Be comforted that now I weep no more
For the glad earth and all the golden light
Whence I depart.
No! God hath purified my spirit's eye,
And in the folds of this consummate rose
I read bright prophecies: I see not there,
Dimly and mournfully, the word "farewell"
On the rich petals traced: No—in soft veins
And characters of beauty, I can read—
"Look up, look heavenward!"
Blessed God of Love!
I thank thee for these gifts, the precious links
Whereby my spirit unto thee is drawn!
I thank thee that the loveliness of Earth
Higher than Earth can raise me! Are not these
But, germs of things unperishing, that bloom
Beside th' immortal streams? Shall I not find
The lily of the field, the Saviour's flower,
In the serene and never-moaning air,
And the clear starry light of angel eye,
A thousand-fold more glorious? Richer far
Will not the violet's dusky purple glow,
When it hath ne'er been press'd to broken hearts,
A record of lost love?
Mother.My Lilian! Thou
Surely in thy bright life hast little known
Of lost things or of changed!
Lilian.Oh! little yet,
For thou hast been my shield! But had it been
My lot on this world's billows to be thrown
Without thy love—O mother! there are hearts
So perilously fashioned, that for them
God's touch alone hath gentleness enough
To waken, and not break, their thrilling strings!
—We will not speak of this!
By what strange spell
Is it, that ever, when I gaze on flowers,
I dream of music! Something in their hues
All melting into colour'd harmonies,
Wafts a swift thought of interwoven chords,
Of blended singing-tones, that swell and die
In tenderest falls away.—Oh! bring thy harp,
Sister! a gentle heaviness at last
Hath touch'd mine eyelids: sing to me, and sleep
Will come again.
Jessy. What wouldst thou hear? Th' Italian Peasant's Lay,
Which makes the desolate Campagna ring
With "Roma, Roma!"—or the Madrigal
Warbled on moonlight seas of Sicily?
Or the old ditty left by Troubadours
To girls of Languedoc?
Lilian.Oh, no! not these.
Jessy. What then? the Moorish melody still known
Within th' Alhambra city? or those notes
Born of the Alps, which pierce the Exile's heart
Even unto death?
Lilian.No, sister, nor yet these.
—Too much of dreamy love, of faint regret,
Of passionately fond remembrance, breathes
In the caressing sweetness of their tones,
For one who dies:—They would but woo me back
To glowing life with those Arcadian sounds—
Page:Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 34 1833.pdf/25
