But his dreams were fill'd by a haunting tone,
Sad as a sleeping infant's moan;
And his soul was pierced by a mournful eye,
Which look'd on it-oh! how beseechingly!
And there floated past him a fragile form,
With a willowy droop, as beneath the storm;
Till wakening in anguish, his faint heart strove
In vain with its burden of helpless love!
-Thus woke the dreamer one weary night-
There flash'd thro' his dungeon a swift strong light;
He sprang up-he climb'd to the grating-bars,
-It was not the rising of moon or stars,
But a signal flame from a peak of snow,
Rock'd through the dark skies, to and fro!
There shot forth another-another still-
A hundred answers of hill to hill!
Tossing like pines in the tempest's way,
Joyously, wildly, the bright spires play,
And each is hail'd with a pealing shout,
For the high Alps waving their banners out!
Erni, young Erni! the land hath risen!
Alas! to be lone in thy narrow prison!
Those free streamers glancing, and thou not there!
-Is the moment of rapture, or fierce despair?
-Hark! there's a tumult that shakes his cell,
At the gates of the mountain citadel!
Hark! a clear voice through the rude sounds ringing!
Doth he know the strain, and the wild, sweet singing?
"There may not long be fetters,
Where the cloud is earth's array,
And the bright floods leap from cave and steep, Like a hunter on the prey!
"There may not long be fetters,
Where the white Alps have their towers;
Unto eagle-homes, if the arrow comes,
The chain is not for ours!"
It is she! She is come like a dayspring beam,
She that so mournfully shadow'd his dream!
With her shining eyes and her buoyant form,
She is come! her tears on his cheek are warm;
And O! the thrill in that weeping voice!
"My brother, my brother! come forth, rejoice!"
-Poet! the land of thy love is free,
MOUNTAIN Winds! oh! whither do ye call me?
Vainly, vainly would my steps pursue!
Chains of care to lower earth enthral me,
Wherefore thus my weary spirit woo?
Oh! the strife of this divided being!
Is there peace where ye are borne on high?
Could we soar to your proud eyries fleeing,
In our hearts would haunting memories die?
Those wild places are not as a dwelling
Whence the footsteps of the loved are gone!
Never from those rocky halls came swelling
Voice of kindness in familiar tone!
Surely music of oblivion sweepeth
In the pathway of your wanderings free;
And the torrent, wildly as it leapeth,
Sings of no lost home amidst its glee.
There the rushing of the falcon's pinion
Is not from some hidden pang to fly;
All things breathe of power and stern dominion-
Not of hearts that in vain yearnings die.
Mountain winds! oh! is it, is it only
Where man's trace hath been that so we pine? Bear me up, to grow in thought less lonely, Even at nature's deepest, loneliest shrine! Wild, and mighty, and mysterious singers!
At whose tone my heart within me burns; Bear me where the last red sunbeam lingers, Where the waters have their secret urns!
There to commune with a loftier spirit
Than the troubling shadows of regret;
There the wings of freedom to inherit,
Where the enduring and the wing'd are met.
Hush, proud voices, gentle be your falling!
Woman's lot thus chainless may not be;
Hush the heart your trumpet sounds are calling, Darkly still may grow-but never free!
"The peace which passeth all understanding,' disclosed itself in her looks and movements. It lay on her countenance like a steady unshadowed moonlight."- COLERIDGE.
THERE were trampling sounds of many feet,
And music rush'd through the crowded street;
Proud music, such as tells the sky
Of a chief return'd from victory.
There were banners to the winds unroll'd,
With haughty words on each blazon'd fold;
High battle-names, which had rung of yore,
When lances clash'd on the Syrian shore.
Borne from their dwellings, green and lone,
There were flowers of the woods on the pathway
And wheels that crush'd as they swept along —
Oh! what doth the violet amidst the throng?
I saw where a bright procession pass'd
The gates of a minster old and vast;
And a king to his crowning place was led,
Through a sculptured line of the warrior dead,
VOL. VI.- -22
I saw, far gleaming, the long array
Of trophies, on those high tombs that lay,
And the colour'd light, that wrapp'd them all,
Rich, deep, and sad, as a royal pall.
But a lowlier grave soon won mine eye
Away from th' ancestral pageantry :
A grave by the lordly minster's gate
Unhonour'd, and yet not desolate.
It was but a dewy greensward bed,
Meet for the rest of a peasant head;
But Love-oh! lovelier than all beside !-
That lone place guarded and glorified.
For a gentle form stood watching there,
Young-but how sorrowfully fair!
Keeping the flowers of the holy spot,
That reckless feet might profane them not.
Clear, pale and clear, was the tender cheek,
And her eye, though tearful, serenely meek;
And I deem'd, by its lifted gaze of love,
That her sad heart's treasure was all above.
For alone she seem'd 'midst the throng to be,
Like a bird of the waves far away at sea;
Alone, in a mourner's vest array'd,
And with folded hands, e'en as if she pray'd.
It faded before me, that masque of pride,
The haughty swell of the music died;
Banner, and armour, and tossing plume,
All melted away in the twilight's gloom.
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