Beyond is black as night, or grief, or death,
And thence there comes a silent stream, which takes Onward its quiet course, then, through a break,
The only one amid the mountain, flows
Down to the world below. And it should be
My task in fanciful similitudes
To trace a likeness for my destiny;-
Those pale blue violets, which in despite
Of snow, or wind, or soil, cling to the rock
In lonely beauty-they are like my love,
My woman's love: it grew up amid cares
And coldness, yet still like those flowers it lived
On in its fragrance; but far happier they,
They rest in their lone home's security,
While, rooted from its dear abode, my love
Was scattered suddenly upon the wind,
To wither and to die. And the blue stream
Will be another emblem: cold and calm
It leaves its dwelling place,-soon over rocks,
Torrents, like headlong passions, hurry it—
Its waters lose their clearness, weeds and sands
Choke it like evil deeds, and banks upraised
By human art, obstruct and turn its course,
Till, worn out by long wanderings, it seeks
Its strength gone by, some little quiet nook
Where it may waste its tired waves away.
So in this solitude, might I depart,
My death unwatched! I could not bear to die,
And yet see life and love in some dear eye.
Why should I wish to leave some faithful one
With bleeding heart to break above my grave?
Oh, no, I do but wish to pass away
Unloved and unremembered!
Literary Gazette.
ON LEAVING A SCENE IN BAVARIA.
ADIEU the woods and water's side,
Imperial Danube's rich domain !
Adieu the grotto, wild and wide,
The rocks abrupt and grassy plain!
For pallid Autumn, once again,
Hath swelled each torrent of the hill,
Her clouds collect, her shadows sail;
And watery winds that sweep the vale,
Grow loud and louder still.
But not the storm, dethroning fast
Yon monarch oak of massy pile;
Nor river roaring to the blast
Around its dark and desert isle;
Nor curfew tolling to beguile
The cloud-born thunder passing by,
Can sound in discord to my soul!-
Roll on, ye mighty waters, roll!
And rage thou darkened sky!
Thy blossom, though no longer bright,-
Thy withered woods, no longer green,―
Yet, Eldun shore, with dark delight
I visit thy unlovely scene!
For many a sunset hour serene
My steps have trod thy mellow dew;
When his green light the fire-fly gave,
When Cynthia from the distant wave
Her twilight anchor drew,
And ploughed as with a swelling sail,
The billowy clouds and starry sea;
Then, while thy hermit nightingale
Sang on her fragrant apple-tree,-
Romantic, solitary, free,
The visitant of Eldun's shore,
On such a moonlight mountain strayed
As echoed to the music made
By druid harps of yore.
Around thy savage hills of oak,
Around thy waters bright and blue,
No hunter's horn the silence broke,
No dying shriek thine echo knew;
But safe, sweet Eldun woods, to you
The wounded wild deer ever ran,
Whose myrtle bound their grassy cave,
Whose very rocks a shelter gave
From blood-pursuing man.
Oh heart effusions, that arose
From nightly wanderings cherished here! To him who flies from many woes,
Even homeless deserts can be dear!
The last and solitary cheer
Of them that own no earthly home,
Say is it not, ye banished race,
In such a loved and lonely place
Companionless to roam?
Yes! I have loved thy wild abode,
Unknown, unploughed, untrodden shore,
Where scarce a woodman finds a road,
And scarce a fisher plies an oar!
For man's neglect I love thee more,
That art nor avarice intrude
To tame thy torrent's thunder-shock, Or prune thy vintage of the rock Magnificently rude.
Unheeded spreads thy blossomed bud
Its milky bosom to the bee;
Unheeded falls along the flood
Thy desolate and aged tree.
Forsaken scene! how like to thee
The fate of unbefriended worth!
Like thine her fruit dishonoured falls;
Like thee in solitude she calls
A thousand treasures forth.
O! silent spirit of the place!
If lingering with the ruined year, Thy hoary form and awful face
I yet might watch and worship here,
Thy storm was music to my ear!
Thy wildest walk a shelter given
Sublimer thoughts on earth to find,
And share, with no unhallowed mind,
The majesty of heaven!
What though the bosom friends of Fate,-
Prosperity's unwearied brood,—
Thy consolations cannot rate
O, self-dependent solitude!
Yet, with a spirit unsubdued,
Though darkened by the clouds of Care,
To worship thy congenial gloom,
Like pilgrim to the Prophet's tomb,
Misfortune shall repair.
On her the world hath never smiled,
Or looked but with accusing eye ;—
All silent goddess of the wild,
To thee that misanthrope shall fly!
I hear her deep soliloquy,-
I mark her proud but ravaged form,
As stern she wraps her mantle round,
And bids, on winter's bleakest ground,
Defiance to the storm.
Peace to her banished heart, at last,
In thy dominions shall descend,
And strong as beechwood in the blast
Her spirit shall refuse to bend;
Enduring life without a friend,
The world and falsehood left behind,
Thy votary shall bear elate,
And triumph o'er opposing Fate
Her dark inspired mind.
But dost thou, Folly, mock the muse
A wanderer's mountain walk to sing,
Who shuns a warring world, nor wooes
The vulture cover of its wing?
Then fly, thou towering shivering thing,
Back to the fostering world beguiled,
To waste in self-consuming strife
The loveless brotherhood of life,
Reviling and reviled!
Away, thou lover of the race
That hither chased yon weeping deer! If nature's all majestic face
More pitiless than man's appear; Or if the wild winds seem more drear Than man's cold charities below, Behold around his peopled plains, Where'er the social savage reigns Exuberance of wo!
His art and honours wilt thou seek Embossed on grandeur's giant walls? Or hear his moral thunders speak
Where senates light their airy halls, Where man his brother man enthralls, Or sends his whirlwind warrants forth, To rouse the slumbering fiends of war, To dye the blood-warm waves afar, And desolate the earth.
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