Or summer hamlet, flat and bare, on high
Suspended, 'mid the quiet of the sky.
How still! no irreligious sound or sight
Rouses the soul from her severe delight;
An idle voice the Sabbath region fills
Of deep that calls to deep across the hills.
Broke only by the melancholy sound
Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and pine-wood's steady sough;*
The solitary heifer's deepened low;
Or rumbling heard remote of falling snow;
Save that, the stranger seen below, the boy
Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy.
When warm from myrtle bays and tranquil seas.
Comes on, to whisper hope, the vernal breeze,
When hums the mountain bee in May's glad ear,
And emerald isles to spot the heights appear,
When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill,
And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill,
When fragrant scents beneath th' enchanted tread
Spring up, his choicest wealth around him spread,
The pastoral Swiss begins the cliffs to scale,
To silence leaving the deserted vale,
Mounts, where the verdure leads, from stage to stage,
And pastures on, as in the patriarch's age:
O'er lofty heights serene and still they go,
And hear the rattling thunder far below.
They cross the chasmy torrent's foam-lit bed,
Rocked on the dizzy larch's narrow tread;
Or steal beneath loose mountains, half deterred,
That sigh and shudder to the lowing herd.
-I see him, up the midway cliff he creeps
To where a scanty knot of verdure peeps;
Thence down the steep a pile of grass he throws,
The fodder of his herds in winter snows.
Far different life to what tradition hoar
Transmits of days more blest in times of yore:
Then Summer lengthened out his season bland,
And with rock-honey flowed the happy land.
Continual fountains welling cheered the waste,
And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste.
Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had piled,
Usurping where the fairest herbage smiled;
Nor hunger forced the herds from pastures bare,
For scanty food the treacherous cliffs to dare.
Then the milk-thistle bade those herds demand
Three times a day the pail and welcome hand.
But human vices have provoked the rod
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
* Songh, a Scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind through the
Thus does the father to his sons relate,
On the lone mountain top, their changed estate.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.
When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows;
That hut which from the hills his eyes employs
So oft, the central point of all his joys.
Where, safely guarded by the woods behind,
He hears the chiding of the baffled wind
Hears Winter, calling all his terrors round,
Rush down the living rocks with whirlwind sound.
Through Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide,
Unstained by envy, discontent, and pride,
The bound of all his vanity to deck,
With one bright bell a favourite heifer's neck;
Content upon some simple annual feast,
Remembered half the year and hoped the rest,
If dairy produce, from his inner hoard
Of thrice ten summers consecrate the board.
Gay lark of hope, thy silent song resume!
Fair smiling lights the purple hills illume!
Soft gales and dews of life's delicious morn,
And thou, lost fragrance of the heart, return!
Soon flies the little joy to man allowed,
And grief before him travels like a cloud :
For come diseases on and penury's rage,
Labour, and care, and pain, and dismal age,
Till, hope-deserted, long in vain his breath
Implores the dreadful untried sleep of death.
-'Mid savage rocks, and seas of snow that shine
Between interminable tracts of pine,
A temple stands; which holds an awful shrine.
By an uncertain light revealed, that falls
On the mute image and the troubled walls:
Pale, dreadful faces round the shrine appear,
A bortive joy, and hope that works in fear;
While strives a secret power to hush the crowd,
Pain's wild rebellious burst proclaims her rights aloud
Oh! give me not that eye of hard disdain
That views undimmed Ensiedlen's* wretched fane.
'Mid muttering prayers all sounds of torment meet,
Dire clap of hands, distracted chafe of feet;
While loud and dull ascends the weeping cry,
Surely in other thoughts contempt may die.
If the sad grave of human ignorance bear
One flower of hope-oh, pass and leave it there!
*This shrine is resorted to, from a hope of relief, by multitudes, from every corner of the Catholic world, labouring under mental or bodily afflictions.
My father was a good and pious man,
An honest man by honest parents bred;
And I believe, that, soon as I began
To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,
And in his hearing there my prayers I said;
And afterwards, by my good father taught,
I read, and loved the books in which I read;
For books in every neighbouring house I sought,
And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.
The suns of twenty summers danced along,-
Ah! little marked how fast they rolled away;
Then rose a stately hall our woods among,
And cottage after cottage owned its sway.
No joy to see a neighbouring house, or stray
Through pastures not his own, the master took :
My father dared his greedy wish gainsay;
He loved his old hereditary nook,
And ill could I the thought of such sad parting brook.
But, when he had refused the proffered gold,
To cruel injuries he became a prey,
Sore traversed in whate'er he bought and sold:
His troubles grew upon him day by day,
And all his substance fell into decay.
They dealt most hardly with him, and he tried
To move their hearts-but it was vain-for they
Seized all he had; and, weeping side by side,
We sought a home where we uninjured might abide.
It was in truth a lamentable hour
When, from the last hill-top my sire surveyed,
Peering above the trees, the steeple tower
That on his marriage-day sweet music made,
Till then he hoped his bones might there be laid,
Close by my mother, in their native bowers;
Bidding me trust in God, he stood and prayed-
I could not pray :-through tears that fell in showers,
I saw our own dear home, that was no longer ours.
There was a youth whom I had loved so long,
That when I loved him not I cannot say.
'Mid the green mountains many and many a song
We two had sung, like gladsome birds in May.
When we began to tire of childish play,
We seemed still more and more to prize each other;
We talked of marriage and our marriage-day;
And I in truth did love him like a brother;
For never could I hope to meet with such another.
Two years were past, since to a distant town
He had repaired to ply the artist's trade.
What tears of bitter grief, till then unknown-
What tender vows our last sad kiss delayed!
To him we turned: we had no other aid.
Like one revived, upon his neck I wept :
And her whom he had loved in joy, he said
He well could love in grief: his faith he kept;
And in a quiet home once more my father slept.
We lived in peace and comfort; and were blest
With daily bread, by constant toil supplied.
Three lovely infants lay upon my breast;
And often, viewing their sweet smiles, I sighed,
And knew not why. My happy father died
When sad distress reduced the children's meal;
Thrice happy! that from him the grave did hide
The empty loom, cold hearth, and silent wheel,
And tears that flowed for ills which patience could not heal.
'Twas a hard change, an evil time was come;
We had no hope, and no relief could gain.
But soon, day after day, the noisy drum
Beat round to sweep the streets of want and pain.
My husband's arms now only served to strain
Me and his children hungering in his view:
In such dismay my prayers and tears were vain :
To join those miserable men he flew :
And now to the sea-coast, with numbers more we drew.
There, long were we neglected, and we bore
Much sorrow ere the fleet its anchor weighed ;
Green fields before us and our native shore,
We breathed a pestilential air that made
Ravage for which no knell was heard.
For our departure; wished and wished-nor knew
'Mid that long sickness, and those hopes delayed,
That happier days we never more must view:
The parting signal streamed, at last the land withdrew.
But the calm summer season now was past.
On as we drove, the equinoctial deep
Ran mountains high before the howling blast;
And many perished in the whirlwind's sweep.
We gazed with terror on their gloomy sleep,
Untaught that soon such anguish must ensue,
Our hopes such harvest of affliction reap,
That we the mercy of the waves should rue.
We reached the Western World, a poor, devoted crew.
The pains and plagues that on our heads came down,
Disease and famine, agony and fear,
In wood or wilderness, in camp or town,
It would thy brain unsettle, even to hear.
All perished-all, in one remorseless year,
Husband and children! one by one, by sword
And ravenous plague, all perished: every tear
Dried up, despairing, desolate, on board
A British ship I waked, as from a trance restored.
Peaceful as some immeasurable plain
By the first beams of dawning light inprest,
In the calm sunshine slept the glittering main:
The very ocean has its hour of rest.
I too was calm, though heavily distrest!
Oh me, how quiet sky and ocean were !
My heart was hushed within me, I was blest,
And looked, and looked along the silent air,
Until it seemed to bring a joy to my despair.
Ah! how unlike those late terrific sleeps!
And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke:
The unburied dead that lay in festering heaps!
The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke;
The shriek that from the distant battle broke!
The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid host,
Driven by the bomb's incessant thunder-stroke
To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick anguish tossed,
Hope died, and fear itself in agony was lost!
At midnight once the storming army came,-
Yet do I see the miserable sight,
The bayonet, the soldier, and the flame
That followed us and faced us in our flight:
When rape and murder by the ghastly light
Seized their joint prey, the mother and the child!
But I must leave these thoughts.-From night to night,
From day to day, the air breathed soft and mild;
And on the gliding vessel Heaven and ocean smiled.
Some mighty gulf of separation past,
I seemed transported to another world :
A thought resigned with pain, when from the mast
The impatient mariner the sail unfurled,
And whistling, called the wind that hardly curled
The silent sea. From the sweet thoughts of home,
And from all hope I was for ever hurled.
For me-furthest from earthly port to roam
Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.
And oft I thought (my fancy was so strong)
That I at last a resting-place had found;
"Here will I dwell," said I, "my whole life long,
Roaming the illimitable waters round:
Here will I live:-of every friend disowned,
And end my days upon the ocean flood."
To break my dream the vessel reached its bound:
And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
And near a thousand tables pined, and wanted food.
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