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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=391503" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Spirit's Return</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">……..'This is to be a mortal,<br>And seek the things beyond mortality!' ~ Manfred.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Thy voice prevails - dear friend, my gentle friend!<br>This long-shut heart for thee shall be unsealed,<br>And though thy soft eye mournfully will bend<br>Over the troubled stream, yet once revealed <br>Shall its freed waters flow; then rocks must close<br>For evermore, above their dark repose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come while the gorgeous mysteries of the sky <br>Fused in the crimson sea of sunset lie;<br>Come to the woods, where all strange wandering sound<br>Is mingled into harmony profound;<br>Where the leaves thrill with spirit, while the wind<br>Fills with a viewless being, unconfined,<br>The trembling reeds and fountains - our own dwell,<br>With its green dimness and AEolian breath, <br>Shall suit the unveiling of dark records well -<br>Hear me in tenderness and silent faith!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thou knewest me not in life's fresh vernal morn -<br>I would thou hadst! - for then my heart on thine<br>Had poured a worthier love; now, all o'erworn<br>By its deep thirst for something too divine,<br>It hath but fitful music to bestow,<br>Echoes of harp-strings broken long ago.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet even in youth companionless I stood,<br>As a lone forest-bird 'midst ocean's foam; <br>For me the silver cords of brotherhood <br>Were early loosed; the voice from my home<br>Passed one by one, and melody and mirth<br>Left me a dreamer by a silent hearth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, with the fulness of a heart that burned<br>For the deep sympathies of mind, I turned<br>From that unanswering spot, and fondly sought<br>In all wild scenes with thrilling murmurs fraught,<br>In every still small voice and sound of power,<br>And flute-note of the wind through cave and bower<br>A perilous delight! - for then first woke<br>My life's lone passion, the mysterious quest<br>Of secret knowledge; and each tone that broke<br>From the wood-arches or the fountain's breast,<br>Making my quick soul vibrate as a lyre,<br>But ministered to that strange inborn fire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Midst the bright silence of the mountain dells,<br>In noontide hours or golden summer-eves,<br>My thoughts have burst forth as a gale that swells<br>Into a rushing blast, and from the leaves<br>Shakes out response. O thou rich world unseen!<br>Thou curtained realm of spirits! - thus my cry<br>Hath troubled air and silence - dost thou lie<br>Spread all around, yet by some filmy screen<br>Shut from us ever? The resounding woods,<br>Do their depths teem with marvels? - and the floods,<br>And the pure fountains, leading secret veins<br>Of quenchless melody through rock and hill,<br>Have they bright dwellers? - are their lone domains<br>Peopled with beauty, which may never still</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our<br>weary thirst of soul? Cold, weak and cold,<br>Is earth's vain language, piercing not one fold<br>Of our deep being! Oh, for gifts more high!<br>For a seer's glance to rend mortality! <br>For a charmed rod, to call from each dark shrine <br>The oracles divine!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I woke from those high fantasies, to know<br>My kindred with the earth - I woke to love:<br>O gentle friend! to love in doubt and woe,<br>Shutting the heart the worshipped name above,<br>Is to love deeply - and <br>my<br>spirit's dower<br>Was a sad gift, a melancholy power<br>Of so adoring - with a buried care,<br>And with the o'erflowing of a voiceless prayer,<br>And with a deepening dream that day by day, <br>In the still shadow of the lonely sway,<br>Folded me closer, till the world held nought<br>Save the <br>one<br>being to my centred thought.<br>There was no music but his voice to hear; <br>No joy but such as with <br>his<br>step drew near:<br>Light was but where he looked - life where he moved:<br>Silently, fervently, thus, thus I loved.<br>Oh! but such love is fearful! - and I knew<br>Its gathering doom: the soul's prophetic sight<br>Even then unfolded in my breast, and threw<br>O'er all things round a full, strong, vivid light,<br>Too sorrowfully clear! - an under-tone<br>Was given to Nature's harp, for me alone<br>Whispering of grief. Of grief? - be strong, awake! <br>Hath not thy love been victory, O my soul?<br>Hath not its conflict won a voice to shake<br>Death's fastness? - a magic to control <br>Worlds far removed? - from o'er the grave to thee<br>Love hath made answer; and <br>thy<br>tale should be<br>Sung like a lay of triumph! Now return,<br>And take thy treasure from its bosomed urn,<br>And lift it once to light!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In fear, in pain,<br>I said I loved - but yet a heavenly strain<br>Of sweetness floated down the tearful stream,<br>A joy flashed through the trouble of my dream!<br>I knew myself beloved! - we breathed no vow,<br>No mingling visions might our fate allow,<br>As unto happy hearts; but still and deep,<br>Like a rich jewel gleaming in a grave,<br>Like golden sand in some dark river's wave,<br>So did my soul that costly knowledge keep<br>So jealousy! - a thing o'er which to shed,<br>When stars alone beheld the drooping head,<br>Lone tears! yet ofttimes burdened with the excess<br>Of our strange nature's quivering happiness.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, oh! sweet friend! we dream not of love's might<br>Till death has robed with soft and solemn light<br>The image we enshrine! - Before <br>that<br>hour,<br>We have but glimpses of the o'ermastering power<br>Within us laid! - <br>then<br>doth the spirit-flame<br>With sword-like lightning rend its mortal frame; <br>The wings of that which pants to follow fast<br>Shake their clay-bars, as with a prisoned blast-<br>The sea is in our souls!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He died, - <br>he<br>died<br>On whom my lone devotedness was cast!<br>I might not keep one vigil by his side, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>, whose wrung heart watched with him to the last!<br>I might not once his fainting head sustain,<br>Nor bathe his parched lips in the hour of pain,<br>Nor say to him 'Farewell!' He passed away -<br>Oh! had <br>my<br>love been there, its conquering sway<br>Had won him back from death! - but thus removed,<br>Borne o'er the abyss no sounding-line hath proved,<br>Joined with the unknown, the viewless - he became<br>Unto my thoughts another, yet the same -<br>Changed - hallowed - glorified! - and his low grave<br>Seemed a bright mournful altar - mine, all mine: -<br>Brother and friend soon left me <br>that<br>sole shrine,<br>The birthright of the faithful! - <br>their<br>world's wave<br>Soon swept them from its brink. Oh! deem thou not<br>That on the sad and consecrated spot<br>My soul grew weak! I tell thee that a power<br>There kindled heart and lip - a fiery shower<br>My words were made - a might was given to prayer,<br>And a strong grasp to passionate despair,<br>And a dread triumph! Knowest thou what I sought?<br>For what high boon my struggling spirit wrought?<br>- Communion with the dead! - I sent a cry<br>Through the veiled empires of eternity,<br>A voice to cleave them! By the mournful truth,<br>By the lost promise of my blighted youth,<br>By the strong chain a mighty love can bind<br>On the beloved, the spell of mind o'er mind; <br>By words, which in themselves are magic high,<br>Armed and inspired, and winged with agony;<br>By tears, which comfort not, but burn, and seem<br>To bear the heart's blood in their passion-stream;<br>I summoned, I adjured - with quickened sense,<br>With the keen vigil of a life intense,<br>I watched, an answer from the winds to wring,<br>I listened, if perchance the stream might bring<br>Token from worlds afar: I taught <br>one<br>sound<br>Unto a thousand echoes - one profound<br>Imploring accent to the tomb, the sky - <br>One prayer to-night - 'Awake, appear, reply!'<br>Hast thou been told that from the viewless bourne,<br>The dark way never hath allowed return?<br>That all, which tears can move, with life is fled -<br>That earthly love is powerless on the dead?<br>Believe it not! - there is a large lone star<br>Now burning o'er yon western hill afar,<br>And under its clear light there lies a spot<br>Which well might utter forth - Believe it not!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I sat beneath that planet - I had wept <br>My woe to stillness, every night-wind slept;<br>A hush was on the hills; the very streams<br>Went by like clouds, or noiseless founts in dreams<br>And the dark tree o'ershadowing me that hour, <br>Stood motionless, even as the grey church-tower<br>Whereon I gazed unconsciously: - there came <br>A low sound, like the tremor of a flame, <br>Or like the light quick shiver of a wing,<br>Flitting through twilight woods, across the air;<br>And I looked up! Oh! for strong words to bring<br>Conviction o'er thy thought! Before me there,<br>He, the departed, stood! Ay, face to face,<br>So near, and yet how far! His form his mien,<br>Gave to remembrance back each burning trace<br>Within: - Yet something awfully serene, <br>Pure, sculpture-like, on the pale brow, that wore<br>Of the once beating heart no token more;<br>And stillness on the lip - and o'er the hair<br>A gleam, that trembled through the breathless air;<br>And an unfathomed calm, that seemed to lie<br>In the gave sweetness of the illumined eye;<br>Told of the gulfs between our being set,<br>And, as that unsheathed spirit-glance I met,<br>Made my soul faint: - with <br>fear?<br>Oh! <br>not<br>with fear<br>With the sick feeling that in <br>his<br>far sphere</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My<br>love could be as nothing! But he spoke -<br>How shall I tell thee of the startling thrill<br>In that low voice, whose breezy tones could fill<br>My bosom's infinite? O friend! I woke</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then<br>first to heavenly life! Soft, solemn, clear<br>Breathed the mysterious accents on mine ear,<br>Yet strangely seem'd as if the while they rose<br>From depths of distance, o'er the wide repose<br>Of slumbering waters wafted, or the dells<br>Of mountains, hollow with sweet echo-cells; <br>But, as they murmured on, the mortal chill<br>Passed from me, like a mist before the morn,<br>And, to that glorious intercourse upborne<br>By slow degrees, a calm, divinely still,<br>Possessed my frame: I sought that lighted eye -<br>From its intense and searching purity<br>I drank in <br>soul!<br>- I questioned of the dead -<br>Of the hushed, starry shores their footsteps tread,<br>And I was answered. If remembrance there, <br>With dreamy whispers fill the immortal air;<br>If thought, here piled from many a jewel-heap,<br>Be treasure in that pensive land to keep;<br>If love, o'ersweeping change, and blight, and blast,<br>Find <br>there<br>the music of his home at last;<br>I asked, and I was answered. Full and high<br>Was that communion with eternity,<br>Too rich for aught so fleeting! Like a knell<br>Swept o'er my sense its closing words, 'Farewell,<br>On earth we meet no more!' And all was gone -<br>The pale bright settled brow - the thrilling tone,<br>The still and shining eye! and never more<br>May twilight gloom or midnight hush restore<br>That radiant guest! One full-fraught hour of heaven<br>To earthly passion's wild implorings given, <br>Was made my own - the ethereal fire hath shivered<br>The fragile censer in whose mould it quivered,<br>Brightly, consumingly! What now is left?<br>A faded world, of glory's hues bereft -<br>A void, a chain! I dwell 'midst throngs, apart,<br>In the cold silence of the stranger's heart;<br>A fixed, immortal shadow stands between<br>My spirit and life's fast-receding scene; <br>A gift hath severed me from human ties,<br>A power is gone from all earth's melodies,<br>Which never may return: their chords are broken,<br>The music of another land hath spoken -<br>No after-sound is sweet! This weary thirst!<br>And I have heard celestial fountains burst! -<br>What <br>here<br>shall quench it?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dost thou not rejoice,<br>When the spring sends forth an awakening voice<br>Through the young woods? Thou dost! And in that birth<br>Of early leaves, and flowers, and songs of mirth,<br>Thousands, like thee, find gladness! Couldst thou know<br>How every breeze then summons <br>me<br>to go!<br>How all the light of love and beauty shed <br>By those rich hours, but wooes me to the dead!<br>The <br>only<br>beautiful that change no more -<br>The only loved! - the dwellings on the shore<br>Of spring fulfilled! The dead! - <br>whom<br>call we so?<br>They that breathe purer air, that feel, that know<br>Things wrapt from us! Away! - within me pent,<br>That which is barred from its own element <br>Still droops or struggles! But the day <br>will<br>come -<br>Over the deep the free bird finds its home, <br>And the stream lingers 'midst the rocks, yet greets<br>The sea at last; and the winged flower-seed meets<br>A soil to rest in: shall not <br>I<br>, too, be,<br>My spirit-love! upborne to dwell with thee?<br>Yes! by the power whose conquering anguish stirred<br>The tomb, whose cry beyond the stars was heard,<br>Whose agony of triumph won thee back<br>Through the dim pass no mortal step may track, <br>Yet shall we meet! - that glimpse of joy divine<br>Proved thee for ever and for ever mine!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Felicia+Dorothea+Hemans">Felicia Dorothea Hemans</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=391503" data-title="A Spirit's Return de Felicia Dorothea Hemans" data-description="……..'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 unsealed,
And though thy soft eye mournfully will bend
Over the trouble..."></div>
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