Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DARTMOOR, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DARTMOOR, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Amidst the peopled and the regal isle
Last Line: Shall find their temple in the silent waste.
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Dartmoor, England


AMIDST the peopled and the regal Isle,
Whose vales, rejoicing in their beauty, smile;
Whose cities, fearless of the spoiler, tower,
And send on every breeze a voice of power;
Hath Desolation reared herself a throne,
And marked a pathless region for her own? --
Yes! though thy turf no stain of carnage wore,
When bled the noble hearts of many a shore,
Though not a hostile step thy heath-flowers bent,
When empires tottered, and the earth was rent;
Yet lone, as if some trampler of mankind
Had stilled life's busy murmurs on the wind,
And, flushed with power in daring Pride's excess,
Stamped on thy soil the curse of barrenness,
For thee in vain descend the dews of heaven,
In vain the sunbeam and the shower are given;
Wild DARTMOOR! thou that, 'midst thy mountains rude,
Hast robed thyself with haughty solitude,
As a dark cloud on Summer's clear blue sky,
A mourner, circled with festivity!
For all beyond is life! -- the rolling sea,
The rush, the swell, whose echoes reach not thee.
Yet who shall find a scene so wild and bare,
But man has left his lingering traces there? --
E'en on mysterious Afric's boundless plains,
Where noon, with attributes of midnight, reigns,
In gloom and silence, fearfully profound,
As of a world unwaked to soul or sound;
Though the sad wanderer of the burning zone
Feels, as amidst infinity, alone,
And naught of life be near; his camel's tread
Is o'er the prostrate cities of the dead!
Some column, reared by long-forgotten hands,
Just lifts its head above the billowy sands --
Some mouldering shrine still consecrates the scene,
And tells that Glory's footstep there hath been.
There hath the Spirit of the Mighty passed,
Not without record; though the desert blast,
Borne on the wings of Time, hath swept away
The proud creations, reared to brave decay.
But thou, lone region! whose unnoticed name
No lofty deeds have mingled with their fame,
Who shall unfold thine annals? -- who shall tell
If on thy soil the sons of heroes fell,
In those far ages, which have left no trace,
No sunbeam on the pathway of their race?
Though, haply, in the unrecorded days
Of kings and chiefs, who passed without their praise,
Thou mightst have reared the valiant and the free,
In history's page there is no tale of thee.

Yet hast thou thy memorials. On the wild,
Still rise the cairns, of yore, all rudely piled,
But hallowed by that instinct, which reveres
Things fraught with characters of elder years.
And such are these. Long centuries have flown,
Bowed many a crest, and shattered many a throne,
Mingling the urn, the trophy, and the bust,
With what they hide -- their shrined and treasured dust.
Men traverse Alps and Oceans, to behold
Earth's glorious works fast mingling with her mould;
But still these nameless chroniclers of death,
'Midst the deep silence of th' unpeopled heath,
Stand in primeval artlessness, and wear
The same sepulchral mien, and almost share
Th' eternity of nature, with the forms
Of the crowned hills beyond, the dwellings of the storms.

Yet, what avails it, if each moss-grown heap
Still on the waste its lonely vigils keep,
Guarding the dust which slumbers well beneath
(Nor needs such care) from each cold season's breath?
Where is the voice to tell their tale who rest,
Thus rudely pillowed, on the desert's breast?
Doth the sword sleep beside them? -- Hath there been
A sound of battle 'midst the silent scene
Where now the flocks repose? did the scythed car
Here reap its harvest in the ranks of war?
And rise these piles in memory of the slain,
And the red combat of the mountain-plain?

It may be thus: the vestiges of strife,
Around yet lingering, mark the steps of life,
And the rude arrow's barb remains to tell
How by its stroke perchance the mighty fell,
To be forgotten. Vain the warrior's pride,
The chieftain's power -- they had no bard, and died.
But other scenes, from their untroubled sphere,
Th' eternal stars of night have witnessed here.
There stands an altar of unsculptured stone,
Far on the moor, a thing of ages gone,
Propped on its granite pillars, whence the rains,
And pure bright dews, have laved the crimson stains
Left by dark rites of blood: for here, of yore,
When the bleak waste a robe of forest wore,
And many a crested oak, which now lies low,
Waved its wild wreath of sacred mistletoe;
Here, at dim midnight, through the haunted shade,
On Druid harps the quivering moonbeam played,
And spells were breathed, that filled the deepening gloom,
With the pale shadowy people of the tomb.
Or, haply, torches waving through the night,
Bade the red cairn-fires blaze from every height,
Like battle-signals, whose unearthly gleams
Threw o'er the desert's hundred hills and streams
A savage grandeur; while the starry skies
Rung with the peal of mystic harmonies,
As the loud harp its deep-toned hymns sent forth
To the storm-ruling powers, the war-gods of the North.

But wilder sounds were there: th' imploring cry,
That woke the forest's echo in reply,
But not the heart's! -- Unmoved the wizard train
Stood round their human victim, and in vain
His prayer for mercy rose; in vain his glance
Looked up, appealing to the blue expanse,
Where, in their calm immortal beauty, shone
Heaven's cloudless orbs. With faint and fainter moan,
Bound on the shrine of sacrifice he lay,
Till, drop by drop, life's current ebbed away;
Till rock and turf grew deeply, darkly red,
And the pale moon gleamed paler on the dead.
Have such things been, and here? -- where stillness dwells
'Midst the rude barrows and the moorland swells,
Thus undisturbed? -- Oh! long the gulf of time
Hath closed in darkness o'er those days of crime,
And earth no vestige of their path retains,
Save such as these, which strew her loneliest plains
With records of man's conflicts and his doom,
His spirit and his dust -- the altar and the tomb.

But ages rolled away: and England stood,
With her proud banner streaming o'er the flood,
And with a lofty calmness in her eye,
And regal in collected majesty,
To breast the storm of battle. Every breeze
Bore sounds of triumph o'er her own blue seas;
And other lands, redeemed and joyous, drank
The life-blood of her heroes, as they sank
On the red fields they won; whose wild flowers wave
Now, in luxuriant beauty, o'er their grave.

'Twas then the captives of Britannia's war
Here, for their lovely southern climes afar,
In bondage pined; the spell-deluded throng
Dragged at Ambition's chariot wheels so long
To die -- because a despot could not clasp
A sceptre, fitted to his boundless grasp!

Yes! they whose march had rocked the ancient thrones
And temples of the world; the deepening tones
Of whose advancing trumpet, from repose
Had startled nations, wakening to their woes,
Were prisoners here. -- And there were some whose dreams
Were of sweet homes, by chainless mountain streams,
And of the vine-clad hills, and many a strain,
And festal melody of Loire or Seine,
And of those mothers who had watched and wept,
When on the field th' unsheltered conscript slept,
Bathed with the midnight dews. And some were there,
Of sterner spirits, hardened by despair;
Who, in their dark imaginings, again
Fired the rich palace and the stately fane,
Drank in their victim's shriek, as music's breath,
And lived o'er scenes, the festivals of death!

And there was mirth, too! -- strange and savage mirth,
More fearful far than all the woes of earth!
The laughter of cold hearts, and scoffs that spring
From minds for which there is no sacred thing,
And transient bursts of fierce, exulting glee --
The lightning's flash upon its blasted tree!

But still, howe'er the soul's disguise were worn,
If, from wild revelry, or haughty scorn,
Or buoyant hope, it won an outward show,
Slight was the mask, and all beneath it -- woe.

Yet, was this all? -- Amidst the dungeon-gloom,
The void, the stillness, of the Captive's doom,
Were there no deeper thoughts? -- And that dark power,
To whom guilt owes one late, but dreadful hour,
The mighty debt through years of crime delayed,
But, as the grave's, inevitably paid;
Came he not thither, in his burning force,
The Lord, the tamer of dark souls -- Remorse?

Yes! as the night calls forth from sea and sky,
From breeze and wood, a solemn harmony,
Lost, when the swift, triumphant wheels of day,
In light and sound, are hurrying on their way:
Thus, from the deep recesses of the heart,
The voice which sleeps, but never dies, might start,
Called up by solitude, each nerve to thrill
With accents heard not, save when all is still!

The voice, inaudible, when Havoc's train
Crushed the red vintage of devoted Spain;
Mute, when sierras to the war-whoop rung,
And the broad light of conflagration sprung
From the South's marble cities; -- hushed, 'midst cries
That told the heavens of mortal agonies;
But gathering silent strength, to wake, at last,
In concentrated thunders of the past!

And there, perchance, some long-bewildered mind,
Torn from its lowly sphere, its path confined
Of village duties, in the alpine glen,
Where nature cast its lot 'midst peasantmen;
Drawn to that vortex, whose fierce ruler blent
The earthquake-power of each wild element,
To lend the tide which bore his throne on high
One impulse more of desperate energy;
Might, when the billow's awful rush was o'er,
Which tossed its wreck upon the storm-beat shore,
Won from its wanderings past by suffering tried,
Searched by remorse, by anguish purified,
Have fixed at length its troubled hopes and fears
On the far world, seen brightest through our tears!
And, in that hour of triumph or despair,
Whose secrets all must learn -- but none declare,
When, of the things to come, a deeper sense
Fills the dim eye of trembling penitence,
Have turned to Him, whose bow is in the cloud,
Around life's limits gathering, as a shroud;
The fearful mysteries of the heart who knows,
And, by the tempest, calls it to repose!

Who visited that death-bed? -- Who can tell
Its brief sad tale, on which the soul might dwell,
And learn immortal lessons? -- Who beheld
The struggling hope, by shame, by doubt repelled --
The agony of prayer -- the bursting tears --
The dark remembrances of guilty years,
Crowding upon the spirit in their might? --
He, through the storm who looked, and there was light!

That scene is closed! -- that wild, tumultuous breast,
With all its pangs and passions, is at rest!
He too is fallen, the master-power of strife,
Who woke those passions to delirious life;
And days, prepared a brighter course to run,
Unfold their buoyant pinions to the sun!

It is a glorious hour when Spring goes forth
O'er the bleak mountains of the shadowy North,
And with one radiant glance, one magic breath,
Wakes all things lovely from the sleep of death;
While the glad voices of a thousand streams,
Bursting their bondage, triumph in her beams!

But Peace hath nobler changes! O'er the mind,
The warm and living spirit of mankind,
Her influence breathes, and bids the blighted heart,
To life and hope from desolation start!
She with a look dissolves the captive's chain,
Peopling with beauty widowed homes again;
Around the mother, in her closing years,
Gathering her sons once more, and from the tears
Of the dim past, but winning purer light,
To make the present more serenely bright.

Nor rests that influence here. From clime to clime,
In silence gliding with the stream of time,
Still doth it spread, borne onwards, as a breeze
With healing on its wings, o'er isles and seas;
And, as Heaven's breath called forth, with genial power,
From the dry wand, the almond's living flower;
So doth its deep-felt charm in secret move
The coldest heart to gentle deeds of love;
While round its pathway nature softly glows,
And the wide desert blossoms as the rose.

Yes! let the waste lift up the exulting voice!
Let the far-echoing solitude rejoice!
And thou, lone moor! where no blithe reaper's song
E'er lightly sped the summer hours along,
Bid thy wild rivers, from each mountain-source
Rushing in joy, make music on their course!
Thou, whose sole records of existence mark
The scene of barbarous rites, in ages dark,
And of some nameless combat; Hope's bright eye
Beams o'er thee in the light of prophecy!
Yet shalt thou smile, by busy culture drest,
And the rich harvest wave upon thy breast!
Yet shall thy cottage-smoke, at dewy morn,
Rise, in blue wreaths, above the flowering thorn,
And, 'midst thy hamlet-shades, the embosomed spire
Catch from deep-kindling heavens their earliest fire.

Thee too that hour shall bless, the balmy close
Of labour's day, the herald of repose,
Which gathers hearts in peace; while social mirth
Basks in the blaze of each free village-hearth;
While peasant-songs are on the joyous gales,
And merry England's voice floats up from all her vales,
Yet are there sweeter sounds; and thou shalt hear
Such as to Heaven's immortal hosts are dear.
Oh! if there still be melody on earth,
Worthy the sacred bowers where man drew birth
When angel-steps their paths rejoicing trod,
And the air trembled with the breath of God;
It lives in those soft accents, to the sky
Borne from the lips of stainless infancy,
When holy strains, from life's pure fount which sprung,
Breathed with deep reverence, falter on his tongue.

And such shall be thy music, when the cells,
Where guilt, the child of hopeless misery, dwells,
(And, to wild strength by desperation wrought,
In silence broods o'er many a fearful thought,)
Resound to pity's voice; and childhood thence,
Ere the cold blight hath reached its innocence,
Ere that soft rose-bloom of the soul be fled,
Which vice but breathes on, and its hues are dead;
Shall at the call press forward, to be made
A glorious offering, meet for Him who said,
"Mercy, not sacrifice!" and when, of old,
Clouds of rich incense from his altars rolled,
Dispersed the smoke of perfumes, and laid bare
The heart's deep folds, to read its homage there!

When some crowned conqueror, o'er a trampled world,
His banner, shadowing nations, hath unfurled,
And, like those visitations which deform
Nature for centuries, hath made the storm
His path-way to Dominion's lonely sphere,
Silence behind -- before him, flight and fear;
When kingdoms rock beneath his rushing wheels,
Till each fair isle the mighty impulse feels,
And earth is moulded but by one proud will,
And sceptred realms wear fetters, and are still;
Shall the free soul of song bow down to pay
The earthquake homage on its baleful way?
Shall the glad harp send up exulting strains
O'er burning cities and forsaken plains?
And shall no harmony of softer close,
Attend the stream of mercy as it flows,
And, mingling with the murmur of its wave,
Bless the green shores its gentle currents lave?

Oh! there are loftier themes, for him, whose eyes
Have searched the depths of life's realities,
Than the red battle, or the trophied car,
Wheeling the monarch-victor fast and far;
There are more noble strains than those which swell
The triumphs Ruin may suffice to tell!

Ye Prophet-bards, who sat in elder days
Beneath the palms of Judah! ye whose lays
With torrent rapture, from their source on high,
Burst in the strength of immortality!
Oh! not alone, those haunted groves among,
Of conquering hosts, of empires crushed, ye sung,
But of that Spirit, destined to explore,
With the bright day-spring, every distant shore,
To dry the tear, to bind the broken reed,
To make the home of peace in hearts that bleed;
With beams of hope to pierce the dungeon's gloom,
And pour eternal star-light o'er the tomb.

And blessed and hallowed be its haunts! for there
Hath man's high soul been rescued from despair! --
There hath th' immortal spark for heaven been nursed, --
There from the rock the springs of life have burst,
Quenchless and pure! and holy thoughts, that rise,
Warm from the source of human sympathies --
Where'er its path of radiance may be traced,
Shall find their temple in the silent waste.





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