And when the moon in heaven rides high,
And the bright stars look pale,

And nought is heard but the chamois' cry,
Borne faintly on the gale,

Low on the lonely heath kneel I,

And raise my suppliant wail.

PRAYER.

To thee in this my solitude, I lift my humble cry,
And in the silent desert before thee weeping lie:

Ye splendors of the starry night, ye hosts of heaven above,

O witness ye my sorrow, and witness ye my love!

And ye, O guardian angels, bright messengers, who bear

From heaven to earth our pardon, as from earth to heaven our prayer,
Who float amid the harmony of the celestial spheres,

Who in the moon's mild beams descend to this our vale of tears,

Who over us, but all unseen, direct your rapid flight,

With the circles of the rolling stars, and the gloomy veil of night :
Weep, weep with me; repeat my prayers; to you for aid I fly,
Receive my tears of penitence, and bear them to the sky,

And for my pardon plead with Him who hears the sinner's cry.

I have changed the measure.

then, join in the refrain:

Does it please you now? Come,

To me a poor black penitent, O be thy mercy given !

It comes and peace on earth is mine, and mercy, sent from heaven.

CHORUS.

To thee, to thee, black penitent, be peace and mercy given !
Be peace on earth for ever thine, and mercy sent from heaven.

CASTELLAN.

If God absolves thee, pilgrim, the justice of men cannot exact more than that of heaven. Seat thyself, and be purified from thy crimes by the tears of repentance; be cheered in thy calamity by the libations of joy.

the

STRANGER.

My crimes! my repentance! your pity! No, no, my good friends; does not finish thus. You must hear yet another stanza :

song

I who a bay-crowned poet am,

I gods and men despise:

I have songs for grief, and songs for joy,

For the shades, and for the skies.

A rhyme I have for the murd'rers knife,
And one for the bloody fray,

Another yet for love, and still

For repentance, one more lay.

'Tis thus I breathe my soul in verse,

And take no thought of time,

For what to me is the universe,

If I only have my rhyme?

And when ideas begin to fail,

Oh then I seize my lyre,

And make its chords ring merrily out,

Which fools with joy inspire.

Sound out! sound out! my lyre-chord good!

Thou dost ideas supply;

Sound out! sound out! let reason go!

The rhyme's the thing, say I.

CASTELLAN.

Dost thou mock our hospitality, audacious poet! Hast thou not a ready song, a complete melody? We have listened to thee an hour, subjected by turns to the sway of all the various emotions with which thou didst inspire us; and hardly hast thou raised to the skies a pious strain, when thou resumest the tone of a fiend, to laugh at God, at thy fellow men, and at thyself. Sing us, then, at least the song of our country, or we will wrest from thy hands the cup of joy.

CHORUS.

Yes, sing our native lay, or we

The cup of joy will wrest from thee.

STRANGER.

O God of shepherds, hear me ! and thou, O Mary, hear!
Thou mother mild of heaven, to whom the simple soul is dear;
O God of young hearts, hear me ! and thou, O Mary, hear!
Who dost inspire the lover, and confirm his vow sincere :
O God of battles, hear me! and thou, O Mary, hear!
Who dost preserve the valiant, and fill the foe with fear:
O God of hermits, hear me ! and thou, O Mary, hear!
Protectress of the pious, who lov'st the sacred tear:
Oh God of poets, hear me! and thou, O Mary, hear!
Thou most harmonious melody of the celestial sphere!
Sustain the weary pilgrim, conduct the traveller bold,
Preserve the gallant warrior, visit the hermit old;
Smile, smile upon the poet, receive benignantly

The incense of his heart, which now he offers unto thee;
Like to the mingled perfume of every flower that grows,

Whose odor on this barren earth, thou didst to him disclose.

Well, does the refrain embarrass you? You cannot follow the measure? Listen then, while I begin again :

I who a youthful goatherd am,
Would give, most willingly,
Full all the flocks th' sierra feeds,
If my fair would smile on me.
I who a dashing scholar am,
Would burn my books thrice o'er,
For a kiss, beneath the balcony,
Of her whom I adore.

I who a happy lover am,

Would give my love's caresses,

For one good blow at a pedant's head,
If e'er he her addresses;

I who a cheated lover am,

My very soul would sell,

To sheathe my poniard in the heart,

Of him she loves so well!

I who a hunted murd'rer am,

Love, vengeance, all, would give,

If as a glorious conqueror,

I might one moment live;

I who a conq'ring warrior am,

Would give my triumph's palms,
For but an instant of repose

From my troubled conscience' qualms :

I who a pious hermit am,

Would yield my hopes of heaven,
Were, in return, for but an hour,

The poet's phrenzy given :

I who at length a poet am,

My garland of gold so gay,

For but one spark of heavenly fire,
Would gladly give away;

But when my song doth her pinions ope,
And my proud foot spurns the ground,
And the music of the spheres I hope
To hear in the distance sound,

Some fiend accursed, a thick black cloud,
Like a gloomy veil, doth roll
All, all around my luckless head,
Around my branded soul!

Lost, gasping, tired, I trembling float
"Twixt hope and grim despair,

"Twixt light from heaven, and shades of hell,
"Twixt blasphemy and prayer;

And mourning cry, as to earth fall I,

Back, back to my native clay,
Alas! alas! that cloud-veil black!
My pinions, 'where are they?'

CHORUS.

Alas! alas! that cloud-veil black!
My pinions, where are they?

CASTELLAN.

Sit down, sit down, noble singer; thou hast conquered us.

DIEGO.

He has not sung the song of our country; not a single verse of it.

LA HERMOSA.

He has sung better than any of us. Stranger, take this branch of red sage; dip it in thy cup, and sing for me.

me.

STRANGER.

I sing for no one, but only to please myself, when the whim takes Maiden, I accept thy gift. The spectre waits for me, in the forest. Adieu, credulous host! Adieu, all ye vulgar bacchanals, who ask the poet for sour wine, when he brings you the nectar of heaven. Sing your song of the country by yourselves! For my own part, the country makes me sick, and the wine of the country sicker.

Come, come with me, my poor black dog!

I have no friend but you;

'Tis time, my dog, for us to go:

Ye maidens fair, adieu!

CASTELLAN.

(Exit.)

A strange man!

DIEGO.

A bandit, I'll wager! Let us arrest him, and throw him into prison.

LA HERMOSA.

The walls would fall before his song; the spirits of heaven would descend to loose his chains.

BOY.

My lord, you promised to own him for your friend and country

By heavens, I know him now; for he dons his red mantle; he mounts his horse; he tears off his false beard, and no longer disguises his voice! 'Tis José, the famous Contrabandist; the accursed bandit; and I captain of the guards, who was charged with his arrest! After him, my friends! — after him!

CASTELLAN.

No, indeed; he is a noble child of the mountains, who was a scholar, a lover, and a poet, and who, it is said, became a bandit chief in consequence of his political sentiments.

DIEGO.

Or in consequence of a murder.

LA HERMOSA.

Or in consequence of a love affair.

CASTELLAN.

No matter; he has tricked you most gloriously, Diego; and while imposing upon us, he has both excited and charmed us. God speed him! and may nothing more trouble this festal day, this day devoted to joy!

CHORUS.

Let nothing more our mirth alloy,

Drain we the brimming cups of joy!

(They sing in full chorus the song of the Contrabandist.)

A MIDNIGHT

CHANT FOR THE DYING YEAR.

Then, too, the Old Year dieth,

And the forests utter a moan,

Like the voice of one who crieth

In the wilderness alone,

Vex not his ghost!""

Tis the death-howl of the aged year!-through pine woods wild and vast,
It rideth on the pinion of the sounding mountain blast;
From valley and cold forest, and from icy ocean-shore,

I hear its mournful wailing, blent with the billows' roar;
And far upon the summit of the storm-scarred promontory,

I see grim Winter's legions bursting through the cedars hoary!

They come with dismal chanting, and hollow-sounding dirges,
They pass unto the music of the sea's orchestral surges:
I see the gloomy warriors their snowy chargers mounting,
I hear the gibbering Storm-fiend his cold battalions counting:
Now creak, ye icy forests! they are forming on the lea,
They are mounting on the mountain, and the surly-sounding sea!

-

Hark! heard ye not that distant roar?-'tis Winter's ghostly cry,
O'er the gray-haired Year that wrestleth with his dying agony !
He is passing to his slumber! Hist! the winds around him crowd,
And the eagle shrieks his death-song in the snowy mountain cloud :
He is passing to his sepulchre, upborne upon the form

Of the fiercely-spinning whirlwind, and the gloomy mountain storm!

They bear him to eternity, with wild and solemn moan!
And as they pass, the rocking woods make melancholy groan:
They are creaking on the mountain, and on the lonely shore,
In wild and angry concert with old Ocean's mighty roar;
And ever as they rattle their bare bones in the gale,

Dark Winter o'er the dying year howls out his midnight wail.

Then cometh from the wilderness, and from the stormy sky,
The voice of him who fighteth with his dying agony.

'Tis done!-wan Night now shudders through all her wild dominion,
And haggard Time upon the blast unfolds his awful pinion;

And, legion after legion, the winds, with mighty roar,

Go howling through the pine woods, and pass from hill and shore !

The year is in his sepulchre! approach, and view his bier!
Thou wilt not deem it idlesse to shed a parting tear;

For lo here sleep the beautiful, they who, in life's sweet spring,
Were merry as the painted birds that mount on joyous wing;
Now they are gone for ever!-behold them where they lie!
They of the pure and gentle heart, the bright and sunny eye!

They are gone! the loved and beautiful-oh! come they back no more
Speak, friends! -sweet friends, with ye I smiled, and sang in days of yore,
And will ye not return again? Hark! hark!-'t was but the sigh
Of cowled Winter sweeping through the cold and solemn sky;
They come not! - nay, they come not! - the loved are in the tomb
And I am here, a mourner, over youth and beauty's bloom.

I stand in the grim wilderness, and while the tempest's wail

Doth shake the leafless forest, and die along the vale,

I think of many a sylph-like form, and many a fair young brow,

All eloquent with beauty once, but cold and lifeless now:

I think of them while on the hills the mournful whirlwinds roar,
But the beautiful have vanished, and will return no more!

December 31, 1839.

VOL. XV.

6

H. W. R.