Long since as I remember well
My childish eyes would weep
To read how calmly Stephen fell
In Jesus' arms asleep
Oh! could I feel the holy glow
That brightened death for him
I'd cease to weep that all below
Is grown so drear & dim

Could I but gain that lofty faith
Which made him bless his foes
I'd fix my anchor, firm till death
In hope's divine repose
And is it now a contrite heart
That brings me Lord to thee
Or is it but the goading smart
Of inward agony?

And could my spirit heavenward spring
And could I upward glance
With murderer's round me thickening
To God, in holy trance
And could my mangled relics cry
O Lord their deed forgive
And Jesus Saviour graciously
Thy martyr's soul receive!

A thousand early thoughts & dreams
Of heaven & hope were mine
And musings sweet by placid streams
In childhood's vision shine
In summer evening's mild & dim
Oh it was sweet to me
To sit & say some simple hymn
Beneath a lonely tree

A tree that by the garden wall
Drooped down its graceful head
And oft its golden flowers let fall
On the green grass neath it spread
Not hid from sight & scarcely veiled
Was my loved seat beneath
But still the wind around it wailed
I thought with softer breath

And still, the latest, lingering ray
Of sunset warmed me there
As all the ephemerals ceased their play
In the dimmed & dew chilled air
As night closed I might hear the moan
Of water murmuring low
As amid the stillness hushed & lone
Past on its viewless flow

It was a beck that far away
Washed many a bending tree
Unnoticed through the busy day
At twilight sounding free
I knew the valley where it flowed
The weeds that edged its current
I could recall the shady road
That wound beside the torrent

Tranquil the sound & sweet the thought
Of woodland rest & shade
That low & sea-like murmur brought
In music from the glade
Listening to that & feeling still
The charm of being alone
I never thought how damp & chill
The night was drawing on

The garden all involved in gloom
Seemed vaster than by day
The house stood silent as a tomb
In outline huge & grey
The cheering shine of firelight beaming
Through the parlour window told
That while I was out in the darkness dreaming
All within was bright as gold

I never since have known such bliss
As then came o'er my mind
And a trace of such pure happiness
I ne'er again shall find
My heart was better then than now
Its hopes soared far more free
I felt a blind, but ardent glow
Of love for piety

How sweetly then the strain still fell
To Bethlehem's sacred star
And how my heart of hearts would swell
To those that shone afar
Not long so rapt in thoughts of heaven
I was a child of clay
And soon by sinful terrors driven
I almost feared to pray

The gloom increased, the church was nigh
Its tower with awful frown
As I glanced upward to the sky
Looked like a giant down
I thought of God & heaven no more
A sudden awe rushed on
I wished myself by the bolted door
I shook as I sat alone

I had forgotten the gloomy night
That brooded o'er every tomb
But now with a strange & thrilling might
It struck me to my spirit home
What if then from the grave were fleeting
What the grave would again receive
To tell in the tone of a spectre's greeting
That I had not long to live

Words cannot tell the ghastly power
That such thoughts then had o'er me
I have wept when I woke at the midnight hour
At their grinding tyranny
Sometimes they would come in the sunny day
And haunt me unceasingly
And no tone of pleasure could charm away
The nameless misery

The books that I read all caught the tone
Of ghostly & spectral dread
And their tales would come o'er me again alone
At night on my sleepless bed
I read of a wizard who suffering died
In his hut on a desert moor
On a winter's night when the hollow wind sighed
Through the chinks of the shuddering door

And none but a little lonely child
To watch his release was there
And the sound of his ravings so strange & wild
Were more than that child could bear
But it did not faint, it stood sick & pale
Waiting the old man's death
And there sounded (so ran the awful tale)
A tramp o'er the desolate heath

And the boy as he looked to the cottage door
Saw it shaken & opened slow
While a dark shade fell on the lamp-lit floor
And he heard a sullen low
Something passed him, a bodiless shade
Something stood by the bed
A sign to the starkened corpse was made
And uprose the sheeted dead

They went, they past—like a waft of the wind
Silent & viewless & sweeping
And dread o'er the watcher came dizzy & blind
him in trance-like sleeping
There was more of the tale but even now
A touch of the ancient feeling
Checks the tide of memory's flow
With its influence cold & chilling

I read of a man who just at even
When the sun declined on high
Saw by the dying light of heaven
His own wraith standing by
And before another sun had brightened
The wood on the blue loch's verge

He was sleeping beneath its surge

I read of an old man whose only daughter
Was taken to fairy-land
And he used to wander alone by the water
On the beach of silver sand
Through many an endless summer day
Seeking her wind-bleached bones
In his dotage gathering pebbles & clay
From the mossy & shattered stones

Or the relics of lambs who years ago
Had died in some April storm
Sunk in the curling drifts of snow
That untimely tempests form
I read of a city smit by the plague
Where thousands died day by day
And the horror I felt so strange & vague
It was vain to chase away

Such were my dreams in infancy
I have other visions now
Which touch not the nerve so painfully
But yet fever the blood in its flow

When no eye is on me & all is still
I yet cannot feel alone
When no voice speaks, yet the ear will thrill
To a sudden & tone
When I sit in a quiet and cheerful room
Watching the firelight play
My thoughts will wander far from home
A thousand miles away.

I see an ancient & stately hall
I stand in the sun at its door
And feel the soft summer shadows fall
From the foliage that veils it o'er

I step within & a vast saloon
Lifts its proud dome for me
Showering from radiant sky-lights down
The day's resplendency

And glorious flowers are flushing through
Each sash, in crimson bloom
And winds as sweet as ever blew
Play round the regal room

All mute & still in solitude
Watched only by the skies
Where pours the sun his rosiest flood
A youthful lady lies

And dreams she of Norwegian seas
The dread the wild the dark,
And thinks she how this balmy breeze
May speed the Pirate's bark

And dreads she lest the arctic wave
Congealed & clear & green
Has given her Sire a glassy grave
In its shrine of ice serene

But she lifts her eyes, & she sees around
The painted & splendid Hall
sound
From the forms that glow on that wall

Glorious heads from the golden frames
Bend with a dream like smile
Parting with snowy hand the gleams
Of their lustrous hair the while

The teeth of pearl, through the lips of rose
Archly but stilly shew
Nothing that coral mouth can close
Which has smiled through centuries so
Glimpses of English scenery
Northumbrian hills & halls
And Glorious plains of Italy
Shine on the magic walls

And chevaliers of old English days
Lords of the Percy race
With bold dark eyes of passion gaze
On that youthful lady's face
Her thoughts are changed I see her start
Another feeling stirs
A longing for some kindred heart
To blend its fire with hers

Now dreams she that the whispering trees
Which wave that dome above
Reveal her future destinies
And tell her time of love
A hundred shadowy oracles
Around the windows moan
Is bliss the theme of that prophesy
Which comes with so wild a tone
We'll leave her to her haunted dream
I speak not what befel
How flowed with[in] her life's changeful stream
I may not dare not tell

'Tis all delusion!—yet again
The curtain falls & shews
Another scene as bright as vain
That too must clearly close
Tis all delusion, still once more
The glancing lightning glows
And brighter than the flash before
Its fitful glory throws

Succeeding fast & faster still
Scenes that no words can give
And gathering strength from every thrill
They stir, the[y] breathe, they live
They live! they gather round in bands

The earnest look, the beckoning hands
And am I now alone

Alone! there passed a noble line
Alone! there thronged a race
I saw a kindred likeness shine
In every haughty face
I know their, deeds I know their fame
The legends wild that grace
Each ancient house, around each name
trace

I know their parks, their halls their towers
The sweet lands where they shine
The track that leads through bowers
To each proud gate, is mine
I've seen the dark & silent aisles
Where all their dead repose
And the cold white memorial piles
That tell their lofty woes

The saint in stone for them must mourn
The marble angel pray
When their proud sons & sires return
To man's primeval clay
Return they must, no power can save
Their noblest fairest, best
'Tis doomed, the chill & sunless grave
At last must be their rest

They come again, such glorious forms
Such brows, & eyes divine
The heart exults, the life-blood warms
To see, to feel their shine
Oh stay! Oh fix! Oh start to life
Flash out reality
Methinks a strange commencing strife
Of dream & truth I see

A sound of breath, a wakening hum
Stirs the great silent band
Some vanish, then again they come
And brighter, taller stand
Some in wide, waving, rich array
Sweep through the sterner lines
And who are these? but Lo! away
They fade, the dream declines

Dim the bright curls, bloodless the cheeks
Rayless the radiant eyes
They fade like the last languid streaks
Of day in twilight skies
Even that head with awful brow
Bare, cold & white as stone
Whose keen, blue eagle eye but now
Flashed more than life, is gone

Even that Grecian bust, whose glance
From marble eye-lids shewed
Promethean fire had lit the trance
Of sculpture's still repose
Even that pure ideal form
Just smiled, then passed away
No star, dissevering clouds of storm
Ere shot so brief a ray

Even that face which turned aside
And shewed its high profile
With all the lofty lines of pride
That western woods reveal

Even that full-length form which bowed
Half backward in the throng
Yet rose from the receding crowd
In light so clear & strong
Held forth his hand which as it waved
Shewed a gleamy shine of rings
A flash of crimson jewels graved
With crest & crowns of Kings

Even he is gone, and all are gone
And wakening Reason cries
Thy dream is like a wild-bird flown
To summer climes & skies
Twill fitfully return & then
As fitfully will go
Each joy has its attendant pain
Each bliss its following woe

And if thou hast the solace felt
Of Fancy's pictured play
Bewail not when her visions melt
Like morning mists away
Is it not well, that thou can'st call
Her hallowing scenes to thee
When haply in thy spirit all
Sinks chill and hopelessly

Is it not well when severed far
From those thou love'st to see
That she has hung her golden star
O'er alien hill & tree
Remember those sweet evenings when
Behind the sun's farewell
A gentle light rose up again
And round thee calmly fell

Remember how she sanctified
The moon ascending slow
And silvering pure & pale & wide
The dewy field below
And if it chanced as oft has been
That music wandered by
And from the grove of aspens green
Stole up & sought the sky

What hast thou felt? What soothing gush
Of full unbroken thought
And by the breezless evening's hush
What glorious spells were wrought
Seemed it not then that all the West
Spread round thee in that night
Seemed not that moon boding pure & blest
Her own, her holiest light

Remember those grey steps of stone
Beneath that bowery tree
With wild green, glittering ivy grown
Around luxuriantly

Remember how reclining there
One evening thou did'st see
A little dark-haired child draw near
And lie down silently
He laid his cheek on the clustering flowers
That grew there sweet & soft
And he lifted his eyes to a pile of towers
Whose dark heads frowned aloft

And he hearkened to the ceaseless moan
Of a deep stream past him flowing
And as that child lay thus alone
How his little heart was glowing
Glowing with the thoughts he could not tell
That the countless stars inspired
And the dim night & the river's swell
With higher beauty fired

He rose up, through the wild brier sprays
Of the coppice o'er him waving
His dark eyes looked with eager gaze
On the stream Fort Adrian laving
A mighty stream, broad blue & deep
Its waves in the clear sky melted
Scarce through the gloom was seen the sweep
Of walls where its flow they belted
Yet he thinks he sees the far-off shine
Of lights from his father's dwelling
Where the terraced front of his halls recline
On the river's azure swelling

And he longs for the wing of the bird to seek
That home, o'er the rolling river
Fain would that child repose his cheek
On the breast that shall greet him never
Doomed to die, erelong to feel the sleep
Of a bloody death come o'er him
Far from the eye that shall darkly weep
When no tear can e'er restore him
Doomed on a cold & stormy heath
In the arms of a noble mourner
To breath[e] his last struggling breath
On the heart of the gallant Warner

Born in a stormy midnight's gloom
In a stormier midnight dying
The flower that shewed too fair a bloom
Trampled & crushed is lying
The marble slab that Warner laid
Above his relics telling
Who lies beneath amid the shade
Of wild moors round him swelling
And the motto on the headstone gives
That faith which will not perish
“I know that my Redeemer lives”
A blessed hope to cherish!

Dreamer awake & close the strain
A summons has been spoken
“Thou must depart” so burst the chain
And leave the bright links broken
The morn is up then come away
Let dreams of night be banished
The task the toil the hum of day
Draw on, & rest is vanished
Haste to the field & when the heat
Of sultry noon is burning
Oh cheer thee with the prospect sweet
Of eve again returning!