The Summer’S Call.[410]

Come away! The sunny hours Woo thee far to founts and bowers! O’er the very waters now, In their play, Flowers are shedding beauty’s glow-- Come away! Where the lily’s tender gleam Quivers on the glancing stream, Come away!

All the air is fill’d with sound, Soft, and sultry, and profound; Murmurs through the shadowy grass Lightly stray; Faint winds whisper as they pass-- Come away! Where the bee’s deep music swells From the trembling foxglove bells, Come away!

In the skies the sapphire blue Now hath won its richest hue; In the woods the breath of song Night and day Floats with leafy scents along-- Come away! Where the boughs with dewy gloom Darken each thick bed of bloom, Come away!

In the deep heart of the rose Now the crimson love-hue glows; Now the glow-worm’s lamp by night Sheds a ray, Dreamy, starry, greenly bright-- Come away! Where the fairy cup-moss lies, With the wild-wood strawberries, Come away!

Now each tree by summer crown’d, Sheds its own rich twilight round; Glancing there from sun to shade, Bright wings play; There the deer its couch hath made-- Come away! Where the smooth leaves of the lime Glisten in their honey-time, Come away--away!

“The Summer’s Call.”--This faculty for realising images of the distant and the beautiful, amidst outward circumstances of apparently the most adverse influence, is thus gracefully illustrated by Washington Irving in the “Royal Poet” of his Sketch-Book:--“Some minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty; others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to become tender and imaginative in the loneliness of confinement. He banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul in melody.

‘Have you not seen the nightingale, A pilgrim cooped into a cage, How doth she chant her wonted tale In that her lonely hermitage? Even there her charming melody doth prove, That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.’”

Roger L’Estrange.

Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is irrepressible, unconfinable; and that, when the real world is shut out, it can create a world for itself, and with a necromantic power can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and irradiate the gloom of the dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and pageant that lived ’round Tasso in his dismal cell at Ferrara, when he conceived the splendid scenes of his Jerusalem; and we may consider The King’s Quair, composed by James of Scotland during his captivity at Windsor, as another of those beautiful breakings forth of the soul from the restraint and gloom of the prison-house.”

“In my literary pursuits,” wrote Mrs Hemans at this time to a friend, “I fear I shall be obliged to look out for an amanuensis. I sometimes retain a piece of poetry several weeks in my memory, from actual dread of writing it down.... I was so glad you liked my little summer breathing strain, (‘The Summer’s Call.’) I assure you it quite consoled me for the want of natural objects of beauty around, to heap up their remembered images in one wild strain.”

OH! SKYLARK, FOR THY WING.

Oh! Skylark, for thy wing! Thou bird of joy and light, That I might soar and sing At heaven’s empyreal height! With the heathery hills beneath me, Whence the streams in glory spring, And the pearly clouds to wreathe me, O Skylark! on thy wing!

Free, free, from earth-born fear, I would range the blessed skies, Through the blue divinely clear, Where the low mists cannot rise! And a thousand joyous measures From my chainless heart should spring, Like the bright rain’s vernal treasures, As I wander’d on thy wing.

But oh! the silver cords That around the heart are spun, From gentle tones and words, And kind eyes that make our sun! To some low, sweet nest returning, How soon my love would bring There, there the dews of morning, O Skylark! on thy wing!

SONGS OF CAPTIVITY.

[These songs (with the exception of the fifth) have all been set to music by the author’s sister, and are in the possession of Mr Willis, by whose permission they are here published.]

INTRODUCTION.

One hour for distant homes to weep Midst Afric’s burnings sands, One silent sunset hour was given To the slaves of many lands.

They sat beneath a lonely palm, In the gardens of their lord; And, mingling with the fountain’s tune, Their songs of exile pour’d.

And strangely, sadly did those lays Of Alp and ocean sound, With Afric’s wild, red skies above, And solemn wastes around.

Broken with tears were oft their tones, And most when most they tried To breathe of hope and liberty, From hearts that inly died.

So met the sons of many lands, Parted by mount and main; So did they sing in brotherhood, Made kindred by the chain.

THE BROTHER’S DIRGE.

In the proud old fanes of England My warrior-fathers lie, Banners hang drooping o’er their dust With gorgeous blazonry. But thou, but thou, my brother! O’er thee dark billows sweep-- The best and bravest heart of all Is shrouded by the deep.

In the old high wars of England My noble fathers bled; For her lion-kings of lance and spear, They went down to the dead. But thou, but thou, my brother! Thy life-drops flow’d for me-- Would I were with thee in thy rest, Young sleeper of the sea!

In a shelter’d home of England Our sister dwells alone, With quick heart listening for the sound Of footsteps that are gone. She little dreams, my brother! Of the wild fate we have found; I, midst the Afric sands a slave, Thou, by the dark seas bound.

THE ALPINE HORN.

The Alpine horn! the Alpine horn! Oh! through my native sky, Might I but hear its deep notes borne Once more--but once--and die!

Yet, no! Midst breezy hills thy breath, So full of hope and morn, Would win me from the bed of death-- O joyous Alpine horn!

But here the echo of that blast, To many a battle known, Seems mournfully to wander past, A wild, shrill, wailing tone!

Haunt me no more! for slavery’s air Thy proud notes were not born; The dream but deepens my despair-- Be hush’d, thou Alpine horn!