 
 
 For, when moonbeams cold and still 
 Sleep on meadow, lake, and hill, 
 And when evening breezes play, 
 Strangely soft, their evening lay, 
 Then a weird and mystic spell 
 Shall upon thy spirit dwell ; 
 And thou shalt in sorrow feel 
 What th}* heart would not reveal. 
 
 195
 
 196 STANZAS. 
 
 III. 
 
 And when Pleasure s cup is full, 
 And thy heart with pride doth swell, 
 When, in mazy dance and song, 
 Thou art worshiped by the throng, 
 Then, within thy heart and brain, 
 Thou shalt feel a secret pain ; 
 And, from halls where pleasures keep, 
 Thou wilt turn away to weep. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In the calm and in the storm, 
 In the night and in the morn, 
 And at twilight s holy hour, 
 Thou shalt feel my spirit s power ; 
 And, when memories of the past 
 On th} T brain come crowding fast, 
 Then thou ma} st in sorrow know 
 Twas not well to give the blow. 
 
 v. 
 
 For a strange and secret dread 
 E er shall linger round thy bed ; 
 And, when in thy troubled sleep 
 Thou dost start and wake and weep, 
 Then, at midnight s dreaded hour, 
 Thou shalt own my spirit s power ; 
 And the sorrow thou wilt feel 
 Shall a hidden truth reveal.
 
 STANZAS. 197 
 
 VI. 
 
 Thou slialt find, } T ct find too late, 
 That thy heart is desolate ; 
 Thou shalt know, yet know in vain, 
 That thou canst not love again ; 
 And this deep and hidden spell 
 E er shall on thy spirit dwell ; 
 And the future, that must be, 
 Ne er can bring relief to thee. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Thus a spirit of the past 
 
 Shall teach thee thine own heart at last, 
 
 And in madness thou shalt dare 
 
 Demons in fantastic prayer ; 
 
 But an arm thou canst not see 
 
 Ever shall encircle thee ; 
 
 And a praj*er, b}* thee unheard, 
 
 E er shall plead for thee with God.
 
 MY BARK ROCKS IN THE BAY BELOW. 
 
 When on the eve of setting sail for Europe, the author addressed the 
 following lines to his youthful friend, Henry P. Leland of Philadelphia, 
 a younger brother of the poet, Charles Q-. Leland, a young gentle 
 man of the rarest attainments, whose early years gave promise of a 
 future success which might even rival the growing fame of his gifted 
 brother; but, by some unaccountable dispensation of Providence, his 
 brilliant mind became early overclouded, and almost in the freshness of 
 youth he was called away " to that undiscovered country from whose 
 bourne no traveler returns." 
 
 MY bark rocks in the bay below ; 
 
 The winds blow gently off the shore : 
 But, Leland, ere from thee I go, 
 
 Let s quaff a social glass once more. 
 
 n. 
 
 Then I am off to other climes ; 
 
 And many a year, I ween, will pass 
 Ere I with thee renew these times, 
 
 Or drink with thee a social glass. 
 
 198
 
 MY BARK ROCKS IN THE BAY BELOW. 199 
 
 III. 
 
 So fill once more the flowing bowl, 
 
 And here our parting faith to prove 
 
 Come, pledge me with thy heart and soul : 
 Our toast is Woman, wine, and love. 
 
 Be woman s smiles for ever thine, 
 Smiles bright as those of saints above ! 
 
 Be thy cup filled with richest wine ! 
 Be thy heart bound in chains of love ! 
 
 v. 
 
 Whatever Fate may deal to me, 
 Where er my unloved life may end, 
 } T God in mere}- prosper thee ! 
 May happiness thy life attend ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 But sometimes, when thy cup of life 
 Runs o er with ever} earthly bliss, 
 
 One moment turn from friend or wife, 
 And from that hour think back to this.
 
 200 MY BARK ROCKS IN THE BAY BELOW. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Think of the hours when thou and I 
 
 In boyish years wove day-dreams bright ; 
 
 Think of our past with constant sigh, 
 Think of our parting here to-night ! 
 
 vm. 
 
 And, if one tear-drop in thine eye 
 Trembles at thought of days of yore, 
 
 Then, if to me thou giv st one sigh, 
 I ask no more ! I ask no more ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 So fare thee well ! and, while I roam 
 Apart from thee in foreign clime, 
 
 I ll ever think of those at home, 
 And ever drink to thee and thine.
 
 MUSINGS. 
 
 WHEN the hours of day are gone, 
 And the evening shades come on, 
 To night s thoughtful hours I go, 
 Musing o er this life of woe ; 
 And, within my room alone, 
 Listening to the night-wind s moan, 
 As the wintry storm sweeps by 
 Blotting moon and stars from sky, 
 Thoughtfully I sit and gaze 
 At the cheerful fire s blaze, 
 And the ghostlike shadows tall 
 Flitting round upon the wall ; 
 Watch them come and go again, 
 Like the phantoms of the brain, 
 With their muffled feet beneath, 
 Like the witches of the heath. 
 Sitting thus in dreamy mood, 
 Musing o er the bad and good 
 That befell me from the time 
 I started in my boyhood s prime, 
 Pursuing all the wildest schemes 
 Ever dreamt in madcap s dreams, 
 
 201
 
 202 MUSINGS. 
 
 Now I view with little joy 
 What so pleased me when a boy ; 
 For bright visions all are gone 
 With our manhood s early dawn, 
 And we mourn our boyhood spent 
 In a world of discontent. 
 Tilings that unto boyhood seem 
 Brilliant as a fairy dream 
 Fade with manhood s dawn aw a} ; 
 Golden morning turns to gray ! 
 Life itself is but a dream : 
 Things are never what the}- seem, 
 Unsubstantial phantoms all, 
 Like these shadows on the wall.
 
 TO ANNA, 
 
 WITH A COPY OF LONGFELLOW S " VOICES OF THE 
 NIGHT." 
 
 This accomplished young lady afterwards the wife of a gentleman 
 now eminent as judge of a court of the United States was early sung 
 (by " angel voices ") to her final rest. 
 
 ACCEPT the gift 
 
 Which in all kindness unto thee I send, 
 And deem it sent thee by thy truest friend ; 
 
 And may it lift 
 
 Thy spirit up from earth and earthly things 
 To soar in lands of song on Fancy s wings ! 
 
 ii. 
 
 And ma}* it be 
 
 Ever a source of hidden joy to thee, 
 Lighting thy pathwa} to that boundless sea, 
 
 The grave, when lie 
 
 Who in his boyhood gave it is no more, 
 Or wanders friendless on some foreign shore. 
 
 203
 
 204 TO ANNA. 
 
 III. 
 
 Oh, maj- " the voices " 
 Speak unto thee in murmurs soft and low, 
 Soothing with gentle tones thy hours of woe ! 
 
 And when rejoices 
 
 Thy heart with hidden joy, ma}* the} then be 
 " Familiar voices " of calm joy to thee ! 
 
 rv. 
 
 And when long years 
 
 Have cast their shadows on thy heart s decay, 
 And friends of youth have sadly passed away, 
 
 May bitter tears 
 
 Be strangers to thee, and this friend remain 
 To sing to thee an old familiar strain ! 
 
 v. 
 
 But when at last 
 
 The heart grows sear with grief, and all is gone, 
 And Death walks sternly in to claim his own, 
 
 Oh, may the Past 
 
 Look smilingly upon thee, and at last 
 May " angel voices " sing thee to thy rest !
 
 THE APOLOGY. 
 
 TO SAUAH D- 
 
 The very estimable young lady to whom these lines were addressed 
 fell an early victim as did also a younger sister to that scourge of 
 our New England climate, consumption; leaving one older sister, now 
 the accomplished wife of an ex-governor of the Commonwealth, to 
 mourn their untimely loss. 
 
 FORGIVE me, Sarah, if, when last we met, 
 My tones were altered, or my looks unkind ; 
 
 Twas melancholy s curse on my soul set, 
 The curse of sorrow on my shadowy mind. 
 
 n. 
 
 For I have suffered wrongs, deep, nnforgiven ; 
 
 Have seen each loved one coldly turn away, 
 Had young hopes blighted and young friendships 
 riven, 
 
 Friendship ! even ours was well-nigh lied away. 
 
 205
 
 206 THE APOLOGY. 
 
 O er things like these the soul will darkly brood, 
 And melancholy then steals o er the heart ; 
 
 And often in ni} wildest, mirthful mood, 
 
 These thoughts come o er me, and all joys depart. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But unto thee I bear no thought unkind ; 
 
 Far from unkind, the looks which thee I give : 
 Thy form hath long been imaged in my mind, 
 
 Forgive these few words, Sarah dear, forgive. 
 
 v. 
 
 Oh, have I ever given thy bosom pain, 
 
 Or caused thee e er one sorrowing tear to know. 
 
 Twill bow my saddened soul with hidden pain, 
 And fill too full the measure of 1113- woe.
 
 GIVE ME BACK MY BREAKING HEART. 
 
 TO OPHELIA. 1 
 
 " Had we never lov d sae kindly, 
 Had we never lov d sae blindly, 
 Never met or never parted, 
 "VVe had ne er been broken-hearted." 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 LADY, ere the tie we sever 
 (Which I ween should bind for ever), 
 Ere that tie thou darest to break, 
 Hear the last request I make : 
 
 1 The real name of this young lady was not Ophelia; but we often 
 called her so, in view of her unhappy destiny. The daughter of an emi 
 nent Xew England clergyman, young, handsome, and accomplished, 
 she had been affianced, against her expressed wishes, through the de 
 termined persuasion of a stern father, to a man (also a clergyman) far 
 older than herself, and of a stern and unbending disposition, without 
 either personal attractions or mental congeniality to draw her towards 
 him. And under these circumstances we first met at the house of, 
 mutual friends, while she was passing the last summer of her freedom 
 in the country; and where both were young, for neither had then seen 
 twenty years, and one was beautiful, it was not strange that a warm, 
 though juvenile, attachment soon grew up, which, at the hour of parting, 
 gave occasion for the foregoing little song. It need hardly be said that 
 the young lady s married life with the husband of her father s choice 
 was not of the happiest, and has since been one of strange vicissitudes. 
 
 207
 
 208 GIVE ME BACK MY BREAKING HEART. 
 
 If them wouldst not give me sorrow 
 Which can know no peace of morrow, 
 Then, " ftvyre laciye," ere we part, 
 Give me back my breaking heart ! 
 
 n. 
 
 B}* the powers which are above me, 
 " Gentle ladye," I have loved thee, 
 And my love was pure for thee, 
 From all shade of passion free ; 
 But the Fates now do us sever, 
 Parted we must be for ever : 
 Go thou to him of whom they speak ; 
 I go, forgetfulness to seek. 
 
 I know him not of whom they tell ; 
 He may not love thee half as well : 
 His love, as brother s, true ma} be, 
 That, ten times told, is mine for thee ! 
 But let it pass ; I wish thee joy, 
 Nor with my presence will anno} ; 
 And, since th} r love was not for me, 
 M.y prayer may be for him and thee.
 
 GIVE ME BACK M7 BREAKING HEART. 209 
 IV. 
 
 Twould soothe to press that lip of thine 
 In fondness once again to mine. 
 And take one painful, parting view, 
 And breathe to thee one fond adieu ; 
 But I must strive, although in vain, 
 Never to think of thee again, 
 And wander far from thee alone : 
 I m going, " fayre one ! " I am gone.
 
 TO MARY, DEPARTED. 
 
 LINES ON THE DEATH OF A YOUTHFUL COMPANION. 
 
 (From Juvenile Poems.) 
 
 I. 
 ALAS, thou art gone where the cold grave doth bind 
 
 thee, 
 And the cold arms of Death now encircle thee 
 
 round ! 
 
 While the friends of thy youth, left in sorrow be 
 hind thee, 
 Are mourning for Mary now cold in the ground. 
 
 n. 
 
 The pride of the village in which thou didst dwell, 
 While the few years sped by that were given thee 
 here, 
 
 All the villagers long will remember thee well, 
 And give to thy memory many a tear. 
 
 in. 
 Oh, why did the cold hand of Death touch a flower 
 
 That bloomed in the garden of Nature so fair? 
 Could not man s invention, his prayers, or his power 
 
 Compel the grim monster the treasure to spare ? 
 
 210
 
 TO MARY, DEPARTED. 211 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ah, no ! all that poor mortal man could accomplish 
 To nourish and cherish that flower, he did ; 
 
 And yet its fair form did the tyrant demolish, 
 It was not for mortals the deed to forbid. 
 
 v. 
 
 Alas, thou art gone ! and the green turf above thee 
 
 Lies cold on the bosom that once was so fair, 
 And the friends of thy }"outh who so fondly did love 
 
 thee 
 Lean over thy young grave, and weep in despair. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But neither their prayers nor their tears can recall 
 
 thee : 
 Thou hast gone to that land from whence none 
 
 can return ; 
 And morning and eve, when in fondness they call 
 
 thee, 
 The echo will answer, " She sleeps neaththeurn." 
 
 VII. 
 
 And, oh ! never again, round the hearthstone at eve, 
 Can her bright, sunny smiles lend their influence 
 there ; 
 
 For she from among you has taken her leave, 
 
 And ye ne er can behold more that maiden so fair.
 
 212 TO MARY, DEPARTED. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 When years have rolled by, and by some she s for 
 got, 
 Though few who e er saw will forget that fair 
 
 maid, 
 
 Then the villagers ever will point out the spot 
 Where Mary, the pride of their village, was laid. 
 
 Alas, fare thee well ! for we ne er more can meet, 
 And I never again can behold thy sweet face ; 
 
 But thy mem ry will long in my heart hold its seat : 
 Until time is no more it will there have a place.
 
 OH, ASK ME NOT WHEN I AM SAD ! 
 
 (From Juvenile Poems.) 
 
 OH, ask me not, when I am sad, 
 Why care sits heavy on my brow ! 
 
 Oh, ask me not, when I am glad, 
 What pleasures light my spirit now ! 
 
 n. 
 
 For I have thoughts thou canst not know ; 
 
 Have griefs e en thou must fail to share ; 
 Have hours of bliss and hours of woe, 
 
 Dark hours of thought and anxious care. 
 
 in. 
 
 And often in my wildest mood, 
 Back to m}* heart and to my brain, 
 
 When dance and song go gayly round, 
 Dark thoughts come flowing back again. 
 
 213
 
 214 OH, ASK ME NOT WHEN I AM SAD! 
 
 IV. 
 
 So ask me not, when I am sad, 
 Why care sits heavy on my brow ; 
 
 And ask me not, when I am glad, 
 What pleasures light my spirit now. 
 
 v. 
 
 For thy young heart could never bear 
 The woes which earl}* come to me ; 
 
 But thou wilt teach my lip to wear 
 A smile if I am dear to thee.
 
 FAREWELL TO MY LITTLE SCHOOLMATE. 
 
 (From Juvenile Poems.) 
 
 I. 
 
 FAREWELL ! and, if it be decreed 
 
 That we for ever part, 
 Accept a blessing ere thou goest 
 
 From my sad, aching heart. 
 
 ii. 
 
 When thou art gone, and I alone 
 At evening o er the lea 
 
 Shall wander forth, as oft before 
 I ve sported there with thee, 
 
 m. 
 
 Remembrance then will start a tear : 
 That tear will flow for thee. 
 
 Oh ! will those melting eyes of thine 
 E er shed one tear for me? 
 
 215
 
 216 FAREWELL TO MY LITTLE SCHOOLMATE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ay, fare thee well ! but, ere thou goest 
 With dearer friends to dwell, 
 
 Accept a blessing from the lips 
 
 Which, quivering, say, " Farewell ! " 
 
 v. 
 
 Older heads, perhaps, would tell thee 
 More than I have learned to speak ; 
 
 But the unspoken truth is plainer 
 On my burning, boyish cheek. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Oh ! when we have both grown older, 
 When our school-days all are o er, 
 
 Wilt thou sometimes, then, remember 
 One whom thou wilt see no more ?
 
 THE SUMMER DAYS OF 81. 
 
 "Dear as remembered kisses after death, 
 And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned 
 On lips that are for others ; deep as love, 
 Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; 
 O death in life ! the days that are no more." 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE summer da^ys of 81 
 
 Rolled sweetly by for thee and me, 
 And not a cloud obscured the sun 
 
 That warmed our love and constancy ; 
 But now the waning year proclaims 
 
 Those summer days for ever fled, 
 And the hoarse wind s low, mournful strains 
 
 Sound like sad dirges o er the dead. 
 
 The golden-rod beside the way 
 Has parted with its brilliant hue, 
 
 And dust}* milkweed-pods display 
 
 Their down and ripened seeds to view ; 
 
 217
 
 218 THE SUMMER DAYS OF 81. 
 
 And autumn crickets load the air 
 Of evening with a mournful tone, 
 
 And where the summer roses were 
 The autumn winds are making moan. 
 
 in. 
 
 And falling leaves and faded flowers 
 
 Speak sadly to my boding heart ; 
 To me their fate presages ours, 
 
 When thou and I and hope must part. 
 I know the coming years will roll 
 
 Often with darkly clouded sun, 
 But never from my constant soul 
 
 Shall fade the lights of 81. 
 
 Thy heart can never know the pain 
 
 Which thrills me to the bosom s core, 
 When, parting, ne er to meet again, 
 
 We say adieu for evermore ! 
 Dark years may come to thee and me, 
 
 And hope may die ere life is done, 
 But ne er shall fade from memory 
 
 The sunn} days of 81.
 
 TO HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, 
 
 ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Astra regunt homines. sed regit astra Deus I 
 
 The following poem composed to celebrate the natal day of New 
 England s greatest poet was sent to Mr. Longfellow on his seventy -fifth 
 birthday, Feb. 27, 1882. And, although the writer is not a believer in 
 what are usually called presentiments, yet, in truthfulness, he must con 
 fess, that, at the time of sending it, he was solemnly impressed with the 
 feeling that it was to be the last birthday that Mr. Longfellow was ever 
 to pass. And in view of the fact that he died in less than a month there 
 after, though in usual health on his last birthday, some lines in the poem 
 would seem to have been almost prophetic in their sad foreshadowings. 
 
 ANOTHER ! ay, another year 
 Rolls o er thy head, O Poet dear ! 
 O Poet ! dear to every heart 
 That e er felt thrill of poet s art, 
 And doubly dear to hearts that long 
 Have thrilled in echo to tlry song, 
 Thy song ! thy many songs of love, 
 Which float around us and above, 
 Like " spirits of the viewless air," 
 Shedding their hoi}* influence where 
 The fainting souls of toiling men, 
 Cheered by their voice, take heart again. 
 
 219
 
 220 TO HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Thy " Psalm of Life " doth strength impart 
 To many a tried and troubled heart, 
 To many a weary foot that tries, 
 In vain, b}* patient toil to rise, 
 To rise and clirnb the shining way 
 Which thou didst tread in youthful day. 
 
 But what a toilsome road they find, 
 When, lacking thy majestic mind, 
 They seek to climb the upward way 
 Where thou didst soar to light and day ! 
 And some, who thought like thee to soar, 
 Sink bj r the way to rise no more ; 
 Yet few, oh, very few indeed ! 
 Still toiling, hope for better meed, 
 And, taking heart from thine own lay, 
 Still struggle on the upward way ; 
 And, " with a heart for any fate," 
 They " learn to labor and to wait." 
 
 To such thy name and fame are dear ; 
 And, while the} view thee } r ear by year 
 Throned o er New England s realm of song, 
 Pray that thy years be lengthened long, 
 Yet, praying, listening, ever fear 
 The coming death dirge-notes to hear ; 
 For well we know that time sweeps on, 
 Like " the storm-wind Euroclydon,"
 
 TO HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 221 
 
 And with a power of mighty force 
 Bears all before it in its course. 
 And yet we pray that years may be 
 In plenty still bestowed on thee, 
 And that for many a year we may 
 Still hail with joy thy natal day ; 
 Yet, oh ! there ever lingers still 
 A doubt, a fear of coming ill, 
 A fear lest the sweet dream should break, 
 And our sad souls to sorrow wake, 
 A fear lest the stern " reaper " come 
 The ripened grain to garner home. 
 
 When that day comes, as come it must, 
 
 With its stern fiat, " Dust to dust ! " 
 
 When thy sun, sinking in the west, 
 
 Shall close thy day, and thou shalt rest, 
 
 Oh, what a direful, woeful day 
 
 For those who watch its setting ray ! 
 
 And what a wail of grief shall rise 
 
 To waft thy spirit to the skies ! 
 
 And what a cloud of woe shall bend 
 
 O er all when thy sweet life shall end ! 
 
 Millions of sobs will then combine 
 
 To mourn thee, none more deep than mine. 
 
 New England s harp will sound a wail 
 To load New England s every gale !
 
 222 TO HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 And every hill and every vale 
 
 Shall echo back its dying wail ! 
 
 And hearts shall bow, and eyes shall weep, 
 
 When thy loved form in death shall sleep ! 
 
 The Muse, beholding thee expire, 
 
 Shall weep above her broken lyre ! 
 
 On that sad day, honored friend ! 
 
 May Christ s calm spirit o er thee bend ! 
 
 May shining angels hover near ! 
 
 May angel- voices whisper cheer ! 
 
 And ma}- a shining angel-band 
 
 Bear thy soul to that "better land," 
 
 That " better land," we know not where, 
 
 Yet hope and pray to meet thee there ! 
 
 And, waiting, hoping, gaze afar, 
 
 And pray to find those gates ajar. 
 
 " Rex tremendce majestatis, 
 
 Qui salvandos salvas gratis, 
 
 Salva te ! fons pietatis : 
 
 Salva te ! Rex majestatis.
 
 WHEN THE POET DIES. 
 
 "And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, 
 
 Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part 
 Of the self-same, universal being 
 Which is throbbing in his brain and heart." 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Tis said, that, when the Poet dies, 
 
 Great Nature mourns her gifted child, 
 And Nature s various voices rise 
 
 In solemn requiem, sweet and wild ; 
 And that the Poet s loved abodes, 
 
 His sj lvan haunts by wood and stream, 
 Are vocal with wild spirit-odes, 
 
 Like the weird music of a dream. 
 
 ii. 
 
 That dark, sad pines on hill-tops lone, 
 And murmuring brooks in valleys deep, 
 
 For the dead Minstrel sigh and moan, 
 And murmur dirges round his sleep : 
 
 223
 
 224 WHEN THE POET DIES. 
 
 The low, soft winds, in mournful sighs, 
 Breathe out their sorrows o er his head ; 
 
 And sorrowing tears, from cold, gray skies, 
 Drop down upon his lowly bed. 
 
 The brave old trees that stretched their arms 
 
 To shield him with their grateful shade, 
 Ah ! who shall celebrate their charms 
 
 When their loved Bard is lowl}* laid ? 
 When their green leaves all sear and brown, 
 
 And whirling in the " dance of death " 
 To the cold earth go sailing clown, 
 
 Scattered by autumn s chilling breath, 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oh ! who shall celebrate their fall, 
 
 And sing their beauty, as they fade, 
 When he so loved, and loving all 
 
 In the dark, silent tomb is laid? 
 Tis meet that flowers distill their tears, 
 
 And breathe sweet perfumes round the tomb 
 Of the loved Bard, who, through long years, 
 
 Has sung their beauty and their bloom.
 
 WHEN THE POET DIES. 225 
 
 V. 
 
 Tis meet the wondrous-flaming stars 
 
 Shed their kind influence round his name ; 
 For he, with all a Poet s cares, 
 
 lias sung of their mysterious flame. 
 O child of Nature ! son of song ! 
 
 High priest in Nature s holy fane ! 
 Tis meet that Nature s voices strong 
 
 Should echo back the Poet s name. 
 
 Let distant thunder s dying groan 
 
 Mourn Nature s gifted child of song ! 
 Let lightnings blaze from zone to zone, 
 
 To light his fleeting shade along ! 
 And let great Nature s voices raise 
 
 One mighty anthem deep and long 
 To celebrate, with Nature s praise, 
 
 Her dying Bard ! her son of song !
 
 27450