Poems of Felicia Hemans in Friendship's Offering, 1827/The Brigand Leader and his Wife

by Felicia Hemans

For other versions of this work, see The Brigand Leader and his Wife.

THE BRIGAND

Painted by C. Eastlake⁠Engraved by G. B. Ellis

Taken from the review in The Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 20, page 903

THE BRIGAND LEADER AND HIS WIFE.

(From a picture by Eastlake.)

By Mrs Hemans.

Dark chieftain of the heath and height,
Wild feaster on the hills by night!
Seest thou the stormy sunset's glow,
Flung back by glancing spears below?
Now, for one strife of stern despair!
The foe hath track'd thee to thy lair.

Thou, against whom the voice of blood
Hath risen from track and lonely wood,
And in whose dreams a man should be,
Not of the water, nor the tree;
Haply, thine own last hour is nigh,
Yet, shalt thou not forsaken die.

There's one, that pale beside thee stands,
More than all thy mountain bands!
She will not shrink, in doubt and dread,
When the balls whistle round thy head;
Nor leave thee, though thy closing eye
No longer may to hers reply.

Oh! many a soft and quiet grace
Hath faded from her soul and face;
And many a thought, the fitting guest
Of woman's meek, religious breast,
Hath perish'd, in her wanderings wide,
Through the deep forests, by thy side.

Yet, mournfully surviving all,
A flower upon a ruin's wall,
A friendless thing, whose lot is cast,
Of lovely ones to be the last;
Sad, but unchanged, through good and ill,
Thine is her lone devotion still.

And, oh! not wholly lost the heart,
Where that undying love hath part;
Not worthless all, though far and long
From home estranged, and guided wrong:
Yet, may its depths by Heaven be stirr'd,
Its prayer for thee be pour'd and heard.