Poems of Felicia Hemans in Friendship's Offering, 1827/The Tomb of Madame Langhans
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THE TOMB OF MADAME LANGHANS
Sculpted by Johann August Nahl
(This image is not from the Gift Book)
From Poems of Felicia Hemans, 1872, page 457
THE TOMB OF MADAME LANGHANS.
"To a mysteriously consorted pair
This place is consecrate; to death and life,
And to the best affections that proceed
From this conjunction."Wordsworth.
[At Hindlebank, near Berne, she is represented as bursting from the sepulchre, with her infant in her arms, at the sound of the last trumpet. An inscription on the tomb concludes thus:—"Here am I, O God! with the child whom thou hast given me."]
How many hopes were borne upon thy bier,
O bride of stricken love! in anguish hither!
Like flowers, the first and fairest of the year,
Pluck'd on the bosom of the dead to wither;
Hopes from their source all holy, though of earth,
All brightly gathering round affection's hearth.
Of mingled prayer they told; of Sabbath hours;
Of morn's farewell, and evening's blessed meeting;
Of childhood's voice, amidst the household bowers;
And bounding step, and smile of joyous greeting;—
But thou, young mother! to thy gentle heart
Did'st take thy babe, and meekly so depart.
How many hopes have sprung in radiance hence!
Their trace yet lights the dust where thou art sleeping!
A solemn joy comes o'er me, and a sense
Of triumph, blent with nature's gush of weeping.
As, kindling up the silent stone, I see
The glorious vision, caught by faith, of thee.
Slumberer! love calls thee, for the night is past;
Put on the immortal beauty of thy waking!
Captive! and hear'st thou not the trumpet's blast,
The long, victorious note, thy bondage breaking?
Thou hear'st, thou answer'st, "God of earth and heaven!
Here am I, with the child whom thou hast given!"
The following inscription has been attributed to Mrs Hemans but it does not appear
in her
collected works and it seems more than likely it is the translation by Mrs. Rose
Lawrence that she included in The Last Autumn at a Favourite Residence,
and Other Poems (2nd Edition, 1829) and which is reproduced here.
Inscription
ON THE TOMB OF MADAME LANGHANS
AT HINDELBANK, NEAR BERNE.
FROM THE GERMAN OF HALLER.
This celebrated monument represents her as ascending through the newly opening grave, bearing in her arms the infant whose birth occasioned her death.
—"Hark!—through the gloom the archangel's trumpet speaks!
Child of my anguish! from thy slumbers rise:
Thy Saviour's voice the grave's dread silence breaks,
And bids thee seek with me thy native skies."