Scenes and Hymns of Life, with Other Religious Poems

by Felicia Hemans

SCENES AND HYMNS OF LIFE.

SCENES AND HYMNS OF LIFE,

WITH OTHER

RELIGIOUS POEMS.

BY

FELICIA HEMANS.

"How beautiful this dome of sky,
And the vast hills, in fluctuation fix'd
At thy command, how awful! Shall the soul,
Human and rational, report of Thee
Even less than these?"
Wordsworth.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH;
AND T. CADELL, LONDON.
MDCCCXXXIV.

TO

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Esq.

IN TOKEN OF DEEP RESPECT

FOR HIS CHARACTER, AND FERVENT GRATITUDE

FOR MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL BENEFIT

DERIVED FORM REVERENTIAL COMMUNION

WITH THE SPIRIT OF HIS POETRY,

THIS VOLUME

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY

FELICIA HEMANS.

PREFACE.

---

I trust I shall not be accused of presumption for the endeavour which I have here made to enlarge, in some degree, the sphere of Religious Poetry, by associating with its themes more of the emotions, the affections, and even the purer imaginative enjoyments of daily life, than may have been hitherto admitted within the hallowed circle.

It has been my wish to portray the religious spirit, not alone in its meditative joys and solitary aspirations, (the poetic embodying of which seems to require from the reader a state of mind already separated and exalted,) but likewise in those active influences upon human life, so often called into victorious energy by trial and conflict, though too often also, like the upward-striving flame of a mountain watch-fire, borne down by tempest showers, or swayed by the current of opposing winds.

I have sought to represent that spirit as penetrating the gloom of the prison and the death-bed, bearing "healing on its wings" to the agony of parting love—strengthening the heart of the wayfarer for "perils in the wilderness"—gladdening the domestic walk through field and woodland—and springing to life in the soul of childhood, along with its earliest rejoicing perceptions of natural beauty.

Circumstances not altogether under my own control have, for the present, interfered to prevent the fuller developement of a plan which I yet hope more worthily to mature, and I lay this little volume before the public with that deep sense of deficiency which cannot be more impressively taught to human powers, than by their reverential application to things divine.
F. H.

Contents. Scenes and Hymns of Life.
		Page
	The English Martyrs	1
	Flowers and Music in a Room of Sickness	19
	Cathedral Hymn	33
	Wood Walk and Hymn	41
	Prayer of the Lonely Student	52
	The Traveller's Evening Song	59
	Burial of an Emigrant's Child in the Forests	63
	Easter-Day in a Mountain Church-Yard	74
	The Child Reading the Bible	82
	A Poet's Dying Hymn	88
	The Funeral Day of Sir Walter Scott	95
	The Prayer in the Wilderness	103
	Prisoners' Evening Service	107
	Hymn of the Vaudois Mountaineers in Times of Persecution	117
	The Indian's Revenge	121
	Prayer at Sea after Victory	134
	Evening Song of the Weary	138
		Page
	The Day of Flowers	140
	Hymn of the Traveller's Household on his Return	151
	A Prayer of Affection	155
	The Painter's Last Work	157
	Mother's Litany by the Sick-Bed of a Child	165
	Night Hymn at Sea	167

Miscellaneous Poems.

	Female Characters of Scripture—a Series of Sonnets—
	I. Invocation	170
	II. Invocation Continued	171
	III. The Song of Miriam	172
	IV. Ruth	173
	V. The Vigil of Rizpah	174
	VI. The Reply of the Shunamite Woman	175
	VII. The Annunciation	176
	VIII. The Song of the Virgin	177
	IX. The Penitent Anointing Christ's Feet	178
	X. Mary at the Feet of Christ	179
	XI. The Sisters of Bethany after the Death of Lazarus	180
	XII. The Memorial of Mary	181
	XIII. The Women of Jerusalem at the Cross	182
	XIV. Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre	183
	XV. Mary Magdalene Bearing Tidings of the Resurrection	184
		Page
	The Two Monuments	185
	The Memory of the Dead	190
	Angel Visits	193
	A Penitent's Return	197
	A Thought of Paradise	201
	Let us Depart	205
	On a Picture of Christ Bearing the Cross	209
	Communings with Thought	211
	Sonnets, Devotional and Memorial—
	I. The Sacred Harp	215
	II. To a Family Bible	216
	III. Repose of a Holy Family	217
	IV. Picture of the Infant Christ with Flowers	218
	V. On a Remembered Picture of Christ	219
	VI. The Children whom Jesus blest	220
	VII. Mountain Sanctuaries	221
	VIII. The Lilies of the Field	222
	IX. The Birds of the Air	223
	X. The Raising of the Widow's Son	224
	XI. The Olive Tree	225
	XII. The Darkness of the Crucifixion	226
	XIII. Places of Worship	227
	XIV. Old Church in an English Park	228
	XV. A Church in North Wales	229
	XVI. Louise Schepler	230
	XVII. To the Same	231
	Lines to a Butterfly Resting on a Skull	232
		Page
	The Palmer	234
	The Water-Lily	237
	Thought from an Italian Poet	240
	Elysium	241