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And long I waited, but in vain:
That freshness never came again,
Though Summer passed away,
Though Autumn's mists hung cold and chill.
And drooping nature languished still,
And sank into decay.
"Till wintry blasts foreboding blew
Through leafless trees--and then I knew
That Hope was all a dream.
But thus, fond youth, she cheated me;
And she will prove as false to thee,
Though sweet her words may seem.
Stern prophet! Cease thy bodings dire--
Thou canst not quench the ardent fire
That warms the breast of youth.
Oh, let it cheer him while it may,
And gently, gently die away--
Chilled by the damps of truth!
Tell him, that earth is not our rest;
Its joys are empty--frail at best;
And point beyond the sky.
But gleams of light may reach us here;
And hope the ROUGHEST path can cheer:
Then do not bid it fly!
Though hope may promise joys, that still
Unkindly time will ne'er fulfil;
Or, if they come at all,
We never find them unalloyed,--
Hurtful perchance, or soon destroyed,
They vanish or they pall;
Yet hope ITSELF a brightness throws
O'er all our labours and our woes;
While dark foreboding Care
A thousand ills will oft portend,
That Providence may ne'er intend
The trembling heart to bear.
Or if they come, it oft appears,
Our woes are lighter than our fears,
And far more bravely borne.
Then let us not enhance our doom
But e'en in midnight's blackest gloom
Expect the rising morn.
Because the road is rough and long,
Shall we despise the skylark's song,
That cheers the wanderer's way?
Or trample down, with reckless feet,
The smiling flowerets, bright and sweet,
Because they soon decay?
Pass pleasant scenes unnoticed by,
Because the next is bleak and drear;
Or not enjoy a smiling sky,
Because a tempest may be near?
No! while we journey on our way,
We'll smile on every lovely thing;
And ever, as they pass away,
To memory and hope we'll cling.
And though that awful river flows
Before us, when the journey's past,
Perchance of all the pilgrim's woes
Most dreadful--shrink not--'tis the last!
Though icy cold, and dark, and deep;
Beyond it smiles that blessed shore,
Where none shall suffer, none shall weep,
And bliss shall reign for evermore!
APPEAL.
Oh, I am very weary,
Though tears no longer flow;
My eyes are tired of weeping,
My heart is sick of woe;
My life is very lonely
My days pass heavily,
I'm weary of repining;
Wilt thou not come to me?
Oh, didst thou know my longings
For thee, from day to day,
My hopes, so often blighted,
Thou wouldst not thus delay!
THE STUDENT'S SERENADE.
I have slept upon my couch,
But my spirit did not rest,
For the labours of the day
Yet my weary soul opprest;
And before my dreaming eyes
Still the learned volumes lay,
And I could not close their leaves,
And I could not turn away.
But I oped my eyes at last,
And I heard a muffled sound;
'Twas the night-breeze, come to say
That the snow was on the ground.
Then I knew that there was rest
On the mountain's bosom free;
So I left my fevered couch,
And I flew to waken thee!
I have flown to waken thee--
For, if thou wilt not arise,
Then my soul can drink no peace
From these holy moonlight skies.
And this waste of virgin snow
To my sight will not be fair,
Unless thou wilt smiling come,
Love, to wander with me there.
Then, awake! Maria, wake!
For, if thou couldst only know
How the quiet moonlight sleeps
On this wilderness of snow,
And the groves of ancient trees,
In their snowy garb arrayed,
Till they stretch into the gloom
Of the distant valley's shade;
I know thou wouldst rejoice
To inhale this bracing air;
Thou wouldst break thy sweetest sleep
To behold a scene so fair.
O'er these wintry wilds, ALONE,
Thou wouldst joy to wander free;
And it will not please thee less,
Though that bliss be shared with me.
THE CAPTIVE DOVE.
Poor restless dove, I pity thee;
And when I hear thy plaintive moan,
I mourn for thy captivity,
And in thy woes forget mine own.
To see thee stand prepared to fly,
And flap those useless wings of thine,
And gaze into the distant sky,
Would melt a harder heart than mine.
In vain--in vain! Thou canst not rise:
Thy prison roof confines thee there;
Its slender wires delude thine eyes,
And quench thy longings with despair.
Oh, thou wert made to wander free
In sunny mead and shady grove,
And far beyond the rolling sea,
In distant climes, at will to rove!
Yet, hadst thou but one gentle mate
Thy little drooping heart to cheer,
And share with thee thy captive state,
Thou couldst be happy even there.
Yes, even there, if, listening by,
One faithful dear companion stood,
While gazing on her full bright eye,
Thou mightst forget thy native wood
But thou, poor solitary dove,
Must make, unheard, thy joyless moan;
The heart that Nature formed to love
Must pine, neglected, and alone.
SELF-CONGRATULATION.
Ellen, you were thoughtless once
Of beauty or of grace,
Simple and homely in attire,
Careless of form and face;
Then whence this change? and wherefore now
So often smoothe your hair?
And wherefore deck your youthful form
With such unwearied care?
Tell us, and cease to tire our ears
With that familiar strain;
Why will you play those simple tunes
So often o'er again?
"Indeed, dear friends, I can but say
That childhood's thoughts are gone;
Each year its own new feelings brings,
And years move swiftly on:
"And for these little simple airs--
I love to play them o'er
So much--I dare not promise, now,
To play them never more."
I answered--and it was enough;
They turned them to depart;
They could not read my secret thoughts,
Nor see my throbbing heart.
I've noticed many a youthful form,
Upon whose changeful face
The inmost workings of the soul
The gazer well might trace;
The speaking eye, the changing lip,
The ready blushing cheek,
The smiling, or beclouded brow,
Their different feelings speak.
But, thank God! you might gaze on mine
For hours, and never know
The secret changes of my soul
From joy to keenest woe.
Last night, as we sat round the fire
Conversing merrily,
We heard, without, approaching steps
Of one well known to me!
There was no trembling in my voice,
No blush upon my cheek,
No lustrous sparkle in my eyes,
Of hope, or joy, to speak;
But, oh! my spirit burned within,
My heart beat full and fast!
He came not nigh--he went away--
And then my joy was past.
And yet my comrades marked it not:
My voice was still the same;
They saw me smile, and o'er my face
No signs of sadness came.
They little knew my hidden thoughts;
And they will NEVER know
The aching anguish of my heart,
The bitter burning woe!
FLUCTUATIONS,
What though the Sun had left my sky;
To save me from despair
The blessed Moon arose on high,
And shone serenely there.
I watched her, with a tearful gaze,
Rise slowly o'er the hill,
While through the dim horizon's haze
Her light gleamed faint and chill.
I thought such wan and lifeless beams
Could ne'er my heart repay
For the bright sun's most transient gleams
That cheered me through the day:
But, as above that mist's control
She rose, and brighter shone,
I felt her light upon my soul;
But now--that light is gone!
Thick vapours snatched her from my sight,
And I was darkling left,
All in the cold and gloomy night,
Of light and hope bereft:
Until, methought, a little star
Shone forth with trembling ray,
To cheer me with its light afar--
But that, too, passed away.
Anon, an earthly meteor blazed
The gloomy darkness through;
I smiled, yet trembled while I gazed--
But that soon vanished too!
And darker, drearier fell the night
Upon my spirit then;--
But what is that faint struggling light?
Is it the Moon again?
Kind Heaven! increase that silvery gleam
And bid these clouds depart,
And let her soft celestial beam
Restore my fainting heart!
SELECTIONS FROM THE LITERARY REMAINS OF ELLIS AND ACTON BELL.
BY CURRER BELL.
*
SELECTIONS FROM POEMS BY ELLIS BELL.
It would not have been difficult to compile a volume out of the
papers left by my sisters, had I, in making the selection,
dismissed from my consideration the scruples and the wishes of
those whose written thoughts these papers held. But this was
impossible: an influence, stronger than could be exercised by any
motive of expediency, necessarily regulated the selection. I
have, then, culled from the mass only a little poem here and
there. The whole makes but a tiny nosegay, and the colour and
perfume of the flowers are not such as fit them for festal uses.
It has been already said that my sisters wrote much in childhood
and girlhood. Usually, it seems a sort of injustice to expose in
print the crude thoughts of the unripe mind, the rude efforts of
the unpractised hand; yet I venture to give three little poems of
my sister Emily's, written in her sixteenth year, because they
illustrate a point in her character.
At that period she was sent to school. Her previous life, with
the exception of a single half-year, had been passed in the
absolute retirement of a village parsonage, amongst the hills
bordering Yorkshire and Lancashire. The scenery of these hills is
not grand--it is not romantic it is scarcely striking. Long low
moors, dark with heath, shut in little valleys, where a stream
waters, here and there, a fringe of stunted copse. Mills and
scattered cottages chase romance from these valleys; it is only
higher up, deep in amongst the ridges of the moors, that
Imagination can find rest for the sole of her foot: and even if
she finds it there, she must be a solitude-loving raven--no
gentle dove. If she demand beauty to inspire her, she must bring
it inborn: these moors are too stern to yield any product so
delicate. The eye of the gazer must ITSELF brim with a "purple
light," intense enough to perpetuate the brief flower-flush of
August on the heather, or the rare sunset-smile of June; out of
his heart must well the freshness, that in latter spring and
early summer brightens the bracken, nurtures the moss, and
cherishes the starry flowers that spangle for a few weeks the
pasture of the moor-sheep. Unless that light and freshness are
innate and self-sustained, the drear prospect of a Yorkshire moor
will be found as barren of poetic as of agricultural interest:
where the love of wild nature is strong, the locality will
perhaps be clung to with the more passionate constancy, because
from the hill-lover's self comes half its charm.
My sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose
bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; out of a sullen
hollow in a livid hill-side her mind could make an Eden. She
found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and not the
least and best loved was--liberty.
Liberty was the breath of Emily's nostrils; without it, she
perished. The change from her own home to a school, and from her
own very noiseless, very secluded, but unrestricted and
inartificial mode of life, to one of disciplined routine (though
under the kindliest auspices), was what she failed in enduring.
Her nature proved here too strong for her fortitude. Every
morning when she woke, the vision of home and the moors rushed on
her, and darkened and saddened the day that lay before her.
Nobody knew what ailed her but me--I knew only too well. In this
struggle her health was quickly broken: her white face,
attenuated form, and failing strength, threatened rapid decline.
I felt in my heart she would die, if she did not go home, and
with this conviction obtained her recall. She had only been three
months at school; and it was some years before the experiment of
sending her from home was again ventured on. After the age of
twenty, having meantime studied alone with diligence and
perseverance, she went with me to an establishment on the
Continent: the same suffering and conflict ensued, heightened by
the strong recoil of her upright, heretic and English spirit from
the gentle Jesuitry of the foreign and Romish system. Once more
she seemed sinking, but this time she rallied through the mere
force of resolution: with inward remorse and shame she looked
back on her former failure, and resolved to conquer in this
second ordeal. She did conquer: but the victory cost her dear.
She was never happy till she carried her hard-won knowledge back
to the remote English village, the old parsonage-house, and
desolate Yorkshire hills. A very few years more, and she looked
her last on those hills, and breathed her last in that house, and
under the aisle of that obscure village church found her last
lowly resting-place. Merciful was the decree that spared her when
she was a stranger in a strange land, and guarded her dying bed
with kindred love and congenial constancy.
The following pieces were composed at twilight, in the school-
room, when the leisure of the evening play-hour brought back in
full tide the thoughts of home.
I.
A LITTLE while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.
Where wilt thou go, my harassed heart--
What thought, what scene invites thee now
What spot, or near or far apart,
Has rest for thee, my weary brow?
There is a spot, 'mid barren hills,
Where winter howls, and driving rain;
But, if the dreary tempest chills,
There is a light that warms again.
The house is old, the trees are bare,
Moonless above bends twilight's dome;
But what on earth is half so dear--
So longed for--as the hearth of home?
The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'ergrown,
I love them--how I love them all!
Still, as I mused, the naked room,
The alien firelight died away;
And from the midst of cheerless gloom,
I passed to bright, unclouded day.
A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide;
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
Of mountains circling every side.
A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;
And, deepening still the dream-like charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.
THAT was the scene, I knew it well;
I knew the turfy pathway's sweep,
That, winding o'er each billowy swell,
Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.
Could I have lingered but an hour,
It well had paid a week of toil;
But Truth has banished Fancy's power:
Restraint and heavy task recoil.
Even as I stood with raptured eye,
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,
My hour of rest had fleeted by,
And back came labour, bondage, care.
II. THE BLUEBELL.
The Bluebell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air:
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit's care.
There is a spell in purple heath
Too wildly, sadly dear;
The violet has a fragrant breath,
But fragrance will not cheer,
The trees are bare, the sun is cold,
And seldom, seldom seen;
The heavens have lost their zone of gold,
And earth her robe of green.
And ice upon the glancing stream
Has cast its sombre shade;
And distant hills and valleys seem
In frozen mist arrayed.
The Bluebell cannot charm me now,
The heath has lost its bloom;
The violets in the glen below,
They yield no sweet perfume.
But, though I mourn the sweet Bluebell,
'Tis better far away;
I know how fast my tears would swell
To see it smile to-day.
For, oh! when chill the sunbeams fall
Adown that dreary sky,
And gild yon dank and darkened wall
With transient brilliancy;
How do I weep, how do I pine
For the time of flowers to come,
And turn me from that fading shine,
To mourn the fields of home!
III.
Loud without the wind was roaring
Through th'autumnal sky;
Drenching wet, the cold rain pouring,
Spoke of winter nigh.
All too like that dreary eve,
Did my exiled spirit grieve.
Grieved at first, but grieved not long,
Sweet--how softly sweet!--it came;
Wild words of an ancient song,
Undefined, without a name.
"It was spring, and the skylark was singing:"
Those words they awakened a spell;
They unlocked a deep fountain, whose springing,
Nor absence, nor distance can quell.
In the gloom of a cloudy November
They uttered the music of May ;
They kindled the perishing ember
Into fervour that could not decay.
Awaken, o'er all my dear moorland,
West-wind, in thy glory and pride!
Oh! call me from valley and lowland,
To walk by the hill-torrent's side!
It is swelled with the first snowy weather;
The rocks they are icy and hoar,
And sullenly waves the long heather,
And the fern leaves are sunny no more.
There are no yellow stars on the mountain
The bluebells have long died away
From the brink of the moss-bedded fountain--
From the side of the wintry brae.
But lovelier than corn-fields all waving
In emerald, and vermeil, and gold,
Are the heights where the north-wind is raving,
And the crags where I wandered of old.
It was morning: the bright sun was beaming;
How sweetly it brought back to me
The time when nor labour nor dreaming
Broke the sleep of the happy and free!
But blithely we rose as the dawn-heaven
Was melting to amber and blue,
And swift were the wings to our feet given,
As we traversed the meadows of dew.
For the moors! For the moors, where the short grass
Like velvet beneath us should lie!
For the moors! For the moors, where each high pass
Rose sunny against the clear sky!
For the moors, where the linnet was trilling
Its song on the old granite stone;
Where the lark, the wild sky-lark, was filling
Every breast with delight like its own!
What language can utter the feeling
Which rose, when in exile afar,
On the brow of a lonely hill kneeling,
I saw the brown heath growing there?
It was scattered and stunted, and told me
That soon even that would be gone:
It whispered, "The grim walls enfold me,
I have bloomed in my last summer's sun."
But not the loved music, whose waking
Makes the soul of the Swiss die away,
Has a spell more adored and heartbreaking
Than, for me, in that blighted heath lay.
The spirit which bent 'neath its power,
How it longed--how it burned to be free!
If I could have wept in that hour,
Those tears had been heaven to me.
Well--well; the sad minutes are moving,
Though loaded with trouble and pain;
And some time the loved and the loving
Shall meet on the mountains again!
The following little piece has no title; but in it the Genius of
a solitary region seems to address his wandering and wayward
votary, and to recall within his influence the proud mind which
rebelled at times even against what it most loved.
Shall earth no more inspire thee,
Thou lonely dreamer now?
Since passion may not fire thee,
Shall nature cease to bow?
Thy mind is ever moving,
In regions dark to thee;
Recall its useless roving,
Come back, and dwell with me.
I know my mountain breezes
Enchant and soothe thee still,
I know my sunshine pleases,
Despite thy wayward will.
When day with evening blending,
Sinks from the summer sky,
I've seen thy spirit bending
In fond idolatry.
I've watched thee every hour;
I know my mighty sway:
I know my magic power
To drive thy griefs away.
Few hearts to mortals given,
On earth so wildly pine;
Yet few would ask a heaven
More like this earth than thine.
Then let my winds caress thee
Thy comrade let me be:
Since nought beside can bless thee,
Return--and dwell with me.
Here again is the same mind in converse with a like abstraction.
"The Night-Wind," breathing through an open window, has visited
an ear which discerned language in its whispers.
THE NIGHT-WIND.
In summer's mellow midnight,
A cloudless moon shone through
Our open parlour window,
And rose-trees wet with dew.
I sat in silent musing;
The soft wind waved my hair;
It told me heaven was glorious,
And sleeping earth was fair.
I needed not its breathing
To bring such thoughts to me;
But still it whispered lowly,
How dark the woods will be!
"The thick leaves in my murmur
Are rustling like a dream,
And all their myriad voices
Instinct with spirit seem."
I said, "Go, gentle singer,
Thy wooing voice is kind:
But do not think its music
Has power to reach my mind.
"Play with the scented flower,
The young tree's supple bough,
And leave my human feelings
In their own course to flow."
The wanderer would not heed me;
Its kiss grew warmer still.
"O come!" it sighed so sweetly;
"I'll win thee 'gainst thy will.
"Were we not friends from childhood?
Have I not loved thee long?
As long as thou, the solemn night,
Whose silence wakes my song.
"And when thy heart is resting
Beneath the church-aisle stone,
I shall have time for mourning,
And THOU for being alone."
In these stanzas a louder gale has roused the sleeper on her
pillow: the wakened soul struggles to blend with the storm by
which it is swayed:--
Ay--there it is! it wakes to-night
Deep feelings I thought dead;
Strong in the blast--quick gathering light--
The heart's flame kindles red.
"Now I can tell by thine altered cheek,
And by thine eyes' full gaze,
And by the words thou scarce dost speak,
How wildly fancy plays.
"Yes--I could swear that glorious wind
Has swept the world aside,
Has dashed its memory from thy mind
Like foam-bells from the tide:
"And thou art now a spirit pouring
Thy presence into all:
The thunder of the tempest's roaring,
The whisper of its fall:
"An universal influence,
From thine own influence free;
A principle of life--intense--
Lost to mortality.
"Thus truly, when that breast is cold,
Thy prisoned soul shall rise;
The dungeon mingle with the mould--
The captive with the skies.
Nature's deep being, thine shall hold,
Her spirit all thy spirit fold,
Her breath absorb thy sighs.
Mortal! though soon life's tale is told;
Who once lives, never dies!"
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP.
Love is like the wild rose-briar;
Friendship like the holly-tree.
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms,
But which will bloom most constantly?
The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again,
And who will call the wild-briar fair?
Then, scorn the silly rose-wreath now,
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That, when December blights thy brow,
He still may leave thy garland green.
THE ELDER'S REBUKE.
"Listen! When your hair, like mine,
Takes a tint of silver gray;
When your eyes, with dimmer shine,
Watch life's bubbles float away:
When you, young man, have borne like me
The weary weight of sixty-three,
Then shall penance sore be paid
For those hours so wildly squandered;
And the words that now fall dead
On your ear, be deeply pondered--
Pondered and approved at last:
But their virtue will be past!
"Glorious is the prize of Duty,
Though she be 'a serious power';
Treacherous all the lures of Beauty,
Thorny bud and poisonous flower!
"Mirth is but a mad beguiling
Of the golden-gifted time;
Love--a demon-meteor, wiling
Heedless feet to gulfs of crime.
"Those who follow earthly pleasure,
Heavenly knowledge will not lead;
Wisdom hides from them her treasure,
Virtue bids them evil-speed!
"Vainly may their hearts repenting.
Seek for aid in future years;
Wisdom, scorned, knows no relenting;
Virtue is not won by fears."
Thus spake the ice-blooded elder gray;
The young man scoffed as he turned away,
Turned to the call of a sweet lute's measure,
Waked by the lightsome touch of pleasure:
Had he ne'er met a gentler teacher,
Woe had been wrought by that pitiless preacher.
THE WANDERER FROM THE FOLD.
How few, of all the hearts that loved,
Are grieving for thee now;
And why should mine to-night be moved
With such a sense of woe?
Too often thus, when left alone,
Where none my thoughts can see,
Comes back a word, a passing tone
From thy strange history.
Sometimes I seem to see thee rise,
A glorious child again;
All virtues beaming from thine eyes
That ever honoured men:
Courage and truth, a generous breast
Where sinless sunshine lay:
A being whose very presence blest
Like gladsome summer-day.
O, fairly spread thy early sail,
And fresh, and pure, and free,
Was the first impulse of the gale
Which urged life's wave for thee!
Why did the pilot, too confiding,
Dream o'er that ocean's foam,
And trust in Pleasure's careless guiding
To bring his vessel home?
For well he knew what dangers frowned,
What mists would gather, dim;
What rocks and shelves, and sands lay round
Between his port and him.
The very brightness of the sun
The splendour of the main,
The wind which bore him wildly on
Should not have warned in vain.
An anxious gazer from the shore--
I marked the whitening wave,
And wept above thy fate the more
Because--I could not save.
It recks not now, when all is over:
But yet my heart will be
A mourner still, though friend and lover
Have both forgotten thee!
WARNING AND REPLY.
In the earth--the earth--thou shalt be laid,
A grey stone standing over thee;
Black mould beneath thee spread,
And black mould to cover thee.
"Well--there is rest there,
So fast come thy prophecy;
The time when my sunny hair
Shall with grass roots entwined be."
But cold--cold is that resting-place,
Shut out from joy and liberty,
And all who loved thy living face
Will shrink from it shudderingly,
"Not so. HERE the world is chill,
And sworn friends fall from me:
But THERE--they will own me still,
And prize my memory."
Farewell, then, all that love,
All that deep sympathy:
Sleep on: Heaven laughs above,
Earth never misses thee.
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