Friendship for Charles

Dickens.

Poems contributed to the Athenæum.

striving for name and fame......Mr. Chorley had an extensive acquaintance among men of letters: to mention only Lord Macaulay and Mr. Charles Dickens, will suffice to show that his friends were of the highest intellectual order. His intimacy with the latter lasted until death separated them, and Mr. Chorley has proved in his will how strong was this attachment to the young reporter in the Parliamentary gallery, who commenced his career much about the same time as he did, for he has bequeathed to Miss Dickens an annuity of 2007. for life.”*

The following is a list of the poems contributed by Mr. Chorley to the Athenæum :—

1832. 'Sir Walter Scott's Return to England,' June 30th.

1833. 'Song,' January 26th. 'Dirge,' June 1st. "Lyrics of Home": I. 'Una's Wedding Day,' August 31st; II. 'The Birth of the First-born,'

In a letter addressed to Mr. Hewlett Miss Dickens writes: "After my father's death, and before we left the dear old house, Mr. Chorley wrote and asked me if I would send him a branch off each of our large cedar trees, as a remembrance of the place. My friend, and his dear friend, Mrs. Lehmann, saw him lying calm and peaceful in his coffin, with a large green branch on each side of him......He had given orders that these branches should be laid with him in his coffin. So a piece of the place he loved so much, for its dear master's sake, went down to the grave with him."

September 14th; III. 'The Fallen One's Return,' September 28th; IV. 'The Old Man's Relics,' October 19th; V. 'Marian's Sorrow,' October 26th; VI. 'My Father's Rest,' November 30th.

1835. "Song': "Give me old Music," January 3rd. 'Paganini,' September 12th.

1836. Hymn of the Old Discoverers,' January 30th. A Midsummer Song,' July 9th.

1837. New Year's Song,' December 30th.

1839. The Statue of Joan of Arc at Versailles,' January 19th.

1840. The Poor Poet to the New Year,' January 4th.

1841. 'Mademoiselle Rachel as Camille,' May 15th.

1847. 'The Song of the Besieged,' August 21st. 'The Avalanche,' November 6th. To Pasta,' November 13th. 'Isola Bella,' December 11th.

1848. The First Bright Day,' February 12th. The Ides of March,' March 4th. Thoughts for the Time,' March 18th. 'The Cell on Johannisberg,' March 25th. 'A Thought in the Sunshine,' October 7th. Thoughts for the Time,'

December 16th.

1851. Care's Holiday,' October 18th.

1852. On the Tamino,' July 31st.

1854. Under the Olive Trees,' August 19th.

1857. Manin,' October 10th.

'Hymn of the Old Discoverers.'

1858. Havelock,' January 16th. 'From the Sea,' September 25th.

The following are two of the above-mentioned poems:

HYMN OF THE OLD DISCOVERERS.

Weep not, ye loved ones, though ye say farewell
To kindred pilgrims, bound for climes unknown,
We shall return their wondrous things to tell;

Speak not of peril when your friends are gone-
But drink their health with words of pleasant cheer :
Our hands are strong—our hearts they know not fear.
God is our hope and refuge!

We will not fear, tossed on the ancient sea,

When mighty winds, unchained, do scourge the waves

To foaming madness-and the guilty flee

To prayer too late-and dread of ocean graves
Smites the bold crew-and mocking visions come

Of quiet shaded churchyards far at home!

God is our hope and refuge!

We will not fear, though, shuddering at our feet,

Earth yawn in boundless chasms-though rocks be rent
By pent-up thunders, and with blasting heat

Wide sudden lightnings swathe the firmament—
Though the volcano's flame the stars assail,
And ghastly meteors make the midnight pale.

God is our hope and refuge!

We will not fear, albeit our way we thread

Through some wood-wilderness, where all the night
Cry loud the ravening beasts; and where we tread,

Marsh vapours, and the strange malicious light
Of serpent eyes gleam round us to betray
Our feet, that bleed upon the thorny way—

God is our hope and refuge

Or in the sandy desert, with the sky
Aloft a cloudless plain of aching blue,
And not a speck to tell the straining eye

Of tree, or tent, or fountain to bedew

Parched lips; and when the silence-wearied ear
Thirsts for one human sound-we will not fear :

God is our hope and refuge!

The hurricane is His-the ocean deeps

Own Him their master-He the trackless woods
Regards with eye of love that never sleeps,

And with His presence peoples solitudes :
Faint not then, loved ones! or our toils deplore,
He whom we trust shall bring us back once more-
Our God-our hope-our refuge!

THE STATUE OF JOAN OF ARC AT VERSAILLES.

They imaged thee, of old, in casque and plume,
Bright Maid of France !—with wild and flashing eye,
And round lip wreathed with scornful victory,
Like his who burns for conquest sure to come,
Fired with the future,-careless all, how Doom
Dogs triumph, like a slow-hound, sure and nigh.
Here thou art more a woman: thy low sigh
Heaves the harsh cuirass,-on thy brow, the gloom
Of joy departing broods, though tempered well
With thoughts inspired,―thy hand (unlearned its part)
Grasps the sharp sword with strangeness, not with fear.
Clings yet a memory of thy forest cell,

With its clear, warbling fountain, round thy heart,
One dream of Love and Peace,-though War and Death
are near?

Or marks thine eye-unfaltering 'mid the haze

Of glory's noon,-wide fields of trampled corn? Brave blood like water poured, fair homes forlorn, While thy heart sickens at those stormy days,

The statue of 'Joan of Arc.'

And the shrill cries of Anguish drown the lays
Which hail thee all victorious :-or dost turn
With patient foresight toward awaiting scorn,
The unjust tribunal, the grim faggot's blaze,

And blear-eyed malice gibbering o'er thy grave,
Bright Maid of France?-What sculptor, wise and gray,
Whose practised hand obeyed a master's will,
To marble thus thy musing sadness gave?
Fool!-thinkest thou aught but woman* could pourtray
A woman's deepest heart with such a gentle skill?

* The sculptor was the Duchess of Wurtemburg, whose death is referred to in the prefatory note to the poem.