To The Air Of “Am Rhein, Am Rhein!”

Sing, sing in memory of the brave departed, Let song and wine be pour’d! Pledge to their fame, the free and fearless hearted, Our brethren of the sword!

Oft at the feast, and in the fight, their voices Have mingled with our own; Fill high the cup! but when the soul rejoices, Forget not who are gone.

They that stood with us, midst the dead and dying, On Albuera’s plain; They that beside us cheerily track’d the flying, Far o’er the hills of Spain;

They that amidst us, when the shells were showering From old Rodrigo’s wall, The rampart scaled, through clouds of battle towering, First, first at Victory’s call;

They that upheld the banners, proudly waving, In Roncesvalles’ dell, With England’s blood the southern vineyards laving-- Forget not how they fell!

Sing, sing in memory of the brave departed, Let song and wine be pour’d! Pledge to their fame, the free and fearless hearted, Our brethren of the sword!

HAUNTED GROUND.

“And slight, withal, may be the things which bring Back on the heart the weight which it would fling Aside for ever--it may be a sound, A tone of music, summer eve, or spring, A flower--the wind--the ocean--which shall wound, Striking the electric train, wherewith we are darkly bound.”

Byron.

Yes, it is haunted, this quiet scene, Fair as it looks, and all softly green; Yet fear not thou--for the spell is thrown, And the might of the shadow, on me alone.

Are thy thoughts wandering to elves and fays, And spirits that dwell where the water plays? Oh! in the heart there are stronger powers, That sway, though viewless, this world of ours!

Have I not lived midst these lonely dells, And loved, and sorrow’d, and heard farewells, And learn’d in my own deep soul to look, And tremble before that mysterious book?

Have I not, under these whispering leaves, Woven such dreams as the young heart weaves? Shadows--yet unto which life seem’d bound; And is it not--is it not haunted ground?

Must I not hear what thou hearest not, Troubling the air of the sunny spot? Is there not something to rouse but me, Told by the rustling of every tree?

Song hath been here, with its flow of thought; Love, with its passionate visions fraught; Death, breathing stillness and sadness round; And is it not--is it not haunted ground?

Are there no phantoms, but such as come By night from the darkness that wraps the tomb? A sound, a scent, or a whispering breeze, Can summon up mightier far than these!

But I may not linger amidst them here! Lovely they are, and yet things to fear; Passing and leaving a weight behind, And a thrill on the chords of the stricken mind.

Away, away!--that my soul may soar As a free bird of blue skies once more! Here from its wing it may never cast The chain by those spirits brought back from the past.

Doubt it not--smile not--but go thou, too, Look on the scenes where thy childhood grew-- Where thou hast pray’d at thy mother’s knee, Where thou hast roved with thy brethren free;

Go thou, when life unto thee is changed, Friends thou hast loved as thy soul, estranged; When from the idols thy heart hath made, Thou hast seen the colours of glory fade.

Oh! painfully then, by the wind’s low sigh, By the voice of the stream, by the flower-cup’s dye, By a thousand tokens of sight and sound, Thou wilt feel thou art treading on haunted ground.

THE CHILD OF THE FORESTS.

WRITTEN AFTER READING THE MEMOIRS OF JOHN HUNTER.

[On one occasion, Mrs Hemans was somewhat ludicrously disenchanted, through the medium of a North American Review, on the subject of a self-constituted hero, whose history (which suggested her little poem, “The Child of the Forests”) she had read with unquestioning faith and lively interest. This was the redoubtable John Dunn Hunter, whose marvellous adventures amongst the Indians--by whom he represented himself to have been carried away in childhood--were worked up into a plausible narrative, admirably calculated to excite the sympathies of its readers. But how far it was really deserving of them, may be judged by the following extract from a letter to a friend who had been similarly mystified:--“I send you a North American Review, which will mortify C. and you with the sad intelligence that John Hunter--even our own John Dunn--the man of the panther’s skin--the adopted of the Kansas--the shooter with the rifle--no, with the long bow--is, I blush to say it, neither more nor less than an impostor; no better than Psalmanazar; no, no better than Carraboo herself. After this, what are we to believe again? Are there any Loo Choo Islands? Was there ever any Robinson Crusoe? Is there any Rammohun Roy? All one’s faith and trust is shaken to its foundations. No one here sympathises with me properly on this annoying occasion; but you, I think, will know how to feel, who have been quite as much devoted to that vile John Dunn as myself.”--Memoir, pp. 95-6.]

Is not thy heart far off amidst the woods, Where the red Indian lays his father’s dust, And, by the rushing of the torrent floods, To the Great Spirit bows in silent trust? Doth not thy soul o’ersweep the foaming main, To pour itself upon the wilds again?

They are gone forth, the desert’s warrior race, By stormy lakes to track the elk and roe; But where art thou, the swift one in the chase, With thy free footstep and unfailing bow? Their singing shafts have reach’d the panther’s lair, And where art thou?--thine arrows are not there.

They rest beside their streams--the spoil is won-- They hang their spears upon the cypress bough; The night-fires blaze, the hunter’s work is done-- They hear the tales of old--but where art thou? The night-fires blaze beneath the giant pine, And there a place is fill’d that once was thine.

For thou art mingling with the city’s throng, And thou hast thrown thine Indian bow aside; Child of the forests! thou art borne along, E’en as ourselves, by life’s tempestuous tide. But will this be? and canst thou here find rest? Thou hadst thy nurture on the desert’s breast.

Comes not the sound of torrents to thine ear From the savannah land, the land of streams? Hear’st thou not murmurs which none else may hear? Is not the forest’s shadow on thy dreams? They call--wild voices call thee o’er the main, Back to thy free and boundless woods again.

Hear them not! hear them not!--thou canst not find In the far wilderness what once was thine! Thou hast quaff’d knowledge from the founts of mind, And gather’d loftier aims and hopes divine. Thou know’st the soaring thought, the immortal strain-- Seek not the deserts and the woods again!