# Felicia Hemans in The New Monthly Magazine Volume 22 1828/The Beings of the Mind

The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 22, Pages 555-556
THE BEINGS OF THE MIND.
"The Beings of the Mind are not of clay;
 Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray,
 And more beloved existence: that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state
 Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied
First exiles, then replaces what we hate;
 Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void." Childe Harold.
Come to me with your triumphs and your woes,
 Ye forms to life by glorious poets brought!
I sit alone with flowers and vernal boughs,
 In the deep shadow of a voiceless thought;
Midst the glad music of the spring alone,
And sorrowful for visions that are gone.
Come to me! make your thrilling whispers heard,
 Ye, by those masters of the soul endow'd
With life and love, and many a burning word,
 That bursts from grief, like lightning from a cloud,
And smites the heart, till all its chords reply,
As leaves make answer when the wind sweeps by.
Come to me! visit my dim haunt!—the sound
 Of hidden springs is in the grass beneath,
The stock-dove's note above, and all around
 The poesy that with the violet's breath
Floats through the air, in rich and sudden streams,
Mingling, like music, with the soul's deep dreams.
Friends, friends!—for such to my lone heart ye are,—
 Unchanging ones! from whose immortal eyes
The glory melts not as a waning star,
 And the sweet kindness never, never dies,
Bright Children of the Bard! o'er this green dell
Pass once again, and light it with your spell.
Imogen, fair Fidele! meekly blending
 In patient grief, "a smiling with a sigh,"*
And thou, Cordelia! faithful daughter, tending
 That sire, an outcast to the bitter sky,
Thou of the soft low voice!†—thou art not gone!
Still breathes for me its faint and flute-like tone.
And come to me! sing me thy willow-strain,
 Sweet Desdemona! with the sad surprise
In thy beseeching glance, where still, though vain,
 Undimm'd, unquenchable affection lies—
Come, bowing thy young head to wrong and scorn,
As a frail hyacinth by showers o'erborne.
And thou too, fair Ophelia! flowers are here,
 That well might win thy footstep to the spot—
Pale cowslips, meet for maiden's early bier,
 And pansies for sad thought‡—but needed not.
Come with thy wreaths, and all the love and light
In that wild eye still tremulously bright!
And Juliet, vision of the South! enshrining
 All gifts that unto its rich Heaven belong.
The glow, the sweetness, in its rose combining,
 The soul its nightingales pour forth in song;
Thou, making death deep joy—but couldst thou die?
No! thy young love hath immortality!
From Earth's bright faces fades the light of morn,
 From Earth's glad voices drops the joyous tone;
But ye, the Children of the Soul, were born
 Deathless, and for undying love alone;
And oh! ye Beautiful! 'tis well, how well,
In the soul's world with you, where change is not, to dwell!
F. H.
* ↑ * ——————"Nobly he yokes A smiling with a sigh."—Cymbeline, Act 4th.
* ↑ † ——————"Her voice was ever soft, Gentle and low.—Lear, Act 5th.
* ↑ ‡ "There is pansies, that's for thoughts."—Hamlet, Act 4th.