Poems of Felicia Hemans in The Winter's Wreath, 1831/A Song of Delos
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DELOS
Painted by W. LintonEngraved by W. Miller
A Song of Delos.*[1]
BY MRS. HEMANS.
Terre, soleil, vallons, belle et douce Nature,
Je vous dois une larme aux bords de mon tombeau;
L’air est ai parfume! la lumiere est si pure!
Aux regards d'un Mourant le soleil est si beau!
Lamartine.
A song was heard of old—a low, sweet song,
On the blue seas by Delos: from that isle,
The Sun-God's own domain, a gentle girl,
Gentle—yet all inspired of soul, of mien,
Lit with a life too perilously bright,
Was borne away to die. How beautiful
Seems this world to the dying!—but for her,
The child of beauty and of poesy,
And of soft Grecian skies—oh! who may dream
Of all that from her changeful eye flashed forth,
Or glanced more quiveringly through starry tears,
As on her land's rich vision, fane o'er fane
Coloured with loving light—she gazed her last,
Her young life's last, that hour! From her pale brow
And burning cheek she threw the ringlets back,
And bending forward—as the spirit swayed
The reed-like form still to the shore beloved,
Breathed the swan-music of her wild farewell
O'er dancing waves:—"Oh! linger yet," she cried;
"Oh! linger, linger on the oar,
Oh! pause upon the deep!
That I may gaze yet once, once more,
Where floats the golden day o'er fane and steep.
Never so brightly smiled mine own sweet shore:
—Oh! linger, linger on the parting oar!
"I see the laurels fling back showers
Of soft light still on many a shrine;
I see the path to haunts of flowers
Through the dim olives lead its gleaming line;
I hear a sound of flutes—a swell of song—
Mine is too low to reach that joyous throng!
"Oh! linger, linger on the oar,
Beneath my native sky!
Though breathing from the radiant shore
Voices of youth too sweetly wander by!
Mine hath no part in all their summer-mirth,
Yet back they call me to the laughing earth.
"A fatal gift hath been thy dower,
Lord of the Lyre! to me;
With song and wreath from bower to bower,
Sisters went bounding like young Oreads free;
While I, through long, lone, voiceless hours apart,
Have lain and listened to my beating heart.
"Now, wasted by the inborn fire,
I sink to early rest;
The ray that lit the incense-pyre,
Leaves unto death its temple in my breast.
—O sunshine, skies, rich flowers! too soon I go,
While round me thus triumphantly ye glow!
"Bright Isle! might but thine echoes keep
A tone of my farewell,
One tender accent, low and deep,
Shrined 'midst thy founts and haunted rocks to dwell!
Might my last breath send music to thy shore!
—Oh! linger, seamen, linger on the oar!
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* It will be remembered, that this beautiful Island was sacred to the ancient Greeks, from having been the birth-place of Apollo and Diana. None were born or died there—the mothers and the dying were carried to the neighbouring islet of Rhane. Solemn expeditions, with much priestly pomp, were frequently made from Athens to enforce this ordinance, particularly to propitiate the Gods in time of public calamity. Our era refers to the celebrated lustration, at the time of the Peloponnesian war, during the plague of Athens.