Felicia Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 29 1831/Communings with Thought
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 29, Pages 260-261
COMMUNINGS WITH THOUGHT,
BY MRS HEMANS.
Could we but keep our spirits to that height,
We might be happy; but this clay will sink
Its spark immortal.
Byron.
Return, my thoughts, come home!
Ye wild and wing'd! what do ye o'er the deep?
And wherefore thus th' Abyss of Time o’ersweep,
As bird the ocean-foam?
Swifter than shooting star,
Swifter than lances of the northern light,
Upspringing through the purple heaven of night,
Hath been your course afar!
Through the bright battle-clime,
Where laurel-boughs make dim the Grecian streams,
And reeds are whispering of heroic themes,
By temples of old Time:
Through southern garden-bowers,
Such as young Juliet look'd from, when her eye,
Fill'd with the fervid soul of Italy,
Watch'd for the starry hours:
Through the North's ancient halls,
Where banners thrill'd of yore, where harp-strings rung,
But grass waves now o'er those that fought and sung—
Hearth-light hath left their walls!
Through forests old and dim,
Where o'er the leaves dread magic seems to brood,
And sometimes on the haunted solitude,
Rises the pilgrim's hymn:
Or where some fountain lies,
With lotus-cups through orient spice-woods gleaming!
There have ye been, ye wanderers! idly dreaming
Of man's lost paradise!
Return, my thoughts, return!
Cares wait your presence in life's daily track,
And voices, not of music, call you back;
Harsh voices, cold and stern!
Oh! no, return ye not!
Still farther, loftier, let your soarings be!
Go, bring me strength from journeyings bright and free,
O'er many a haunted spot.
Go, seek the martyr's grave,
'Midst the old mountains, and the deserts vast;
Or through the ruin'd cities of the past,
Follow the wise and brave!
Go, visit cell and shrine!
Where woman hath endured!—through wrong, through scorn,
Uncheer'd by fame, yet silently upborne
By promptings more divine!
Go, shoot the gulf of death!
Track the pure spirits where no chain can bind,
Where the heart's boundless love its rest may find,
Where the storm sends no breath!
Higher, and yet more high!
Shake off the cumbering chain which earth would lay
On your victorious wings—mount, mount!—Your way
Is through eternity!