Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844. Various

full of hope, before the gale

      Turn’d on the hopeless World his sail,

      And steer’d for seas untrack’d, unknown,

      And westward still sail’d on—sail’d on—

      Sail’d on till Ocean seem’d to be

      All shoreless as Eternity,

      Till, from its long-loved Star estranged,

      At last the constant Needle changed,20

      And fierce amid his murmuring crew

      Prone terror into treason grew;

      While on his tortured spirit rose,

      More dire than portents, toils, or foes,

      The awaiting World’s loud jeers and scorn

      Yell’d o’er his profitless Return;

      No—none through that dark watch may trace

      The feelings wild beneath whose swell,

      As heaves the bark the billows’ race,

      His Being rose and fell!

      Yet over doubt, and pride, and pain,

      O’er all that flash’d through breast and brain,

      As with those grand, immortal eyes

      He stood—his heart on fire to know

      When morning next illumed the skies,

      What wonders in its light should glow—

      O’er all one thought must, in that hour,

      Have sway’d supreme—Power, conscious Power—

      The lofty sense that Truths conceived,

      And born of his own starry mind,

      And foster’d into might, achieved

      A new Creation for mankind!

      And when from off that ocean calm

      The Tropic’s dusky curtain clear’d,

      All those green shores and banks of balm

      And rosy-tinted hills appear’d

      Silent and bright as Eden, ere

      Earth’s breezes shook one blossom there—

      Against that hour’s proud tumult weigh’d,

      Love, Fame, Ambition, how ye fade!

VI

      Thou Luther of the darken’d Deep!

      Nor less intrepid, too, than He

      Whose courage broke Earth’s bigot sleep

      Whilst thine unbarr’d the Sea—

      Like his, ’twas thy predestined fate

      Against your grin benighted age,

      With all its fiends of Fear and Hate,

      War, single-handed war, to wage,

      And live a conqueror, too, like him,

      Till Time’s expiring lights grow dim!

      O, Hero of my boyish heart!

      Ere from thy pictured looks I part,

      My mind’s maturer reverence now

      In thoughts of thankfulness would bow

      To the Omniscient Will that sent

      Thee forth, its chosen instrument,

      To teach us hope, when sin and care,

      And the vile soilings that degrade

      Our dust, would bid us most despair—

      Hope, from each varied deed display’d

      Along thy bold and wondrous story,

      That shows how far one steadfast mind,

      Serene in suffering as in glory,

      May go to deify our kind.

      TO SWALLOWS ON THE EVE OF DEPARTURE

BY THE SAME

      “The day before V–’s departure for the last time from the country—it was the 4th of August, one of the hottest days of the season—as evening fell, he strolled with an old school-fellow through the cool green avenues and leafy arcades of the neighbouring park, where his friend amused him by pointing out to his attention vast multitudes of Swallows that came swarming from all directions to settle on the roofs and gables of the manor-house. This they do for several days preparatory to their departing, in one collected body, to more genial climates.”—MS. Memoir.

I

      Joyous Birds! preparing

      In the clear evening light

      To leave our dwindled summer day

      For latitudes more bright!

      How gay must be your greeting,

      By southern fountains meeting,

      To miss no faithful wing of all that started in your flight!

II

      Every clime and season

      Fresh gladness brings to you,

      Howe’er remote your social throngs

      Their varied path pursue;

      No winds nor waves dissever—

      No dusky veil’d for ever,

      Frowneth across your fearless way in the empyrean blue.21

III

      Mates and merry brothers

      Were ye in Arctic hours,

      Mottling the evening beam that sloped

      Adown old Gothic towers!

      As blythe that sunlight dancing

      Will see your pinions’ glancing

      Scattering afar through Tropic groves the spicy bloom in showers!

IV

      Haunters of palaced wastes!22

      From king-forlorn Versailles

      To where, round gateless Thebes, the winds

      Like monarch voices wail,

      Your tribe capricious ranges,

      Reckless of glory’s changes;

      Love makes for ye a merry home amid the ruins pale.

V

      Another day, and ye

      From knosp and turret’s brow

      Shall, with your fleet of crowding wings,

      Air’s viewless billows plough,

      With no keen-fang’d regretting

      Our darken’d hill-sides quitting,

      —Away in fond companionship as cheerily as now!

VI

      Woe for the Soul-endued—

      The clay-enthrallèd Mind—

      Leaving, unlike you, favour’d birds!

      Its all—its all behind.

      Woe for the exile mourning,

      To banishment returning—

      A mateless bird wide torn apart from country and from kind!

VII

      This moment blest as ye,

      Beneath his own home-trees,

      With friends and fellows girt around,

      Up springs the western breeze,

      Bringing the parting

20

“On the 13th September, in the evening, being about two hundred leagues from the island of Ferro, he, for the first time, noticed the variation of the needle, a phenomenon which had never before been remarked. Struck with the circumstance, he observed it attentively for three days, and found that the variation increased as he advanced. It soon attracted the attention of the pilots, and filled them with consternation. It seemed as if the very laws of nature were changing as they advanced, and that they were entering another world subject to unknown influences.”—Ibid.

21

“They all quit together; and fly for a time east or west, possibly in wait for stragglers not yet arrived from the interior—they then take directly to the south, and are soon lost sight of altogether for the allotted period of their absence. Their rapidity of flight is well known, and the ‘murder-aiming eye’ of the most experienced sportsman will seldom avail against the swallow; hence they themselves seldom fall a prey to the raptorial birds.”—Cuvier, edited by Griffiths. Swallows are long-lived; they have been known to live a number of years in cages.

22

In the fanciful language of Chateaubriand, “This daughter of a king (the swallow) still seems attached to grandeur; she passes the summer amid the ruins of Versailles, and the winter among those of Thebes.”