Which I have borne and yet must bear, My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. Some might lament that I were cold, As I, when this sweet day is gone, ill linger, though enjoy'd, like joy in memory yet. While around the lash'd ocean, IV. In the court of the fortress Like a blood-hound well beaten By shame; On the topmost watch-turret, And with curses as wild TO THE QUEEN OF MY HEART. SHALL we roam, my love, To the twilight grove, When the moon is rising bright; Oh, I'll whisper there, In the cool night-air, What I dare not in broad day-light! I'll tell thee a part Of the thoughts that start To being when thou art nigh; And thy beauty, more bright Shall seem as a weft from the sky. When the pale moonbeam On tower and stream Sheds a flood of silver sheen, How I love to gaze As the cold ray strays O'er thy face, my heart's throned queen! Wilt thou roam with me To the restless sea, And linger upon the steep, And list to the flow Of the waves below How they toss and roar and leap? Those boiling waves And the storm that raves At night o'er their foaming crest, Resemble the strife That, from earliest life, The passions have waged in my breast. Oh, come then and rove To the sea or the grove, When the moon is shining bright, And I'll whisper there, In the cool night-air, What I dare not in broad day-light. FELICIA HEMANS. FELICIA DOROTHEA BROWNE was born in Liverpool on the twenty-first of September, 1793. Her childhood was passed among the wild mountain scenery of Wales, where the earliest and most constant of her studies was the greatest of poets. SHAKSPEARE and nature-nature so sublime as that she daily gazed on—had their due influence in fashioning a mind which had been created far superior to the common order of intellects, and before she was thirteen years of age Miss BROWNE had a printed collection of verses before the world. From this period to the end of her history she sent forth volume after volume, each surpassing its predecessor in tenderness and beauty. At nineteen she was married to Captain HEMANS, of the Fourth Regiment. He was of an irritable temperament, and his health had been injured by the vicissitudes of a military life. They lived together unhappily for several years, when Captain HEMANS left England for Italy, and never returned. Mrs. HEMANS continued to reside with her mother and her sister, Miss MARY ANNE BROWNE, now Mrs. GRAY, a poetess of some reputation, near St. Asaph, in North Wales, where she devoted her attention to literature and to the education of her children, five sons, in whom all her affections from this time were centered. Here she wrote The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy, Modern Greece, Translations from Camoens, Wallace, Dartmoor, The Sceptic, Welsh Melodies, Historic Scenes, The Siege of Valencia, The Vespers of Palermo, The Forest Sanctuary, The Songs of the Affections, Records of Women, and the Lays of Many Lands. The death of her mother, in 1827, induced Mrs. HEMANS to leave Wales and reside at Wavertree, near Liverpool. While here she made two visits to Scotland, and was warmly received by JEFFREY, WALTER SCOTT, and the other eminent literary persons of the northern metropolis. On her return from her second tour in Scotland, she changed her residence from Wavertree to Dublin, where she published her Hymns for Children, National Lyrics, and Songs for Music. Her domestic sorrows, and the earnestness with which she devoted herself to literary pursuits, had long before impaired her health; and now her decline became rapid, and induced forebodings of death. Her poems, written in this period, were marked by a melancholy despondency, yet with a Christian resignation. After an illness singularly painful and protracted, she died on the sixteenth of May, 1835, in the forty-second year of her age, and was buried in the vault of St. Anne's, in Dublin. The most remarkable characteristics of Mrs. HEMANS's poetry are a religious purity and a womanly delicacy of feeling, never exaggerated, rarely forgotten. Writing less of love, in its more special acceptation, than most female poets, her poems are still unsurpassed in feminine tenderness. Devotion to GoD, and quenchless affection for kindred, for friends, for the suffering, glow through all her writings. Her sympathies were not universal. They appear often to be limited by country, creed, or condition; and she betrays a reverent admiration for rank, power, and historic renown. The trappings of royalty and nobility are to her no tinsel, but bespeak merit, wisdom, greatness of soul; they imply virtue, and almost excuse vice. The panoply of war she deems a web of finest tissues; the sword the minister of Justice, the avenger of Innocence: forgetful that it has more often availed to commit wrong than to redress wrong, to spread desolation than to arrest it. Yet as the poet of home, a painter of the affections, she was perhaps the most touching and beautiful writer of her age. The tone of her poetry is indeed monotonous; it is pervaded by the tender sadness which for ever preyed upon her spirit, and made her an exile from society; but it is all informed with beauty, and rich with most apposite imagery and fine descriptions. Many editions of the works of Mrs. HEMANS have appeared in this country, of which the best, indeed the only one that has any pretensions to completeness, is that of Lea and Blanchard, in seven volumes, with a preliminary notice by Mrs. SIGOURNEY. The chivalry of France, their proud heads bowIn martial vassalage!-while midst that ring, And shadow'd by ancestral tombs, a king Received his birthright's crown. For this the hymn Swell'd out like rushing waters, and the day With the sweet censer's misty breath grew dim, As through long aisles it floated o'er the array Of arms and sweeping stoles. But who, alone And unapproach'd, beside the altar-stone, [ing, With the white banner, forth like sunshine streamAnd the gold helm, through clouds of fragrance gleaming, Silent and radiant stood?-The helm was raised, And the fair face reveal'd, that upward gazed. Intensely worshipping :-a still, clear face Youthful, but brightly solemn !-Woman's cheek And brow were there, in deep devotion meek, Yet glorified with inspiration's trace On its pure paleness; while, enthroned above, The pictured virgin, with her smile of love, Seem'd bending o'er her votaress. That slight form! Was that the leader through the battle-storm? Had the soft light in that adoring eye Guided the warrior where the swords flash'd high? 'Twas so, even so!-and thou, the shepherd's child, Joanne, the lowly dreamer of the wild! Never before, and never since that hour, Hath woman, mantled with victorious power, Stood forth as thou beside the shrine didst stand, Holy amid the knighthood of the land; And, beautiful with joy and with renown, Lift thy white banner o'er the olden crown, Ransom'd for France by thee! The rites are done. Now let the dome with trumpet-notes be shaken, And bid the echoes of the tombs awaken, And come thou forth, that Heaven's rejoicing sun May give thee welcome from thine own blue skies, Gush'd through the portals of the antique fane, And forth she came. Then rose a nation's sound, Oh! what a power to bid the quick heart bound The wind bears onward with the stormy cheer Man gives to glory on her high career! Is there indeed such power?-far deeper dwells The hollow heaven tempestuously, were still'd Beside her, mark'd from all the thousands there, Father! and ye, my brothers!" On the breast Of that gray sire she sank-and swiftly back, Even in an instant, to their native track [moreHer free thoughts flow'd. She saw the pomp no The plumes, the banners:-to her cabin-door, And to the Fairy's fountain in the glade, Where her young sisters by her side had play'd And to her hamlet's chapel, where it rose Hallowing the forest unto deep repose, Her spirit turn'd. The very wood-note, sung In early spring-time by the bird, which dwelt Where o'er her father's roof the beech-leaves hung, Was in her heart; a music heard and felt, Winning her back to nature. She unbound The helm of many battles from her head, And, with her bright locks bow'd to sweep the ground, Lifting her voice up, wept for joy, and said- Oh! never did thine eye THE AMERICAN FOREST GIRL. WILDLY and mournfully the Indian drum On the deep hush of moonlight forests broke;"Sing us a death-song, for thine hour is come,"So the red warriors to their captive spoke. Still, and amidst those dusky forms alone, A youth, a fair-hair'd youth of England stood, Like a king's son; though from his cheek had flown The mantling crimson of the island blood, And his press'd lips look'd marble. Fiercely bright, And high around him, blazed the fires of night, Rocking beneath the cedars to and fro, As the wind pass'd, and with a fitful glow Lighting the victim's face. But who could tell Of what within his secret heart befell, [thought Known but to Heaven that hour?-Perchance a Of his far home, then so intensely wrought That its full image, pictured to his eye On the dark ground of mortal agony, Rose clear as day!-and he might see the band Of his young sisters wandering hand in hand, Where the laburnum droop'd; or haply binding Girt him like feverish phantoms; and pale stars Look'd through the branches as through dungeon bars, [hear Who might dream or To the stake Shedding no hope. He knew, he felt his doom- Trusting to die in silence! He, the love "He shall not die !"-the gloomy forest thrill'd To that sweet sound. A sudden wonder fell On the fierce throng; and heart and hand were still'd, Struck down, as by the whisper of a spell. They gazed; their dark souls bow'd before the maid, She of the dancing step in wood and glade! And, as her cheek flush'd through its olive hue, As her black tresses to the night-wind flew, Something o'ermaster'd them from that young mein; Something of heaven, in silence felt and seen; And seeming, to their child-like faith, a token That the Great Spirit by her voice had spoken, They loosed the bonds that held their captive's breath: From his pale lips they took the cup of death: They quench'd the brand beneath the cypress tree; "Away," they cried, "young stranger, thou art free!" THE STRANGER IN LOUISIANA. We saw thee, O stranger, and wept! We look'd for the youth of the sunny glance, Whose step was the fleetest in chase or dance! The light of his eye was a joy to see, The path of his arrows a storm to flee! But there camne a voice from a distant shore: He was call'd-he is found 'midst his tribe no more! He is not in his place when the night-fires burn, But we look for him still-he will yet return! -His brother sat with a drooping brow In the gloom of the shadowing cypress bough, We roused him-we bade him no longer pine, For we heard a step-but the step was thine. We saw thee, O stranger, and wept! We look'd for her eye on the feast to shine, We saw thee, O stranger, and wept! coast Oh, ask of them stranger!-send back the lost! LEAVE ME NOT YET. LEAVE me not yet-through rosy skies from far, Not yet!-oh, hark! low tones from hidden streams, Then to breathe out their soul of tenderness; |