Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books 1832-39

"Filled with the sweet good-night of flowers that sigh themselves to sleep,"

"Is there a spot where Pity’s foot, Although unsandalled, fears to tread, A silence where her voice is mute, Where tears, and only tears, are shed? It is the desolated home Where Hope was yet a recent guest, Where Hope again may never come, Or come, and only speak of rest."

"Now, doth not summer’s sunny smile Sink soft o’er that Ionian isle, While round the kindling waters sweep The murmur'd music of the deep, The many melodies that swell From breaking wave and red-lipp’d shell ?"

"Go through that city, and behold What intellect can yield, How it brings forth an hundred-fold From time’s enduring field. Those walls are filled with wealth, the spoil Of industry and thought, The mighty harvest which man’s toil Out of the past has wrought."

"The product of that city, now Far distant lands consume; The Indian wears around his brow The white webs of her loom. Her vessels sweep from East to West ; Her merchants are like kings ; While wonders in her walls attest The power that commerce brings."

"Then sounds arise, the echoes bear along Through the resounding aisles the choral song. The billowy music of the organ sweeps, Like the vast anthem of uplifted deeps ; The bells ring forth—the long dark night is done, The sunshine of the Sabbath is begun."

"Cold and obscure, in vain the king and sage Gave law and learning to the darkened age. There was no present faith, no future hope, Earth bounded then the earth-drawn horoscope ;"

"Now, out upon this smiling, No smile shall meet his sight ; And a word of gay reviling Is all he’ll hear to-night, For he’ll hold my smiles too lightly, If he always sees me smile ; He’ll think they shine more brightly When I have frowned awhile."

"—O, tranquil earth and heaven—but their repose, What influence hath it on the mourner there ! Her eye is fix’d in terrible despair, Her lip is white with pain, and, spectre-like, Her shape is worn with famine—on her arm Rests a dead child—she does not weep for it. Two more are at her side, she’d weep for them, But that she is too desperate to weep :"

"Black and more black the midnight grew, Black and more black was the water’s hue ; Then a ghastly sound on the silence broke, And I thought of the dead beneath the oak."

"Such are the common people of the soul, Of whom the stars write not in their bright scroll. These, when the sunshine at the noontide makes Golden confusion in the forest brakes, See no sweet shadows gliding o’er the grass, Which seems to fill with wild flowers as they pass ; These, from the twilight music of the fount Ask not its secret and its sweet account ; These never seek to read the chronicle Which hides within the hyacinth’s dim-lit bell: They know not of the poetry which lies Upon the summer rose’s languid eyes; They have no spiritual visitings elysian, They dream no dreamings, and they see no vision."

"But decay—the pulses tremble When its livid signs appear : When the once-loved lips resemble All we loathe, and all we fear. Is it not a ghastly ending For the body’s godlike form, Thus to the damp earth descending, Food and triumph to the worm ?"

"What know we of them ? Nothing—there they stand, Gloomy as night, inscrutible as fate."

"Time—tempest—warfare—ordinary decay, Is not for these. The memory of man Has lost their rise—although they are his work. Two senses here are present ; one of Power, And one of Nothingness ; doth it not mock The mighty mind to see the meaner part, The task it taught its hands, outlast itself?"

"Why did she love her mother’s so? It hath wrought her wondrous wo."

"The stately stranger’s head was bound With a bright and golden round; Curiously inlaid, each scale Shone upon his glittering mail;"

"Who has not, when but a child, Treasured up some vision wild: Haunting them with nameless fear, Filling all they see or hear, In the midnight’s lonely hour, With a strange mysterious power?"

"And the thought of what has been, And the thought of what might be, Makes us crave the fancied scene, And despise reality."

"Easy ’tis advice to give, Hard it is advice to take Years that lived—and years to live, Wide and weary difference make."

"Still illusion’s purple light Was upon the morning tide, And there rose before her sight The loveliness of life untried. Three sweet genii, —Youth, Love, Hope, — Drew her future horoscope. Must such lights themselves consume? Must she be her own dark tomb?"

"Willows by that river grow With their leaves half green, half snow, Summer never seems to be Present all with that sad tree. With its bending boughs are wrought Tender and associate thought, Of the wreaths that maidens wear In their long neglected hair. Of the branches that are thrown On the last, the funeral stone."

"By the love that makes thee mine I am deeply, dearly thine. But a spell is on me thrown, Six days may each deed be shown. But the seventh day must be Mine, and only known to me. Never must thy step intrude On its silent solitude."

"Then his jealous fancies rose, (Our Lady keep the mind from those!) Like a fire within the brain, Maddens that consuming pain. Henceforth is no rest by night, Henceforth day has no delight. Life hath agonies that tell Of their late left native hell. But mid their despair is none Like that of the jealous one."

"Come what will, of weal or wo, ’Tis the best the worst to know."

"Downwards from that slender waist, By a golden zone embraced, Do the many folds escape, Of the subtle serpent’s shape.— Bright with many-coloured dyes All the glittering scales arise, With a red and purple glow Colouring the waves below! At the strange and fearful sight, Stands in mute despair the knight,— Soon to feel a worse despair, Melusina sees him there! And to see him is to part With the idol of her heart, Part as just the setting sun Tells the fatal day is done."

"She leaves it to the sacred stream, She leaves it to the tide, Her little child—her darling one, And she has none beside."

"She comes ! So comes the Moon, when has she found A silvery path wherein through heaven to glide ? Fling the white veil—a summer cloud—around ; She is a bride !"

"How wonderful the common street, Its tumult and its throng, The hurrying of the thousand feet That bear life's cares along. How strongly is the present felt, With such a scene beside; All sounds in one vast murmur melt The thunder of the tide."

"Such must have been his history, who first Cut this sad hermitage within the rock: Some spirit-broken and world-weary man, Whose love was in the grave—whose hope in heaven. Yet a fine nature must have been his own ; A sense of beauty—and a strong delight In the brave seeming of the visible world, Whose loveliness is like a sympathy."

"Alas ! for our ancient believings, We have nothing now left to believe ; The oracle, augur, and omen No longer dismay and deceive."

"Thou beautiful new comer, With white and maiden brow ; Thou fairy gift from summer, Why art thou blooming now ? This dim and sheltered alley Is dark with winter green ; Not such as in the valley At sweet spring-time is seen."

"Float on—float on—my haunted bark, Above the midnight tide; Bear softly o’er the waters dark The hopes that with thee glide."

"A stranger to her forest home, That fair young stranger came; They raised for him the funeral song— For him the funeral flame. Love sprang from pity,—and her arms Around his arms she threw; She told her father, “If he dies, Your daughter dieth too.” For her sweet sake they set him free— He lingered at her side; And many a native song yet tells Of that pale stranger’s bride."

"None watched the lonely Indian girl,— She passed unmarked of all, Until they saw her slight canoe Approach the mighty Fall! Upright, within that slender boat They saw the pale girl stand, Her dark hair streaming far behind— Uprais’d her desperate hand. The air is filled with shriek and shout— They call, but call in vain; The boat amid the waters dash'd— ’Twas never seen again!"

"Summer is come, with her leaves and her flowers— Summer is come, with the sun on her hours; The lark in the clouds, and the thrush on the bough, And the dove in the thicket, make melody now. The noon is abroad, but the shadows are cool Where the green rushes grow in the dark forest pool."

"The sledge is yoked, away we go, Amid the firs, o’er the soundless snow."

"None heed the wandering boy who sings, An orphan though so young; None think how far the singer brings The songs which he has sung."

"For years, long years, Years that make centuries—those dimlit aisles, Where rainbows play, from coloured windows flung, Have echoed to the voice of prayer and praise ; With the last lights of evening flitting round, Making a rosy atmosphere of hope."

"Few save the poor feel for the poor, The rich know not how hard It is to be of needful food And needful rest debarred."

"Mournfully they pass away, The dearest and the fairest ; Beauty, thou art common clay, Common doom thou sharest."

"Sympathy is the softener of death, and memory of the loved and the lost is the earthly shadow of their immortality. But who turns aside amid those crowds that hurry through the thronged and noisy streets?—No one can love London better than I do; but never do I wish to be buried there. It is the best place in the world for a house, and the worst for a grave."

"I come from my home in the depth of the sea, I come that thy dreams may be haunted by me ; Not as we parted, the rose on my brow, But shadowy, silent, I visit thee now."

"Alas, alas ! those ancient towers, Where never now the vespers ring, But lonely at the midnight hours, Flits by the bat on dusky wing. No more beneath the moonlight dim, No more beneath the planet ray, Those arches echo with the hymn That bears life’s meaner cares away."

"See, he bears the line away, Round him flies the snowy spray. I have given him length and line, One last struggle, he is mine. Fling the green arbutus bough On the glowing ashes now ; Let the cup with red wine foam,— I have brought the salmon home."

"You must come back, my brother, For Christmas is so near, And Christmas is the crowning time, The purple of the year ;"

"She comes with the midnight—meet not her cold eye, It shines but on those who are fated to die. She comes with the midnight, when spirits have power— She comes with the midnight, and evil the hour."

"Little the present careth for the past, Too little,—’tis not well! For careless ones we dwell Beneath the mighty shadow it has cast."

"For the present doth inherit All the glories of the past ; We retain what was its spirit, While its dust to dust is cast, All good angels guard the sleep Of the ancient warriors, The warriors of olden time"

"Life in its many shapes was there, The busy and the gay; Faces that seemed too young and fair To ever know decay. …. There came a slow and silent band In sad procession by: Reversed the musket in each hand, And downcast every eye. They bore the soldier to his grave; The sympathising crowd Divided like a parted wave By some dark vessel ploughed. …. Again, all filled with light and breath, I passed the crowded street— Oh, great extremes of life and death, How strangely do ye meet!"

"It is the minstrel’s part to fling Around the present’s common cope, The solemn hues on Memory’s wing, The spiritual light of Hope. The scene that to a careless eye Seems nothing but itself to be, Has charmed earth and haunted sky — Seen as the minstrel’s eye can see. Himself is but an instrument Inspired by that diviner hour, When first Imagination lent To earth its passion and its power."