The Spirit’s Enigma
Eleanora Louisa
Hervey (née Montagu)
Hervey, Eleanora Louisa
Metadata research and editing
DVPP Project Team
Fralick
Kaitlyn
University of Victoria Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry Project
Victoria, BC, Canada
In the public domain
Poem signed E. L. Hervey.
The Chambers’s Journal ledger entry lists the author as Mrs E. Hervey, 30 Marlborough Pl, Brighton, with the payment given as 10s 6d (NLS 341/310). (AC)
Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal
3
13
319
96
Hark to the Spirit !
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The Spirit’s Enigm
a.
Hark to the Spirit !
‘ I am the poet’s day-dream : in the air
Stirred by my wings the voice of Genius speaks.
I sat at mass with Petrarch, when he drew
From Laura’s eyes the fount of melody.
I sped the sigh that rocked St Anna’s walls ;
Wrecked by the cruel world on madness’ shore,
’Twas Tasso’s, for the lady of his lyre
Wailing in music, like a sea-nymph’s shell
Upon Calypso’s strand.’
Hark to the Spirit !
‘ No clime is free from me. I am the bliss
Pictured so oft in old Arcadia—
The shaft which Venus feathered, and the bolt
That shook Olympus. By soft Helle’s wave,
I thrilled Leander upon Hero’s lips.
Pale Sappho at Leucadia wept to me ;
And, led o’er Latmos by her crescent’s light,
I stole with Dian on Endymion’s rest.’
Hark to the Spirit !
‘ I am the crown of empires ; yet the curse
Of kings, who cannot rear the flower they plant
In the hot air of palaces. That power
Was mine which called forth Inez from her tomb,
And set her, livid, on the throne of Spain,
And bade the princes of the land bow down
And pay her fealty. Mine, too, was the wail
That woke in old Jerusalem, where lay
The kingly Herod, Mariamne’s lord :
’Twas I that watched her dust, when it was all
He saw who left it without soul on earth.’
Hark to the Spirit !
‘ I am the mate of Truth ; the strength of all
Who rule their hearts by a diviner law
Than consecrates a king. I was the light
That shone about the forehead of young Ruth,
Gilding the corn-blades which she bore ; the ray
Which pierced the night of Naomi, when the two
Would not be sundered. And, again, I streamed
Broad day into the judgment-court where stood
Firm Rachel by her lord, whose blanched lips cried
To them who offered him a stranger’s help,
“ My wife is here to do it !”’
Hark to the Spirit !
‘ Where’er a dirge is heard, my name is breathed.
The cry of Eve came to me with the first
On whom the Shadow fell in Paradise.
I sat with Rizpah watching by her slain.
With David did I weep o’er Absalom.
And, last, where pierced the thorns on Calvary,
There knelt I with the “ Woman” at the Cross.’
E. L. Hervey
.