FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS

Children of night! unfolding meekly, slowly, To the sweet breathings of the shadowy hours, When dark-blue heavens look softest and most holy, And glow-worm light is in the forest bowers; To solemn things and deep, To spirit-haunted sleep, To thoughts, all purified From earth, ye seem allied, O dedicated flowers! Ye, from the gaze of crowds your beauty veiling, Keep in dim vestal urns the sweetness shrined; Till the mild moon, on high serenely sailing, Looks on you tenderly and sadly kind. So doth love’s dreaming heart Dwell from the throng apart, And but to shades disclose The inmost thought, which glows With its pure life entwined. Shut from the sounds wherein the day rejoices, To no triumphant song your petals thrill, But send forth odours with the faint, soft voices Rising from hidden streams, when all is still. So doth lone prayer arise Mingling with secret sighs, When grief unfolds, like you, Her breast, for heavenly dew In silent hours to fill.

The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled; The flame that lit the battle’s wreck Shone round him o’er the dead. Yet beautiful and bright he stood, As born to rule the storm— A creature of heroic blood, A proud, though childlike, form. The flames rolled on—he would not go Without his father’s word; That father, faint in death below, His voice no longer heard. He called aloud:—‘Say, father, say If yet my task is done!’ He knew not that the chieftain lay Unconscious of his son. ‘Speak, father!’ once again he cried, ‘If I may yet be gone!’ And but the booming shots replied, And fast the flames rolled on. Upon his brow he felt their breath, And in his waving hair, And looked from that lone post of death In still, yet brave despair; And shouted yet once more aloud, ‘My father! must I stay?’ While o’er him fast, through sail and shroud, The wreathing fires made way. They wrapt the ship in splendour wild, They caught the flag on high, And streamed above that gallant child Like banners in the sky. There came a burst of thunder-sound— The boy—Oh! where was he? Ask of the winds that far around With fragments strewed the sea!— With mast, and helm, and pennon fair, That well had borne their part; But the noblest thing which perished there Was that young faithful heart.

Calm on the bosom of thy God, Fair spirit, rest thee now! Ee’n while with us thy footstep trod, His seal was on thy brow. Dust, to its narrow house beneath! Soul, to its place on high!— They that have seen thy look in death No more may fear to die.