POETRY.

TO A FLOWER BROUGHT FROM THE FIELD OF

GRUTLI.*

BY MRS. HEMANS.

WHENCE art thou flower?-from holy ground
Where freedom's foot hath been!
Yet bugle-blast or trumpet-sound
Ne'er shook that solemn scene.

Flower of a noble field! thy birth
Was not where spears have cross'd,

And shiver'd helms have strewn the earth,
Midst banners won and lost :

But, where the sunny hues and showers
Unto thy cup were given,

There met high hearts at midnight hours,

Pure hands were rais'd to heaven.

And vows were pledg'd, that man should roam

Through every Alpine dell,

Free as the wind, the torrent's foam,

The shaft of William Tell!

And prayer-the full deep flow of prayer,
Hallow'd the pastoral sod,

And souls grew strong for battle there,
Nerv'd with the peace of God.

Before the Alps and stars they knelt,
That calm, devoted band;

And rose, and made their spirits felt,
Through all the mountain land.

* The field beside the Lake of the Four Cantons, where the "Three Tells," as the Swiss call the fathers of their liberty, took the oath of redeeming Switzerland from the Austrian yoke.

Then welcome Grütli's free born flower
Even in thy pale decay,

There dwells a breath, a tone, a power,
Which all high thoughts obey.

SONNET ON SIR WALTER SCOTT'S QUITTING ABBOTSFORD FOR NAPLES.

By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

(From the Literary Souvenir.)

A TROUBLE, not of clouds or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height:
Spirits of Power assembled there complain
For kindred power departing from their sight;
While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,
Saddens his voice again, and yet again.

Lift up your hearts, ye mourners! for the might
Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes;
Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue

Than scepter'd king, or laurelled conqueror knows
Follow this wond'rous Potentate. Be true
Ye winds of ocean and the midland sea,
Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope!

TO WORDSWORTH.

From HARTLEY COLERIDGE'S POEMS.

THERE have been poets that in verse display
The elemental forms of human passions:
Poets have been to whom the fickle fashions
And all the wilful humours of the day,
Have furnished matter for a polished lay:
And many are the smooth, elaborate tribe
Who, emulous of these, the form describe,
And fain would every shifting hue pourtray
Of restless nature. But thou, mighty Seer!
'Tis thine to celebrate the thoughts that make
The life of souls, the truths for whose sweet sake
We to ourselves and to our God are dear.
Of Nature's inner shrine thou art the priest
Where most she works when we perceive the least.

LIBERTY.

From the Same.

SAY, what is Freedom? What the right of souls,
Which all who know are bound to keep or die,
And who knows not is dead. In vain ye pry
In musty archives or retentive scrolls:
Charters and statutes, constitutions, rolls,
And remnants of the old world's history :-
These shew what has been, not what ought to be;
Or teach at best how wiser Time controls
Man's futile purposes. As vain the search
Of restless factions, who, in lawless will,
Fix the foundations of a creedless church-
A lawless rule-an anarchy of ill.

But what is Freedom? Rightly understood,
A universal license to be good.

TRANSLATION OF LA MARTINE'S PARTING ADDRESS TO THE ACADEMY OF MARSEILLES BEFORE SAILING WITH HIS WIFE AND CHILD TO THE HOLY LAND.

If to the fluttering folds of the quick sail
My all of peace and comfort I impart,
If to the treacherous tide and wav'ring gale
My wife and child I lend, my soul's best part;
If on the seas, the sands, the clouds, I cast
Fond hopes, and beating hearts I leave behind,
With no returning pledge beyond a mast,

That bends with every blast of wind;

'Tis not the paltry thirst of gold could fire
A heart that ever glow'd with holier flame,
Nor glory tempt me with the vain desire
To gild my memory with a fleeting fame,
I go not like the Florentine of old,
The bitter bread of banishment to eat;
No wave of faction in its wildest roar
Broke on my calm paternal seat.

Weeping I leave on yonder valley's side

Trees thick with shade, a home, a noiseless plain,
Peopled with warm regrets, and dim descried

Even here by wistful eyes across the main ;

Deep in the leafy woods a lone abode,

Beyond the reach of faction's loud annoy,

Whose echoes, even while tempests groaned abroad,
Were sounds of blessing, songs of joy.

There sits a sire, who sees our imaged forms,
When through the battlements the breezes sweep,
And prays to him who stirs or lays the storms
To make his winds glide gentler o'er the deep;
There friends and servants masterless are trying
To trace our latest footprints on the sward,
And my poor dog, beneath my window lying,

Howls when my well-known name is heard.

There sisters dwell, from the same bosom fed,
Boughs which the wind should rock on the same tree
There friends, the soul's relations dwell, that read
My eye, and knew each thought that dawned in me ;
And hearts unknown that list the muses call,
Mysterious friends that know me in my strain-
Like viewless echoes scattered over all

To render back its tones again.

But in the soul's unfathomable wells,
Unknown, inexplicable longings sleep;

Like that strange instinct which the bird impels
In search of other food athwart the deep.
What from those orient climes have they to gain?
Have they not nests as mossy in our eaves,
And for their callow progeny, the grain

Dropt from a thousand golden sheaves?

I too, like them, could find my portion here,
Enjoy the mountain slope, the river's foam;
My humble wishes seek no loftier sphere,
And yet like them I go-like them I come.
Dim longings draw me on and point my path
To Eastern sands, to Shem's deserted shore,
The cradle of the world, where God in wrath
Hardened the human heart of yore.

I have not yet felt on the sea of sand
The slumberous rocking of the desert bark,
Nor quenched my thirst at eve with quivering hand
By Hebron's well, beneath the palm-trees dark;
Nor in the pilgrim's tent my mantle spread,
Nor laid me in the dust where Job hath lain,
Nor, while the canvas murmured overhead,
Dreamt Jacob's mystic dreams again.

Of the world's pages one is yet unread:
How the stars tremble in Chaldea's sky,
With what a sense of nothingness we tread,
How the heart beats when God appears so nigh ;-

How on the soul, beside some column lone,
The shadows of old days descend and hover,-
How the grass speaks, the earth sends out its moan,
And the breeze wails that wanders over.

I have not heard in the tall cedar-top
The cries of nations echo to and fro;
Nor seen from Lebanon the eagles drop
On Tyre's deep-buried palaces below:
I have not laid my head upon the ground
Where Tadmor's temples in the dust decay,
Nor startled, with my footfall's dreary sound,
The waste where Memnon's empire lay.

I have not stretched where Jordan's current flows,
Heard how the loud lamenting river weeps,

With moans and cries sublimer even than those

With which the mournful Prophet * stirred its deeps;
Nor felt the transports which the soul inspire
In the deep grot, where he, the bard of kings,
Felt, at the dead of night, a hand of flame

Seize on his harp, and sweep the strings.

I have not wandered o'er the plain, whereon,
Beneath the olive tree, THE SAVIOUR Wept;
Nor traced his tears the hallowed trees upon,
Which jealous angels have not all outswept;
Nor, in the garden, watched through nights sublime,
Where, while the bloody sweat was undergone,
The echo of his sorrows and our crime

Rung in one listening ear alone.

Nor have I bent my forehead on the spot
Where his ascending footstep pressed the clay,
Nor worn with lips devout the rock-hewn grot,
Where, in his mother's tears embalmed, he lay;
Nor smote my breast on that sad mountain head,
Where, even in death, conq'ring the powers of air,
His arms, as to embrace our earth, he spread,
And bowed his head, to bless it there.

For these I leave my home; for these I stake
My little span of useless years below;
What matters it, where winter-winds may shake
The trunk that yields nor fruit nor foliage now!
Fool! says the crowd. Their's is the foolish part!
Not in one spot can the soul's food be found,—

* Jeremiah.