But thoughts come to a mother's breast a mother only knows,
And grief, although it never dies, in fancy finds repose;
By day she feels the dismal truth that death has ta'en her child,
At night she hears her singing still and dancing o'er the wild.
And then her Country's legends lend all their lovely faith,
Till sleep reveals a silent land, but not a land of death-
Where, happy in her innocence, her living child doth play
With those fair Elves that wafted her from her own world away.
"Look not so mournful, mother! 'tis not a Tale of woe-
The Fairy-Queen stooped down and left a kiss upon my brow,
And faster than mine own two doves e'er stooped unto my hand,
Our flight was through the ether-then we dropt on Fairy-Land.
Along a river-side that ran wide-winding through a wood,
We walked, the Fairy-Queen and I, in loving solitude;
And there serenely on the trees, in all their rich attire,
Sat crested birds whose plumage seemed to burn with harmless fire.
"No sound was in our steps,-as on the ether mute-
For the velvet moss lay greenly deep beneath the gliding foot,
Till we came to a Waterfall, and 'mid the Rainbows there,
The Mermaids and the Fairies played in Water and in Air.
"And sure there was sweet singing, for it at once did breathe
From all the Woods and Waters, and from the Caves beneath,
But when those happy creatures beheld their lovely Queen,
The music died away at once, as if it ne'er had been,—
"And hovering in the Rainbow, and floating on the Wave,
Each little head so beautiful some show of homage gave,
And bending down bright lengths of hair that glistened in its dew,
Seemed as the Sun ten thousand rays against the Water threw.
"Soft the music rose again-but we left it far behind,
Though strains o'ertook us now and then, on some small breath of wind;
Our guide into that brightening bliss was aye that brightening
Till lo! a Palace silently unfolded like a dream.
Then thought I of the lovely tales, and music lovelier still,
My elder sister used to sing at evening on the Hill,
When I was but a little child too young to watch the sheep,
And on her kind knees laid my head in very joy to sleep.
"Tales of the silent people, and their green silent Land!
-But the gates of that bright Palace did suddenly expand,
And filled with green-robed Fairies was seen an ample hall,
Where she who held my hand in hers was the loveliest of them all.
"Round her in happy heavings flowed that bright glistering crowd, Yet though a thousand voices hailed, the murmur was not loud, And o'er their plumed and flowery heads there sang a whispering breeze,
When as before their Queen all sank, down slowly on their knees.
"Then said the Queen, 'Seven years to-day since mine own infant's birth
And we must send her Nourice this evening back to earth;
Though sweet her home beneath the sun-far other home than thisSo I have brought her sister small, to see her in her bliss.
"Luhana! bind thy frontlet upon my Mhairi's brow,
That she on earth may show the flowers that in our gardens grow.'
And from the heavenly odours breathed around my head I knew
How delicate must be their shape, how beautiful their hue!
"Then near and nearer still I heard small peals of laughter sweet,
And the infant Fay came dancing in with her white twinkling feet,
While in green rows the smiling Elves fell back on either side,
And up that avenue the Fay did like a sunbeam glide.
"But who came then into the Hall? One long since mourned as dead!
Oh! never had the mould been strewn o'er such a starlike head!
On me alone she poured her voice, on me alone her eyes,
And, as she gazed, I thought upon the deep-blue cloudless skies.
"Well knew I my fair sister! and her unforgotten face!
Strange meeting one so beautiful in that bewildering place!
And like two solitary rills that by themselves flowed on,
And had been long divided—we melted into one.
"When that the shower was all wept out of our delightful tears, And love rose in our hearts that had been buried there for years, You well may think another shower straightway began to fall, Even for our mother and our home to leave that heavenly Hall.
"I may not tell the sobbing and weeping that was there, And how the mortal Nourice left her Fairy in despair,
But promised, duly every year, to visit the sad child,
As soon as by our forest-side the first pale primrose smiled.
"While they two were embracing, the Palace it was gone,
And I and my dear sister stood by the Great Burial-stone ;
While both of us our river saw in twilight glimmering by,
And knew at once the dark Cairngorm in his own silent sky."
The Child hath long been speaking to one who may not hear,
For a deadly Joy came suddenly upon a deadly Fear,
And though the Mother fell not down, she lay on Mhairi's breast,
And her face was white as that of one whose soul has gone to rest.
She sits beneath the Elder-shade in that long mortal swoon,
And piteously on her wan cheek looks down the gentle Moon ;
And when her senses are restored, whom sees she at her side,
But Her believed in childhood to have wandered off and died!
In these small hands, so lily-white, is water from the spring,
And a grateful coolness drops from it as from an angel's wing,
And to her Mother's pale lips her rosy lips are laid,
While these long soft eyelashes drop tears on her hoary head.
She stirs not in her Child's embrace, but yields her old grey hairs
Unto the heavenly dew of tears, the heavenly breath of prayers-
No voice hath she to bless her child, till that strong fit go by,
But gazeth on the long lost face, and then upon the sky.
The Sabbath-morn was beautiful- and the long Sabbath-day-
The Evening-star rose beautiful when daylight died away;
Morn, day, and twilight, this lone Glen flowed over with delight,
But the fulness of all mortal Joy hath blessed the Sabbath-night.
How sweet and solemn, all alone,
With reverend steps, from stone to stone
In a small village churchyard lying,
O'er intervening flowers to move!
And as we read the names unknown
Of young and old to judgment gone,
And hear in the calm air above
Time onwards softly flying,
To meditate, in Christian love,
Upon the dead and dying!
Across the silence seem to go
With dreamlike motion, wavering, slow,
And shrouded in their folds of snow,
The friends we loved long long ago!
Gliding across the sad retreat,
How beautiful their phantom feet!
What tenderness is in their eyes,
Turned where the poor survivor lies
'Mid monitory sanctities!
What years of vanished joy are fanned
From one uplifting of that hand
In its white stillness! when the Shade
Doth glimmeringly in sunshine fade
From our embrace, how dim appears
This world's life through a mist of tears!
Vain hopes! blind sorrows! needless fears!
Such is the scene around me now:
A little Churchyard on the brow
Of a green pastoral hill ;
Its sylvan village sleeps below,
And faintly here is heard the flow
Of Woodburn's summer rill;
A place where all things mournful meet,
And yet the sweetest of the sweet,
The stillest of the still!
With what a pensive beauty fall
Across the mossy mouldering wall
That rose-tree's clustered arches ! See
The robin-redbreast warily,
Bright through the blossoms, leaves his nest :
Sweet ingrate! through the winter blest
At the firesides of men-but shy
Through all the sunny summer hours,
He hides himself among the flowers
In his own wild festivity.
What lulling sound, and shadow cool
Hangs half the darkened churchyard o'er
From thy green depths so beautiful,
Thou gorgeous sycamore!
Oft hath the holy wine and bread
Been blest beneath thy murmuring tent,
Where many a bright and hoary head
Bowed at that awful sacrament.
Now all beneath the turf are laid
On which they sat, and sang, and prayed.
Above that consecrated tree
Ascends the tapering spire that seems
To lift the soul up silently
To heaven with all its dreams,
While in the belfry, deep and low,
From his heaved bosom's purple gleams
The dove's continuous murmurs flow,
A dirge-like song, half-bliss, half-woe,
The voice so lonely seems!
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