Not Understood and Other Poems/An Exile’s Reverie

by Thomas Bracken

 

AN EXILE’S REVERIE.^[1]

 

WHERE Taiera sweeps by Manitoto’s plain
  A Scottish exile sang this fond refrain,
Each lonely winding glen and snow-capped mount
Awoke the slumbering Spring of Memory’s fount;
Before his gaze old faces came and went,
  And thus the language of his heart found vent.

From these wild mountains crowned with crystal hoar,
  My thoughts are wafted o’er the moaning sea;
Unchecked, untramelled by the Ocean’s roar,
They wing their flight, dear Caledon to thee:
The wheel of time has rolled o’er many a year,
  And often have I heard Death’s mournful knell,
Since on thy shore I shed the parting tear
  And bade thy noble cliffs a long farewell.
Yet in my dreams I see each youthful scene,
  Old forms and faces meet my eye; again
I mingle with my schoolmates on the green,
  Or gather berries in the briery lane.
The heather smells as sweet as when I strayed
 To worship Nature o’er the purple hill.
And still, unchanged, the waving brackens shade
  The murmuring burn that turns the village mill.
The old kirk seems the same, as when of yore,
  I offered up my Sabbath morning’s prayer
To Him whom all creation should adore.
  Ah! where now are the friends that worshipped there!
My dream is past. It stands not mornings test,
  Stern truth, with mocking finger points around,
And whispers, “All the loved ones are at rest—
They sleep beneath each daisy covered mound.”
This vain deceitful slumber often cheats,
  By making us appear what we have been,
The future’s left, the past at daylight fleets;
  The wide, dark gulf of Time rolls on between.
Ah Time, what shall I call thee? how address
  The conqueror of kings, the sinner’s dread—
Death’s courier—swift, sure, and merciless;
  Man’s mocking guide into his narrow bed.

Nations and Empires have come and gone!
  Imperial Rome has fallen to the dust.
Regardless of events, thou movest on;
  Thy blade is still unstained by mould or rust.
Age after age humanity has paid
  Mortality’s inevitable tithe:
And still the ghastly tyrant wields his spade:
  Still millions fall before thy ceaseless scythe.

Oh, who unmoved can look upon thy page,
  And trace thee from Creation to the Flood—
From thence unto the present? At each stage,
  Thy sandals have been wet with tears and blood.
Forward to chaos! thou canst not turn back;
  Procrastination lingers in thy train,
Fire, plague, and famine desolate thy track,
  And countless souls cry after thee in vain.
Yet all’s not dark upon thy changeful face:
When thou wert in thy prime, a Saviour came
To wash out, with His life drops, man’s disgrace:
  Thy brightest scroll records His sacred name.

And when Europa’s shores refused to yield
  Employment to the hardy sons of toil,
And poverty appealed, thy hand unveiled
  New climes where plenty rested on thy soil.
The Golden South, washed by Pacific’s spray,
  Calls thousands from the Old World’s crowded marts
To fertile plains, where fame and fortune stay
  Awaiting willing hands and gallant hearts.

Yet fond remembrance clasps the Exile’s heart,
  It haunts him still upon this distant strand;
Within his breast, pure warm emotions start
  When thoughts are kindled there of Fatherland.
Here, in young Scotia, we have glens and hills,
  As wild and grand as those we left at home;
Our pastures are as green, as clear our rills,
  Our coasts are guarded by as fierce a foam.
O’er cliffs and crags, ravines and lowly dells
  Borne on the clouds, wild, weird romance looks down;
And Poesy, Heaven’s purest offspring, dwells
  Heedless of Cynic’s sneer or Stoic’s frown.

What lack we then, in this new land of ours?
  Why come old memories on the midnight blast,
To woo us back to childhood’s happy hours,
  And let us taste delight that cannot last?
Why does the eagle, ere he speeds away,
  Wheel round his eyrie with an anxious care?
Why lingers he, for yonder is his prey?
  Ah! by a mother he was sheltered there.
Why do the bright Spring morning’s sparkling showers
  Ascend on Sol’s warm rays again from earth:
Why do they leave the lovely buds and flowers?
  Because they cling to Heaven, their place of birth.

And thus it is with man. Where’er he strays
  On distant plains, he turns his longing eyes
To that dear spot, veiled by the ocean’s haze,
  Where fancy whispers him the old land lies.
The ideal mirror shows to Albion’s son
  His home surrounded by the leafy dells;
From wood and copse he sees the streamlets run,
  Endeared to him by recollection’s spells.
The Emigrant from Erin’s spray-girt isle
  Oft hears her wild harp singing on the breeze;
Its mournful cadence steals a tearful smile
  And wafts it to the old home o’er the seas.

Then Scotia, land of legendary lore,
  Can thy fond children cease to honour thee ?
Nursed on the bosom of thy rugged shore,
  Ingratitude shall never come from me;
Our new land is a reflex of thy face,
  Its features in the same rough mould were cast.
Yet, unlike thee, Tradition finds no place,
  A cloud of Barbarism shades the past;
No Wallace here to kindle Freedom’s fire—
  No Bruce to light the patriotic flame—
No Burns, to strike the grand melodious Lyre—
  No Scott, to trumpet forth his country’s fame—
No Bard of Hope, no Ettrick Shepherd, here;
  No Ferguson, no plaintive Tannahill—

Hush, Scotia’s spirit drops a burning tear;
  The precious pearl thaws Death’s dark frozen chill.
Hark to her voice: “Poor mortal, Time can not
  Efface the memory of the great and good;
They live within the breast of each true Scot,
  Though far he roams across the giant flood.
The gems that sparkle o’er the azure span
  That Heaven’s Architect has built on high,
Recede at dawn from the rude gaze of man,
  Yet still, unquenched, they sparkle in the sky.
And thus it is that bards and heroes stay
  A time below here, to illume mankind,
Then take their flight to shine in Heaven’s day.
  Those leave their thoughts, and these their deeds behind.

Then say not, mortal, that my glorious band
  Have no existence on this golden shore.
O’er all the world, where’er my children stand,
 My heroes’ fame shall live for evermore.”

 

 

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1. Prize Poem of the Caledonian Society of Otago, 1869.