Susanna Moodie

THE TWILIGHT HOUR.

Slowly I dawn on the sleepless eye,
Like a dreaming thought of eternity;
But darkness hangs on my misty vest,
Like the shade of care on the sleeper's breast;
A light that is felt--but dimly seen,
Like hope that hangs life and death between;
And the weary watcher will sighing say,
"Lord, I thank thee! 'twill soon be day;"
The lingering night of pain is past,
Morning breaks in the east at last.

    Mortal!--thou mayst see in me
A type of feeble infancy,--
A dim, uncertain, struggling ray,
The promise of a future day!


THE MORNING HOUR.

    Like a maid on her bridal morn I rise,
With the smile on her lip and the tear in her eyes;
Whilst the breeze my crimson banner unfurls,
I wreathe my locks with the...

There were two sons of Ashur at work in the field,
And one to the other his passion revealed--
As the white barley bowed to the stroke of his scythe,
He burst out in accents exultingly blithe--

    "I have wooed a young maid!--I have wooed and I've won,
On a lovelier face never glanced yon bright sun;
To the tall stately cedar my love I'll compare,
With her eyes' shaded glory, her long raven hair,
And her bosom as white as the snow when it gleams
On Lebanon's heights, ere washed down by the streams.
She has ravished and filled my rapt soul with delight;
She's more dear to my heart than yon heavens to my sight."--

    "And who is the chosen?" his comrade replied,
Whilst the deepest of crimson his swarthy cheek dyed,
His severed lips trembled, his eagle eye fe...

Sorrow has touched thee, my beautiful boy!
And dimmed the bright eyes that were dancing with joy;
Thy ruby lips tremble, thy soft cheek is wet,
The tears on its roses are lingering yet.
On thy quick-heaving heart is thy little hand pressed;
There is care on thy brow--there is grief in thy breast,
And slowly and darkly the shadow steals o'er thee,
For the first time the vision of death is before thee!

Meet emblem of childhood--that innocent dove
Was the sharer alike of thy sports and thy love;
Thy playmate is dead--and that tenantless cage
Has stamped the first grief upon memory's page.
And oh!--thou art weeping--Life's fountain of tears,
Once unchained, will flow on through the desert of years;
No joy will e'er equal thy first dawn of bliss,
No sorrow blot ou...

THE FOLLOWING LITTLE POEM WAS SUGGESTED BY A PASSAGE IN THE MEMOIRS OF THE LATE MRS. SUSAN HUNTINGTON OF BOSTON, NEW ENGLAND.


Ah! cold at my feet thou art sleeping, my boy,
    And I press on thy pale lips, in vain, the fond kiss;
Earth opens her arms to receive thee, my joy!
    And all I have suffered was nothing to this:
The day-star of hope 'neath thine eyelids is sleeping,
No more to arise at the voice of my weeping.

Oh, how art thou changed!--since the light breath of morning
    Dispelled the soft dew-drops in showers from the tree,
Like a beautiful bud, my lone dwelling adorning,
    Thy smiles called up feelings of rapture in me;
I thought not the sunbeams all brightly that shone
On thy waking, at eve would behold me alone.

The joy that flash...

Visions of the years gone by
Flash upon my mental eye;
Ages time no longer numbers,
Forms that share oblivion's slumbers,
Creatures of that elder world
Now in dust and darkness hurled,
Crushed beneath the heavy rod
Of a long forsaken God!

    Hark! what spirit moves the crowd?
Like the voice of waters loud,
Through the open city gate,
Urged by wonder, fear, or hate,
Onward rolls the mighty tide--
Spreads the tumult far and wide.
Heedless of the noontide glare,
Infancy and age are there,--
Joyous youth and matron staid,
Blooming bride and blushing maid,--
Manhood with his fiery glance,
War-chief with his lifted lance,--
Beauty with her jewelled brow,
Hoary age with locks of snow:
Prince, and peer, and statesman grave,
Wh...

An awful vision floats before my sight,
Black as the storm and fearful as the night:
Thy fall, oh Babylon!--the awful doom
Pronounced by Heaven to hurl thee to the tomb,
Peals in prophetic thunder in mine ear--
The voice of God foretelling ruin near!

    Hark! what strange murmurs from the hills arise,
Like rushing torrents from the bursting skies!
Loud as the billows of the restless tide,
In strange confusion flowing far and wide,
Ring the deep tones of horror and dismay,
The shriek--the shout--the battle's stern array--
The gathering cry of nations from afar--
The tramp of steeds--the tumult of the war--
Burst on mine ear, and o'er thy fated towers
Hovers despair, and fierce destruction lowers;
Within the fire--without the vengeful sword;
Who lead...

Methought last night I saw thee lowly laid,
    Thy pallid cheek yet paler, on the bier;
And scattered round thee many a lovely braid
    Of flowers, the brightest of the closing year;
Whilst on thy lips the placid smile that played,
    Proved thy soul's exit to a happier sphere,
In silent eloquence reproaching those
Who watched in agony thy last repose.

A pensive, wandering, melancholy light
    The moon's pale radiance on thy features cast,
Which, through the awful stillness of the night,
    Gleamed like some lovely vision of the past,
Recalling hopes once beautiful and bright,
    Now, like that struggling beam, receding fast,
Which o'er the scene a softening glory shed,
And kissed the brow of the unconscious dead.

Yes--it was thou!--and we we...

There was no sound in earth or air,
    And soft the moonbeams smiled
On stately tower and temple fair,
    Like mother o'er her child;
And all was hushed in the deep repose
That welcomes the summer evening's close.

Many an eye that day had wept,
    And many a cheek with joy grew bright,
Which now, alike unconscious, slept
    Beneath the wan moonlight;
And mandolin and gay guitar
Had ceased to woo the evening star.

The lover has sought his couch again,
    And the maiden's eyes no longer glisten,
As she comes to the lattice to catch his strain,
    And sighs while she bends to smile and listen.
She sleeps, but her rosy lips still move,
And in dreams she answers the voice of love.

Sleep on, ye thoughtless and giddy train,
    ...

    Like the herald hope of a fairer clime,
The brightest link in the chain of time,
The youngest and loveliest child of day,
I mingle and soften each glowing ray;
Weaving together a tissue bright
Of the beams of day and the gems of night.--
I pitch my tent in the glowing west,
And receive the sun as he sinks to rest;
He flings in my lap his ruby crown,
And lays at my feet his glory down;
But ere his burning eyelids close,
His farewell glance the day-king throws
On Nature's face--till the twilight shrouds
The monarch's brow in a veil of clouds--
Oh then, by the light of mine own fair star,
I unyoke the steeds from his beamy car.
Away they start from the fiery rein,
With flashing hoofs, and flying mane,
Like meteors speeding on the wind,
They lea...

Young Naiad of the sparry grot,
    Whose azure eyes before me burn,
In what sequestered lonely spot
    Lies hid thy flower-enwreathed urn?
Beneath what mossy bank enshrined,
    Within what ivy-mantled nook,
Sheltered alike from sun and wind,
    Lies hid thy source, sweet murmuring brook?

Deep buried lies thy airy shell
    Beneath thy waters clear;
Far echoing up the woodland dell
    Thy wind-swept harp I hear.
I catch its soft and mellow tones
    Amid the long grass gliding,
Now broken 'gainst the rugged stones,
    In hoarse, deep accents chiding.

The wandering breeze that stirs the grove,
    In plaintive moans replying,
To every leafy bough above
    His tender tale is sighing;
Ruffled beneath his viewless wing
  ...

"When will the grave fling her cold arms around me,
    And earth on her dark bosom pillow my head?
Sorrow and trouble and anguish, have found me,
    Oh that I slumbered in peace with the dead!

"The forests are budding, the fruit-trees in bloom,
    And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
But my soul is bowed down by the spirit of gloom,
    I no longer rejoice as the blossoms expand.

"And April is here with her rich varied skies,
    Where the sunbeams of hope with the tempest contend,
And the bright drops that flow from her deep azure eyes
    On the bosom of nature like diamonds descend.

"She scatters her jewels o'er forest and lea,
    And casts in earth's lap all the wealth of the year;
But the promise she brings wakes no transports in ...

THIS REMARKABLE PHENOMENON WAS WITNESSED BY THE AUTHOR ON THE NIGHT OF THE 29th OF SEPTEMBER, 1829.


Vision of beauty! there floats not a cloud
O'er the blue vault of heaven thy glory to shroud;
The star-gemmed horizon thou spannest sublime,
Like the path to a better and lovelier clime.

Thy light, unreflected by planet or star,
Still widens and brightens round night's spangled car;
In radiance resembling the moon's placid beam,
When she smiles through the soft mist that hangs on the stream.

Thou sittest enthroned, like the spirit of night,
And the stars through thy zone shed a tremulous light;
The moon is still sleeping beneath the wide sea,
Whilst wonder is keeping her vigils with me.

The bow of the covenant brightens the storm,
When its da...

    Like a maid on her bridal morn I rise,
With the smile on her lip and the tear in her eyes;
Whilst the breeze my crimson banner unfurls,
I wreathe my locks with the purest pearls;
Brighter diamonds never were seen
Encircling the neck of an Indian queen!
I traverse the east on my glittering wing,
And my smiles awake every living thing;
And the twilight hour like a pilgrim gray,
Follows the night on her weeping way.
I raise the veil from the saffron bed,
Where the young sun pillows his golden head;
He lifts from the ocean his burning eye,
And his glory lights up the earth and sky.

    Ah, I am like that dewy prime,
Ere youth hath shaken hands with time;
Ere the fresh tide of life has wasted low,
And discovered the hidden rocks of woe:
When lik...

WRITTEN IN COVE CHURCH-YARD; AND OCCASIONED BY OBSERVING MY OWN SHADOW THROWN ACROSS A GRAVE.


    "Tell me, thou grassy mound,
        What dost thou cover?
    In thy folds hast thou bound
        Soldier or lover?
Time o'er the turf no memorial is keeping
Who in this lone grave forgotten is sleeping?"--

    "The sun's westward ray
        A dark shadow has thrown
    On this dwelling of clay,
        And the shade is thine own!
From dust and oblivion this stern lesson borrow--
Thou art living to-day and forgotten to-morrow!"

    I come like an Eastern monarch dight
In my crown of beams, in my robe of light;
And nature droops at my ardent gaze,
And wraps the woods in a purple haze;
From my fiery glance the strong man shrinks,
Like a babe on the bosom of earth he sinks;
Yet cries, as he turns from the glowing ray,
"This is a glorious summer day!"

    Such is manhood's fiery dower,
Passion's all-consuming power;
Glorious, beautiful, and bright,
But too dazzling to the sight!

Thou beautiful Ash! thou art lowly laid,
    And my eyes shall hail no more
From afar thy cool and refreshing shade,
    When the toilsome journey's o'er.
The winged and the wandering tribes of air
    A home 'mid thy foliage found,
But thy graceful boughs, all broken and bare,
    The wild winds are scattering round.

The storm-demon sent up his loudest shout
    When he levelled his bolt at thee,
When thy massy trunk and thy branches stout
    Were riven by the blast, old tree!
It has bowed to the dust thy stately form,
    Which for many an age defied
The rush and the roar of the midnight storm,
    When it swept through thy branches wide.

I have gazed on thee with a fond delight
    In childhood's happier day,
And watched the moonbeams...

JUDGES VIII.


Who are ye, who through the night
Onward urge your desperate flight?
Far and wide the hills repeat
The hurried tread of armed feet,
Ringing helm and dying groan,
The crash of chariots overthrown,
And muttered curse and menace dire,
As warriors in their rage expire.
From the vengeance of the Lord,
From the terrors of the sword,
From Karkor's field, with slaughter red,
Have Zebah and Zalmunna fled.

    He who checked their haughty boast,
Hard upon that flying host
Presses, with avenging spear
Flashing on their scattered rear:
Nor can hills of slaughter tire
The pursuer's burning ire;
Still along the hills are poured
Shouts of "Gideon and the Lord."

    Morning spread her wings of light
O'er the s...

There is a pause in nature, ere the storm
    Rushes resistless in its awful might;
There is a softening twilight, ere the morn
    Expands her wings of glory into light.

There is a sudden stillness in the heart,
    Ere yet the tears of wounded feeling flow;
A speechless expectation, ere the dart
    Of sorrow lays our fondest wishes low.

There is a dreamy silence in the mind,
    Ere yet it wakes to energy of thought;
A breathless pause of feeling, undefined,
    Ere the bright image is from fancy caught.

There is a pause more holy still,
    When Faith a brighter hope has given,
And, soaring over earthly ill,
    The soul looks up to heaven!