A Spirit’s Return.
“This is to be a mortal.
And seek the things beyond mortality!” Manfred.
Thy voice prevails—dear friend, my gentle friend!
This long-shut heart for thee shall be unseal’d;
And though thy soft eye mournfully will bend
Over the troubled stream, yet once reveal’d
Shall its freed waters flow; then rocks must close
For evermore, above their dark repose.
Come while the gorgeous mysteries of the sky
Fused in the crimson sea of sunset lie;
Come to the woods, where all strange wandering sound
Is mingled into harmony profound;
Where the leaves thrill with spirit, while the wind
Fills with a viewless being, unconfined,
The trembling reeds and fountains. Our own dell,
With its green dimness and Æolian breath,
Shall suit th’ unveiling of dark records well—
Hear me in tenderness and silent faith!
Thou knew’st me not in life’s fresh vernal morn—
I would thou hadst!—for then my heart on thine
Had pour’d a worthier love; now, all o’erworn
By its deep thirst for something too divine,
It hath but fitful music to bestow,
Echoes of harp-strings broken long ago.
Yet even in youth companionless I stood,
As a lone forest-bird midst ocean’s foam;
For me the silver cords of brotherhood
Were early loosed; the voices from my home
Pass’d one by one, and melody and mirth
Left me a dreamer by a silent hearth.
But, with the fulness of a heart that burn’d
For the deep sympathies of mind, I turn’d
From that unanswering spot, and fondly sought
In all wild scenes with thrilling murmurs fraught,
In every still small voice and sound of power,
And flute-note of the wind through cave and bower,
A perilous delight!—for then first woke
My life’s lone passion, the mysterious quest
Of secret knowledge; and each tone that broke
From the wood-arches or the fountain’s breast,
Making my quick soul vibrate as a lyre,
But minister’d to that strange inborn fire.
Midst the bright silence of the mountain dells,
In noontide-hours or golden summer-eves,
My thoughts have burst forth as a gale that swells
Into a rushing blast, and from the leaves
Shakes out response. O thou rich world unseen!
Thou curtain’d realm of spirits!—thus my cry
Hath troubled air and silence—dost thou lie
Spread all around, yet by some filmy screen
Shut from us ever? The resounding woods,
Do their depths teem with marvels?—and the floods,
And the pure fountains, leading secret veins
Of quenchless melody through rock and hill,
Have they bright dwellers?—are their lone domains
Peopled with beauty, which may never still
Our weary thirst of soul? Cold, weak and cold,
Is earth’s vain language, piercing not one fold
Of our deep being! Oh, for gifts more high!
For a seer’s glance to rend mortality!
For a charm’d rod, to call from each dark shrine
The oracles divine!
I woke from those high fantasies, to know
My kindred with the earth—I woke to love.
O gentle friend! to love in doubt and woe,
Shutting the heart the worshipp’d name above,
Is to love deeply; and my spirit’s dower
Was a sad gift, a melancholy power
Of so adoring—with a buried care,
And with the o’erflowing of a voiceless prayer,
And with a deepening dream, that day by day,
In the still shadow of its lonely sway,
Folded me closer, till the world held naught
Save the one being to my centred thought.
There was no music but his voice to hear,
No joy but such as with his step drew near;
Light was but where he look’d—life where he moved:
Silently, fervently, thus, thus I loved.
Oh! but such love is fearful!—and I knew
Its gathering doom: the soul’s prophetic sight
Even then unfolded in my breast, and threw
O’er all things round a full, strong, vivid light,
Too sorrowfully clear!—an under-tone
Was given to Nature’s harp, for me alone
Whispering of grief. Of grief?—be strong, awake!
Hath not thy love been victory, O my soul?
Hath not its conflict won a voice to shake
Death’s fastnesses?—a magic to control
Worlds far removed?—from o’er the grave to thee
Love hath made answer; and thy tale should be
Sung like a lay of triumph! Now return
And take thy treasure from its bosom’d urn,
And lift it once to light!
In fear, in pain,
I said I loved—but yet a heavenly strain
Of sweetness floated down the tearful stream,
A joy flash’d through the trouble of my dream!
I knew myself beloved! We breathed no vow,
No mingling visions might our fate allow,
As unto happy hearts; but still and deep,
Like a rich jewel gleaming in a grave,
Like golden sand in some dark river’s wave,
So did my soul that costly knowledge keep,
So jealously!—a thing o’er which to shed,
When stars alone beheld the drooping head,
Lone tears! yet ofttimes burden’d with the excess
Of our strange nature’s quivering happiness.
But, oh! sweet friend! we dream not of love’s might
Till death has robed with soft and solemn light
The image we enshrine! Before that hour,
We have but glimpses of the o’ermastering power
Within us laid!—then doth the spirit-flame
With sword-like lightning rend its mortal frame;
The wings of that which pants to follow fast
Shake their clay-bars, as with a prison’d blast—
The sea is in our souls!
He died—he died
On whom my lone devotedness was cast!
I might not keep one vigil by his side,
I, whose wrung heart watch’d with him to the last!
I might not once his fainting head sustain,
Nor bathe his parch’d lips in the hour of pain,
Nor say to him, “Farewell!” He pass’d away—
Oh! had my love been there, its conquering sway
Had won him back from death! But thus removed,
Borne o’er th’ abyss no sounding line hath proved,
Join’d with the unknown, the viewless—he became
Unto my thoughts another, yet the same—
Changed—hallow’d—glorified!—and his low grave
Seem’d a bright mournful altar—mine, all mine:
Brother and friend soon left me that sole shrine,
The birthright of the faithful!—their world’s wave
Soon swept them from its brink. Oh! deem thou not
That on the sad and consecrated spot
My soul grew weak! I tell thee that a power
There kindled heart and lip—a fiery shower
My words were made—a might was given to prayer,
And a strong grasp to passionate despair,
And a dread triumph! Know’st thou what I sought?
For what high boon my struggling spirit wrought?
—Communion with the dead! I sent a cry
Through the veil’d empires of eternity—
A voice to cleave them! By the mournful truth,
By the lost promise of my blighted youth.
By the strong chain a mighty love can bind
On the beloved, the spell of mind o’er mind;
By words, which in themselves are magic high,
Armed, and inspired, and wing’d with agony;
By tears, which comfort not, but burn, and seem
To bear the heart’s blood in their passion-stream;
I summon’d, I adjured!—with quicken’d sense,
With the keen vigil of a life intense.
I watch’d, an answer from the winds to wring,
I listen’d, if perchance the stream might bring
Token from worlds afar; I taught one sound
Unto a thousand echoes—one profound
Imploring accent to the tomb, the sky—
One prayer to night—“Awake! appear! reply!”
Hast thou been told that from the viewless bourne
The dark way never hath allow’d return?
That all, which tears can move, with life is fled—
That earthly love is powerless on the dead?
Believe it not!—There is a large lone star
Now burning o’er yon western hill afar,
And under its clear light there lies a spot
Which well might utter forth—Believe it not!
I sat beneath that planet. I had wept
My woe to stillness; every night-wind slept;
A hush was on the hills; the very streams
Went by like clouds, or noiseless founts in dreams;
And the dark tree o’ershadowing me that hour,
Stood motionless, even as the gray church-tower
Whereon I gazed unconsciously. There came
A low sound, like the tremor of a flame,
Or like the light quick shiver of a wing,
Flitting through twilight woods, across the air;
And I look’d up! Oh! for strong words to bring
Conviction o’er thy thought! Before me there,
He, the departed, stood! Ay, face to face,
So near, and yet how far! His form, his mien,
Gave to remembrance back each burning trace
Within:—Yet something awfully serene,
Pure, sculpture-like, on the pale brow, that wore
Of the once beating heart no token more;
And stillness on the lip—and o’er the hair
A gleam, that trembled through the breathless air;
And an unfathom’d calm, that seem’d to lie
In the grave sweetness of th’ illumined eye,
Told of the gulfs between our being set,
And, as that unsheath’d spirit-glance I met,
Made my soul faint:—with fear? Oh! not with fear!
With the sick feeling that in his far sphere
My love could be as nothing! But he spoke—
How shall I tell thee of the startling thrill
In that low voice, whose breezy tones could fill
My bosom’s infinite? O friend! I woke
Then first to heavenly life! Soft, solemn, clear,
Breathed the mysterious accents on mine ear,
Yet strangely seem’d as if the while they rose
From depths of distance, o’er the wide repose
Of slumbering waters wafted, or the dells
Of mountains, hollow with sweet echo-cells.
But, as they murmur’d on, the mortal chill
Pass’d from me, like a mist before the morn;
And, to that glorious intercourse upborne
By slow degrees, a calm, divinely still,
Possess’d my frame. I sought that lighted eye—
From its intense and searching purity
I drank in soul!—I question’d of the dead—
Of the hush’d, starry shores their footsteps tread,
And I was answer’d. If remembrance there
With dreamy whispers fill the immortal air;
If thought, here piled from many a jewel-heap,
Be treasure in that pensive land to keep;
If love, o’ersweeping change, and blight, and blast,
Find there the music of his home at last:
I ask’d, and I was answer’d. Full and high
Was that communion with eternity—
Too rich for aught so fleeting! Like a knell
Swept o’er my sense its closing words, “Farewell!
On earth we meet no more!” And all was gone—
The pale, bright settled brow—the thrilling tone,
The still and shining eye! and never more
May twilight gloom or midnight hush restore
That radiant guest! One full-fraught hour of heaven,
To earthly passion’s wild implorings given,
Was made my own—the ethereal fire hath shiver’d
The fragile censer in whose mould it quiver’d,
Brightly, consumingly! What now is left?
A faded world, of glory’s hues bereft—
A void, a chain! I dwell midst throngs, apart,
In the cold silence of the stranger’s heart;
A fix’d immortal shadow stands between
My spirit and life’s fast-receding scene;
A gift hath sever’d me from human ties,
A power is gone from all earth’s melodies,
Which never may return: their chords are broken,
The music of another land hath spoken—
No after-sound is sweet! This weary thirst!
And I have heard celestial fountains burst!
What here shall quench it?
Dost thou not rejoice,
When the spring sends forth an awakening voice
Through the young woods? Thou dost! And in that birth
Of early leaves, and flowers, and songs of mirth,
Thousands, like thee, find gladness! Couldst thou know
How every breeze then summons me to go!
How all the light of love and beauty shed
By those rich hours, but woos me to the dead!
The only beautiful that change no more—
The only loved!—the dwellers on the shore
Of spring fulfill’d! The dead! whom call we so?
They that breathe purer air, that feel, that know
Things wrapt from us! Away! within me pent,
That which is barr’d from its own element
Still droops or struggles! But the day will come—
Over the deep the free bird finds its home;
And the stream lingers midst the rocks, yet greets
The sea at last; and the wing’d flower-seed meets
A soil to rest in: shall not I, too, be,
My spirit-love! upborne to dwell with thee?
Yes! by the power whose conquering anguish stirr’d
The tomb, whose cry beyond the stars was heard,
Whose agony of triumph won thee back
Through the dim pass no mortal step may track,
Yet shall we meet! that glimpse of joy divine
Proved thee for ever and for ever mine!
[“It was towards the close of the year 1829, that Mrs Hemans began to contemplate the publication of a new volume of poems. She had already made some preparation for this by contributing a series of lyrics under the title of “Songs of the Affections,” to Blackwood’s Magazine, together with the long ballad, “The Lady of Provence,” which, for the glowing pictures it contains, the lofty yet tender affection to which it is consecrated, and the striking but never uncouth changes of its versification, must be considered as one of its author’s finest chivalresque poems. She had still, however, to produce some work of greater importance than these, suitable for the commencement of a volume. The subject at length fixed upon by her, as peculiar as it was almost dangerously fascinating, was suggested by a fireside conversation. It had long been a favourite amusement to wind up our evenings by telling ghost-stories. One night, however, the store of thrilling narratives was exhausted, and we began to talk of the feelings with which the presence and the speech of a visitant from another world, (if indeed a spirit could return,) would be most likely to impress the person so visited. After having exhausted all the common varieties of fear and terror in our speculations, Mrs Hemans said that she thought the predominant sensation at the time must partake of awe and rapture, and resemble the feelings of those who listen to a revelation, and at the same moment know themselves to be favoured above all men, and humbled before a being no longer sharing their own cares or passions; but that the person so visited must thenceforward and for ever be inevitably separated from this world and its concerns: for the soul which had once enjoyed such a strange and spiritual communion, which had been permitted to look, though but for a moment, beyond the mysterious gates of death, must be raised, by its experience, too high for common grief again to perplex, or common joy to enliven. She spoke long and eloquently upon this subject; and I have reason to believe that this conversation settled her wandering fancy, and gave rise to the principal poem in her next volume.”—Chorley’s Memorials of Mrs Hemans, p. 69-72.
Mr Chorley, in an after part of the same work, makes the following ingenious and suggestive remarks in reference to the same exquisite poem:—“The coming of the apparition is described with all the plainness and intensity of the most entire conviction, so difficult in these days for a writer to assume—might it not almost be said, so impossible to be assumed by those who have wholly and scornfully cast off those superstitions, so distasteful to reason, but so dear to fancy? It is impossible, in reading Sir Walter Scott’s incomparable descriptions of supernatural visitations,—the episode of the ‘Bodach Glas’ for instance, or ‘Wandering Willie’s tale,’ or the vigil of Master Holdenough in the Mirror Chamber, (though this is afterwards explained away,)—to imagine that the creator of these scenes did not in some measure believe in their possibility, though it might be but with a poetical faith. Were it otherwise, they must strike us as unnaturally as the recent French revivifications of the antique Catholic legends and mysteries—as merely grotesque old fables, adopted as studies by clever artists, for the sake of their glaring contrasts and effective situations.”—Memorials, p. 103.
In conclusion, we add the comparative estimate formed of this production by its author. It is from one of her letters to a friend. “Your opinion of the ‘Spirit’s Return’ has given me particular pleasure, because I prefer that poem to any thing else I have written; but if there be, as my friends say, a greater power in it than I had before evinced, I paid dearly for the discovery, and it almost made me tremble as I sounded ‘the deep places’ of my soul.”]