TRUE liberty was Christian, sanctified,
Baptized, and found in Christian hearts alone.
First-born of Virtue! daughter of the skies!
Nurseling of Truth divine! sister of all
The Graces, Meekness, Holiness, and Love
Given to God, and man, and all below,
That symptom showed of sensible existence,
Their due unasked: fear to whom fear was due;
To all, respect, benevolence, and love,
Companion of religion; where she came,
There Freedom came; where dwelt, there Freedom dwelt! Ruled where she ruled, expired where she expired.
"He was the freeman whom the truth made free;"
Who first of all the bands of Satan broke;
Who broke the bands of Sin; and for his soul,
In spite of fools, consulted seriously;
In spite of fashion, persevered in good;
In spite of wealth or poverty, upright;
Who did as Reason, not as Fancy bade;
Who heard temptation sing and yet turned not
Aside: saw Sin bedeck her flowery bed,
And yet would not go up; felt at his heart
The sword unsheathed, yet would not sell the truth;
Who having power, had not the will to hurt;
Who blushed alike to be, or have a slave;
Who blushed at nought but sin, feared nought but God;
Who, finally, in strong integrity
Of soul, 'midst want, or riches, or disgrace,
Uplifted calmly sat, and heard the waves
Of stormy folly breaking at his feet;
Now shrill with praise, now hoarse with foul reproach,
And both despised sincerely; seeking this
Alone-the approbation of his God,
Which still with conscience witnessed to his peace.
This, this is freedom, such as angels use,
And kindred to the liberty of God.
First-born of virtue! daughter of the Skies!
The man, the state in whom she ruled, was free;
All else were slaves of Satan, Sin, and Death.
THE DEATH OF THE YOUNG MOTHER.
It was an April day; and blithely all
The youth of nature leaped beneath the sun,
And promised glorious manhood: and our hearts
Were glad, and round them danced the lightsome blood,
In healthy merriment-when tidings came,
A child was born; and tidings came again,
That she who gave it birth was sick to death.
So swift trod sorrow on the heels of joy!
We gathered round her bed, and bent our knees
In fervent supplication to the Throne
Of Mercy; and perfumed our prayers with sighs,
Sincere and penitential tears, and looks
Of self-abasement. But we sought to stay
An angel on the earth; a spirit ripe
For heaven; and Mercy in her love refused;
Most merciful, as oft, when seeming least!
Most gracious when she seemed the most to frown!
The room I well remember; and the bed
On which she lay; and all the faces too
That crowded dark and mournfully around.
Her father there, and mother bending stood,
And down their aged cheeks fell many drops
Of bitterness; her husband, too, was there,
And brothers; and they wept-her sisters, too,
Did weep and sorrow comfortless; and I,
Too, wept, though not to weeping given: and all
Within the house was dolorous and sad.
This I remember well, but better still
The dying eye:-that eye alone was bright,
And brighter grew as nearer death approached;
As I have seen the gentle little flower
Look fairest in the silver beam which fell
Reflected from the thunder-cloud that soon
Came down, and o'er the desert scattered far
And wide its loveliness. She made a sign
To bring her babe ;-'twas brought and by her placed.
She looked upon its face that neither smiled
Nor wept, nor knew who gazed upon 't, and laid
Her hand upon its little breast, and sought
For it, with look that seemed to penetrate
The heavens-unutterable blessings-such
As God to dying parents only granted,
For infants left behind them in the world.
"God keep my child," we heard her say, and heard
No more the angel of the Covenant
Was come, and, faithful to his promise, stood,
Prepared to walk with her through death's dark vale.
And now her eyes grew bright and brighter still,
Too bright for ours to look upon, suffused
With many tears, and closed without a cloud.
They set as sets the morning-star, which goes
Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides
Obscured among the tempests of the sky,
But melts away into the light of heaven.
THE Editor of the Literary Souvenir, is a poet of great power and sweetness. He has, unfortunately, written too little to enable him to take the rank to which he is entitled by his talents.
EVENING.-A SKETCH.
'Tis evening :-on Abruzzo's1 hill
The summer's sun is lingering still,
As though unwilling to bereave
The landscape of its softest beam;-
So fair,-one can but look and grieve,
To think that, like a lovely dream,
A few brief fleeting moments more
Must see its reign of beauty o'er!
'Tis evening, and a general hush
Prevails, save when the mountain-spring
Bursts from its rock with fitful gush,
And makes melodious murmuring;—
Or when from Como's height of fear,
The echoes of its convent-bell
Come wafted on the far-off ear,
With soft and diapason swell.
But sounds so wildly sweet as they,
Ah! who would ever wish away?
Yet there are seasons when the soul,
Rapt in some dear delicious dream,
Heedless what skies may o'er it roll,
What rays of beauty round it beam,
Shuts up its inmost cell; lest aught,
However wondrous, wild or fair,
Shine in, and interrupt the thought,
The one deep thought that centres there!
1 Abruzzo, a mountainous district in the Neapolitan dominions.
Though with the passionate sense so shrined
And canonized, the hues of grief
Perchance be darkly, closely twined,
The lonely bosom spurns relief;
And could the breathing scene impart
A charm to make its sadness less,
Would hate the balm that healed its smart,
And curse the spell of loveliness
That pierced its cloud of gloom, if so
It stirred the stream of thought below.
It was a lovely night; the crescent moon,
(A bark of beauty on its dark-blue sea,)
Winning its way among the billowy clouds,
Unoared, unpiloted, moved on. The sky
Was studded thick with stars, which glittering streamed
An intermittent splendour through the heavens.
I turned my glance to earth;-the mountain winds
Were sleeping in their caves,—and the wild sea,
With its innumerous billows melted down
To one unmoving mass, lay stretched beneath
In deep and tranced slumber; giving back
The host above with all its dazzling sheen,
To Fancy's ken, as though the luminous sky
Had rained down stars upon its breast. Suddenly
The scene grew dim: those living lights rushed out,
And the fair moon with all her gorgeous train,
Had vanished like the frost-work of a dream.
Darkness arose, and volumed clouds swept o'er
Earth and the ocean. Through the gloom, at times,
Sicilian Etna's blood-red flame was seen
Fitfully flickering. The stillness now
Yielded to murmurs hurtling on the air
From out her deep-voiced crater; and the winds
Burst through their bonds of adamant, and lashed
The weltering ocean, that so lately lay
Calm as the slumbers of a cradled child,
To a demoniac's madness. The broad wave
Swelled into boiling surges, which appeared,
Whene'er the mountain's lurid light revealed
Their progress to the eye, presumptuously
To dash against the ebon roof of heaven.
Then came a sound—a fearful deafening sound-
Sudden and loud, as if an earthquake rent
The globe to its foundations: with a rush,
Startling deep midnight on her throne, rose up,
From the red mouth of Etna's burning mount,
A giant tree of fire, whence sprouted out
Thousands of boundless branches, which put forth
Their fiery foliage in the sky, and showered
Their fruit, the red-hot levin, to the earth
In terrible profusion. Some fell back
Into the hell from whence they sprang, and some,
Gaining an impulse from the winds that raged
Unceasingly around, sped o'er the main,
And, hissing, dived to an eternal home
Beneath its yawning billows. The black smoke,
Blotting the snows that shroud chill Cuma's height,
Rolled down the mountain's side, girding its base
With artificial darkness; for the sea,
Catania's palaces and towers, and even
The far-off shores of Syracuse, revealed
In the deep glare that deluged heaven and earth,
Flashed forth in fearful light upon the eye.
And there was seen a lake of liquid fire,
Streaming and streaming slowly on its course
And winding as it flowed (like the dread jaws
Of some huge monster ere its prey be fanged).
At its approach the loftiest pines bent down,
And strewed its surface with their trunks;-the earth
Shook at its coming;-towns and villages,
Deserted of their habitants, were whelmed
Amid the flood, and lent it ampler force.
The noble's palace, and the peasant's cot,
Alike but served to swell its fiery tide.
Shrieks of wild anguish rushed upon the gale,
And universal nature seemed to wrestle
With the gaunt forms of darkness and despair.
He left his home with a bounding heart,
For the world was all before him;
And felt it scarce a pain to part,
Such sun-bright beams came o'er him.
2 Epicedium, a funeral hymn.
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