LIBRARY 
 
 ^University of California! 
 IRVINE
 
 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS.
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF AUBREY DE VERB. 
 
 I. THE SEARCH AFTER PROSE LIPINE, AND OTHER PoKVS, CL* 
 
 S1CAL AS I) MElil'l ATI VK. 
 
 II. THE LEGENDS OF ST. PATRICK, AKD LEGENDS OK IRELAND'S 
 HEROIC AGE. 
 
 III. ALEXANDER THE GREAT; SAINT THOMAS OF CANTERBURY: 
 AND OTIIKB POKMS. 
 
 By the same Author. 
 
 LEGENDS OP SAXON SAINTS. 
 
 THE FORAY OF QUEEN HEAVE, 
 
 LEGENDS AND RECORDS OF THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE. 
 (KKGAK PAUL, TRENCH ASD Co.) 
 
 MAY CAROLS. Third Edition, Enlarged and Illustrated. 
 (BtTcxs AKD OATKS.) 
 
 SAINT PETER'S CHAINS. (BUBSS AND GATES.) I/-. 
 
 BY THE LATE SIR AUBREY DE VERE, BART. 
 
 MARY TUDOR: AN HISTOUIOAL DHAMA. 
 (G. BELL AXD Soxs.) zi\ 
 
 JULIAN THE APOSTATE, AND THE DUKE OF MEUCIA (PiCKEiusa.) 
 SONNETS. (PICKEKINQ.)
 
 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS 
 
 fi. ^election. 
 
 JEDITJSD BY 
 
 JOHN DENNIS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "STUDIES IN ENGLISH I.ITKRATURE," AND EDITOR OF 
 "ENGLISH SONNETS: A SELECTION." 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED: 
 
 LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE. 
 
 1890. 
 [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
 
 f/t
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE ... ... Vii 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 SONG WHEN I WAS YOUNG ... ... ... 15 
 
 ,, LOVE LAID DOWN ... ... ... ... 15 
 
 GIVE ME BACK MY HEAKT ... ... 16 
 
 MY HOPE ix II.YPi'iEit DAYS ... ... 17 
 
 CHAUCER ... ... ... ... 17 
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERI-IN.: ... ... ... 19 
 
 GREEK IDYLLS I. GLAUCH ... ... .. 60 
 
 IT. IOXE 62 
 
 ,, ,, III. Lvcius ... ... ... 6-3 
 
 ODE TO THE DAFFODIL ... ... ... ... 68 
 
 Soxa SOFTLY, O MIDNIGHT Houits! ... ... 72 
 
 LOVE AND SORROW ... ... ... ... ... 73 
 
 DEATH IN CHII,;>BIRTII ... ... ... ... 75 
 
 THE DIGNITY OF SORROW ... ... ... ... 75 
 
 LOVE AND CovxsF.r ... 77 
 
 ODE TO IRELAND ... ... ... .. ... 78 
 
 THE BARD ETHELL ... ... ... ... ... 82 
 
 THE WEDDING OF THE CLANS ... ... ... 94 
 
 UNA 96 
 
 FROM PSYCHE; OK, AN OLD POET'S Lovi: ... 97 
 
 A SONG OF AGE ... ... ... 105 
 
 AGE 106 
 
 To BURNS'S HIGHLAND MARY ... ... ... 106 
 
 ODE ON THE ASCENT OF THE ALPS ... ... 112 
 
 LINES WRITTEN UNDER DELPHI . ... 123
 
 Vi CONTENTS. 
 
 SONNETS. PAGE 
 
 "FLOWERS I WOULD BRING" ... ... . 137 
 
 "SHE WHOM THIS HEART" ... ... ... 137 
 
 "THE HAPPIEST LOVERS"... ... ... .. 138 
 
 INCOMPATIBILITY ... ... ... ... ... 132 
 
 HUMAN LIFE ... ... .. ... ... ... 139 
 
 THE SUN GOD 140 
 
 URANIA ... ... ... ... 141 
 
 THE POETRY OF LIFE ... ... ... .. 141 
 
 SORROW ... ... ... ... ... ... 142 
 
 NATIONAL APOSTASY .. ... ... ... 143 
 
 UNIVERSAL HISTORY ... ... ... ... 143 
 
 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ... ... ... ... 144 
 
 "Foil WE THE MIGHTY MOUNTAIN PLAINS" ... 145 
 
 "HAPPY ARE THEY" ... ... 145 
 
 "THE SPRING OF MY SWEET LIFE" ... . . 146 
 
 I. EOBERT BROWNING ... .. 147 
 
 II. ROBERT BROWNING ... ... ... ... 147 
 
 A WINTER NIGHT IN THE WOODS ... .. 148 
 
 I. MEMORIAL ... ... ... 149 
 
 II. MEMORIAL ... ... 149 
 
 III. MEMORIAL 150 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF... ... ... ... 151 
 
 THE THREE STATES OF WOMANHOOD ... ... 158 
 
 THE COMBAT AT THE FORD ... ... ... 165 
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT'... ... 180 
 
 C.V.DMON THE COWHERD ... ... ... ... 206 
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY 230 
 
 ON VISITING A HAUNT OF COLERIDGE'S ... ... 252 
 
 THE DEATH OF COPERNICUS ... ... ... 256 
 
 AUTUMNAL ODE 273
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 MR. DE VERB'S poetry, like good wine, needs no 
 bush ; but a few remarks by way of introducing 
 this selection to the public may not be out of 
 place. 
 
 Verse of a fine order is not necessarily popular. 
 If it deal with large issues and does not appeal to 
 momentary interests, if it be free from all attempts 
 to catch the trick of the time, and expresses the 
 nobler and more permanent aspects of human life, 
 it will in all likelihood fail for a while to reach the 
 position it can justly claim. A "fit audience" 
 will, indeed, gladly listen to the poetic voice and 
 appreciate its beauty ; but, invaluable though this 
 judgment may be, since it indicates in a measure the 
 verdict of futurity, it is not all-sufficing. A poet's 
 hope is to touch the heart of his nation, even if 
 like Milton he be content with a world so small 
 and it is his joy to know that thoughts which have 
 given pleasure to him are diffusing pleasure far and 
 wide. This is surely an ambition which a man
 
 8 AUBEEY DE VERB'S POEMS, 
 
 conscious of high powers may not unreasonably 
 indulge. 
 
 It has been Mr. de Vere's object, as it was that 
 of his great predecessor Wordsworth, not only to 
 find his own reward in a career dedicated to poetry, 
 but to dignify life as well as to adorn it. Hi.s aim is 
 a high one, and is, therefore, not so readily un- 
 derstood, as if his mark were directed at a lower 
 object. One of the most thoughtful poets of the 
 age, it is possible that sometimes, though very 
 rarely, his weight of matter may interfere with his 
 art as a poet. The first object of poetry is to 
 give delight, and it is only through the joy 
 yielded by song that the poet can express his 
 wisdom. If he fail to please as a singer, his 
 efforts as a teacher will fail also. But the source 
 of pleasure may lie deep, and a poet may de- 
 mand much from his readers before he gives 
 them the delight they crave. It is so with 
 Mr. de Vere. Our love of his poetry is rarely love 
 at first sight. His genius burns with a steady 
 flame. He stands at the antipodes to the spas- 
 modic poets once so popular, whose every page 
 dazzled us, not indeed with fire from Heaven, but 
 with sudden flashes as from a policeman's lantern.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Mr. de Yere makes no effort to allure the ears of 
 the groundlings. " No poet of our day," it has been 
 well said, "has done more to rouse his readers 
 from petty and passing interests ; no poet has 
 struggled with nobler perseverance to make his 
 readers look up towards the fountains of poetry." 
 
 Whether Mr. de Vere has been always happy in 
 the choice of subjects, it is difficult to say does; 
 not a poet make his subject as well as choose it 1 
 but it is not to be accounted strange that the 
 legends which he relates with such admirable 
 force and lucidity have in a measure failed to at- 
 tract the public. The simplicity and directness of 
 the epic are out of harmony with an age which 
 prefers melodious verbiage to thought, and delights 
 more in fantastical tricks of style than any period 
 since the days of Donne and Cowley. To conceits 
 of this kind no countenance has been given by 
 Lord Tennyson, or by his friend Mr. de Yere, who 
 while occupying a different and entirely original 
 place in the spacious realm of poetry, resembles 
 the Laureate in mastery of language, in vividness 
 of perception, and in freedom from eccentricity. 
 
 I have been suggesting a reason why Mr. de 
 Vere's poetry is not yet so widely known as one
 
 10 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 may hope it will some day be. Perhaps there is 
 yet another. One of the signs of the times is 
 pessimism, and another is a disregard of conscience. 
 It has become a kind of fashion to extol the 
 philosophy of Schopenhauer, who declared human 
 life to be so wretched "that utter annihilation 
 would be decidedly preferable ; " and to praise 
 Walt Whitman, with his rejection of moral re- 
 sponsibility, and his nakedness that knows no 
 shame, as the great poet of the age. But Mr. de 
 Vere is a Christian poet, and it is not necessary to 
 accept all the dogmas of his Church I for one 
 am unable to do so in order to appreciate the 
 high standing he takes, and the faith and 
 cheerful hope with which this ^Christian belief 
 inspires his pages. His poetry appeals to us in our 
 best moments, not through the direct instruction 
 which is ever fatal to noble verse, but through 
 the spirit that animates the whole. 
 
 All critics will admit that Mr. de Vere is a 
 master of his instrument, and is capable of ex- 
 pressing a variety of harmonies. Each depart- 
 ment of his verse is, I hope, illustrated in this 
 Anthology. His sonnets may vie with the sweetest 
 and subtlest sonnets of the century ; his odes have
 
 PKEFACE. 11 
 
 the " pride and ample pinion '' of a singer who 
 on rising to his heaven of invention has left the 
 earth far beneath him ; his classic fancy has 
 delightful play in the " Search after Proserpine," 
 a comparatively early poem, while the influence 
 of Greece is expressed in another but not less sig- 
 nificant way in the " Lines written under Delphi." 
 
 Dramas written for the closet and not for the 
 stage are somewhat of an anomaly, but the success 
 of Sir Henry Taylor, and the achievement of Mr. 
 de Vere's father, Sir Aubrey de Vere, whose 
 " Mary Tudor " deserves far more recognition 
 than it has received, may well have led the poet 
 to make a similar venture. " Alexander the 
 Great " is a noble drama, and it seems almost a 
 sin to mutilate such a work of art by extracts. 
 Yet I am unwilling to pass it by altogether, and 
 I hope that the following passage from a review by 
 one of the first critics of the day will suffice, if my 
 selection fails, to show readers how worthy of 
 their study is this highly poetical work. 
 
 After alluding to the difficulty of composing a 
 drama, the scenes of which are always changing 
 as the hero passes from country to country, the 
 writer adds :
 
 12 AUBREY DE VERE S POEMS. 
 
 " The apparent difficulty of the enterprise is, 
 when surmounted, a measure of the skill and im- 
 aginative insight of the poet ; and certainly in this 
 case the enterprise appears to us to have been 
 singularly successful. With hardly any of the 
 common materials of dramatic interest, without 
 any story of love that is not of the slightest kind, 
 and absolutely subordinate to religious or political 
 obligations, with nothing but the tale of heroic 
 ambition for the chief subject of the tragedy, Mr. 
 de Vere has yet not only rivetted our interest on 
 his drama from the very beginning, but deepened 
 that interest with every act and almost every 
 scene to the truly tragic, and yet, in the truest 
 sense, satisfying close." 
 
 Of Mr. de Vere's scope and charm as a writer 
 of songs and lyrics, this volume may convey 
 perhaps sufficient illustration. They will prove 
 to some readers the most attractive part of the 
 book, but apart from the odes and sonnets, I 
 venture to think that there is no portion of the 
 verse illustrated, more characteristic of the poet's 
 genius, which is both deeply reflective and vividly 
 imaginative, than such poems as " Csedmon the 
 Cowherd," "The Death of Copernicus," and
 
 PKKFACE. 13 
 
 " Bede's Last May." " The Legends of St. Patrick " 
 having been already published in Messrs. Cassell's 
 National Library it has been thought well to 
 select nothing from a poem produced in so popular 
 a form, but this need not hinder me saying 
 that some of the poet's most characteristic verse is 
 to be found in that little volume. The poem 
 consists of fifteen legends, "The Striving of St. 
 Patrick on Mount Cruachan " being perhaps the 
 most striking. 
 
 Nothing more remains to be said, since this 
 is not the place for an elaborate criticism of Mr. 
 de Vere's poetry. All I have wished to do in 
 these introductory remarks is to point out to 
 readers at present ignorant of the poet's work a 
 few of its prominent features. 
 
 J.D.
 
 IN A FEW POEMS OMISSIONS HAVE BEEN MADE 
 WITH THE AUTHOR'S APPKOVAL.
 
 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 3^. Selection. 
 POEMS. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 WHEN I was young, I said to Sorrow 
 ' Come, and I will play with, thee : ' 
 He is near me now all day, 
 And at night returns to say, 
 
 I will come again to-morrow, 
 
 I will come and stay with thee.' 
 
 Through the woods we walk together ; 
 
 His soft footsteps rustle nigh me ; 
 
 To shield an unregarded head 
 
 He hath built a winter shed ; 
 
 And all night long in rainy weather, 
 I hear his gentle breathings by me. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 LOVE laid down his golden head 
 
 On his mother's knee ; 
 ' The world runs round so fast,' he said, 
 
 ' None has time for me.'
 
 16 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Thought, a sage unhonoured, turned 
 From the on-rushing crew ; 
 
 Song her starry legend spurned ; 
 Art her glass down threw. 
 
 lloll on, blind world, upon thy track 
 Until thy wheels catch fire ! 
 
 But that is gone which comes not back 
 To seller nor to buyer ! 
 
 80NO. 
 
 GIVE me back my heart, fair child ; 
 
 To you as yet 'twere worth but little ; 
 Half beguiler, half beguiled, 
 
 Be you warned, your own is brittle. 
 
 ' Hid it ! dropt it on the moors ! 
 
 ' Lost it and you cannot find it ' 
 My own heart I want, not yours : 
 
 You have bound and must unbind it 
 
 Fling it from you ; youth is strong ; 
 
 Love is trouble, love is folly ; 
 Love, that makes an old heart young 
 
 Makes a young heart melancholy.
 
 CHAUCER. 17 
 
 SONG. 
 
 MY hope, in happier days than these ; 
 
 My love hope past ; 
 Memory's one star on lonely seas ; 
 
 My anchor, last ! 
 Why ask'st thou with subdued surprise 
 
 And that mild glee 
 Wherefore I turn, still turn mine eyes 
 
 From all, to thee 1 
 
 The blind man turns and none forbids 
 
 Into sunshine 
 His filmy, cold, unlighted lids : 
 
 The deaf incline 
 Toward harps whence songs for them unborn 
 
 Float, light and free ; 
 To graves long cherished, hearts forlorn ! 
 
 And I to thee. 
 
 CH AUGER. 
 
 ESCAPED from the city, its smoke, its glare, 
 'Tis pleasant, showers over and birds in chorus, 
 
 To sit in green alleys and breathe cool air 
 Which the violet only has breathed before us ! 
 
 B
 
 38 AUBREY DE VEKE'S POEMS. 
 
 Such healthful solace is ours, forsaking 
 
 The glass-growth of modern and modish rhyme 
 
 For the music of days when the Muse was breaking 
 On Chaucer's pleasance like dawn's sweet prime. 
 
 Hands rubbed together smell still of earth ; 
 
 The hot-bed verse has a hot-bed taint ; 
 'Tis sense turned sour, its cynical mirth ; 
 
 'Tis pride, its darkness ; its blush, 'tis paint. 
 
 His song was a feast where thought and jest 
 Like monk and franklin alike found place ; 
 
 Good Will's Round Table ! There sat as guest 
 Shakesperean insight with Spenser's grace. 
 
 His England lay laughing in Faith's bright morn ! 
 
 Life in his eye looked as rosy and round 
 As the cheek of the huntsman that blows on the horn 
 
 When the stag leaps up and loud bays the hound. 
 
 King Edward's tourney, fair Blanche's court, 
 Their clarions, their lutes in his verse live on ; 
 
 But he loved better the birds' consort 
 Under oaks of Woodstock while rose the sun. 
 
 The cloister, the war-field tented and brave, 
 The shout of the burghers in hostel or hall, 
 
 The embassy grave over ocean's wave, 
 
 And Petrarch's converse he loved them all.
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 19 
 
 In Spring, when the breast of the lime-grove 
 
 gathers 
 Its roseate cloud ; when the flushed streams 
 
 sing, 
 
 And the mavis tricks her in gayer feathers, 
 Head Chaucer then ; for Chaucer is Spring ! 
 
 On lonely evenings in dull Novembers, 
 When rills run choked under skies of lead, 
 
 And on forest-hearths the year's last embers, 
 Wind-heaped and glowing, lie, yellow and red, 
 
 Read Chaucer still ! In his ivied beaker 
 With knights and wood-gods and saints em- 
 bossed, 
 
 Spring hides her head till the wintry breaker 
 Thunders no more on the far-off coast. 
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 
 
 OF all the beautiful fictions of Greek Mythology there are 
 few more exquisite than the story of Proserpine, and none 
 deeper in symbolical meaning. Considering the fable with 
 reference to the physical world, Bacon says, in his "Wisdom 
 of the Ancients," that by the Rape of Proserpine is signified 
 the disappearance of flowers at the end of the year, when 
 the vital juices are, as it were, drawn down to the central 
 darkness and held there in bondage. The fable has, how- 
 ever, its moral significance also, being connected with that
 
 20 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 great mystery of Joy and Grief, of Life and Death, which 
 pressed so heavily on the mind of Pagan Greece, and im- 
 parts to the whole of her mythology a profound interest, 
 spiritual as well as philosophical. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 IN SICILY. 
 
 Ceres, Fountain Nymphs. 
 
 CERES. 
 I. 
 
 THROUGH every region I have sought her ; 
 Each shore has answered back my moan : 
 As Summer slides from zone to zone 
 Winding Earth's beauty in his own 
 
 Thus, seeking thee, my long lost daughter, 
 I wander ever, sad and lone. 
 Empty in Heaven my throne remains ; 
 Unblest expand my harvest plains. 
 
 n. 
 I've searched the deep Sicilian meads, 
 
 And sacred Latium, where of yore 
 
 Saturn hid his forehead hoar ; 
 I've sought her by the Alphean reeds ; 
 
 Where solitary Cyclops squanders 
 
 On the unlistening oleanders 
 Vain song that makes the sea-wells quiver 
 I've sought my child, and seek for ever.
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 21 
 
 TIL 
 
 By Cretan lawns and vales oak-sprinkled, 
 By sands of Libya, brown and wrinkled, 
 And where for leagues, o'er Nile, is borne 
 The murmur of the yellowing corn, 
 And where o'er Ida's sea-like plain 
 White, waving harvests mock the main ; 
 Past Taurus, and past Caucasus, 
 Have I been vainly wandering thus ; 
 
 In vain the Heavens my absence mourn, 
 And Iris' self in vain is faint 
 With wafting down their old complaint ; 
 
 O'er earth, unresting though outworn, 
 
 I roam for aye a shape forlorn. 
 Hark, hark they sing 
 
 FOUNTAIN NYMPHS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Proserpina was playing 
 
 In the soft Sicilian clime, 
 'Mid a thousand damsels maying 
 
 All budding to their prime : 
 From their regions azure-blazing 
 The Immortal Concourse gazing 
 Bent down and sought in vain 
 Another shape of earth so meet with them to 
 reign.
 
 22 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 n. 
 
 The steep blue arch above her 
 
 In Jove's own smiles arrayed 
 Shone mild, and seemed to love her : 
 
 His steeds Apollo stayed : 
 Soon as the God espied her 
 Nought else he saw beside her, 
 Though in that happy clime 
 
 A thousand maids were verging to the fulness of 
 their prime. 
 
 in. 
 Old venerable Ocean 
 
 Against the meads uprolled 
 With ever-young emotion 
 
 His tides of blue and gold : 
 He had called with pomp and paean 
 From his well -beloved ^Egean 
 
 All billows to one shore, 
 
 To fawn around her footsteps aud in murmurs to 
 adore. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Proserpina was playing 
 
 Sicilian flowers among ; 
 Amid the tall flowers straying : 
 
 Alas ! she strayed too long !
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 23 
 
 Sometimes she bent and kissed them, 
 Sometimes her hands caressed them, 
 
 And sometimes, one by one, 
 She gathered them and tenderly enclosed them in 
 her zone. 
 
 Lay upon your lips your fingers 
 
 Ceres comes, and full of woe ; 
 Sad she comes, and often lingers ; 
 
 Well that grief divine I know : 
 Lay upon your lips your fingers ; 
 Crush not as you run the grass ; 
 Let the little bells of glass 
 
 On the fountain blinking 
 Burst, but ring not till she pass, 
 
 Down in silence sinking. 
 By the green scarf arching o'er her, 
 
 By her mantle yellow-pale, 
 By those blue weeds bent before her, 
 
 Bent as in a gale, 
 
 Well I know her hush, descend 
 Hither her green-tracked footsteps wend. 
 
 CERES. 
 
 Fair nymphs ! whose music o'er the meadows 
 
 gliding 
 
 Hath been your gentle herald, and for me 
 A guide obsequious to this spot fair nymphs !
 
 24 ATTBERY DE VEEE'S POEMS. 
 
 Fair graceful nymphs, my daughter's sweet com- 
 panions, 
 
 Say, say but where she dwells ; claiming from me, 
 In turn, what boon you will 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 
 Alas, we know not ! 
 
 CEEES. 
 
 May the pure ripple of your founts for ever 
 Leap up, unsoiled, against their verdurous banks ; 
 May your fresh kisses ripple up as lightly, 
 As softly, and with undiscovering noise, 
 Against the embowering arms of prisoning lovers, 
 Shadowing the charms they seek ! 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 
 We have no lovers. 
 CEBES. 
 
 No, and need none. Alas, Proserpina, 
 Thou wert as these ! so innocent no fountain, 
 Nor half so gay ; no flower so light, so fair. 
 Ah, fair mild Nymphs, my daughter's sweet com- 
 panions ! 
 
 May Jove, as ye run by, make blind the eyes 
 Of Wood-gods and the Fauns ; in matted ivy 
 Tangle their beards ; catch them in sudden clefts
 
 THE SEARCH AFTEE PROSERPINE. 25 
 
 Of deep-mossed stems, till ye have glided by 
 But tell me where she dwells. 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 
 Goddess ! we know not. 
 
 CERES. 
 
 Tell me then how ye lost her 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 
 We were playing 
 
 After our caverned sleep which the high Clods 
 Sent us while Phoebus flamed too near the earth, 
 We played like summer bees involved and 
 
 sang; 
 Some combing pearls from sandy slopes, some 
 
 blowing 
 
 In shells, or lily-tubes our watery conchs ; 
 When suddenly rolled forth long peals of thunder 
 Far, far below. Earth shook ; trembling we sank 
 Into our beds, amazed : when up we floated 
 A divine darkness hovered o'er the earth, 
 And from that moment we have had no flowers ; 
 No flower since then in flower-famed Sicily ! 
 And we no more behold Proserpina 
 That played with us so sweetly. We have made 
 A melody that tells of her and sing it 
 Lest we should grieve.
 
 26 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 CERES. 
 
 Yes, I have heard your song : 
 Still the same tale the words themselves un- 
 changed 
 Know yon no more ? 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 
 Goddess, not wide our knowledge ! 
 Phoebus cares nought for Nymphs, lonely flower- 
 bathers ; 
 
 Nor other prophet see we. Yet of late 
 Our vales are flushed with new strange visitants ; 
 Their tumult ofttimes as the sun descends 
 Shakes us within our lily -paved pavilions ; 
 And when we look abroad along the marge 
 The inland vales, shaggy with pine and ilex, 
 That catch like nets those boy-nymphs, the light 
 
 Zephyrs, 
 
 Are filled with riot. From all sides they rush 
 Mad Gods, with russet brows the west outfacing, 
 And wands tossed high ; in song the lawns are 
 
 drowned. 
 
 Help us, great Jove ! Fair Goddess, once it chanced 
 As this red festival came reeling by, 
 Over the fount in which trembling we lay 
 Some Wood-god crushed a wreath of poisonous 
 berries
 
 THE SEABCH AFTEE PROSERPINE. 27 
 
 Laughing ; and our bright home all crimson grew, 
 So that we wept I pray you, gentle Goddess, 
 Protect us from these Gods. 
 
 CERES. 
 
 Ha ! Bacchus here ! 
 I thought my little late-born enemy 
 Lay hid in Hellas. What, and merry grown, 
 With revellers ! then haply he hath stolen 
 My beauteous child. Mild nymphs, my child's 
 
 companions ! 
 
 Mild, silver-footed nymphs with silver songs ! 
 Where dwell those Wood-gods when they come 
 not hither ? 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 At Naxos, Fame reports ; an unblessed isle. 
 
 CERES. 
 Farewell, sweet nymphs ; from them, and from all 
 
 perils 
 
 May Jove defend you well ! I seek those Gods, 
 And I will pray them that they hurt you not. 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 
 First Semichorus. 
 Without aid of plumes 
 
 Light-footing the sea brino, 
 The dimness she illumes 
 
 Of evening's gray decline ;
 
 28 AUBREY DE VEKE's POEMS. 
 
 The wild streams, proud to waft her, 
 
 In dappled purple glide, 
 With- a shadowed green track after, 
 
 And a sunny green beside. 
 
 Second Semichorus. 
 Down, nymphs, into the waters ! 
 
 The air is rough with sighs, 
 The earth is red with slaughters ; 
 
 Down, down, and seldom rise ! 
 Our crystal dome above us, 
 
 And the star-dome yet more high, 
 Nor care nor pain can move us 
 
 Whilst here we laugh and lie ! 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 NAXOS. 
 
 Ceres, Wood-gods. 
 CEEES. 
 
 A Bacchic wood ! the pine stems and old oaks 
 Are swathed with crimson under their green 
 
 shadows ! 
 
 A wilderness of wood ! within its ambush 
 Armies of men might lurk. Above the trees 
 A gloom voluptuous undulates and hovers 
 Like a dark fleece of wine-dewed gossamer. 
 The caverns, as I pass them, mildly breathe
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 29 
 
 A colder current of wine-scented air 
 
 Into my face. Ha, ha, a tiger's roar ! 
 
 And now a din of resonant wild laughter 
 
 That makes the forest like a reed-pipe ring. 
 
 The very beasts have caught the infectious 
 
 madness, 
 
 And ramp with sport irreverent on high Gods. 
 Down, leopard, down ha, myriad-mooned panther, 
 Away ! 'tis well for you this almond branch 
 Is sheathed in flowers Sicilia feeds no longer ; 
 That cry had else been louder. Hark, they come ! 
 
 FAUNS AND WOOD-GODS. 
 
 First Strophe. 
 Lift, lift the vine-wreathed goblet up, 
 
 Where lies the tierce wine darkling ; 
 Now Bacchus leaps from out the cup : 
 
 See, see his black eyes sparkling ! 
 Hark, how the bubbles upward throw 
 
 A low song and soft coiling ; 
 'Tis Bacchus' self that laughs below, 
 
 To keep his red fount boiling 1 
 
 First Antistrophe. 
 Great Bacchus with his conquering hands 
 
 Upraised the far-sought treasure 
 Of all the oceans, all the lands 
 
 Afloat in one wild pleasure.
 
 30 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Lo ! how it plunges, rolls, and sweeps ! 
 
 Great Bacchus bathes beneath it ; 
 What odour from the eddy leaps ! 
 
 Great Bacchus' self doth breathe it. 
 
 Second Strophe. 
 Through us he rises from the ground ; 
 
 These sharp-leaved chaplets draw him 
 Into our tresses ivy-crowned : 
 
 In purple flames I saw him ! 
 Lift every thyrsus high and higher ; 
 
 While round and round ye wind them 
 Great Bacchus turns the air to fire, 
 
 Wide crowns of fire behind them ! 
 
 Second Antistrophe. 
 Drink, drink to Bacchus, every limb 
 
 With wine will soon be glowing : 
 He drinks to those that drink to him, 
 
 Himself on all bestowing. 
 Into the hearts of all his wards 
 
 He pours, like streams from Pindus, 
 The strength and speed of all the pards 
 
 That rolled his car by Indus ! 
 
 CERES. 
 
 O Fauns and Satyrs of the merry forests ! 
 Sharp-hoofed, long-horned, nymph-dreaded deities !
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 31 
 
 Grant me this hour your aid. Secrets I know 
 Of herbs grass-hidden and medicinal blossoms 
 Whereof one leaf, into your cups distilled, 
 Would make them rise into a fount of foam 
 Wide as the broad arch of yon flowering myrtle : 
 Those secrets shall be yours only restore me 
 My infant child. 
 
 FAUNS. 
 
 O venerable Goddess ! 
 Large-browed, large-eyed, presence august and 
 
 holy! 
 In our green forests dwells no infant child. 
 
 CERES. 
 
 But she is now in truth no infant child 
 As when I laid her 'mid the sacred flowers 
 Of Sicily, with Nymphs for her young nurses 
 And tender playmates. 
 
 FAUNS. 
 
 Venerable Goddess ! 
 No child have we beheld, nor ever shall, 
 With mien like thine. 
 
 CERES. 
 
 Ah ! she was not like me ! 
 I was her mother ; but like her no more
 
 32 ' AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Than the dark ground is like some flower, star- 
 bright, 
 That from it springs, and o'er it waves in beauty. 
 
 FAUNS. 
 
 In Sicily you lost her ? 
 
 CEBES. 
 
 Wood-gods, yes. 
 
 FIBST FAUN. 
 
 And I remember now in that soft isle 
 
 Such creature we beheld as you have lost 
 
 Upon a vernal bank she sat alone 
 
 Among the aerial mounds and honeyed meadows ; 
 
 Wearied she seemed, yet smiled in weariness, 
 
 And, as a garden, was with bright flowers crowned ; 
 
 Many she held upon her lap, and many 
 
 Fell down about her feet ; her feet gleamed through 
 
 them. 
 
 Strange fear, albeit to fear unused, we felt ; 
 And, beckoning to each other, slow retired. 
 Since then in vain we seek her. 
 
 CEKES. 
 
 Woodland Go<ls ! 
 Was she not fair ? 
 
 SECOND FAUN. 
 
 So fair that on the earth 
 Is left no longer any shape of beauty.
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 33 
 
 Well spake yon, calling her your infant child. 
 
 Such light was on her brow within her eyes 
 
 Such gleam immediate of celestial gladness 
 
 A child she seemed, by that inspiring clime 
 
 Divinely ripened in one summer day 
 
 To full perfection of virginal beauty. 
 
 Not far the playmate nymphs their wild hymns 
 
 sang, 
 
 Like birds new-touched by the enamouring season : 
 While we went back dreading the wrath of Jove. 
 
 CERES. 
 
 Since she is lost those songs are heard no more. 
 In vain the sea-worn mariners suspend 
 Long time their oars amid the drifting spray ; 
 In vain the home bound shepherds pause and 
 
 listen ; 
 Nor any flower is seen. 
 
 FAUNS. 
 
 Maternal Goddess ! 
 Still in one spot lingers a wreath of flowers. 
 
 CERES. 
 'Tis strange those flowers, where are they 1 
 
 FAUNS. 
 
 At the entrance 
 
 Of a long glen, that sinks in dimness down 
 From the proud pastures arched along the sea, 
 o
 
 34 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 CEKES. 
 
 Ha, Woodland Gods ! that was her place of play ; 
 A haunt unknown to men. 
 
 FAUNS. 
 
 Hark, hark, 'tis Bacchus ! 
 
 CERES* 
 
 But tell me, Gods 
 
 FAUNS. 
 
 We thirst, we thirst for wine ; 
 Give, give us wine, and we will stay with you ; 
 Roll it in deep floods forth from cleft and cavern. 
 
 CERES. 
 
 Stay, Wood-gods, stay ! 
 
 FAUNS. 
 
 Ha, ha, that laugh ; 'tis Bacchus ! 
 (They rush past singing.) 
 
 First Strophe. 
 Hour by hour the vines are growing 
 
 Over pine and over rock ; 
 The blood, like fire within them flowing, 
 
 With bounding pulse and merry shock 
 Each green spray uplifts and pushes 
 Till the loftiest ridge it brushes.
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 35 
 
 First Antistrophe. 
 Hour by hour great Bacchus nurses 
 
 The wide wreaths of his anadem ; 
 In him they meet, and he disperses 
 
 Himself o'er all the world in them. 
 The mountains of all seas and lands, 
 He grasps them in his thousand hands. 
 
 The gums from yonder pine-bough dropping 
 Like fire-lit jewels darkly shine ; 
 
 The ivy-wreaths yon goat is cropping 
 Are drenched in mist of purple wine : 
 
 The Vine, a honey-venomed snake, 
 
 Hath bit and swollen each brier and brake. 
 
 Second Antistrophe. 
 The forest burgeons giant-flowers 
 
 As on this generous food it feeds ; 
 Warming its roots in crimson showers 
 
 That bead the earth with Bacchic seeds : 
 A sacred wood : his house of mirth 
 The God that conquers all the earth ! 
 
 Epode. 
 The carpets of these halls of joyaunce 
 
 Uplift us with so fierce a spring, 
 That we, to balance that upbuoyaunce, 
 
 Deep draught on draught are forced to fling.
 
 36 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Hark, hark, his laugh ! we cannot stay ; 
 Blue skies, farewell ! away, away ! 
 
 CERES. 
 
 To Sicily once more. Lo ! how these vines 
 Have grown about me ! never infant yet 
 Tangled like this young Bacchus his embraces ; 
 Not one upon the earth ! another year 
 And half my kingdom he'll have won from me 
 As Hermes robbed Apollo of his herd. 
 No feastful, sunlit mound, or yellow hill, 
 Will sing, at evening, anthems unto me ; 
 No shelving corn-field on the mountain-slope 
 Make westering Phoebus, while askance he peers 
 Down through the pale stems, green with jealousy. 
 Parnassian weed, away ! ah, lost Proserpina ! 
 Thou, thou wert as my flowers unsought for mine, 
 And then, once mine, more dear than all my 
 
 wealth ! 
 
 The Gods in their Olympian mansions know 
 Nothing of grief : children they too have lost ; 
 But never mourned as I have. Surely I 
 Have caught from Earth some portion of her 
 
 sadness, 
 
 And heart maternal of Humanity. 
 To Sicily once more. O fair Sicilia ! 
 Those flowers they saw, whence came they and 
 
 what mean they 1 ?
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 37 
 
 That must my search discover ; I must see them ; 
 When I behold them I shall see once more 
 What I in vain desire my child's fair eyes. 
 Down, vine-wreaths, down ! I break from you 
 away. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 SICILIAN SEA. 
 
 (Nereids sing.) 
 
 Strophe. 
 Far off the storms were dying ; 
 
 The Sea-nymphs and Sea-gods 
 On new-lulled billows lying, 
 
 With tridents and pearl-rods, 
 Upon their sliding thrones 
 
 And beds of waving waters 
 Reclined august, old Ocean's sons 
 
 And the choir of his foam-white daughters. 
 
 Antistrophe. 
 Into their deep conchs blowing 
 
 They smoothed the scowling waves, 
 And the great sea-music forth flowing 
 
 Was echoed in the glassy caves. 
 There was no sound but song 
 
 Save now and then far under, 
 When an ocean monster streamed along 
 
 With a roll of Ocean's thunder.
 
 38 AUBREX DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Epode. 
 Tlien Iris, lightly dropping, 
 
 Leaped from her cloudy screen, 
 And lit on a wave down-sloping 
 
 In floods of crimson -green : 
 A moment its neck she trod, 
 
 And cried, 'The Gods of Heaven 
 'Are coming to feast with the Ocoan-god, 
 
 'So Jove has sworn, this even.' 
 
 GLAUCJ;. 
 
 Fair Sisters, ocean-cradled, wave-revered ! 
 
 Holds not this evening well the morning's pledge ? 
 
 Salt gust no more ; nor airy arc, down-showering 
 
 Into the dim green, rain of sunny gems 
 
 Or crowns celestial ; crystal chasm no more 
 
 By harsh winds crushed to murmuring foam 
 
 abysses ; 
 
 But, wide o'er all a plenitude of light 
 Serene as that which sits on Jove's great brow ; 
 And breeze as equable as Juno's breath. 
 
 AUTONOE. 
 
 And, Sisters, mark ! along yon opal Heaven 
 And sea of agate and chalcedony 
 The promised pageant spreads. We shall behold 
 The mighty head of Jove, rich-tressed, supreme, 
 Sacred and strong and fair and venerable,
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 39 
 
 With golden sceptre and obedient eagle : 
 And we shall gaze on Juno's large mild eyes, 
 And the sea-born Queen of Beauty, her who runs 
 Over the swelling hearts of Gods and men 
 As Thetis glides over the ocean waves ; 
 A nd, dearer still to us, the graceful form 
 Of Hebe, solitary nymph of Heaven, 
 Alone among the Gods and yet not lonely. 
 Thus Iris spake. 
 
 EUDORA. 
 
 Fair Iris ! dropped she then 
 This morn from Heaven, her ocean spoils to 
 
 gather ? 
 
 I knew it not, for on the Libyan sands 
 All day I rolled a great smooth shell, too great 
 To clasp or carry : but my tears are past, 
 Since we shall gaze upon high Gods. 
 
 GLAUCB. 
 
 Lo, there ! 
 
 How the red west inflames the deep ! Methinks 
 That merry God, conqueror of many a land, 
 His banners over ocean too is waving ; 
 To Britain will he drive us, end of earth ? 
 See, I have dropped my bracelet. 
 
 AUTONOE. 
 
 Over ocean 
 
 That God advances ; dark-rimmed Naxian shores
 
 40 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Already with his tendril nets are swathed, 
 Yea and the Naxian billows ; all day long 
 We toss them backward from our foam-white 
 
 bosoms, 
 And beds of billows, to their beds of sand. 
 
 EUDORA. 
 
 And maids of earth he mocks at worse than us : 
 Last eve, by yonder meadow I was floating, 
 Pillowing my cheek upon a sleepy wave 
 And barkening to an inland pipe remote 
 When suddenly the purpled shore resounded 
 With tumult harsh ; and concourse I beheld 
 Of Wood-gods on the sands, leaping and laugh- 
 ing; 
 
 And why '? because a gentle maid of earth 
 That with her mortal playmate had been straying 
 Beneath the bank, oppressed perhaps with sleep, 
 (Who knows ] I know not), when she thought not 
 
 of it, 
 In vine-nets prisoned lay : The Wood-gods 
 
 mocked ! 
 Bacchus such puissance hath 
 
 GLATJC& 
 
 How wretched those 
 That dwell on Earth ! alas, I pity them ! 
 On that rough, heavy element opaque
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 41 
 
 What lovely light can glimmer 1 None can tell 
 Wherefore the high Gods shaped the hump-backed 
 Earth ! 
 
 EUDORA. 
 
 NTay, Sister, when the forests slant as now 
 
 From the ridged mountains to the wine-black 
 
 sea, 
 
 And Phoebus on their gold and vermeil roof 
 Looks brightly, while the winds rush under them, 
 Then hath the Earth her beauty yea, a gleam 
 Like our Autonoe, when her sun-loved tresses 
 Upon a green rock loosening she flings forth, 
 Laughing, into some monster's briny eyes. 
 
 AUTONOE. 
 
 You speak well, Sister, courteous like the Gods ; 
 And blossoming fruit-trees, spangled with sea 
 
 spray, 
 
 Are fair indeed at sunrise : Earth hath gleams 
 As Nubian slaves their gems ; yet how forlorn 
 And like a slave's her downcast countenance ! 
 Her hues are not like ocean's, coloured lights, 
 But coloured shades ; dim shadows painted o'er ; 
 Yea and the motions of her trees and harvests 
 Resemble those of slaves, reluctant, slow, 
 By outward force compelled ; not like our billows, 
 Springing elastic in impetuous joy, 
 Or indolently swayed.
 
 42 AUBREY'DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 EUDORA. 
 
 Not less o'erawed 
 Are those that dwell on Earth, harsh-speaking 
 
 Mortals. 
 
 One eve, it chanced, into a glen I wandered, 
 In garb a boy : unwonted weight I felt ; 
 The shades moved not ; dull odours thronged the 
 
 air ; 
 Up from the ground a dense, blunt sound was 
 
 rushing ; 
 
 All creatures ranged as though beneath their feet 
 Down to Earth's centre chains unseen were hung, 
 And languid browsed as from necessity 
 Not joy, their faint sighs leaving on the grass. 
 All things were sad ; sadly I wandered on 
 To where there lay a something large and black, 
 And panting ; some Immortal deeming it, 
 With reverence I was passing, when, behold ! 
 Hard by there stood a company of Mortals, 
 Wailing ; and myrrh on myrrh, and oil on oil, 
 O'er it in grief they flung ; it was a pyre : 
 Homeward I turned abashed, and weeping much 
 For Man's unhappy race, so fair yet sad, 
 By Jove's great wrath oppressed and shame of 
 
 death ; 
 
 Yes, and weep still ; for know you, gentle Sisters, 
 Though Gods themselves should dwell upon the 
 
 Earth,
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 43 
 
 Grief they must feel ; the affliction men call love, 
 Or hunger, or the grave. 
 
 AUTONOE. 
 
 Down, Sisters, down ! 
 In sorrow footing the bright ocean-way 
 I .see that form half human, all divine : 
 Tis Ceres ; plunge we down ! No nymph she 
 
 loves 
 Save her child's mates. 
 
 GLAUCk 
 
 Yea, and of those is jealous 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 TUB SICILIAN SHOHE. 
 
 Ceres, Fountain Nymphs. 
 CERES. 
 
 Inconstant waves, farewell : I love you not : 
 
 Earth, 1 salute thee, fruitful, though in sorrow. 
 
 Still on ! my search, though vain, is all my rest. 
 
 One flower of hers, to this sad bosom folded, 
 
 Will give it back its old Olympian calm. 
 
 The nymphs sing low : O for thy songs, Proser- 
 pina, 
 
 That woke the ice-bound streams, while old 
 boughs leaped 
 
 Though dead, into the glory of fresh blossoms !
 
 44 AUBREY DE VEEE'S POEMS. 
 
 (fountain Nymphs sing.) 
 
 I. 
 Proserpina was lying 
 
 Against her ebon throne ; 
 Alternating long sighing 
 
 With a shudder and a moan : 
 The dull Lethean river 
 
 Whose breath the nightshade breeds 
 Went toiling on for ever 
 
 Through the forest of its reeds : 
 ' O mother, I was playing 
 
 ' 'Mid the soft Sicilian air 
 ' For ever must I languish 
 ' In this empire of Despair ! ' 
 
 IT. 
 With wide and sable gleaming 
 
 In chains decreed of old 
 Through grey morasses streaming 
 
 That ancient river rolled : 
 The hemlock borders under 
 
 Drave the voluminous flood, 
 With a low, soft, sleepy thunder 
 That thrilled the stagnant blood : 
 ' O mother, I was playing 
 
 ' 'Mid the soft Sicilian air 
 ' For ever must I languish 
 ' In this empire of Despair ! '
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 45 
 
 III. 
 
 No bird was there to warble, 
 
 The wind was void of sound ; 
 Vast caves of jet-black marble 
 
 Were yawning all around ; 
 No placid Heaven, blue-tented, 
 
 Its dome above her spread ; 
 Like clouds the Souls tormented 
 Were drifting overhead : 
 ' O mother, I was playing 
 
 ' 'Mid the soft Sicilian air 
 ' For ever must I languish 
 1 In this empire of Despair ! ' 
 
 IV. 
 
 Darkness but faintly chequered 
 
 Possessed that region dim, 
 Save one white cloud that nickered 
 
 Above the horizon's rim ; 
 Under the dreary lustre 
 
 It cast in flakes and showers 
 Up rose afar the cluster 
 Of Pluto's palace towers : 
 ' mother, I was playing 
 
 ' 'Mid the soft Sicilian air 
 'For ever must I languish 
 ' In this empire of Despair ! "
 
 46 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 V. 
 
 Proserpina for ever 
 
 Thereon her large eyes kept 
 While gusts from that cold river 
 
 Her tresses backward swept ; 
 Ever in sadness lying 
 
 Against her ebon throne, 
 With her melancholy sighing 
 Half smothered in a moan : 
 ' mother, I was playing 
 
 ' 'Mid the soft Sicilian air 
 
 ' Must I languish here for ever 
 
 ' In this empire of Despair 1 ' 
 
 CERES. 
 
 O Nymphs, where found you that despondent 
 
 song? 
 And why this funeral chime 1 She is immortal. 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 
 Immortal truly, venerable Goddess ! 
 And yet in Erebus she dwells ; and plays 
 No more ; no flowers to play with finds she there. 
 
 CERES. 
 How know you this ? 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 
 Last eve we wandered forth 
 By fugitive rainbows lured and rain- washed grass
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 47 
 
 To that deep valley where we lost our playmate ; 
 And for the first time past it. In one spot 
 We found, with joy astonished, crowds of flowers ; 
 Flowers of all kinds, each larger than its kind, 
 And brighter : wandering here and there among 
 
 them, 
 
 Behold two mighty chariot tracks ! deep fissures, 
 Burning and black, to where the opposing bank 
 Locked in and barred the vale : the rocks were 
 
 split ; 
 
 Dull vapours hovering o'er them. In a moment 
 The truth flashed on us, and we heard, yea felt 
 Once more, that subterraneous thunder roll. 
 The King of Darkness, Monarch sole below, 
 Looked up and saw thy child, and thirsted for 
 
 her ; 
 
 And snatched her to his shades : In Erebus 
 Thy daughter dwells. 
 
 CERES. 
 
 No song, no fable this ! 
 
 Ah flower ! pure lily among the unfruitful shades 
 White lonely lamp of all the Elysian darkness ! 
 Ah child ! the daughter of an unblest fate, 
 Thou hast no mother now : thou hast forgotten 
 That e'er thou hadst a mother Woe, woe, woe ! 
 The imperial diadem doth mock that brow, 
 The sceptre doth subdue that little hand
 
 48 AUBREY DE VEBE's POEMS. 
 
 More than the Shades, thy subjects ! Gentle 
 
 nymphs, 
 Let me behold that spot. 
 
 FIRST NYMPH. 
 
 With slow, sad foot 
 
 On grey autumnal eves, the Nymphs themselves 
 With slow, sad foot, o'er the dim grass steal on 
 Advance ! no bounding step, fair sister Nymphs ; 
 No bounding step, or jubilant, reckless song. 
 Lo, there the gleam ! a breeze, a sigh divine 
 Is ever sweeping o'er those tremulous flowers, 
 Troubling their dews that fall not, held, like tears 
 In melancholy eyes O fair, fair flowers ! 
 Ye, as she dropped you, instantly took root, 
 Arid fade not ever. Immortality 
 Ye caught from the last pressure of those hands ; 
 Immortal were ye though the world should die. 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 First Semichorus. 
 Looks divine, divinely chastened, 
 
 Sad eyes, on the saddened ground 
 As by spells eternal fastened, 
 
 Folded hands, and locks unbound ! 
 Deeper, every moment deeper, 
 
 Pierce those eyes her daughter's shroud ; 
 The earth to this immortal weeper 
 
 Grows half transparent as a cloud ;
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 49 
 
 And her ears even now are ringing 
 With old Lethe's mournful singing. 
 
 Second Semichorus. 
 
 But see, on high the blue is riven ! 
 
 That radiance ! Hermes it must be ! 
 Around him smiles the flattered Heaven ; 
 
 No Apollonian flight hath he 
 Right onward, nor the stormy wrath 
 
 Of Jove's great Eagle earthward rushing, 
 But winds along in serpent path 
 
 Through maiden airs around him flushing 
 With winged feet and rod upholden, 
 Enwreathed with mild Persuasions golden. 
 
 HERMES. 
 
 Hermes, rnild herald of the Gods, I come, 
 
 Bearing the grace of Jove, upon my lips 
 
 Distilled high kiss of heavenly benediction. 
 
 Goddess to Mortals and Immortals dear, 
 
 Be of good cheer : Proserpina, beloved 
 
 Of all the blest Olympians, sceptred sits 
 
 In Tartarus ; sole bride of him that sways 
 
 The world heroic of Departed Souls ; 
 
 A child although a Queen ; and, though a spouse, 
 
 Yet virgin ever ; tempering the deep heart 
 
 Of Pluto, and to all the Shades as dear 
 
 As Dian to the night, or to the waves
 
 50 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 The foam-dividing star of Aphrodite. 
 Sacred and well beloved a Mystery 
 Fares she not well 1 Maternal Goddess ! raise 
 The large dejected orbs of thy fair eyes, 
 And gaze on him upon whose brow doth meet 
 The light of all the Gods giving command : 
 Look up and speak ! 
 
 CERES. 
 
 Mild herald Mercury ! 
 
 Thy voice is in mine ears ; winged and sweet 
 Ever its tones ; brightening all hearts, like Heaven 
 When Jove looks up : but now, unwonted softness 
 Melts through their pauses. Dost thou pity me ? 
 Then herald God, auspicious guide of Shades, 
 Mighty art thou in the Unbeloved Abode ; 
 Restore, restore my child ! 
 
 HERMES. 
 
 Not comfort only, 
 
 Deep-bosomed Goddess, grave, and dulcet-voiced, 
 But aid I bear : and need there is of both. 
 Alone she sits beyond the utmost bound 
 Of laughter from the Gods, or shaft Phoabean, 
 And thou art justly restless for thine own. 
 Hear then the ordinance of Jove ; descend ! . 
 Yon rock shall like a billow arch thy way ; 
 Descend into the Stygian waste ; behold 
 Once more thy tender daughter face to face ;
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 51 
 
 Kiss her once more, once more upon thy knee 
 And in thine arms possess her. This is much : 
 Yet more : if seed not yet of flower or fruit 
 Unblessed have touched her lips, henceforth and 
 
 ever 
 
 With thee she dwells in sweet society. 
 Descend ! the Will of Jove before thee running 
 Makes smooth thy path, and the Caducean charm 
 Waved from this wand, around thy feet shall 
 
 beckon 
 
 A quire of bright Immortals fit to grace 
 The steps of a departing Deity. 
 Ethereal Seasons ! from the snowy clouds 
 Your ambient nests on cold autumnal days 
 Hover once more about this spot ; and ye 
 Gift-feathered Hours at Heaven's wide gate for 
 
 ever 
 
 On broad and billowy wing suspense, the cord 
 Aerial, that detains you bursting fly 
 With unreverting faces to the earth, 
 And breathe a sudden spring on valley and plain : 
 And ye, infantine Zephyrs, on whose lips 
 The Gods have breathed ; thou too, delight of 
 
 Heaven, 
 
 Iris ! descend ; and o'er the shadowy glen 
 Thy many coloured scarf from both thy hands 
 Fling wide, and cast the brightest of thy smiles 
 Upon the head of this descending Power.
 
 52 AUBREY DE VERE's POEMS. 
 
 FIRST NYMPH. 
 
 Behold ! into the chasm she walks. 
 
 SECOND NYMPH. 
 
 But lo ! 
 
 How rich a splendour burns on yonder bank ! 
 The trees grow lustrous as Apollo's locks ; 
 Between the arch of yon suspended bow 
 And the green hollow, flows a low deep music, 
 With light songs o'er it playing in wantonness ; 
 Hark, hark, once more. 
 
 (The Hours Sing.) 
 
 Strophe. 
 A beam on Earth's chill bosom 
 
 Falls pointed 'mid her sleep ; 
 And leaf and bud and blossom 
 
 Up from their dull trance leap ; 
 That beam at Earth's dim centre 
 Hath found the mailed Winter, 
 
 And touched his snow-cold lips ; 
 Upon his breast that beam doth rest 
 
 And frost-bound finger tips. 
 
 Antistrophe. 
 
 From deep grass gently heaving 
 Quick flowers in myriads rise, 
 
 A wreath for Winter weaving ; 
 It falls below his eyes ;
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 53 
 
 His old grey beard it covers 
 Like locks of mirthful lovers ; 
 
 It makes him laugh with pride, 
 As he a youth had grown in sooth 
 
 And found a youthful Bride. 
 
 (The Zephyrs sing.) 
 
 Strophe. 
 The bright-lipped waters troubling 
 
 Of the cold Olympian springs, 
 We caught the airs up-bubbling 
 
 And stayed them with our wings ; 
 From the beginning sealed 
 Like sweet thoughts unrevealed 
 
 Those airs till then lay hid ; 
 Like odours barred in buds yet hard 
 
 Or the eye beneath the lid. 
 
 Antistrophe. 
 Our pinions mildly swaying 
 
 With an undulating grace 
 We bid those airs go playing 
 
 Over Earth's beaming face ; 
 On the laurel banks new-flowered, 
 On the ridge of pine dew-showered, 
 
 On every leaf and blade 
 That leaps on wings and all but sings 
 
 In sunshine or in shade !
 
 54 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 (Hours and Zephyrs sing together.) 
 
 Stroplie. 
 Over the olives hovering, 
 
 Brushing the myrtle bowers, 
 Dark ground with blossoms covering 
 
 The Zephyrs and the Hours 
 With laugh and gentle mocking 
 We play, the green boughs rocking, 
 
 Above each other rolled 
 From laurel leaf to laurel leaf 
 
 That sing like tongues of gold ! 
 
 Antistrophe. 
 
 Now like birds fast flitting 
 Ou from bough to bough, 
 Like bees in sunshine knitting 
 Murmuring mazes now ; 
 Parting oft oft blending, 
 And for ever sending 
 Spangled showers around, 
 With eddying streams of scents and gleams, 
 And deep Olympian sound. 
 
 (Sicilian Nymphs singing.) 
 
 First Strophe. 
 Numbers softer than our own 
 
 And in happier circle running 
 Like Flora's crown or Venus' zone 
 They are braiding in their cunning.
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 55 
 
 All the God-thronged air is glowing 
 
 With a ferment of delight, 
 All the flowers in rapture blowing 
 
 Every moment swell more bright 
 And higher round the pale stems clamber 
 In vermilion wreaths or amber. 
 
 First Antistrophe. 
 Half in terror, half in pleasure, 
 
 Little birds on warm boughs waking 
 Launch abroad a rival measure, 
 
 Floral births with songs o'ertaking : 
 O'er the shadows little lights 
 
 And o'er little lights a shadow 
 Bound along like gamesome sprites 
 
 On the green waves of the meadow ; 
 And new streams are up and boiling, 
 And new insects round them coiling. 
 
 Second Strophe. 
 On one side a cedarn alley, 
 
 On the other a myrrh brake, 
 Downward streams the mystic valley 
 
 As flushed rivers their path take 
 By hills their devious waters curbing ; 
 
 Airs ambrosial forth are swung 
 From boughs their crimson fruitage orbing ; 
 
 Iris, borne those airs among
 
 56 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Flings o'er the dim wildernesses 
 Her illumed dishevelled tresses. 
 
 Second Antistrophe. 
 Through a mist of sunny rays 
 
 Gleam bright eyes and pinions shiver ; 
 O'er the mountain's breast of bays 
 
 Panting dew-gems bask and quiver ; 
 All the Gods with silent greeting 
 
 In this sumptuous harbour met 
 Make the palace of their meeting 
 
 Ivich as Juno's cabinet, 
 Golden-domed and golden-gated, 
 With sacred pleasures never sated. 
 
 Hush wild song, no more ! 
 
 Nor dance of lyric lightness 
 A shadow from the shore 
 
 Steals and blots the brightness. 
 
 Like children tired of play 
 
 The splendours melt away : 
 
 Trips by each elf mark ! Iris' self 
 
 Dissolves in waning whiteness. 
 
 IRIS. 
 
 I have but leaped from out my airy lustres 
 To plant my white foot palpably on Earth. 
 Fair nymphs, this shadow soon, too soon, will 
 reach
 
 THE SEABCH AFTER PROSERPINE. 57 
 
 The front now bright of that descended Goddess. 
 Her lost one she hath found alas, too late. 
 Seeds of a Stygian fruit have passed her lips ! 
 Three fatal seeds ! Proserpina hath sucked 
 Into her being, the dark element. 
 And yet lament not ; Ceres' self shall learn 
 Comfort and divine solace from her child. 
 What the Gods could not give, her child, though 
 
 sad, 
 
 Yet fraught with sweetness of Elysian wisdom, 
 Bestows upon the Mother. From this hour 
 Let every mortal Mother that hath given 
 A child from her own heart into the Shades, 
 Live and take comfort ; they shall meet again. 
 Let every mourner in the Past who buries 
 An innocent delight, be sure henceforth 
 That in the Future a large treasure-house, 
 It doth await him. Gentle Nymphs, weep not ; 
 Those parted lips, those smooth and candid 
 
 brows 
 
 Were not for mourners fashioned, sigh or shadow, 
 But for pure breathing of celestial airs, 
 And gracing a light garland. 
 
 NYMPHS. 
 
 Mild-eyed Goddess ! 
 Must we no more behold Proserpina 1 
 Must flower-famed Sicily have no more flowers ?
 
 58 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 IRIS. 
 
 I see the end, and therefore I am glad, 
 
 1 that look down into the smallest dewdrop, 
 
 Yet in my bright arch clasp the end of all : 
 
 And, whether I descend, the adorned cradle 
 
 Of some young flower to rock, or fatally 
 
 To cut the locks of some expiring King, 
 
 My task is kind, and Comforter my name. 
 
 Fear nought ; Proserpina shall rise once more ; 
 
 For Jove is clement ; and a Mother's prayers 
 
 Ofttimes of fateful power against the Fates. 
 
 One half the year in darkness dwells she throned 
 
 A Queen ; one half she plays, a child on Earth, 
 
 Flower-crowned, and constant 'mid inconstancy, 
 
 Whether Narcissus now, or Daffodil 
 
 Her choice persuade ; or mysteries in the cups 
 
 Of Cowslips through thick honey scarce espied, 
 
 Or Primroses moon-lighted all day long, 
 
 Or fabled Pansy, or Anemone 
 
 Wind-chidden, or the red all-conquering Rose, 
 
 Enchain her youthful heart or other flowers, 
 
 Named on the Earth but nameless still in 
 
 Heaven, 
 
 Subdue her, each in turn or all at once. 
 Mild nymphs, farewell ! To Juno, large-eyed 
 
 Queen, 
 
 Whose Herald fair I boast myself, once rnpre 
 I speed.
 
 THE SEARCH AFTEK PROSERPINE. 69 
 
 (Nymphs descend, singing.) 
 
 Strophe. 
 Proserpina once more 
 
 Will come to us a- Maying ; 
 Sicilian meadows o'er 
 
 Low-singing and light-playing, 
 The wintry durance past, 
 Delight will come at last : 
 Proserpina will come to us 
 
 Will come to us a-Maying. 
 
 Antidrophe. 
 Sullen skies to-day, 
 
 Sunny skies to-morrow ; 
 November steals from May, 
 
 And May from her doth borrow ; 
 Griefs Joys in Time's strange dance 
 Interchangeably advance ; 
 The sweetest joys that come to us 
 
 Come sweeter for past sorrow.
 
 60 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 GREEK IDYLLS. 
 
 I.GLAUCE. 
 
 I LOVE you, pretty maid, for you are young : 
 I love you, pretty maid, for you are fair: 
 I love you, pretty maid, for you love me. 
 
 They tell me that, a babe, smiling you gazed 
 Upon the stars, with open, asking eyes, 
 And tremulous lips apart. Erelong, self-taught, 
 You found for every star and every flower 
 Legends and names and fables sweet and new. 
 
 O that when far away I still might see thee ! 
 
 How oft when wearied with the din of life 
 
 On thee mine eyes would rest, thy Grecian heavens 
 
 Brightening that orbed brow 
 
 Hesper should shine upon thee, lamp of Love, 
 
 Beneath whose radiance thou wert born. O 
 
 Hesper ! 
 Thee will I love and reverence evermore. 
 
 Bind up that shining hair into a knot 
 And let me see that polished neck of thine 
 Uprising from the bed snow-soft, snow-white 
 In which it rests so gracefully ! What God 
 Hath drawn upon thy forehead's ivory plane
 
 61 
 
 Those two clear streaks of sweet and glistening 
 
 black 
 
 Lifted in earnest mirth or lovely awe ? 
 Open those Pleiad eyes, liquid and tender, 
 And let me lose myself among their depths ! 
 Caress me with thy infant hands, and tell me 
 Old tales divine that love makes ever new 
 Of Gods and men entoiled in flowery nets, 
 Of heroes sighing all their youth away, 
 And Troy, death-sentenced by those Argive eyes. 
 
 Come forth, dear maid, the day is calm and cool, 
 And bright though sunless. Like a long green 
 
 scarf, 
 
 The tall Pines crowning yon grey promontory 
 In distant ether hang, and cut the sea. 
 But lovers better love the dell, for there 
 Each is the other's world. How indolently 
 The tops of those pale poplars bend and sway 
 Over the violet-braided river's brim ! 
 Whence comes their motion, for no wind is heard, 
 And the long grasses move not, nor the reeds 1 
 Here we will sit, and watch the rushes lying 
 Like locks along the leaden-coloured stream 
 Far off and thou, O child, shalt talk to me 
 Of Naiads and their loves. A blissful life 
 They lead, who live beneath the flowing waters : 
 They cherish calm and think the sea- weeds fair ;
 
 62 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMh. 
 
 They love each other's beauty ; love to stand 
 Among the lilies, holding back their tresses 
 And listening, with their gentle cheek reclined 
 Upon the flood to some far melody 
 Of Pan or shepherd piping in lone woods, 
 Until the unconscious tears run down their face. 
 Mild are their loves, nor burdensome their 
 
 thoughts 
 I would that such a life were mine and thine ! 
 
 IT. ION& 
 
 IONE, fifteen years have o'er you passed, 
 And, taking nothing from you in their flight, 
 Have given you much. You look like one for whom 
 The day has morning only, time but Spring. 
 Your eyes are large and calm, your lips serene, 
 As if no Winter with your dreams commingled, 
 You that dream always, or that never dream ! 
 
 Dear maid, you should have been a shepherdess 
 But no : ill tended then your flocks had strayed. 
 Young fawns you should have led ; such fawns as 
 
 once 
 
 The quivered Queen had spared to startle ! Then 
 Within your hand a willow wand, -your brow 
 Wreathed with red roses heavier for warm rains,
 
 IONE. 63 
 
 How sweetly, with half-serious countenance, 
 Through the green alleys had you ta'en your way ! 
 And they, your spotted train, how happily 
 Would they have gambolled by you happiest she 
 The milk-white creature in the silver chain ! 
 
 lone, lay the tapestry down : come forth 
 No golden ringlet shall you add this morn 
 To bright Apollo : and poor Daphne there ! 
 Without her verdant branches she must rest 
 Another day a cruel tale, sweet girl ! 
 
 You will not 1 Then farewell our loves for ever ! 
 
 We are too far unlike : not Cyclops more 
 
 Unlike that Galatea whom he wooed. 
 
 I love the loud-resounding sea divine ; 
 
 I love the wintry sunset, and the stress 
 
 Inexorable of wide-wasting storms ; 
 
 I love the waste of foam-washed promontories, 
 
 The singing of the topmost mountain pines 
 
 In safety heard far down, the ringing sleet, 
 
 Thunder, and all portentous change that makes 
 
 The mind of mortals like to suns eclipsed 
 
 Waning in icy terrors. These to you 
 
 Are nothing. On the ivied banks you lie 
 
 In deep green valleys grey with noontide dew : 
 
 There bathe your feet in bubbling springs, your 
 
 hands 
 Playing with the moist pansies near your face.
 
 64 AUBBEY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 These bowers are musical with nightingales 
 
 Morning and noon and night. Among these rocks 
 
 A lovely life is that you lead ; but I 
 
 Will make it lovelier with some pretty gift 
 
 If you are constant to me ! Constant never 
 
 Was Nymph or Nereid : like the waves they 
 
 change, 
 
 O Nymph, so change not thou ! A boat I'll make 
 Scooped from a pine ; yourself shall learn to row it 
 Swifter than winds or sounds can fleet ; or else 
 Your scarf shall be the sail, and you shall glide, 
 While the stars drop their light upon the bay, 
 On like a bird between the double heaven. 
 Are these but trivial joys ? Ah me ! fresh leaves 
 Gladden the forests, but no second life 
 Invests our branches ; feathers new make bright 
 The birds, but when our affluent locks desert us 
 No Spring restores them. Dried-up streams once 
 
 more 
 
 The laughing Nymphs replenish, but man's life, 
 By fate drawn down and smothered in the sands, 
 Never looks up. Alas, my sweet lone, 
 Alcaeus also loved ; but in his arms 
 Finds rest no more the songful Lesbian maid, 
 Her breast all shaken by the storm of song, 
 Or thrills of song unborn ! 
 The indignant hand attesting Gods and men 
 Achilles lifts no more ; to dust is turned
 
 LYCIUS. 65 
 
 His harp that glittered through the wild sea spray 
 Though the black wave falls yet on Ilion's shore. 
 All things must die the Songs themselves, except 
 The devout hymn of grateful love ; or hers, 
 The wild swan's, chanting her death melody. 
 
 III. LYCIUS. 
 
 LYCIUS ! the female race is all the same ! 
 All variable, as the Poets tell us ; 
 Mad through caprice half way 'twixt men and 
 children. 
 
 Acasta, mildest late of all our maids,. 
 Colder and calmer than a sacred well, 
 Is now more changed than Spring lias changed 
 
 these woods ; 
 Hers is the fault, not mine. Yourself shall judge. 
 
 From Epidaurus, where for three long days 
 With Nicias I had stayed, honouring the God, 
 Last evening we returned. The way was dull 
 And vexed with mountains : tired ere long was I 
 From warding off the oleander boughs 
 Which, as my comrade o'er the stream's dry bed 
 Pushed on, closed backward on my mule and me ; 
 The flies maintained a melody unblest ; 
 

 
 66 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 While Nicias, of his wreath Nemean proud, 
 
 Sang of the Satyrs and the Nymphs all day 
 
 Like one by ^Esculapius fever-smitten. 
 
 Arrived at eve, we bathed and drank, and ate 
 
 Of figs and olives till our souls exulted : 
 
 Lastly we slept like Gods. When morning shone 
 
 So filled was I with weariness and sleep 
 
 That as a log till noon I lay, then rose 
 
 And in the bath-room sat. While, there I 
 
 languished 
 
 Reading that old, divine and holy tale 
 Of sad Isrnene and Antigone, 
 Two warm soft hands around me sudden flung 
 Closed both my eyes ; and a clear, shrill, sweet 
 
 laughter 
 
 Told me that she it was, Acasta's self, 
 That brake upon my dreams. ' What would yon, 
 
 child r 
 
 ' Child, Child,' Acasta cried ! 'I am no child 
 You do me wrong in calling me a child ! 
 Come with me to the willowy river's brim : 
 There read, if you must read.' 
 
 Her eyes not less 
 
 Than hands uplifted me, and forth we strayed. 
 O'er all the Argolic plain Apollo's shafts 
 So fiercely fell, methought the least had slain 
 A second Python. From that theatre
 
 LYCIUS. 67 
 
 Hewn in the rock the Argive tumult rolled : 
 
 Before the fane of Juno seven vast oxen 
 
 Lowed loud, denouncing Heaven ere yet they fell ; 
 
 While from the hill-girt meadows rose a scent 
 
 So rich, the salt sea odours vainly strove 
 
 To pierce those fumes it curled about my brain, 
 
 And sting the nimbler spirits. Nodding I watched 
 
 The pale herbs from the parched bank that trailed 
 
 Bathing delighted in voluptuous cold 
 
 And scarcely swayed by the slow winding stream. 
 
 I heard a sigh I asked not whence it came. 
 
 At last a breeze went by, to glossy waves 
 
 Rippling the steely flood ; I noted then 
 
 The reflex of the poplar stem thereon 
 
 Curled into spiral wreaths and toward me darting 
 
 Like a long, shining water-snake : I laughed 
 
 To see its restlessness. Acasta cried 
 
 ' Read if you will not speak or look at me ! ' 
 
 Unconsciously I glanced upon the page, 
 
 Bent o'er it, and began to chant that song 
 
 'Favoured by "Love are they that love not deeply,' 
 
 When leaping from my side she snatched the scroll, 
 
 Into the river dashed it, bounded by, 
 
 And, no word spoken, left me there alone. 
 
 Lycius ! I see you smile ; but know you not 
 Nothing is trifling which the Muse records, 
 And lovers love to muse on ? Let the Gods
 
 68 AUBEEY DE VEEE's POEMS. 
 
 Act as to them seems fitting. Hermes loved 
 
 Phoebus loved also but the hearts of Gods 
 
 Are everlasting like the suns and stars. 
 
 Their loves as transient as the clouds. For me 
 
 A peaceful life is all I seek, and far 
 
 Removed from cares and from the female kind ! 
 
 ODE TO THE DAFFODIL. 
 
 L 
 
 O LOVE-STAE of the unbeloved March, 
 When, cold and shrill, 
 
 Forth flows beneath a low, dim-lighted arch 
 The wind that beats sharp crag and barren hill 
 And keeps unfilmed the lately torpid rill ! 
 
 n. 
 
 A week or e'er 
 
 Thou com'st thy soul is round us everywhere, 
 And many an auspice, many an omen, 
 Whispers, scarce noted, thou art coming : 
 Huge, cloudlike trees grow dense with sprays and 
 
 buds 
 
 And cast a shapelier gloom o'er freshening grass ; 
 And through the fringe of ragged woods 
 More shrouded sunbeams pass :
 
 ODE TO THE DAFFODIL. 69 
 
 Fresh shoots conceal the pollard's spike 
 
 The driving rack out-braving ; 
 The hedge swells large by ditch and dike ; 
 And all the uncolo tired world is like 
 
 A shadow-limned engraving. 
 
 HL 
 
 Herald and harbinger ! with thee 
 Begins the year's great jubilee ! 
 
 Of her solemnities sublime 
 A sacristan whose gusty taper 
 Flashes through earliest morning vapour 
 
 Thou ring'st dark nocturns and dim prime. 
 Birds that have yet no heart for song 
 
 Gain strength with thee to twitter ; 
 And, warm at last, where hollies throng 
 
 The mirrored sunbeams glitter. 
 With silk the osier plumes her tendrils thin : 
 
 Sweet blasts, though keen as sweet, the blue 
 
 lake wrinkle : 
 And buds on leafless boughs begin 
 
 Against grey skies to twinkle. 
 
 IT. 
 
 To thee belongs 
 
 A pathos drowned in later scents and songs ! 
 Thou com'st when first the Spring 
 On Winter's verge encroaches ;
 
 70 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 When gifts that speed on wounded wing 
 
 Meet little save reproaches ! 
 Thou com'st when blossoms blighted 
 
 Retracted sweets, and ditty 
 From suppliants oft deceived and spited 
 
 More anger draw than pity ! 
 Thee the old shepherd on the bleak hill-side 
 
 Far distant eyeing leans upon his staff 
 Till from his cheek the wind-brushed tear is dried. 
 
 In thee he spells his boyhood's epitaph. 
 To thee belongs the yoimgling of the flock 
 
 When first it lies, close-huddled from the cold, 
 Between the sheltering rock 
 
 And gorse-bush slowly overcrept with gold. 
 
 v. 
 
 Thou laugh'st, bold outcast bright as brave, 
 When the wood bellows and the cave, 
 And leagues inland is heard the wave ! 
 
 Hating the dainty and the fine 
 
 As sings the blackbird thou dost shine ! 
 Thou com'st while yet on mountain lawns high up 
 
 Lurks the last snow, while by the berried breer 
 As yet the black spring in its craggy cup 
 
 No music makes or charms no listening ear. 
 Thou com'st while from the oak stock or red beech 
 Dead Autumn scoffs young Spring with splenetic 
 speech ;
 
 ODE TO THE DAFFODIL. 71 
 
 When in her vidual chastity the Year 
 With frozen memories of the sacred past 
 Her doors and heart makes fast, 
 And loves no flower save those that deck the bier : 
 Ere yet the blossomed sycamore 
 With golden surf is curdled o'er ; 
 Ere yet the birch against the blue 
 Her silken tissue weaves anew. 
 Thou com'st while, meteor-like 'mid fens, the weed 
 Swims wan in light ; while sleet -showers 
 
 whitening glare ; 
 
 Weeks ere by river brims, new furred, the reed 
 Leans its green javelin level in the air. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Child of the strong and strenuous East ! 
 Now scattered wide o'er dusk hill bases, 
 Now massed in broad illuminate spaces : 
 
 Torchbearer at a wedding feast 
 Whereof thou mayst not be partaker. 
 But mime, at most, and merrymaker ; 
 Phosphor of an ungrateful sun 
 That rises but to bid thy lamp begone : 
 Farewell ! I saw 
 
 Writ large on woods and lawns to-day that Law 
 Which back remands thy race and thee 
 To hero-haunted shades of dark Persephone. 
 To-day the Spring has pledged her marriage vow :
 
 72 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Her voice, late tremulous, strong has grown and 
 
 steady : 
 To-day the Spring is crowned a queen : but thou 
 
 Thy winter hast already ! 
 Take my song's blessing, and depart, 
 
 Type of true service unrequited heart. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 L 
 
 Softly, O midnight Hours ! 
 
 Move softly o'er the bowers 
 Where lies in happy sleep a girl so fair ! 
 
 For ye have power, men say, 
 
 Our hearts in sleep to sway, 
 And cage cold fancies in a moonlight snare. 
 
 Hound ivory neck and arm 
 
 Enclasp a separate charm : 
 
 Hang o'er her poised ; but breathe nor sigh nor 
 prayer : 
 
 Silently ye may smile, 
 
 But hold your breath the while, 
 And let the wind sweep back your cloudy hair ! 
 
 IL 
 
 Bend down your glittering urns 
 Ere yet the dawn returns
 
 LOVE AND SOEEOW. 73 
 
 And star with dew the lawn her feet shall tread ; 
 
 Upon the air rain balm ; 
 
 Bid all the woods be calm ; 
 Ambrosial dreams with healthful slumbers wed ; 
 
 That so the Maiden may 
 
 With smiles your care repay 
 When from her couch she lifts her golden head ; 
 
 Waking with earliest birds, 
 
 Ere yet the misty herds 
 Leave warm 'mid the grey grass their dusky bed. 
 
 LOVE AND SORROW. 
 
 WHEREVEE under bowers of myrtle 
 Love, summer-tressed and vernal-eyed, 
 
 At morn or eve is seen to wander 
 A dark- eyed girl is at his side. 
 
 No eye beholds the Virgin gliding 
 
 Unsandalled through the thicket's glooms ; 
 
 Yet some have marked her shadow moving 
 Like twilight o'er the whiter blooms. 
 
 A golden bow the Brother carries, 
 
 A silver flute the Sister bears : 
 And ever at the fatal moment 
 
 The notes and arrows fly in pairs.
 
 74 AUBREY DE VEKE'S POEMS. 
 
 She rests her flute upon her bosom 
 While up to heaven his bow he rears, 
 
 And as her kisses make it tremble 
 That flute is moistened by her tears. 
 
 The lovely twain were born together, 
 And in the same shell-cradle laid, 
 
 By one sea-murmur lulled to slumber, 
 Together slept, and sleeping played 
 
 With hands into each other's woven 
 And whispering lips that seem to teach 
 
 Each other in their rosy motion 
 What still their favourites learn from each. 
 
 Proud of her boy, the Mother showed him 
 
 To mortal and immortal eye ; 
 ]>ut hid, because she loved her dearer, 
 
 The deeper, sweeter Mystery. 
 
 Accept them both, or hope for neither, 
 Love-seeking Youth or Maid love-lorn, 
 
 For Grief has come where Love is welcome, 
 And Love will comfort those who mourn.
 
 THE DIGNITY OF SORROW. 75 
 
 DEATH IN CHILDBIRTH. 
 
 SWEET Martyr of thine Infant and thy Love, 
 
 what a death is thine ! 
 
 Is this to die ? Then, Love ! henceforth approve 
 This, this of all thy gifts the most divine ! 
 Grave she needs not : Matrons, cover 
 Her white bed with flowers all over ; 
 With the dark, cool violets swathing 
 
 A full bosom mother-hearted ; 
 Under lily shadows bathing 
 
 Brows whose anguish hath departed. 
 Life with others, Death with thee 
 Plays a grave game smilingly 
 O Death not Death ! through worlds of bliss 
 
 The happy new-born Soul is straying ! 
 O Death not Death ! thy Babe in this, 
 An Angel on the earth, is playing I 
 
 THE DIGNITY OF SORROW. 
 
 L 
 I HAVE not seen you since the Shadow fell 
 
 From Heaven against your door ; 
 I know not if you bear your sorrow well ; 
 I only know your hearth is cold ; your floor 
 Will feel that soft and gliding tread no more.
 
 76 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 II. 
 
 I know our ancient friendship now is over ; 
 
 I can love still and so will not complain ; 
 
 I have not loved in vain ; 
 Taught long that Art of Sadness to discover 
 
 Which draws stern solace from the wells of pain. 
 You love the dead alone ; or you have lost 
 The power and life of Love in time's untimely 
 frost. 
 
 in. 
 You have stood up in the great Monarch's court 
 
 The court of Death ; in spirit you have seen 
 
 His lonely shades serene 
 Where all the mighty men of old resort : 
 
 The eyes of Proserpine 
 Heavy and black have rested upon thine. 
 Her vintage, wine from laurel-berries prest, 
 
 You raised and laid you then the chalice down 
 
 Scared by that Queen's inevitable frown, 
 Just as the marble touched your panting breast ? 
 
 O ! in the mirror of that poison cold 
 
 What Shadow or what Shape did you behold ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 And she is dead : and you have long been dying ; 
 And are recovered, and live on. O, Friend ; 
 
 Say, what shall be the end 
 Of leaf -lamenting boughs and wintry sighing ?
 
 LOVE AND COUNSEL. 77 
 
 When will the woods that moan 
 
 Resume their green array ? 
 When will the dull, sad clouds be over blown, 
 And a calm sunset close our stormy day ? 
 
 v. 
 
 My thoughts pursue you still : I call them back : 
 Once more they seek you, like the birds that 
 
 rise 
 From reedy bank, and in a winding track 
 
 Circle the field in which their forage lies ; 
 Or like some poor and downcast Pensioner 
 Depressed and timid though his head be grey, 
 That moves with curving steps to greet his 
 
 Lord 
 
 Whom he hath watched all day 
 Yet lets him pass away without a word ; 
 And gazes on his footsteps from afar. 
 
 LOVE AND COUNSEL. 
 
 A NIGHTINGALE fell sick among the leaves : 
 There came to it a little envious thrush 
 
 And said, ' I know a cure for one who grieves ; 
 ' The chill, black berry on the laurel bush.'
 
 78 AUBREY EE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 The Nightingale, love-wearied, ate and died. 
 
 Cold comforter ! I scorn thy counsel's lure : 
 Near her I grieve, but live : To leave her side 
 
 Were death : my wound is better than thy cure. 
 
 ODE TO IRELAND. 
 
 (AGAINST FALSE FREEDOM.) 
 
 I860. 
 
 i. 
 
 THE Nations have their parts assigned : 
 The deaf one watches for the blind : 
 The blind for him that hears not hears : 
 Harmonious as the heavenly spheres 
 Despite external fret and jar 
 Their mutual ministrations are. 
 Some shine on history's earlier page ; 
 Some prop the world's declining age : 
 One, one reserves her buried bloom 
 To flower perchance on Winter's tomb. 
 
 II. 
 
 Greece, weak of Will but strong in Thought, 
 To Rome her arts and science brought ;
 
 ODE TO IRELAND. 79 
 
 Rome, strong yet barbarous, gained from her 
 A staff ; but, like Saint Christopher, 
 Knew not for whom his strength to use, 
 What yoke to bear, what master choose. 
 His neck the giant bent ! thereon 
 The Babe of Bethlehem sat ! Anon 
 That staff his prop, that sacred freight 
 His guide, he waded through the strait, 
 And entered at a new world's gate. 
 
 in. 
 
 On that new stage were played once more 
 The parts in Greece rehearsed before : 
 Round fame's Olympic stadium vast 
 Again the emulous Nations raced ; 
 Now Spain, now France the headship won, 
 Unrisen the Russian Macedon : 
 But nought, O Ireland, like to thee 
 Hath been ! A Sphinx-like mystery, 
 At the world's feast thou sat'st death-pale ; 
 And blood-stains tinged thy widowed veil. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Apostle, first, of worlds unseen ! 
 For ages, then, deject and mean ; 
 Be sure, sad land, a concord lay 
 Between thy darkness and thy day.
 
 80 AUBREY DE VEEE's POEMS. 
 
 Thy hand, had temporal gifts been thine, 
 Had lost, perchance, the things divine. 
 Truth's witness sole ! The insurgent North 
 Gave way when Error's flood went forth : 
 On the scarred coasts deformed and cleft 
 Thou, like the Church's Eock, wert left. 
 
 v. 
 
 That Tudor tyranny which stood 
 
 'Mid wrecks of Faith, was quenched in blood 
 
 When Charles its child and victim lay 
 
 The Rebel-Prophet's bleeding prey. 
 
 Once more the unhappy wheel goes round ! 
 
 Heads royal long are half discrowned : 
 
 Ancestral rights decline and die : 
 
 Thus Despotism and Anarchy 
 
 Alternate each the other chase, 
 
 Twin Bacchantes wreathed around one vase. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The future sleeps in night : but thou 
 
 O Island of the branded brow, 
 
 Her flatteries scorn who reared by Seine 
 
 Fraternity's ensanguined reign 
 
 And for a sceptre twice abhorred 
 
 Twice welcomed the Caesarian sword !
 
 ODE TO IRELAND. 81 
 
 Thy past, thy hope, are thine alone ! 
 Though crushed around thee and o'erthrown 
 The majesty of civil might 
 The hierarchy of social right 
 Firm state in thee for ever hold ! 
 Religion was their life and mould. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The vulgar, dog-like eye can see 
 Only the ignobler traits in thee ; 
 Quaint follies of a fleeting time ; 
 Dark reliques of the oppressor's crime. 
 The Seer What sees he ? What the West 
 Hath seldom save in thee possessed ; 
 The childlike Faith ; the Will like fate, 
 And that Theistic Instinct great 
 New worlds that summons from the abyss 
 ' The balance to redress of this.' 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Wait thou the end ; and spurn the while 
 False Freedom's meretricious smile ! 
 Stoop not thy front to anticipate 
 Faith's triumph certain ! Watch and wait ! 
 The schismatic, by blood akin 
 To Socialist and Jacobin, 
 Will claim, when shift the scales of power, 
 His natural place. Be thine that hour 
 P
 
 82 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 With good his evil to requite ; 
 
 To save him in bis own despite ; 
 
 And backward scare the brood of night ! 
 
 THE BARD E T H E L L. 
 
 IRELAND, 13TH CENTURY. 
 I. 
 
 T AM Ethell, the son of Conn ; 
 
 Here I live at the foot of the hill ; 
 I am clansman to Brian and servant to none ; 
 
 Whom I hated I hate, whom I loved love stilL 
 Blind am I. On milk I live, 
 
 And meat, God sends it, on each Saint's day, 
 Though Donald Mac Art may he never thrive 
 
 Last Shrovetide drove half my kine away ! 
 
 II. 
 
 At the brown hill's base by the pale blue lake 
 
 I dwell, and see the things I saw ; 
 The heron flap heavily up from the brake, 
 
 The crow fly homeward with twig or straw, 
 The wild duck, a silver line in wake, 
 
 Cutting the calm mere to far Bunaw.
 
 THE BARD ETHELL. 83 
 
 And the things that I heard, though deaf I hear ; 
 From the tower in the island the feastful cheer ; 
 The horn from the wood ; the plunge of the stag 
 With the loud hounds after him down from the 
 
 crag. 
 
 Sweet is the chase, but the battle is sweeter ; 
 More healthful, more joyous, for true men meeter ! 
 
 in. 
 
 My hand is weak ! it once was strong : 
 My heart burns still with its ancient fire ; 
 
 If any man smites me he does me wrong 
 
 For I was the Bard of Brian Mac Guire. 
 
 If any man slay me not unaware, 
 By no chance blow, nor in wine and revel 
 
 I have stored beforehand a curse in my prayer 
 For his kith and kindred : his deed is evil. 
 
 IV. 
 
 There never was King, and there never will be, 
 
 In battle or banquet like Malachi ! 
 
 The Seers his reign had predicted long ; 
 
 He honoured the Bards, and gave gold for song. 
 
 If rebels arose, he put out their eyes ; 
 
 If robbers plundered or burned the fanes 
 He hung them in chaplets like rosaries 
 
 That others, beholding, might take more pains :
 
 84 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 There was none to woman more reverent-minded 
 
 For he held his mother, and Mary, dear ; 
 If any man wronged them that man he blinded, 
 
 Or straight amerced him of hand or ear. 
 There was none who founded more convents 
 none : 
 
 In his palace the old and the poor were fed ; 
 The orphan walked, and the widow's son, 
 
 Without groom or page to his throne or bed. 
 In council he mused with great brows divine 
 And eyes like the eyes of the musing kine, 
 Upholding a Sceptre o'er which men said 
 Seven Spirits of Wisdom like fire-tongues played. 
 He drained ten lakes and he built ten bridges ; 
 
 He bought a gold book for a thousand cows ; 
 He slew ten Princes who brake their pledges ; 
 
 With the bribed and the base he scorned to 
 
 carouse. 
 
 He was sweet and awful ; through all his reign 
 God gave great harvests to vale and plain ; 
 From his nurse's milk he was kind and brave ; 
 And when he went down to his well- wept grave 
 Through the triumph of penance his soul uprose 
 To God and the Saints. Not so his foes ! 
 
 v. 
 
 The King that came after ! ah woe, woe, woe ! 
 He doubted his friend and he trusted his foe ;
 
 THE BAUD ETHELL. 85 
 
 He bought and he sold ; his kingdom old 
 
 He pledged and pawned to avenge a spite ; 
 No bard or prophet his birth foretold ; 
 
 He was guarded and warded both day and night ; 
 He counselled with fools and had boors at his feast ; 
 He was cruel to Christian and kind to beast ; 
 Men smiled when they talked of him far o'er the 
 
 wave; 
 Well paid were the mourners that wept at his 
 
 grave. 
 God plagued for his sake his people sore : 
 
 They sinned ; for the people should watch and 
 
 pray 
 That their prayers like angels at window and door 
 
 May keep from the Bang the bad thought away ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 The sun has risen : on lip and brow 
 
 He greets me I feel it with golden wand ; 
 Ah, bright-faced Norna ! I see thee now ; 
 
 Where first I saw thee I see thee stand. 
 From the trellis the girl looked down on me ; 
 
 Her maidens stood near ; it was late in spring ; 
 The grey priests laughed as she cried in glee 
 
 ' Good Bard, a song in my honour sing ! ' 
 I sang her praise in a loud-voiced hymn 
 To God who had fashioned her, face and limb,
 
 86 AUBBEY DE VEEE's POEMS. 
 
 For the praise of the clan and the land's behoof : 
 So she Cung me a flower from the trellis roof. 
 Ere long I saw her the hill descending ; 
 
 O'er the lake the May morning rose moist and 
 
 slow ; 
 
 She prayed me, her smile with the sweet voice 
 blending, 
 
 To teach her all that a woman should know. 
 Panting she stood ; she was out of breath ; 
 
 The wave of her little breast was shaking ; 
 From eyes still childish and dark as death 
 
 Came womanhood's dawn thro' a dew-cloud 
 
 breaking. 
 Norna was never long time the same : 
 
 By a spirit so strong was her slight form moulded 
 The curves swelled out from the flower-like frame 
 
 In joy ; in grief to a bud she folded : 
 When she listened her eyes grew bright and large 
 Like springs rain-fed that dilate their marge. 
 
 vn. 
 
 So I taught her the hymn of Patrick the Apostle 
 And the marvels of Bridget and Columkille ; 
 
 Ere long she sang like the lark or the throstle, 
 Sang the deeds of the servants of God's high 
 Will : 
 
 I told her of Brendan who found afar 
 
 Another world 'neath the western star ;
 
 THE BARD ETHELL. 87 
 
 Of our three great bishops in Lindisfarne isle ; 
 Of St. Fursey the wondrous, Fiacre without guile ; 
 Of Sedulius, hymn-maker when hymns were rare ; 
 Of Scotus the subtle, who clove a hair 
 Into sixty parts, and had marge to spare : 
 To her brother I spake of Oisin and Fionn, 
 And they wept at the death of great Oisin's son ; * 
 I taught the heart of the boy to revel 
 
 In tales of old greatness that never tire ; 
 And the virgin's, upspringing from earth's low level, 
 
 To wed with heaven like the altar fire. 
 I taught her all that a woman should know ; 
 
 And that none might teach her worse lore, I 
 
 gave her 
 A dagger keen, and taught her the blow 
 
 That subdues the knave to discreet behaviour : 
 A sand-stone there on my knee she set, 
 And sharpened its point I can see her yet 
 I held back her hair, and she sharpened the edge 
 While the wind piped low through the reeds and 
 
 vnL 
 
 She died in the convent on Ina's height : 
 I saw her the day when she took the veil ; 
 
 As slender she stood as the Paschal light, 
 As tall and slender and bright and pale. 
 
 * Ossian's son, Oscar.
 
 88 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 I saw her ; and dropped as dead : bereaven 
 
 Is earth when her holy ones leave her for heaven : 
 
 Her brother fell in the fight at Beigh : 
 
 May they plead for me, both, on my dying day ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 All praise to the man who brought us the 
 
 Faith ! 
 
 "Tis a staff by day and our pillow in death. 
 All praise, I say, to that blessed youth 
 
 Who heard in a dream from Tyrawley's strand 
 
 That wail, ' Put forth o'er the sea thy hand ; 
 In the dark we die ; give us Hope and Truth ! ' 
 But Patrick built not on lorras' shore 
 
 That convent where now the Franciscans 
 
 dwell : 
 Columba was mighty in prayer and war ; 
 
 But the young monk preaches, as loud as his 
 
 bell 
 
 That love must rule all, and wrongs be forgiven 
 Or else, he is sure, we shall reach not, Heaven ! 
 That doctrine, I count right cruel and hard : 
 And when I am laid in the old churchyard 
 The habit of Francis I will not wear ; 
 Nor wear I his cord, or his cloth of hair 
 In secret. Men dwindle : till psalm and prayer 
 Had softened the land, no Dane dwelt there !
 
 THE BARD ETHELL. 89 
 
 X. 
 
 I forgive old Cathbar who sank my boat : 
 
 Must I pardon Feargal who slew my son ; 
 Or the pirate Strongbow, who burned Granote, 
 
 They tell me, and in it nine priests, a nun, 
 And worst Saint Finian's crosier staff] 
 At forgiveness like that I spit and laugh ! 
 My chief, in his wine-cups, forgave twelve men ; 
 And of these a dozen rebelled again ! 
 There never was chief more brave than he ! 
 
 The night he was born Loch Gur up-burst ; 
 He was bard-loving, gift-making, loud of glee, 
 
 The last to fly, to advance the first ; 
 He was like the top spray upon Uladh's oak, 
 
 He was like the tap-root of Argial's pine ; 
 He was secret and sudden ; as lightning his stroke ; 
 
 There was none that could fathom his hid de- 
 sign ! 
 
 He slept not : if any man scorned his alliance 
 He struck the first blow for a frank defiance 
 With that look in his face, half night, half light, 
 Like the lake gust-blackened yet ridged with white ! 
 There were comely wonders before he died ; 
 The eagle barked and the Banshee cried ; 
 The witch-elm wept with a blighted bud ; 
 The spray of the torrent was red with blood : 
 The chief, returned from the mountain's bound, 
 Forgat to ask after Bran, his hound.
 
 90 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 We knew lie would die ; three days passed o'er ; 
 He died. We waked him for three days more. 
 One by one, upon brow and breast 
 The whole clan kissed him. In peace may he rest ! 
 
 XL 
 
 I sang his dirge. I could sing that time 
 Four thousand staves of ancestral rhyme : 
 To-day I can scarcely sing the half : 
 Of old I was corn, and now I am chaff. 
 My song to-day is a breeze that shakes 
 
 Feebly the down on the cygnet's breast ; 
 Twas then a billow the beach that rakes 
 
 Or a storm that buffets the mountain's crest. 
 Whatever I bit with a venomed song 
 
 Grew sick, were it beast, or tree, or man : 
 The wronged one sued me to right his wrong 
 
 With the flail of the Satire and fierce Ode's fan. 
 I sang to the chieftains : each stock I traced 
 Lest lines should grow tangled through fraud or 
 
 haste. 
 
 To princes I sang in a loftier tone 
 Of Moran the Just who refused a throne ; 
 Of Moran whose torque would close and choke 
 The wry-necked witness that falsely spoke. 
 I taught them how to win love and hate 
 Not love from all ; and to shun debate.
 
 THE BARD ETHELL. 91 
 
 To maids in the bower I sang of love ; 
 
 And of war at the feastings in bawn or grove. 
 
 XII. 
 
 How long He leaves me the great God here ! 
 
 Have I sinned some sin, or has God forgotten ] 
 This year I think is my hundredth year : 
 
 I am like a bad apple, unripe yet rotten ! 
 They shall lift me ere long, they shall lay me the 
 
 clan 
 
 By the strength of men on Mount Cruachan ! 
 God has much to think of ! How much He has 
 
 seen 
 
 And how much is gone by that once has been ! 
 On sandy hills where the rabbits burrow 
 
 Are Raths of Kings men name not now ; 
 On mountain tops I have tracked the furrow 
 
 And found in forests the buried plough. 
 For one now living the strong land then 
 Gave kindly food and raiment to ten. 
 No doubt they waxed proud and their God 
 defied ; 
 
 So their harvest He blighted or burned their 
 hoard ; 
 
 Or He sent them plague, or He sent the sword ; 
 Or He sent them lightning ; and so they died 
 Like Dathi, the king, on the dark Alp's side.
 
 92 AUBBEY DE VEKE'S POEMS. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Ah me ! that man who is made of dust 
 
 Should have pride toward God ! 'Tis a demon's 
 
 spleen ! 
 I have oftan feared lest God, the All-just, 
 
 Should bend from heaven and sweep earth 
 
 clean, 
 
 Should sweep us all into corners and holes, 
 Like dust of the house-floor, both bodies and 
 
 souls. 
 
 I have often feared He would send some wind 
 In wrath, and the nation wake up stone-blind. 
 In age or in youth we have all wrought ill : 
 I say not our great king Nial did well 
 Although he was Lord of the Pledges Nine, 
 
 When, beside subduing this land of Eire, 
 He raised in Armorica banner and sign 
 
 And wasted the British coast with fire. 
 Perhaps in His mercy the Lord will say, 
 ' These men ! God's help ! 'Twas a rough boy 
 
 play ! ' 
 
 He is certain that young Franciscan Priest, 
 God sees' great sin where men see least : 
 Yet this were to give unto God the eye, 
 Unmeet the thought of the humming fly ! 
 I trust there are small things He scorns to see 
 In the lowly who cry to Him piteously. 
 Our hope is Christ. I have wept full oft
 
 THE BARD ETHELL. 93 
 
 He came not to Eire in Oisin's time ; 
 Though love and those new monks would make 
 
 men soft 
 
 If they were not hardened by war and rhyme. 
 I have done my part : my end draws nigh : 
 I shall leave old Eire with a smile and sigh : 
 She will miss not me as I missed my son : 
 Yet for her, and her praise, were my best deeds 
 
 done. 
 Man's deeds ! man's deeds ! they are shades that 
 
 fleet, 
 
 Or ripples like those that break at my feet : 
 The deeds of my Chief and the deeds of my 
 
 King 
 
 Grow hazy, far seen, like the hills in spring. 
 Nothing is great save the death on the Cross ! 
 But Pilate and Herod I hate and know 
 Had Fionn lived then he had laid them low 
 Though the world thereby had sustained great 
 
 loss. 
 
 My blindness and deafness and aching back 
 With meekness I bear for that suffering's sake ; 
 And the Lent- fast for Mary's sake I love, 
 And the honour of Him the Man above ! 
 My songs are all over now : so best ! 
 They are laid in the heavenly Singer's breast 
 Who never sings but a star is born : 
 May we hear his song in the endless morn I
 
 94 ATJBEEY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 I give glory to God for our battles won 
 
 By wood or river, on bay or creek : 
 For Norna who died ; for my father, Conn : 
 
 For feasts, and the chase on the mountains bleak 
 I bewail my sins, both unknown and known, 
 
 And of those I have injured forgiveness seek. 
 The men that were wicked to me and mine 
 Not quenching a wrong, nor in war or wine 
 I forgive and absolve them all, save three : 
 May Christ in His mercy be kind to me ! 
 
 THE WEDDING OF THE CLANS. 
 
 A GIRL'S BABBLE. 
 
 I GO to knit two clans together ; 
 
 Our clan and this clan unseen of yore : 
 Our clan fears nought ! but I go, O whither t 
 
 This day I go from my Mother's door. 
 
 Thou redbreast sing'st the old song over, 
 Though many a time thou hast sung it before ; 
 
 They never sent thee to some strange new lover : 
 I sing a new song by my Mother's door. 
 
 I stepped from my little room down by the ladder, 
 The ladder that never so shook before ; 
 
 I was sad last night : to-day I am sadder 
 Because I go from my Mother's door.
 
 THE WEDDING OF THE CLANS. 95 
 
 The last snow melts upon bush and bramble ; 
 
 The gold bars shine on the forest's floor ; 
 Shake not, thou leaf ! it is I must tremble, 
 
 Because I go from my Mother's door. 
 
 O weep no longer, my nurse and Mother ! 
 
 My foster-sister, weep not so sore ! 
 You cannot come with me, Ir, my brother 
 
 Alone I go from my Mother's door. 
 
 Farewell, my wolf-hound, that slew Mac Owing 
 As he caught me and far through the thickets 
 bore : 
 
 My heifer, Alb, in the green vale lowing, 
 My cygnet's nest upon Lorna's shore 1 
 
 He has killed ten chiefs, this chief that plights me ; 
 
 His hand is like that of the giant Balor : 
 But I fear his kiss ; and his beard affrights me, 
 
 And the great stone dragon above his door. 
 
 Had I daughters nine with me they should tarry ; 
 
 They should sing old songs ; they should dance 
 
 at my door ; 
 They should grind at the quern; no need to many. 
 
 O when will this marriage day be o'er 1
 
 96 AUBREY DE VEBE'S POEMS. 
 
 UNA. 
 
 A " LOVELY fear," a sweet solicitude 
 
 For others ' grief is hers ; skilled are her fingers 
 
 To cool with dewy flowers the front of care 
 
 Flattering to pleasant tears the over-worn. 
 
 She lives in her sweet maidenhood, untouched 
 
 By doubt, distrust, or pain ; and gives to Heaven 
 
 Her heart, to earth her pity, to her friends 
 
 The snow-fed fountains of her fresh affections ; 
 
 Seldom she weeps, and never causes tears ; 
 
 Her looks are gentle, and her voice as low 
 
 As morning winds that spare the trembling 
 
 dewdrops ; 
 
 Her hand is lighter than a young bird's wing. 
 You deem her undefended. She is strong ! 
 A glorious Spirit zoned with power and beauty ! 
 The pure are always strong ; for they possess 
 Youth's Heaven-taught lore, and Virtue's might 
 
 eterne : 
 
 And, as the ocean in the flowers of ocean, 
 So God within them dwells and moves around.
 
 FBOM PSYCHE. 97 
 
 FROM PSYCHE; OR, AN OLD POET'S 
 LOVE (1847). 
 
 I. 
 How blue were Ariadne's eyes 
 
 When from the sea's horizon line 
 At eve she raised them on the skies ! 
 My Psyche, bluer far are thine. 
 
 How pallid, snatched from falling flowers, 
 
 The cheek averse of Proserpine 
 Unshadowed yet by Stygian bowers ! 
 
 My Psyche, paler far is thine. 
 
 Yet thee no lover e'er forsook, 
 No tyrant urged with love unkind : 
 
 Thy joy the ungentle cannot brook, 
 
 Thy light would strike the unworthy blind. 
 
 A golden flame invests thy tresses : 
 An azure flame invests thine eyes : 
 
 And well that wingless form expresses 
 Communion with relinquished skies. 
 
 Forbear, O breezes of the West, 
 To waft her to her native bourne ; 
 
 For heavenly, by her feet impressed, 
 Becomes our ancient earth outworn.
 
 98 AUBREY DE VERE'S POEMS. 
 
 On Psyche's life our beings hang : 
 In Psyche life and love are one : 
 
 My Psyche glanced at me and sang, 
 'Perhaps to-morrow I am gone ! ; 
 
 II. 
 
 PSYCHE'S STUDY. 
 
 The low sun smote the topmost rocks 
 Ascending o'er the eastern sea : 
 
 Backward my Psyche waved her locks 
 And held her book upon her knee. 
 
 No brake was near, no flower, no bird, 
 No music but the ocean wave, 
 
 That with complacent murmur stirred 
 The echoes of a neighbouring cave. 
 
 Absorbed my Pysche sat, her face 
 Reflecting Plato's suu-like soul, 
 
 And seemed in every word to trace 
 The pent-up spirit of the whole. 
 
 Absorbed she sat in breathless mood, 
 Unmoved as kneeler at a shrine 
 
 Save one slight finger that pursued 
 The meaning on from line to line.
 
 FItOM PSYCHE. 99 
 
 As some white flower in forest nook 
 
 Bends o'er its own face in a well ; 
 So seemed the virgin in that book 
 
 Her soul, unread before, to spell. 
 
 Sudden, a crimson butterfly 
 
 On that illumined page alit : 
 My Pysche flung the volume by 
 
 And sister-like, gave chase to it. 
 
 in. 
 
 Nearer yet, by soft degrees, 
 
 Nearer nestling by my side, 
 Her arm she propped upon my knees, 
 
 Her head, ere long, its place supplied. 
 
 Mysteriously a child there lurked 
 
 Within that soaring spirit wild : 
 Mysteriously a woman worked 
 
 Imprisoned in that fearless child. 
 
 One thought before me, like a star, 
 
 Rolled onward ever, always on ; 
 It called me to the fields afar, 
 
 In which triumphant palms are won. 
 
 The concourse of far years I heard 
 
 Applausive as a summer sea : 
 My trance was broken Psyche stirred ; 
 
 ' Is Psyche nothing then to thee ? '
 
 100 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ah, that a lightly-lifted hand 
 
 Should thus man's soul depress or raise, 
 And wield as with a magic wand 
 
 A spirit steeled in earlier days ! 
 
 Ah, that a voice whose speech is song, 
 Whose pathos weeps, whose gladness smiles, 
 
 Should melt a heart unmoved so long 
 And charm it to the Syren Isles ! 
 
 Ah, that one presence, morn or eve, 
 Should fill deserted halls with light ; 
 
 One breeze-like step departing leave 
 The noonday darker than the night ! 
 
 Thy power is great : but Love and Youth 
 Conspire with thee ; with thee they dwell ; 
 
 From those kind eyes in tenderest ruth 
 On mine they look and say ' Farewell ! ' 
 
 v. 
 
 PSYCHE SINGING. 
 
 Between the green hill and the cloud 
 The skylark loosed his silver chain 
 
 Of rapturous music clear and loud ; 
 My Psyche answered back the strain !
 
 PROM PSYCHE. 101 
 
 A glory rushed along the sky ; 
 
 She sang, and all dark things grew plain ; 
 Hope, star-like shone ; and Memory 
 . Flashed like a cypress gemmed with rain. 
 
 Once more the skylark recommenced ; 
 
 Once more from heaven his challenge rang ; 
 Again with him my Psyche fenced ; 
 
 At last the twain commingled sang. 
 
 Then first I learned the skylark's lore; 
 
 Then first the words he sang I knew, 
 My soul with rapture flooded o'er, 
 
 As breeze-borne gossamer with dew. 
 
 VL 
 
 My Psyche laid her silken hand 
 
 Upon my silver head ; 
 And said, ' To thee shall I remand 
 
 The light of seasons fled ? ' 
 
 The child bent o'er me as she spake, 
 
 And, leaning yet more near, 
 A tress that kissed me for Love's sake 
 
 Keinoved from me a tear. 
 
 Psyche, not so ; lest life should grow 
 
 Near thee too deeply sweet ; 
 And I, who censure Death as slow, 
 
 Should fear her far-off feet.
 
 102 ATTBBEY DE VERB S POEMS. 
 
 Eternal sweetness, love, and truth, 
 
 Are in thy face enshrined ; 
 The breathing soul of endless youth 
 
 On wafts thee like a wind. 
 
 Those eyes, where'er they chance to gaze, 
 Might wake to songs the dumb ; 
 
 Breathe thou upon my blighted bays 
 Rose-odoured they become ! 
 
 Yet go, and cheer a happier throng ; 
 
 For Death, a spouse dark-eyed, 
 On me her eyes hath levelled long, 
 
 And calls me to her side. 
 
 O'er yon not distant coast even now 
 What shape ascends ? A Tomb. 
 
 Farewell, my Psyche ! Why shouldst thou 
 Be shadowed by its gloom ? 
 
 vn. 
 
 Pure lip coralline, slightly stirred ; 
 
 Thus stir ; but speak not ! Love can see 
 On you the syllables unheard 
 
 Which are his only melody. 
 
 Pure drooping lids ; dark lashes wet 
 With that unhoped-for, trembling tear ; 
 
 Thus droop, thus meet ; nor give me yet 
 The eyes that I desire, yet fear.
 
 FROM PSYCHE. 103 
 
 Hands lightly clasped on meekest knee ; 
 
 All-beauteous head, as by a spell 
 Bent forward ; loveliest form to me 
 
 A lovely Soul made visible : 
 
 Speak not ! move not ! More tender grows 
 The heart, long musing. Night may plead 
 
 Perhaps, my part ; and, at its close, 
 The morning bring me light indeed. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ' Such beauty was not born to die ! ' 
 That thought above my fancy kept 
 
 Hovering like moonbeams tremulously ; 
 And as its lustre waned, I slept. 
 
 Deep Love kept vigil. Where she sate 
 Methought I sought her. Ah, the change ! 
 
 Youth freezes at the frown of Fate ; 
 And Time defied will have revenge. 
 
 The summer sunshine of her head 
 Had changed to moonlight tresses grey : 
 
 O'er all her countenance was spread 
 The twilight of a winter's day. 
 
 Dim as a misty tree ere morn, 
 
 Sad as a tide-deserted strand, 
 She sate, with roseless lip forlorn ; 
 
 I knelt, and, reverent, kissed her hand.
 
 104 AUBEET DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 I loved her. Whom I loved of yore 
 A shape all lustrous from the skies, 
 
 I loved that hour ; and loved far more, 
 So sweet in this unjust disguise. 
 
 A human tenderness, a love 
 
 More deep than loves of prosperous years, 
 Through all my spirit rose arid strove, 
 
 And, cloud-like, o'er her sank in tears. 
 
 IX. 
 
 She leaves us ! Many a gentler breast 
 Will mourn our common loss like me ; 
 
 The babe her hand, her voice caressed, 
 The lamb that couched beside her knee : 
 
 That touch thou lovest the robe's far gleam - 
 Thou shalt not find, thou dark-eyed fawn ! 
 
 Thy light is lost, exultant stream ; 
 
 Dim woods, your sweetness is withdrawn. 
 
 Descend, dark heavens, and flood with rain 
 Their crimson roofs ; their silence rout ; 
 
 Their vapour-laden branches strain, 
 And force the smothered sadness out ! 
 
 That so the ascended moon, when breaks 
 The cloud, may light once more a scene 
 
 Fair as some cheek that suffering makes 
 Only more tearfully serene :
 
 A SONG OF AGE. 105 
 
 That so the vale she loved may look 
 Calm as some cloister roofed with snows 
 
 Wherein, unseen in shadowy nook, 
 A buried Vestal finds repose. 
 
 A SONG OF AGE. 
 
 I. 
 Who mourns ? Flow on, delicious breeze ! 
 
 Who mourns though youth and strength go by? 
 Fresh leaves invest the vernal trees, 
 
 Fresh airs will drown my latest sigh : 
 This frame is but a part outworn 
 
 Of earth's great Whole that lifts more high 
 A tempest-freshened brow each morn 
 
 To meet pure beams and azure sky. 
 
 n. 
 
 Thou world-renewing breath, sweep on, 
 
 And waft earth's sweetness o'er the wave ! 
 That earth will circle round the sun 
 
 When God takes back the life He gave ! 
 To each his turn ! Even now I feel 
 
 The feet of children press my grave, 
 And one deep whisper o'er it steal 
 
 ' The Soul is His who died to save.'
 
 106 AUBREY DE VEEE'S POEMS. 
 
 AGE. 
 
 OLD age ! The sound is harsh, and grates 
 
 Yet Life's a semblance, not a Truth : 
 Time binds an hourly changing mask 
 On Souls in changeless light that bask 
 Younger we grow when near the gates 
 Of everlasting Youth ! 
 
 TO BURNS' S 'HIGHLAND MARY.' 
 I. 
 
 O LOVED by him whom Scotland loves, 
 
 Long loved, and honoured duly 
 By all who love the bard who sang 
 
 So sweetly and so truly ! 
 In cultured dales his song prevails ; 
 
 Thrills o'er the eagle's aery 
 Has any caught that strain, nor sighed 
 
 For Burns's ' Highland Mary '? 
 
 ii. 
 
 His golden hours of youth were thine ; 
 Those hours whose flight is fleetest :
 
 TO BURNS'S 'HIGHLAND MARY.' 107 
 
 Of all his songs to thee he gave 
 
 The freshest and the sweetest. 
 Ere ripe the fruit, one branch he brake 
 
 All rich with bloom and blossom ; 
 And shook its dews, its incense shook, 
 
 Above thy brow and bosom ! 
 
 in. 
 
 And when his Spring, alas, how soon ! 
 
 Had been by care subverted, 
 His Summer, like a god repulsed, 
 
 Had from his gates departed ; 
 Beneath that evening star once more 
 
 Star of his morn and even ! 
 To thee his suppliant hands he spread, 
 
 And hailed his love ' in heaven.' 
 
 rv. 
 
 And if his being in ' a waste 
 
 Of shame ' too oft was squandered, 
 And if too oft his feet ill-starred 
 
 In ways erroneous wandered, 
 Ah ! still his spirit's spirit bathed 
 
 In purity eternal ; 
 And all fair things through thee retained 
 
 For him their aspect vernal !
 
 108 AUBREY DE VEEE's POEMS. 
 
 V. 
 
 Nor less that tenderness remained 
 
 Thy favouring love implanted ; 
 Compunctious pity, yearnings vague 
 
 For love to earth not granted ; 
 Reserve with freedom, female grace 
 
 Well matched with manly vigour 
 In songs where fancy twined her wreaths 
 
 Round judgment's stalwart rigour. 
 
 VI. 
 
 A mute but strong appeal was made 
 
 To him by feeblest creatures : 
 In his large heart had each a part 
 
 That part had found in Nature's : 
 The wildered sheep, sagacious dog, 
 
 Old horse reduced and crazy, 
 The field-mouse by the plough upturned, 
 
 And violated daisy. 
 
 vn. 
 
 In him there burned that passionate glow 
 
 All Nature's soul and savour, 
 Which gives its hue to every flower, 
 
 To every fruit its flavour : 
 Nor less the kindred power he felt 
 
 That love of all things human 
 Whereof the fiery centre is 
 
 The love man bears to woman.
 
 TO BUBNS'S 'HIGHLAND MARY.' 109 
 
 VIIJ. 
 
 He sang the dignity of man, 
 
 Sang woman's grace and goodness, 
 Passed by the world's half-truths, her lies 
 
 Pierced through with lance-like shrewdness. 
 Upon life's broad highways he stood, 
 
 And aped nor Greek nor Roman ; 
 But snatched from heaven Promethean fire 
 
 To glorify things common. 
 
 IX. 
 
 He sang of youth, he sang of age, 
 
 Their joys, their griefs, their labours ; 
 Felt with, not for, the people; hailed 
 
 All Scotland's sons his neighbours ; 
 And therefore all repeat his verse, 
 
 Hot youth, or greybeard steady 
 The boatman on Loch Etive's wave, 
 
 The shepherd on Ben Ledi. 
 
 x. 
 
 He sang from love of song ; his name 
 
 Dunedin's cliff resounded : 
 He left her, faithful to a fame 
 
 On truth and nature founded. 
 He sought true fame, not loud acclaim ; 
 
 Himself and Time he trusted : 
 For laurels crackling in the flame 
 
 His fine ear never lusted !
 
 110 AUBREY DE VEEE'S POEMS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 He loved, and reason had to love, 
 
 The illustrious land that bore him : 
 Where'er he went, like heaven's broad tent 
 
 A star- bright Past hung o'er him. 
 Each isle had fenced a saint recluse, 
 
 Each tower a hero dying ; 
 Down every mountain-gorge had rolled 
 
 The flood of foemen flying. 
 
 XIL 
 From age to age that land had paid 
 
 No alien throne submission ; 
 For feudal faith had been her Law, 
 
 And Freedom her Tradition. 
 Where frowned the rocks had Freedom smiled, 
 
 Sung, 'mid the shrill wind's whistle ; 
 So England prized her garden Rose, 
 
 But Scotland loved her Thistle. 
 
 XIIL 
 
 Fair field alone the brave demand, 
 
 And Scotland ne'er had lost it : 
 And honest prove the hate and love 
 
 To objects meet adjusted. 
 Her will and way had ne'er been crossed 
 
 In fatal contradiction : 
 Nor loyalty to treason soured, 
 
 Nor faith abused with fiction.
 
 TO BUENS'S 'HIGHLAND MARY.' Ill 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Honour to Scotland and to Burns ! 
 
 In him she stands collected : 
 A thousand streams one river make 
 
 Thus Genius, heaven-directed, 
 Conjoins all separate veins of power 
 
 In one great soul-creation ; 
 Thus blends a million men to make 
 
 The Poet of the nation ! 
 
 xv. 
 
 Be green for aye, green bank and brae 
 
 Around Montgomery's Castle ! 
 Blow there, ye earliest flowers ! and there 
 
 Ye sweetest song-birds, nestle ! 
 For there was ta'en that last farewell 
 
 In hope indulged how blindly ; 
 And there was given that long, last gaze 
 
 ' That dwelt ' on him ' sae kindly.' 
 
 XVI. 
 
 No word of thine recorded stands ; 
 
 Few words that hour were spoken : 
 Two Bibles there were interchanged 
 
 And some slight love-gift broken : 
 And there thy cold, faint hands he pressed 
 
 Thy head, by dew-drops misted : 
 And kisses, ill-resisted first, 
 
 At last were unresisted.
 
 112 AUBREY DE VEBE'S POEMS. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 All ! cease she died. He, too, is dead 
 
 Of all her girlish graces 
 Perhaps one severed tress remains : 
 
 The rest stern Time effaces 
 Dust lost in dust. Not so : a bloom 
 
 Is hers that ne'er can wither ; 
 And in that lay that lives for aye 
 
 The twain live on together ! 
 
 ODE ON THE ASCENT OF THE ALPS. 
 
 I. 
 ALL night as in my dreams I lay 
 
 The shout of torrents without number 
 Was in my ears ' Away, away, 
 
 No time have we for slumber ! 
 The star-beams in our eddies play ; 
 The moon is set : away, away ! ' 
 And round the hills in tumult borne 
 
 Through echoing caves and gorges rocking 
 The voices of the night and morn 
 Are crying louder in their scorn, 
 
 My tedious languor mocking. 
 Alas ! in vain man's mortal limbs would rise 
 To join in elemental ecstasies
 
 ODE ON THE ASCENT OF THE ALPS. 113 
 II. 
 
 ' But thou, O Muse, our heavenly mate, 
 Unclogged art thou by fleshly weight ! 
 Ascend ; upbearing my desire 
 Among the mountains high and higher. 
 Leap from the glen upon the forest ; 
 
 Leap from the forest on the snow : 
 And while from snow to cloud thou soarest 
 
 Send back thy song below ! ' 
 
 ni. 
 
 I spake Behold her o'er the broad lake flying 
 Like a great Angel missioned to bestow 
 
 Some boon on men beneath in sadness lying : 
 The waves are murmuring silver murmurs low : 
 Beneath the curdling wind 
 
 Green through the shades the waters rush and 
 roll, 
 
 Or whitened only by the unfrequent shoal ; 
 
 Lo ! two dark hills, with darker yet behind, 
 
 Confront them, purple mountains almost black, 
 Each behind each self-folded and withdrawn 
 
 Beneath the umbrage of yon cloudy rack 
 That orange gleam ! 'tis dawn ! 
 
 Onward ! the swan's flight with yon eagle's blendin :, 
 
 On, winged Muse, still forward and ascending ! 
 
 H
 
 114 AUBREY DE VEBE's POEMS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 That mighty sweep, one orbit of her flight, 
 Has over-curved the mountain's barrier height : 
 She sinks, she speeds on prosperous wing pre- 
 vailing, 
 Broad lights below and changeful shadows 
 
 sailing, 
 
 Over a vale upon whose breadth may shine 
 Not noontide suns alone but suns of even, 
 Warming the rich fields in their red decline, 
 The grey streams flushing with the hues of 
 
 heaven. 
 In vain those Shepherds call ; they cannot wake 
 
 The echoes on this wide and cultured plain 
 Where spreads the river now into a lake 
 Now curves through walnut meads its golden 
 
 chain, 
 
 In-isling here and there some spot 
 With orchard, hive, and one fair cot, 
 Or children dragging from their boat 
 Into the flood some reverend goat 
 O happy valley ! cradle soft and deep 
 
 For blissful life, calm sleep 
 And leisure, and affections free and wide, 
 Give me yon plough, that I with thee may 
 
 bide, 
 
 Or climb those stages hut-bestrewn 
 Vast steps of Summer's mountain-throne
 
 ODE ON THE ASCENT OF THE ALPS. 115 
 
 Terrace o'er terrace rising, line o'er line, 
 Swathed in the light wreaths of the elaborate 
 
 vine. 
 On yonder loftiest steep, the last 
 
 From whose green base the grey rocks rise, 
 In random circle idly cast 
 A happy household lies : 
 Not far there sits the plighted maid ; 
 Her locks a lover's fingers braid 
 Fair, fearless maiden ! cause for fear 
 Is none, though he alone were near : 
 Indulge at will thy sweet security ! 
 
 He doth but that bold front incline 
 And all those wind-tossed" curls on thine 
 To catch from thy fresh lips their mountain 
 purity ! 
 
 v. 
 
 Up to lonelier, narrower valleys 
 
 Winds an intricate ravine 
 Whence the latest snow-blast sallies 
 
 Through black firs scarce seen. 
 I hear through clouds the Hunter's hollo 
 I hear, but scarcely dare to follow 
 'Mid chaotic rocks and woods, 
 Such as in her lyric moods
 
 116 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Nature, like a Bacchante, flings 
 From half-shaped imaginings ; 
 There lie two prostrate trunks entangled 
 Like intertwisted dragons strangled ; 
 Yon glacier shines a prophet's robe ; 
 While broken sceptre, throne, and globe 
 Are strewn as left by rival States 
 Of elemental Potentates : 
 Pale floats the mist, a wizard's shroud : 
 There looms the broad crag from the cloud, 
 A thunder-graven Sphinx's head, half blind 
 
 Gazing on far lands through the freezing 
 wind! 
 
 VI. 
 
 My song grows smoother, hearing 
 A smooth-voiced female hymn 
 . In verse alternate cheering 
 The pass above me dim. 
 
 Behold them now, a band 
 
 Of maids descending hand in hand ; 
 
 Singing softly, singing proudly 
 
 Low-toned anthems echoed loudly, 
 Martyr sufferings, mountain pleasures, 
 
 Grave, religious, sweet affections, 
 Tuned with notes of ancient measures, 
 
 Linked with patriot recollections !
 
 ODE ON THE ASCENT OF THE ALPS. 117 
 
 The land is strong when such as these 
 
 Inspire their lovers and their brothers : 
 The land is strong with such as these 
 
 Her heroes' destined mothers ! 
 Freedom from every hut 
 
 Sends down a separate root : 
 And when base swords her branches cut 
 
 With tenfold might they shoot. 
 Her Temples are of pine-woods made, 
 
 Not Tyrian gold or Parian stone 
 With roofs of cedar gem-inlaid : 
 
 There sits she, thence alone 
 To those dispensing her large love 
 Who share her solemn feast above, 
 Nor fear her icy halls, or zone 
 Of clouds with which she girds her own ! 
 
 VIL 
 
 Mount higher, mount higher ! 
 With rock-girdled gyre 
 
 Behind each grey ridge 
 
 And pine-feathered ledge 
 A vale is suspended ; mount higher, mount higher ! 
 
 From rock to rock leaping 
 
 The wild goats, they bound ; 
 The resinous odours 
 
 Are wafted around ;
 
 118 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 The clouds, disentangled, 
 With blue gaps are spangled ; 
 Green isles of the valley with sunshine are crowned. 
 
 The birches new budded 
 
 Make pink the green copse ; 
 From the briar and hazel 
 The crystal rain drops ; 
 As he climbs, the boughs shaking, 
 Nest-seeking, branch-breaking, 
 Beneath the white ash-boughs the shepherd-boy 
 stops. 
 
 How happy that shepherd ! 
 
 How happy the lass ! 
 How freshly beside them 
 The pure Zephyrs pass ! 
 Sing, sing ! From the soil 
 Springs bubble and boil, 
 And sun-smitten torrents fall soft on the grass. 
 
 Once more on every turf-clad stage 
 Peeps forth some household hermitage ; 
 Once more from tracts serene and high 
 The young lambs bleat, the dams reply. 
 From echoing trunks I hear the dash 
 Of headlong stream or 'Ranz des Vaches.' 
 Lo ! from thickets lightly springing 
 An old church spire ; around its base
 
 ODE ON THE ASCENT OF THE ALPS. 119 
 
 Devotions ever upward winging 
 
 That find in Heaven their resting-place ; 
 Around it grey-haired votaries kneel 
 
 Who look along it to the skies, 
 And babes with imitative zeal 
 
 Kissing their lip-worn rosaries. 
 Not soon the mountain Faith grows cold ; 
 
 Yon hamlet is six centuries old ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Mount higher, mount higher, 
 To the cloudland nigher ! 
 
 To the regions we climb 
 
 Of our long-buried prime ; 
 In the skies it awaits us Up higher, up higher ! 
 
 Loud Hymn and clear Poean 
 
 From the caverns are rolled : 
 Far below us is Summer ; 
 We have slipped from her fold ; 
 We have passed, like a breath, 
 To new life without death 
 The Spring and our Childhood all round we behold. 
 
 IX. 
 
 What are toils to men who scorn them ? 
 Perils what to men who dare ?
 
 120 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Chains to hands that once have torn them 
 
 Thenceforth are chains of air. 
 The winds above the snow-plains fleet ; 
 Like them I race with winged feet : 
 My bonds are dropped ; my spirit thrills, 
 A Freeman of the Eternal Hills ! 
 Each cloud by turns I make my tent ; 
 I run before the radiance sent 
 From every mountain's silver mail 
 Across dark gulfs from vale to vale : 
 The curdling mist in smooth career 
 
 A lovely phantom fleeting by 
 As silent sails through yon pale mere 
 
 That shrines its own blue sky ; 
 The sun that mere makes now its targe, 
 And rainbow vapours tread its marge ; 
 
 A whisper, such as lovers use, 
 Far off on those still heights was heard ; 
 But here was never sound of bird ; 
 
 No wild bee lets its murmur loose 
 O'er those blue flowers in rocky cleft 
 Their unvoluptuous eyes that lift 
 From feathery tufts of spangled moss 
 Pure as the snows which they emboss. 
 Lo ! like the foam of wintry ocean, 
 
 The clouds beneath my feet are curled ; 
 Dividing now with solemn motion 
 
 They give me back the world.
 
 ODE ON THE ASCENT OF THE ALPS. 121 
 
 No veil I fear, no visual bond 
 
 In this aerial diamond : 
 
 My head o'er crystal bastions bent 
 
 Twixt star-crowned spire and battlement, 
 
 I see the river of green ice 
 
 From precipice to precipice 
 
 Wind earthward slow, with blighting breath 
 
 Blackening the vales below like death. 
 
 Far, far beneath in sealike reach 
 
 Receding to the horizon's rim 
 I see the woods of pine and beech, 
 
 By their own breath made dim : 
 I see the land which heroes trod ; 
 
 I see the land where Virtue chose 
 To live alone, and live to God ; 
 
 The land she gave to those 
 Who know that on the hearth alone 
 True Freedom rears her fort and throne. 
 
 x. 
 
 Lift up not only hand and eye, 
 Lift up, Man, thy heart on high : 
 Or downward gaze once more ; and see 
 How spiritual dust can be ! 
 Then far into the Future dive, 
 And ask if there indeed survive, 
 When fade the worlds, no primal shapes 
 Of disembodied hills and caues,
 
 122 AUBREY DE VEBE's POEMS. 
 
 Types meet to shadow Godhead forth ; 
 Dread antitypes of shapes on earth ? 
 O Earth ! thou shalt not wholly die, 
 
 Of some ' new Earth ' the chrysalis 
 Predestined from Eternity, 
 
 Nor seldom seen through this ; 
 On which, in glory gazing, we 
 Perchance shall oft remember thee, 
 And trace through it thine ancient frame 
 Distinct, like flame espied through flame, 
 Or like our earliest friends, above 
 Not lost though merged in heavenlier love- 
 How changed, yet still the same ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 Here rest, my Soul, from meteor dreams ; 
 And thou, my Song, find rest. The streams 
 That left at morn yon mountain's brow 
 Are sleeping with Locarno now. 
 Earth seeks perforce from joy release, 
 But Heaven in rapture finds her peace. 
 Gaze on those skies at once o'er all the earth 
 
 Dissolving in a bath of purple dews, 
 And spread thy soul abroad as widely forth 
 Till Love thy soul, as Heaven the snows, 
 suffuse.
 
 LINES WRITTEN UNDER DELPHI. 123 
 
 The sun is set but upwards without end 
 
 Two mighty beams, diverging, 
 Like hands in benediction raised, extend ; 
 From the great deep a crimson mist is surging ; 
 The peaks are pyres where Day doth lie 
 Like Indian widows, proud to die ; 
 Strange gleams, each moment ten times bright, 
 Shoot round, transfiguring as they smite 
 All spaces of the empyreal height ; 
 Deep gleams, high. Words which God to man doth 
 
 speak ; 
 
 From peak to solemn peak in order driven 
 They speed a loftier vision dost thou seek ? 
 Eise then to Heaven ! 
 
 LINES WRITTEN UNDER DELPHI. 
 
 i. 
 MY goal is reached homeward henceforth my 
 
 way. 
 
 I have beheld Earth's glories. Had the eyes 
 Of those I love reposed on them with mine 
 No future wish to roam beyond the range 
 Of one green pasture circling one clear lake 
 Itself by one soft woodland girt around, 
 Could touch this heart. My pilgrimage is made.
 
 124 A.UBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 II. 
 
 I have seen Delphi ; I no more shall see it ; 
 I go contented, having seen it once ; 
 Yet here awhile remain, prisoner well pleased 
 Of reboant winds. Within this mountain cove 
 Their sound alone finds entrance. Lightly the 
 
 waves 
 
 Rolled from the outer to the inner bay, 
 Dance in blue silver o'er the silver sands ; 
 While, like a chain-bound antelope by some child 
 Mocked oft with tempting hand and fruit upheld 
 Our quick caique vaults up among the reeds, 
 The ripples that plunge past it upward sending 
 O'er the grey margin matted with sea-pink 
 Ripplings of light. The moon is veiled ; a mile 
 Below the mountain's eastern range it hangs ; 
 Yon gleam is but its reflex, from white clouds 
 Scattered along Parnassian peaks of snow. 
 
 IIL 
 
 I see but waves and snows. Memory alone 
 Fruition hath of what this morn was mine : 
 O'er many a beauteous scene at once she broods 
 And feeds on joys without confusion blent 
 Like mingling sounds or odours. Now she rests 
 On that serene expanse, the confluence 
 Of three long vales, in sweetness upward heaved
 
 LINES WRITTEN UNDER DELPHI. 125 
 
 Ample and rich as Juno's breast what time 
 The Thunderer's breath in sleep moves over it ; 
 Bathes in those runnels now, that raced in light 
 This morn as at some festival of streams 
 Through arbutus and ilex, wafting each 
 Upon its glassy track a several breeze, 
 Each with its tale of joy or playful sadness. 
 Fair nymphs, by great Apollo's fall untouched ! 
 Sing, sing, for ever ! When did golden Phoebus 
 Look sad one moment for a fair nymph's fall ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 A still, black glen ; below, a stream-like copse 
 Of hoary olives ; rocks like walls beside, 
 Never by Centaur trod though these fresh gales 
 (Jive man the Centaur's strength. Again I mount 
 From cliff to cliff, from height to height ascend ; 
 Glitters Castalia's Fount ; I see, I touch it ! 
 That Rift once more I reach, the Oracular seat 
 Whose arching rocks half meet in air suspense ; 
 Twixt them is one blue streak of heaven ; hard by 
 Dim Temples hollowed in the stone, for rites 
 Mysterious shaped, or mansions of the dead : 
 Released, I turn and see, far far below, 
 A vale so rich in floral garniture 
 And odours from the orange and the sea, 
 So girt with white peaks flashing from sky chasms, 
 So lighted with the vast blue dome of Heaven,
 
 126 AUBREY DE TEEE's POEMS.' 
 
 So lulled with music from the winds and waves, 
 The guest of Phoebus clasps his hands and shouts, 
 ' There is but one such spot ; from Heaven Apollo 
 Beheld ! and chose it for his earthly shrine ! ' 
 
 v. 
 
 Phoebus Apollo ! loftiest shape of all 
 That glorified the range of Grecian song, 
 By poet hymned or shepherd when the rocks 
 Confessed the first bright impress of thy feet ; 
 By many an old man praised when Thracian blasts 
 Sang loud and pine- wood stores began to fail ; 
 Served by the sick man searching hill and plain 
 For herb assuasive ; courted by sad maids 
 On whose pure lips thy fancied kiss descended 
 Softly as vernal beam on primrose cold ; 
 By Fortune's troubled favourites ofttime sued 
 For dubious answer, then when Fate malign 
 Mounting beyond the horizon of high Hopes, 
 Her long fell glance had cast on them Apollo ! 
 Who, what wert thou 1 Let those that read thy 
 
 tale 
 
 In clouded chambers of the North, reply 
 ' An empty dream ! ' bid them fling far the scroll, 
 The dusty parchment put aside for ever, 
 Or scan with light from thy Parnassian skies ! 
 For commentator's lamp give them thine orb 
 Flaming on high, transfixing cloud and wave
 
 LINES WRITTEN UNDER DELPHI. 127 
 
 Or noontide laurel as the Zephyr strikes it 
 Daphne once more shrinks trembling from thy 
 
 beams 
 Were these but fancies? O'er the world they 
 
 reared 
 
 The only empire verily universal 
 Founded by man ; for Fancy heralds Thought, 
 Thought Act, and nations Are as they Believe. 
 Strong were such fancies, strong not less than fair ! 
 The plant spontaneous of Society 
 In Greece, by them with stellar power was dewed, 
 And, nursed by their far influence, grew and 
 
 flowered : 
 
 A state of order and fair fellowship 
 Man with man walking, not in barbarous sort 
 His own prey finding, each, and his own God j 
 A state of freedom not by outward force 
 Compressed or icelike knit by negatives ; 
 A frank communion of deep thoughts with glad 
 Light cares with grave ; a changeful melody 
 Varying each moment yet in soul the same ; 
 A temple raised for beauty and defence ; 
 An armed dance held for a festival ; 
 A balanced scheme that gave each power a limit 
 Each toil a crown and every art her Muse ! 
 O ! frank and graceful life of Grecian years ! 
 Whence came thy model 1 ? From the Grecian 
 
 heaven j
 
 128 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 The loves and wars of Gods, their works and ways, 
 Their several spheres distinct yet interwreathed, 
 By Greece were copied on a humbler stage, 
 Our thoughts soar high to light our paths on earth ; 
 Terrestrial circles from celestial take 
 Their impress in man's science ; stars unreached 
 Our course o'er ocean guide ; Orphean sounds 
 The walls of cities raised : thus mythic bards 
 For all the legislators legislated ! 
 
 VL 
 
 Yet these were idols : such as worshipped these 
 Were worshippers of idols. Holy and True ! 
 How many are there not idolaters 1 
 Traditions, Systems, Passion, Interest, Power- - 
 Are these not idols ? Ay, of idols worst ! 
 Not that men worship these ; but that before them 
 Down-bent the faculty that worship pays 
 Shrivels and dies. Man's spirit alone adores, 
 And can adore but Spirit. What is not God, 
 Howe'er our fears may crouch, or habit grovel 
 Or sensuous fancy dote, we worship not : 
 Unless God looks on man he cannot pray ; 
 Such is Idolatry's masked Atheism ! 
 Yes, these were idols, for man made them such ! 
 By a corrupt heart all things are corrupted, 
 God's works alike or products of the mind : 
 The Soul, insurgent 'gainst its Maker, lacks
 
 LINES WRITTEN UNDER DELPHI. 129 
 
 The strength its vassal powers to rule. The Will 
 To blind caprice grows subject ; Reason, torn 
 From Faith, becomes the Understanding's slave ; 
 And Passion's self in appetite is lost. 
 Then Idols dominate despots by Self-will 
 Set up where Law and Faith alike are dead, 
 To awe the anarchy of godless souls. 
 Nought but a Worship spiritual and pure, 
 Profound, habitual, strong through loving awe, 
 A true heart's tribute to the God of Truth, 
 From selfishness redeemed, and so from sense 
 Secured, though conversant with shapes of sense, 
 Nought but such Worship with spontaneous 
 
 force 
 
 From our whole Being equably ascending 
 As odour from a flower or fount's clear breath, 
 Redeems us from Idolatry. In vain 
 Are proudly wise appeals that deprecate 
 Rites superstitious ; vain are words though shrill 
 With scorn ; stark pointed finger ; forehead ridged 
 With blear-eyed Scepticism's myriad wrinkles : 
 Saintly we must be or Idolatrous. 
 After his image Man creates him Gods, 
 Kneading the symbol as a symbol pure 
 And salutary to a form compact 
 With servile soul and mean mechanic hand : 
 Thus to their native dust his Thoughts return, 
 Abashed, and of mortality convinced. 
 
 i
 
 130 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 At Salem was the Law. The Holy Land 
 
 Its orient terrace by the ocean reared 
 
 And thereon walked the Holy One, at cool 
 
 Of the world's morn ; there visible state He kept : 
 
 At Salem was the Law on stone inscribed ; 
 
 But over all the world, within man's heart 
 
 The unwritten Law abode, from earliest time . 
 
 Upon our being stampt, nor wholly lost : 
 
 Men saw it, loved it, praised and disobeyed. 
 
 Therefore the Conscience, whose applausive voice 
 
 Their march triumphant should have led with joy 
 
 To all perfection, from a desert pealed 
 
 The Baptist's note alone ' Repent, repent ; ' 
 
 And men with song more flattering filled their ears. 
 
 Yet still the undersong was holy ! long 
 
 Though cast on days unblest, though sin-defiled 
 
 The mind accepted, yea the heart revered, 
 
 That which the Will lacked strength to follow. 
 
 Conscience, 
 
 Her crown monarchal first, her fillet next 
 Snatched from her sacred brows, a minstrel's 
 
 wreath 
 
 Assumed, and breathed in song her soul abroad : 
 On outcast Duty's grave she with her tears 
 Dropt flowers funereal of surpassing beauty, 
 With Reason walked, the right path indicated, 
 Though her imperative voice was heard no more ;
 
 LINES WRITTEN UNDER DELPHI. 131 
 
 Nor spake in vain. Man fallen man was great, 
 Remembering ancient greatness : Hymn and tale 
 Held, each, some portion of dismembered Truth, 
 Severely sung by poets wise and brave. 
 They sang of Justice, God's great Attribute, 
 With tragic buskin and a larger stride 
 Following the fated victim step by step : 
 They sang of Love crowning the toils of life: 
 Of Joy they sang ; for Joy, that gift divine, 
 Primal and winged creature, with full breath 
 Through all the elastic limbs of Grecian fable 
 Poured her redundant life, the noble tongue 
 Strong as the brazen clang of ringing arms 
 With resonance of liquid sounds enriching 
 Sweet as the music-laughter of the Gods : 
 Of heavenly Pity, Prophet-like they sang ; 
 And, feeling after good though finding not, 
 Of Him that Good not yet in Flesh revealed 
 By ceaseless vigils, tears, and lifted palms, 
 And yearnings infinite and unrepressed, 
 A separate and authentic witness bore. 
 Thus was the end foreshown ; thus Error's ' cloud 
 Turned forth its silver lining on the night.' 
 Thus too for us at least a precious gift, 
 Dear for the lore it grasped, by all it lacked 
 Sternly made bold vainglorious thoughts to 
 
 chide, 
 Wisdom shone forth ; but not for men unwise :
 
 132 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Her beams but taint the dead ; man's Guilt and 
 
 Woe 
 
 She proved, and her own Helplessness confessed. 
 Such were her two great functions. Woe to those 
 Who live with Art for Faith, and Bards for Priests ! 
 These are supplanted : Sense their loftiest hopes 
 Will sap ; and fiends usurp their oracles ! 
 
 VIIL 
 
 Olympian dreams, farewell ! your spell is past ; 
 I turn from you away ; from Eros' self, 
 From heavenly Beauty on thy crystal brow 
 Uranian Venus, starred in gentlest light, 
 From thee, Prometheus chained on Caucasus, 
 lo from thee, sad wanderer o'er the earth, 
 From thee, great Hercules, the son of Heaven 
 And of Humanity held long in pain ; 
 Heroic among men, by labours tried, 
 Descending to the Shades and leading thence 
 The Lost ; while infant still, a Serpent-slayer; 
 In death a dread and mystic Sacrifice : 
 From thee more high than all, from thee, Apollo ! 
 Light of the world whose sacred beam, like words, 
 Illustrated the forehead of the earth, 
 Supreme of Harmonists, whose song flowed forth 
 Pure from that light ; great slayer of the Serpent 
 That mocked thy Mother ; master of that craft 
 Helpful to anguished flesh ; Oracular :
 
 LINES WRITTEN UNDEK DELPHI. 133 
 
 Secretly speaking wisdom to the just ; 
 
 Openly to the lost from lips despised 
 
 Like thy Cassandra's flinging it to waste : 
 
 Phoebus Apollo ! here at thy chief shrine 
 
 From thee I turn ; and stern confession make 
 
 That not the vilest weed yon ripple casts 
 
 Here at my feet, but holds a loftier gift 
 
 Than all the Grecian Legends ! Let them go 
 
 Because the mind of man they lifted up, 
 
 But corruptible instincts left to grovel 
 
 On Nature's common plane, yea and below it ; 
 
 Because they slightly healed the People's wound, 
 
 And sought in genial fancy, finite hopes, 
 
 Proportioned life and dialectic art, 
 
 A substitute for Virtue ; and because 
 
 They gave for nothing that which Faith should 
 
 earn, 
 
 Casting the pearls of Truth 'neath bestial feet ; 
 Because they washed the outside of the cup, 
 And dropped a thin veil o'er the face of Death ; 
 Because they neither brought man to his God, 
 Nor let him feel his weakness let them go ! 
 Wisdom that raises not her sons is folly : 
 Truth in its unity alone is Truth. 
 
 IX. 
 
 What now is Delphi 1 Where that temple now 
 Dreadful to kings ; with votive offering stored
 
 134 AUBREY DE VEBE'S POEMS. 
 
 Tripod, or golden throne from furthest lands, 
 Or ingot huge 1 Where now that tremulous stone, 
 Centre of all things deemed Earth's beating heart? 
 What now is Delphi 1 yea, or Hellas' self, 
 With all her various States ; epitome 
 Of Nations ; stage whereon in little space 
 Forecasting Time rehearsed his thousand parts ? 
 Sparta's one camp ; the sacred plain of Thebes, 
 That plain pious as rich whence grateful Ceres 
 The hand that blesses Earth upraised to Heaven ; 
 The unboastful freedom of Arcadian vales ; 
 Athens with Academic Arts, and ships 
 Far seen from pillared headlands 1 Where, O 
 
 where 
 
 Olympia's chariot-course that bent the eyes 
 Of Greece on one small ring shining like fire ; 
 Or they, that sacred Council, at whose nod 
 King and Republic trembled 1 Gone for ever ! 
 Vine on the wave diffused budding with Isles ; 
 Bower of young Earth, wherein the East and West, 
 Wedded, their beauteous progeny upreared ; 
 Hellas, by Nature blest, by Freedom nursed, 
 By Providence led on through discipline 
 Of change, till that Philosophy was formed 
 Which made one City man's perpetual Teacher 
 Hellas is past. A lamentable voice 
 Forth from the caverns of Antiquity 
 Issuing in mystery, answers, Where is Egypt ?
 
 LINES WRITTEN UNDER DELPHI. 135 
 
 Egypt of magic craft and starry lore, 
 Eternal brooder on the unknown past 
 Through the long vista of her Kings and Priests 
 Descried, as setting Moon beyond the length 
 Of forest aisle or desert colonnade ; 
 Eldest of Nations, and apart, like Night 
 Dark veiled amid the synod of the Gods ? 
 The sun and stars, above her circling stare 
 At pyramids sand-drowned, and long processions 
 Now petrified to lines of marble shape's 
 That lead to Sphinx-girt Cities of the Dead ! 
 Where now is Babylon, mighty by peace 
 And gold, and men countless as forest leaves ? 
 Persia, the Macedonian, Carthage, Tyre 1 
 All gone restored to earth ! Great Rome herself, 
 Haughty with arcs of triumph, theatres 
 Sphered to embrace all nations and their Gods, 
 Roads from one centre piercing lands remote, 
 Bridges, fit type of conquest's giant stride 
 Great Rome herself, empire of War and Law, 
 Yoking far regions, harrowing those fields 
 Reserved for Christian seed Great Rome herself 
 Was, and is not ! The eternal edict stands : 
 That power from God which comes not, drops and 
 
 dies. 
 
 x.' 
 
 Hark to that sound ! yon ocean Eagle drives 
 The mist of morn before her, seaward launched
 
 136 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 From her loved nest on Delphi. She, though 
 
 stern, 
 
 Can love a divine instinct, that outlasts, 
 Phoebus, thy fabulous honours ! Far away 
 The storms are dying ; and the night-bird pours 
 Encouraged thus, her s\v ft and rapturous song. 
 Ah ! when that song is o\ er I depart ! 
 Return, my wandering t \oughts ! the ascended 
 
 Moon 
 
 Smiles on her Brother's peaks, and many a ridge 
 Her glance solicits, many a stirring wood 
 Exults in her strong radiance as she glides 
 On from the pine gulf to the gulf of clouds. 
 Eeturn, my thoughts ! the innumerous cedar cones 
 Of Lebanon must lull you now no more ; 
 Nor fall of Empires with as soft a sound. 
 O'er famed Colonos stoop no more in trance 
 Eyeing the city towers. No longer muse 
 With mind divided though a single heart, 
 On legend true or erring ! Earth can yield 
 No scene more fair than this ; and Nature's beauty 
 Is ever irreproachable. Return ! 
 A long breath take of this ambrosial clime 
 Ere lost the sweetness : sigh, yet be content : 
 Fill here your golden urns ; be fresh for ever !
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 FLOWERS I would bring if flowers could make 
 
 thee fairer 
 
 And music if the Muse were dear to thee, 
 For loving these would make thee love the bearer ; 
 But sweetest songs forget their melody, 
 And loveliest flowers would but conceal the 
 
 wearer : 
 A rose I marked, and might have plucked ; but 
 
 she 
 
 Blushed as she bent, imploring me to spare her, 
 Nor spoil her beauty by such rivalry. 
 Alas ! and with what gifts shall I pursue thee, 
 What offerings bring, what treasures lay before 
 
 thee; 
 
 When earth with all her floral train doth woo thee 
 And all old poets and old songs adore thee, 
 And love to thee is naught ; from passionate mood 
 Secured by joy's complacent plenitude ! 
 
 SHE whom this heart must ever hold most dear, 
 This heart in happy bondage held so long, 
 Began to sing : At first a gentle fear 
 Roaied her countenance, for she is young,
 
 138 AUBREY DE VEKE's POEMS. 
 
 And he who loves her most of all was near ; 
 But, when at last her voice grew full and strong, 
 O ! from their ambush sweet, how rich and clear 
 Leaped the bright notes abroad a rapturous 
 
 throng ! 
 
 Her little hands were sometimes flung apart, 
 And sometimes palm to palm together prest ; 
 While wave-like blushes rising from her breast 
 Kept time with that aerial melody ; 
 A music to the sight ! I standing nigh 
 Received the falling fountain in my heart. 
 
 THE happiest lovers that in verse have writ, 
 After all vows to perfect beauty paid, 
 Full oft their hymns of triumph intermit 
 And harp and brow with funeral chaplets shade ; 
 A Babylonian choir on earth they sit 
 In garb of exiles ; sadly they upbraid 
 Beauty and Joy that only bloom to fade, 
 And Love and Hope to Death and Ruin knit. 
 What shall we say ? Have poets never loved 1 
 For small that love which fears that love can die- 
 Have those that earthly immortality 
 Award, the name itself a mockery proved ? 
 Or of the Spirit of Life so full are they 
 That with Death's shadow they are pleased to 
 play?
 
 HUMAN LIFE. 139 
 
 INCOMPATIBILITY. 
 
 FORGIVE me that I love you as I do, 
 
 Friend patient long ; too patient to reprove 
 
 The inconvenience of superfluous love : 
 
 You feel that it molests you, and 'tis true. 
 
 In a light bark you sit, with a full crew. 
 
 Your life full orbed, compelled strange love to meet, 
 
 Becomes, by such addition, incomplete : 
 
 Because I love I leave you. O adieu ! 
 
 Perhaps when I am gone the thought of me 
 
 May sometimes be your acceptable guest. 
 
 Indeed you love me : but my company 
 
 Old time makes tedious ; and to part is best. 
 
 Not without Nature's will are natures wed : 
 
 O gentle Death, how dear thou mak'st the dead ! 
 
 HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 SAD is our youth, for it is ever going, 
 Crumbling away beneath our very feet ; 
 Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing, 
 In current unperceived because so fleet ; 
 Sad are our hopes, for they were rich in sowing, 
 But tares, self sown, have overtopped the wheat ; 
 Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing, 
 And still, O still, their dying breath is sweet :
 
 140 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 And sweet is youth, although, it hath bereft us 
 Of that which made our childhood sweeter still ; 
 And sweet our life's decline, for it hath left us 
 A nearer Good to cure an older 111 ; 
 And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize 
 
 them 
 Not for their sake, but His who grants them or 
 
 denies them. 
 
 THE SUN GOD. 
 
 I SAW the Master of the Sun. He stood 
 
 High in his luminous car, himself more bright ; 
 
 An Archer of immeasurable might : 
 
 On his left shoulder hung his quivered load ; 
 
 Spurned by his steeds the eastern mountain 
 
 glowed ; 
 
 Forward his eager eye, and brow of light 
 He bent ; and, while both hands that arch 
 
 embowed, 
 
 Shaft after shaft pursued the flying Night. 
 No wings profaned that godlike form : around 
 His neck high held an ever-moving crowd 
 Of locks hung glistening : while such perfect sound 
 Fell from his bowstring, that th' ethereal dome 
 Thrilled as a dewdrop ; and each passing cloud 
 Expanded, whitening like the ocean foam.
 
 THE POETRY OF LIFE. 141 
 
 URANIA. 
 
 URANIA ! Voice of Heaven, sidereal Muse ! 
 Lo, through the dark vault issuing from afar 
 She comes, reclining on a lucid star : 
 Her large eyes, trembling through celestial dews, 
 The glory of high thoughts far off diffuse ; 
 While the bright surges of her refluent hair 
 Stream back, upraised upon sustaining air 
 Which lifts that scarf deep-dyed in midnight hues 
 To a wide arch above her hung like heaven. 
 I closed my eyes. Athwart me, like a blast, 
 Music as though of jubilant gods was driven. 
 Once more I gazed. That form divine had passed 
 Earth's dark confine. The ocean's utmost rim 
 Burned yet a moment : then the world grew dim. 
 
 THE POETRY OF LIFE. 
 
 DIAN ! thy brother of the golden beams 
 Is hailed for ever as the Lord of Song, 
 Master of manly verse and mystic dreams : 
 Doth, then, no female lyre to thee belong ? 
 Say, is that silver bow whose crescent gleams, 
 Above black pinewoods lifted, or low-hung 
 'Twixt horned rocks, or troubling midnight streams, 
 With immelodious chord, and silent, strung ?
 
 142 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Ah no, not so ! Thou too art musical ! 
 The world is full of poetry unwrit ; 
 Dew-woven nets that virgin hearts enthrall, 
 Darts of glad thought through infant brains th;it 
 
 flit, 
 
 Hope and pursuit, loved bonds and fancies free ; 
 Poor were our earth of these bereft and thee ! 
 
 SORROW. 
 
 COUNT each affliction, whether light or grave, 
 God's messenger sent down to thee ; do thou 
 With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow ; 
 And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave 
 Permission first his heavenly feet to lave ; 
 Then lay before him all thou hast : allow 
 No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow, 
 Or mar thy hospitality ; no wave 
 Of mortal tumult to obliterate 
 The soul's marmoreal calmness : Grief should be, 
 Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate ; 
 Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free ; 
 Strong to consume small troubles ; to commend 
 Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting 
 to the end.
 
 UNIVERSAL HISTOEY. 143 
 
 NATIONAL APOSTASY. 
 
 TRAMPLING a dark hill, a red sun athwart, 
 I saw a host that rent their clothes and hair, 
 And dashed their spread hands 'gainst that sunset 
 
 glare, 
 
 And cried, ' Go from us, God, since God thou art ! 
 Utterly from our coasts and towns depart, 
 Court, camp, and senate-hall, and mountain bare ; 
 Our pomp Thou troublest and our feast dost 
 
 scare, 
 
 And with Thy temples dost confuse our mart ! 
 Depart Thou from our hearing and our seeing : 
 Depart Thou from the works and ways of men ; 
 Their laws, their thoughts, the inmost of their 
 
 being : 
 Black Nightmare, hence ! that earth may breathe 
 
 again.' 
 
 ' Can God depart 1 ' I asked. A voice replied 
 Close by, ' Not so ; each Sin at heart is Delcide' 
 
 UNIVERSAL HISTORY. 
 
 METHOUGHT I gazed upon a dusky Round, 
 Our mortal planet's monumental urn ; 
 Around its orb with many a spiral turn 
 Ascending, a Procession slowly wound.
 
 144 AUBREY DE VEBE'S POEMS. 
 
 There saw I laurelled poets, kings renowned ; 
 Prophets I saw from earth's remotest bourne : 
 There saw I maids and youths, old men forlorn, 
 And conquerors full-armed, and captives bound. 
 A Funeral pomp methought it seemed far down 
 In pale relief ; and, side by side, therein 
 Hooded, there paced, a Sorrow and a Sin : 
 Midway in ampler ring, and vision clear, 
 A Sacrifice embraced that mighty sphere : 
 Above, a lovely Bridal was its crown. 
 
 TROILUS AND CRESS ID A. 
 
 HAD I been worthy of the love you gave, 
 
 That love withdrawn had left me sad but strong ; 
 
 My heart had been as silent as my tongue, 
 
 My bed had been unfevered as my grave ; 
 
 I had not striven for what I could not save ; 
 
 Back, back to heaven my great hopes I had 
 
 flung; 
 
 To have much suffered, having done no wrong, 
 Had seemed to me that noble part the brave 
 Account it ever. What this hour I am 
 Affirms the unworthiness that in me lurked : 
 Some sapping poison through my substance 
 
 worked, 
 Some sin not trivial, though it lacked a name,
 
 'HAPPY ARE THEY.' 145 
 
 Which ratifies the deed that you have done 
 With plain approval. Other plea seek none. 
 
 FOR we the mighty mountain plains have trod 
 Both in the glow of sunset and sunrise ; 
 And lighted by the moon of southern skies : 
 The snow-white torrent of the thundering flood 
 We two have watched together : In the wood 
 We two have felt the warm tears dim our eyes 
 While zephyrs softer than an infant's sighs 
 Ruffled the light air of our solitude. 
 O Earth, maternal Earth, and thou O Heaven, 
 And Night first born, who now, e'en now, dost 
 
 waken 
 
 The host of stars, thy constellated train, 
 Tell me if those can ever be forgiven, 
 Those abject, who together have partaken 
 These Sacraments of Nature and in vain ? 
 
 HAPPY are they who kiss thee morn and even 
 Parting the hair upon thy forehead white ; 
 For them the sky is bluer and more bright 
 And purer their thanksgivings rise to Heaven : 
 Happy are they to whom thy songs are given ; 
 Happy are they on whom thy hands alight ; 
 And happiest they for whom thy prayers at night 
 In tender piety so oft have striven. 
 j
 
 14o AUBREY DE VERE S POEMS. 
 
 Away with vain regrets and selfish sighs ! 
 Even I, dear friend, am lonely, not unblest, 
 Permitted sometimes on that form to gaze, 
 Or feel the light of those consoling eyes 
 If but a moment on my cheek it stays 
 I know that gentle beam from all the rest ! 
 
 THE spring of my sweet life thou madest thine, 
 And on my summer glories thou hast fed ; 
 And now the vernal melodies are dead 
 On lips that mourn for joys no longer mine ; 
 The summer brilliance now hath ceased to shine 
 Upon a brow so oft disquieted 
 By agonising doubts : thy love is fled ; 
 And thou art flying how dare I repine ? 
 How could I hope so great a love would cleave 
 To one whose fault too well was known to thee '] 
 Lament not, O my friend, or if thou grieve 
 For me lament not though my grief thou share, 
 For I have known in dreams my destiny, 
 And what I ought to welcome I can bear.
 
 ROBEKT BROWNING. 147 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 i. 
 
 GONE from us ! that sweet singer of late days 
 Sweet singer should be strong who tarrying here, 
 Chose still rough music for his themes austere, 
 Hard-headed, aye, but tender-hearted lays, 
 Carefully careless, garden half, half maze. 
 His thoughts he sang, deep thoughts to thinkers 
 
 dear, 
 
 Now flashing under gleam of smile or tear, 
 Now veiled in language like a breezy haze 
 Chance-pierced by sunbeams from the lake it 
 
 covers. 
 
 He sang man's ways not heights of sage or saint, 
 Not highways broad, not haunts endeared to lovers : 
 He samg life's bye- ways, -sang its angles quaint, 
 Its Runic lore inscribed on stave or stone, 
 Song's short-hand strain its key oft his alone. 
 
 ir. 
 
 Shakespeare's old oak "gnarled and unwedgeable" 
 Yields not so sweet a wood to harp or lyre 
 As tree of smoother grain ; and chorded shell 
 Is spanned by strings tenderer than iron wire. 
 What then ? Stern tasks iron and oak require ! 
 Iron deep-mined, hard oak from stormy fell : 
 Steel-armed the black ship breasts the ocean's swell 
 Oak-ribbed laughs back the raging tempest's ire.
 
 148 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Old friend, thy song I deem a ship whose hold 
 Is stored with mental spoils of ampler price 
 Than Spain's huge galleons in her age of gold, 
 Or Indian carracks from the isles of spice. 
 Brave Argosy ! cleave long the waves as now, 
 And all the sea-gods sing around thy prow ! 
 January, 1890. 
 
 A WINTER NIGHT IN THE WOODS. 
 
 WHEN first the Spring her glimmering chaplets 
 
 wove 
 
 This way and that way 'mid the boughs high hung 
 We watched the hourly work, while thrushes sung 
 A song that shook with joy their bowered alcove : 
 Summer came next ; she roofed with green the 
 
 grove, 
 
 And deepening shades to flower-sweet alleys clung : 
 Then last one dirge from many a golden tongue 
 The chiding leaves with chiding Autumn strove. 
 These were but Nature's preludes. Last is first ! 
 Winter, uplifting high both flail and fan, 
 With the great forests dealt as Death with man ; 
 And therefore through their desolate roofs hath 
 
 burst 
 
 This splendour veiled no more by earthly bars ; 
 Infinite Heaven, and the fire-breathing stars !
 
 MEMORIAL. 149 
 
 MEM011IAL. 
 
 I. 
 
 ALONE among thy books once more I sit ; 
 No sound there stirs except the flapping fire : 
 Strange shadows of old times about me flit 
 As sinks the midnight lamp or flickers higher. 
 I see thee pace the room ; with eye thought-lit 
 Back, back thou com'st once more to my desire : 
 Low-toned thou read'st once more the verse new 
 
 writ, 
 
 Too deep, too pure for worldlings to admire. 
 That brow all honour, that all-gracious hand, 
 That cordial smile and clear voice musical, 
 That noble bearing, mien of high command 
 Yet void of pride to-night I have them all. 
 Ah, phantoms vain of thought ! The Christmas air 
 Is white with flying flakes. Where art thou where? 
 
 ii. 
 
 To-night upon thy roof the snows are lying, 
 The Christinas snows lie heavy on thy trees, 
 A dying dirge that soothes the year in dying 
 Swells from the woodlands on the midnight breeze. 
 Our loss is ancient ; many a heart is sighing 
 This night, a late one, or by slow degrees 
 Heals some old wound, to God's high grace 
 
 replying 
 A time there was when thou wert like to these.
 
 150 AUBREY DE VEEE'S POEMS. 
 
 Where art thou ? In what unimagiued sphere 
 Liv'st thou, sojourner, or no transient guest ? 
 By whom companioned ? Access hath she near, 
 In life thy nearest and beloved the best ? 
 What memory hast thou of thy loved ones here ? 
 Hangs the great Vision o'er thy place of rest ? 
 
 in. 
 'Sweet-sounding bells, blithe summoners to 
 
 prayer ! ' 
 
 The answer man can yield not ye bestow ; 
 Your answer is a little Infant bare 
 Wafted to earth on night winds whispering low. 
 Blow him to Bethlehem, airs angelic, blow ! 
 There doth the Mother-maid his couch prepare : 
 His harbour is her bosom ! Drop him there 
 Soft as a snowflake on a bank of snow. 
 Sole Hope of man ! sole Hope for us, for Thee ! 
 ' To us a Prince is given ; a Child is born ! ' 
 Thou sang'st of Bethlehem and of Calvary, 
 The Maid Immaculate and the twisted Thorn : 
 Where'er thou art, not far, not far is He 
 Whose banner whitens in yon Christmas morn ! 
 
 1860.
 
 THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF. 151 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF: 
 
 OR, THE KING'S SACRIFICE. 
 
 THE battle of Clontarf, fought A.D. 1014, annulled for 
 ever the Danish power in Ireland. During two centuries 
 and more the sons of the North had lnded on the Irish 
 coasts, sacked the monasteries, burned the cities and 
 churches, and in many places well-nigh destroyed the 
 Christian civilisation of earlier times, although they were 
 never able to establish a monarchy throughout Ireland. 
 The native dynasties for the most part remained ; and Brian 
 the Great, then King of all Ireland, though aged and blind, 
 led forth the native hosts against the invaders for one 
 supreme effort. He placed his son Murrough in command ; 
 and he offered up his life for his country and wrought her 
 deliverance. His sons and his grandson partook his glory 
 and his fate. His death was a favourite theme with the 
 chroniclers and bards of ancient Erin. 
 
 I. 
 
 ' ANSWER, thou that from the height 
 Look'st to left, and look'st to right, 
 Answer thou, how goes the fight 1 ' 
 
 ii. 
 
 Thus spake King Brian, by his tent 
 Kneeling, with sceptred hands that leant 
 Upon that altar which, where'er 
 He marched, kept pure his path with prayer : 
 For, after all his triumphs past 
 
 That made him wondrous 'mid his peers, 
 On the blind King God's will had cast 
 
 The burden of his fourscore years :
 
 152 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 And therefore when that morn, at nine, 
 
 He rode along the battle's van 
 No sword he lifted, but the Sign 
 
 Of Him who died for man. 
 King Brian's fleshly strength decayed, 
 
 Three times in puissance waxed his spirit, 
 
 And tall, like oak-trees, towered his merit. 
 And like a praying host he prayed. 
 From nine to twelve, with crown on head, 
 Full fifty prayers the King had said ; 
 And unto each such power was given 
 It shook the unopening gates of heaven. 
 
 in. 
 
 ' O King, the battle goes this hour 
 As when two seas are met in might, 
 
 When billow billow doth devour, 
 And tide with tide doth fight : 
 
 ' I watch the waves of war ; but none 
 Can see what banners rise or fall : 
 
 Sea-clouds on rush, sea-crests on run, 
 And blood is over all' 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then prayed the King once more, head-bare, 
 And made himself a cross in prayer, 
 With outstretched arms and forehead prone 
 Staid on that topmost altar-stone
 
 THE BATTLE OP CLONTARF. 153 
 
 Gem -charged, and cleansed from mortal taint, 
 
 And strong with bones of many a Saint. 
 
 In youth his heart for God had yearned 
 
 And Eire : now thrice his youth returned : 
 
 A child full oft, ere woke the bird, 
 
 The convent's nocturns he had heard 
 
 In old Kincora, or that isle 
 
 Which guards, thus late, its wasted pile, 
 
 While winds of night the tall towers shook ; 
 
 And he would peer into that Book 
 
 Which lay, lamp-lit, on eagle's wings, 
 
 Wherein God's Saints in gold and blue 
 Stood up, and Prophets stood, and Kings ; 
 
 And he the Martyrs knew, 
 And maids, and confessors each one, 
 
 And tabernacled there in light 
 
 That blissful Virgin enough bright 
 To light a burnt-out sun. 
 The blazoned Letters well he kenned 
 
 That stood like gateways keeping ward, 
 
 Before the Feast -Days set to guard 
 Long ways of wisdom without end : 
 He knew the. music notes black-barred, 
 
 And music notes, like planted spears 
 Whereon who bends a fixed regard 
 
 The gathering anthem hears 
 Like wakening storms 'mid pines that lean 
 Ere sunrise o'er some dusk ravine.
 
 154 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 The thoughts that nursed his youth, that hour 
 Were with his age, and armed with power. 
 
 v. 
 
 So fifty Psalms he sang, and then 
 Rolled round his sightless eyes again 
 And spake ; ' Thou watcher on the height, 
 Make answer quick, how goes the fight 1 ' 
 
 VI. 
 
 ' O King, the battle goes as when 
 
 The mill-wheel circles round and round : 
 
 The battle reels ; and bones of men 
 Beneath its wheel are ground : 
 
 ' The war-field lies like Tomar's wood 
 By axes marred, or charred with fire 
 
 Where, black o'er wood-ways ruin-strewed, 
 Rises the last oak spire.' 
 
 VII. 
 
 Then to his altar by the tent 
 Once more King Brian turned, and bent 
 Unsceptred hands and head discrowned 
 Down from that altar to the ground 
 In such sort that the cold March air 
 With fir-cones swept his snow-white hair,
 
 THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF. 155 
 
 And prayed, ' O Thou that from the skies 
 Dost see what is, and what must be, 
 
 Make mine and me Thy Sacrifice 
 But set this People free ! ' 
 
 VIII. 
 
 That hour, he knew, in many a fane 
 
 Late ravaged by the Pagan Dane 
 
 God's priests were offering, far and wide, 
 
 The Mass of the Presanctified ; 
 
 For lo ! it was Good Friday morn, 
 
 And Christ once more was crowned with 
 
 thorn : 
 God's Church, he knew, from niche and shrine 
 
 Had swept those gauds that time consumes, 
 Whate'er sea-cave, or wood, or mine 
 
 Yield from their sunless wombs : 
 Veiled were the sacred images, 
 He knew, like vapour-shrouded trees ; 
 Vanished gold lamp, and chalice rare ; 
 The astonished altars stripped and bare 
 Because upon the cross, stone-dead, 
 Christ lay that hour disraimented. 
 
 IX. 
 
 He prayed then spake ' How goes the fight ?' 
 Then answer reached him from the height :
 
 156 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 X. 
 
 ' O King, the battle goes as though 
 God weighed two nations in His scale ; 
 
 And now the fates of Eire sink low, 
 Now theirs that wear the mail : 
 
 ' O King, thy sons, through God's decree, 
 Are dead save one, the best of all, 
 
 Murrough and now, ah woe is me ! 
 I see his standard fall ! ' 
 
 XI. 
 
 It fell : but as it fell, above 
 Through lightning-lighted skies on drove 
 A thousand heavenly standards, dyed 
 In martyrdom's ensanguined tide ; 
 And every tower, and town, and fane 
 
 That blazed of old round Erin's shore 
 Down crashed, it seemed, in heaven again, 
 
 So dire that thunder's roar ! 
 The wrath had come : the Danes gave way ; 
 For Brian's prayer had power that day ; 
 Seaward they rushed, the race abhorred 
 The sword of prayer had quelled their sword 
 So fled they to the ship-thronged coast ; 
 
 But, random-borne through Tolga's glade, 
 A remnant from that routed host 
 
 Rushed by where Brian prayed
 
 THE BATTLE OP CLOXTAEF. 157 
 
 And, swinging forth his brand, down leaped 
 Black Brodar, he that foremost rode, 
 
 And from the kingly shoulders swept 
 The old head, praising God ; 
 
 And cried aloud, ' Let all men tell 
 
 That Brodar, he that leagues with Hell, 
 
 That Brodar of the magic mail 
 
 Slew Brian of the Gael.' 
 
 XII. 
 
 Him God destroyed ! The Accursed One lay 
 
 Like beast, unburied where he fell : 
 But Brian and his sons this day 
 
 In Armagh Church sleep well. 
 And Brian's grandson strong and fair, 
 Clutching a Sea-King by the hair, 
 Went with him far through Tolga's wave, 
 Went with him to the same sea-grave. 
 So Eire gave thanks to God, though sad, 
 
 And took the blessing and the bale, 
 And sang, in funeral garments clad, 
 
 The vengeance of the Gael. 
 Silent all night the Northmen haled 
 
 Their dead adown the bleeding wharf : 
 Far north at dawn the Pirates sailed ; 
 
 But on thy shore, Clontarf, 
 Old Eire once more with wan cheeks wet 
 
 Gave thanks that He who shakes the skies
 
 158 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Had burst His people's bond, and yet 
 
 Decreed that Sacrifice : 
 For God is One Who gives and takes, 
 
 Who lifts the low, and fells the proud ; 
 Who loves His land of Eire, and makes 
 
 His rainbow in His cloud. 
 
 Thus sang to Eire her Bard of old ; 
 
 Thus sang to trampled kerne and serf, 
 While, sunset-like, her age of gold 
 
 Came back to green Clontarf. 
 
 THE THREE STATES OP WOMANHOOD. 
 
 (FROM 'HOW SAINT CUTHBERT KEPT HIS 
 PENTECOST AT CARLISLE.') 
 
 Next, to Cuthbert drew 
 Three maidens hand in hand, lovely as Truth, 
 Trustful, though shy : their thoughts, when hidden 
 
 most, 
 
 Wore but a semilucid veil as when 
 Through gold-touched crystal of the lime new- 
 leaved 
 
 On April morns the symmetry looks forth 
 Of branch and bough distinct. Smiling, they put 
 At last their question : ' Tell us man of God
 
 THE THREE STATES OF WOMANHOOD. 159 
 
 What life, of lives that women lead, is best ; 
 Then show us forth in parables that life ! ' 
 
 He answered : ' Three ; for each of these is 
 
 best : 
 
 First comes the Maiden's : she who lives it well 
 Serves God in marble chapel white as snow, 
 His priestess His alone. Cold flowers each morn 
 She culls ere sunrise by the stainless stream 
 And lays them on that chapel's altar-stone, 
 And sings her matins there. Her feet are swift 
 All day in labours 'mid the vales below 
 Cheering sad hearts : each evening she returns 
 To that high fane and there her vespers sings ; 
 Then sleeps, and dreams of heaven.' 
 
 With witching smile 
 
 The youngest of that beauteous triad cried : 
 ' That life is sweetest ! I would be that maid ! ' 
 Cuthbert resumed : 'The Christian Wife comes 
 
 next : 
 
 She drinks a deeper draught of life : round her 
 In ampler sweep its sympathies extend : 
 An infant's cry has knocked against her heart 
 Evoking thence that human love wherein 
 Self-love hath least. Through infant eyes a Spirit 
 Hath looked upon her, crying, " I am thine ! 
 Creature from God dependent yet on thee ! " 
 Thenceforth she knows how greatness blends with 
 weakness ;
 
 160 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Reverence, thenceforth with pity linked, reveals 
 
 To her the pathos of the life of man 
 
 A thing divine, and yet at every pore 
 
 Bleeding from crowned brows. A heart thus 
 
 large 
 
 Hath room for many sorrows. What of that ? 
 Its sorrow is its dowry's noblest part. 
 She bears it not alone. Such griefs, so shared 
 Sickness, and fear, and vigils lone and long, 
 Waken her heart to love sublimer far 
 Than ecstasies of youth could comprehend ; 
 Lift her at times to heights serene as those 
 The Ascetic treadeth.' 
 
 ' I would be that wife ! ' 
 
 Thus cried the second of those maidens three : 
 Yet who that gazed upon her could have guessed 
 Creature so soft could bear a heart so brave ? 
 She seemed that goodness which was beauteous 
 
 too ; 
 
 Virtue at once and Virtue's bright reward ; 
 Delight that lifts, not lowers us; made for 
 
 heaven ; 
 Made too to change to heaven some brave man's 
 
 hearth. 
 
 She added thus : ' Of lives that women lead 
 Tell us the third ! ' 
 
 Gently the Saint replied : 
 ' The third is Widowhood a wintry sound ;
 
 THE THREE STATES OF WOMANHOOD. JGl 
 
 And yet, for her who widow is indeed 
 That winter something keeps of autumn's gold, 
 Something regains of Spring's first-flower snow- 
 white 
 
 Snow-cold, and colder for its rim of green. 
 She feels no more the warmly greeting hand ; 
 The eyes she brightened rest on her no more ; 
 Her full-orbed being now is cleft in twain : 
 Her past is dead : daily from memory's self 
 Dear things depart ; yet still she is a wife, 
 A wife the more because of bridal bonds 
 Lives but their essence waiting wings in heaven ; 
 More wife, and yet, in that great loneliness 
 More maiden too than when first maidenhood 
 Lacked what it missed not. Like that other 
 
 maid 
 
 She too a lonely priestess serves her God ; 
 Yea, though her chapel be a funeral vault, 
 Its altar black like Death, the flowers thereon 
 Tinct with the Blood Divine. Above that vault 
 She hears the anthems of the Spouse of Christ, 
 Widowed, like her, though Bride.' 
 
 ' O fair, O sweet, 
 
 beauteous lives all three ; fair lot of women ! ' 
 Thus cried again the youngest of those Three, 
 Too young to know the touch of grief or causa 
 
 it 
 A plant too lightly-leaved to cast a shade.
 
 162 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 The eldest with pale cheek and lids tear-wet 
 Made answer sad : ' I would not be a widow.' 
 
 Then Cuthbert spake once more with smile 
 
 benign : 
 
 ' I said that each of these three lives is best : 
 There are who live those three conjoined in one : 
 The nun thus lives. What maid is maid like her 
 Who, free to choose, has vowed a maidenhood 
 Secure 'gainst chance or choice ? What bride like 
 
 her 
 
 Whose Bridegroom is the spouse of vestal Souls I 
 What widow lives in such austere retreat, 
 Such hourly thought of him she ne'er can join 
 Save through the gate of death 1 If those three 
 
 lives 
 
 In separation lived are fair and sweet, 
 How show they, blent in one 1 ' 
 
 Of those who heard 
 The most part gladdened ; those who knew how 
 
 high 
 
 Virtue, renouncing all besides for God, 
 Hath leave to soar on earth. Yet many sighed, 
 Jealous for happy homesteads. Cuthbert marked 
 That shame-faced sadness, and continued thus : 
 ' To praise the nun reproaches not, O friends, 
 But praises best that life of hearth and home 
 At Cana blessed by Him who shared it not. 
 The uncloistered life is holy too, and oft
 
 THE THREE STATES OF WOMANHOOD. l-'lo 
 
 Through changeful years in soft succession link. 
 Those three fair types of woman ; holds, diffused. 
 That excellence severe which Life Detached 
 Sustains in conceiitratijn.' Lon;* he mused ; 
 Then added thus : ' When last I roved these vales 
 There lived, not distant far, a blessed one 
 Revered by all : her name was Ethelreda : 
 I know her long, and much from her I learned. 
 Beneath her Pagan father's roof there sat 
 Ofttimes a Christian youth. With him the child 
 Walked, calling him " her friend." He loved the 
 
 inai<| : 
 
 Still young he drew her to the fold of Christ ; 
 Espoused her three years later ; died in war 
 Ere three months passed. For her he never died ! 
 Immortalised by faith that bond lived on ; 
 And now close by, and now 'mid Saints of heaven 
 She saw her husband walk. She never wept ; 
 That fire which lit her eye and flushed her cheek 
 Dried up, it seemed, her tears : the neighbours 
 
 round 
 
 Called her " the lady of the happy marriage." 
 She died long since, I doubt riot.' Forward 
 
 stepped 
 
 A slight, pale maid, the daughter of a bard, 
 And answered thus : ' Two months ago she died.' 
 Then Cuthbert : ' Tell me, maiden, of her death ; 
 And see you be not chary of yt.ur words,
 
 1(54 AUBREY DE VERB'S iO2MS. 
 
 For well I loved that woman.' Tears unfelt 
 Fast streaming down her pallid cheek, the maid 
 Replied, yet. often paused : ' A sad, sweet end ! 
 A long night's pain had left her living still : 
 I found her on the threshold of her door : 
 Her cheek was white ; but, trembling round her 
 
 lips 
 
 And dimly o'er her countenance spread, there lay 
 Something that, held in check by feebleness, 
 Yet tended to a smile. A cloak tight drawn 
 From the cold March wind screened her, save one 
 
 hand 
 Stretched on her knee, that reached to where a 
 
 beam, 
 
 Thin slip of watery sunshine, sunset's last, 
 Slid through the branches. On that beam, me- 
 
 thought, 
 
 Rested her eyes, half-closed. It was not so : 
 For when I knelt and kissed that hand ill- warmed 
 Smiling she said : " The small, unwedded maid 
 Has missed her mark ! You should have kisse.l 
 
 the ring ! 
 
 Full forty years upon a widowed hand 
 It holds its own. It takes its latest sunshine." 
 She lived through all that night, and died while 
 
 dawned 
 Through snows Saint Joseph's morn.'
 
 THE COMBAT AT THE FORD. 165 
 
 THE COMBAT AT THE FORD. 
 
 (FROM "THE FORAY OF QUEEN MEAVE." THE 
 EARLIEST SPECIMEN OF THE IRISH EPIC.) 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 QUEKN MEAVE sends her herald to Ferdla the Firbolg, 
 requiring him to. engage with Cuchullain in single combat. 
 Ferdla refuses to fight against his ancient friend : yet, 
 later, he attends a royal banquet given in his honour ; and 
 there, being drawn aside through the witcheries of the 
 Princess Finobar, he consents to the fight. The charioteer 
 of Ferdla sees Cuchullain advancing in his war-car to the 
 Ford, and, rapt by a prophetic spirit, sings his triumph. 
 For two days the ancient friends contend against each 
 other with reluctance and remorse ; but on the third day 
 the battle-rage bursts fully forth : and on the fourth, 
 Cuchullain, himself pierced through with wounds innu- 
 merable, slays Ferdla oy the Gae-Bulg. He lays his friend 
 upon the bank, at its northern side, and, standing beside 
 him, sings his dirge. 
 
 MEANTIME, that night within his forest lair 
 In dreams Cuchullain lay, and saw in dreams 
 Not recent fights, but ocean and that isle 
 Where with Ferdla he had dwelt in youth 
 With Scatha and another. And in dream 
 He mused ; ' The dearest of my friends survives : 
 These wars will pass ; Ferdla then and I 
 Thenceforth are one for aye ! ' That self -same 
 
 hour 
 
 The Firbolg slowly woke from troubled sleep, 
 Murmuring, as one in trance, 'Against my friend ! 
 Against my only friend ! ' With gloomy brows 
 His clansmen watched him arming. One sole man
 
 166 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 They feared ; that man Cuchullaiu. Morn the 
 
 while 
 
 Was dawning, though she raised nor glowing cheek 
 Nor ardent eyes, with silver wand not gold 
 Striking the unkindling portals of the East ; 
 And, ere the sun had risen, Ferdla bathed 
 Three times his forehead in the frosty stream ; 
 And bade his charioteer attend ; and drave 
 Begirt by stateliest equipage of war 
 Down to the river's brim. In regal pomp 
 The host confederate followed, keen to watch 
 With Meave, and Ailill, and with Finobar 
 All passions of a fight unmatched till then 
 On warfields of the immemorial world ; 
 While clustered here and there on rock or mo.uud 
 Minstrel and food-purveyor groom and leech 
 With healing herbs, and charms. 
 
 The sun arose 
 
 And smote the forest-roof dew-saturate 
 As onward dashed through woodlands to the Ford 
 Cuchullain's war-car. Nearer soon it rolled 
 Crushing the rocks. Above those wondrous steeds 
 That Great One glittered through low mist of 
 
 morn, 
 
 Splendour gloom- veiled. Ferdla's charioteer 
 Half heard, half saw him. Spirit-rapt, yet awed, 
 Perforce thus sang he standing near the marge. 
 ' I hear the on-rushing of the Car ! I sec
 
 THE COMBAT AT THE FORD. 167 
 
 There throned that warrior not of mortal mould 
 Swathed in the morning. Dreadful are his wheels : 
 Dreadful as breaker arched, when on its crest 
 Stands Fear, and Fate upon the rock-strewn shore ; 
 But not sea-rocks they crush, those brazen wheels, 
 But realms, and peoples, and the necks of men. 
 
 ' I see the War-Car ! Terrible it comes, 
 Four-peaked ; and o'er those peaks a shadowy pall 
 Pavilioning dim crypt and cave of death : 
 I see it by the gleam of spears high held, 
 The glare of circling Spirits. Lo ! the same 
 I saw far northward drifting, months gone by, 
 Ere yet that madness quelled the northern land.' 
 
 Then cried Ferdla, stationed where huge trees 
 Shut out unwelcome vision : ' For a bribe 
 Thou seest these portents, singing of my death ! ' 
 
 Once more, in agony prophetic, he 
 'The man within that car is Uladh's Hound ! 
 What hound 1 No stag-hound of the storm-swept 
 
 hills: 
 
 No watch-hound watching by a merchant's store : 
 The hound he is that tracks the steps of Doom ; 
 The hound of realms o'er-run, and hosts that fly ; 
 The hound that laps the blood ! ' 
 
 Again he sang ; 
 
 ' The Hound of Uladh is a hound with wings ; 
 A hound man-headed ! Yea, and o'er that head 
 Victory and empire, like two eagles paired
 
 168 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Sail onward, tempest-pinioned. Endless morn 
 Before him fleeting far o'er seas and lands 
 With shaft retorted lights his chariot-beam. 
 That chariot stays not ; turns not : on it comes, 
 Like torrent shooting from a tall cliffs brow, 
 Level long time ; then downward borne ! ' 
 
 ' A bribe ! ' 
 
 Once more Ferdia cried ; ' A bribe ! a lie! 
 Traitor ! for AililPs gold and gold of Meave 
 Thou sing'st thy master's death-song ! ' 
 
 By the stream 
 
 Cuchullain stood : not yet he knew his foe ; 
 That foe who slowly to the Ford advanced 
 Full panoplied, and in his hand a spear. 
 Long gazed they each on each. Cuchullain 
 
 spake : 
 
 ' Welcome howe'er thou com'st, Ferdia ! Once 
 In Scatha's isle far otherwise thou earnest 
 Morn after morn with tidings fresh of war 
 Plaything and pastime of our brother swords. 
 This day thou com'st invader of my land 
 Murthemne", bulwark broad of Uladh's realm ; 
 Thou com'st to burn my cities, spoil my flocks 
 A change there is, Ferdia ! ' Stern of brow 
 The Firbolg answered ; ' Friends we were : not 
 
 peers : 
 The younger thou. 'Twas thine to yoke my 
 
 steeds
 
 THE COMBAT AT THE FOKD. 1G9 
 
 Ami me for fight. A stripling hopes this day 
 With brandished spear to make a mountain flee ! 
 Son of the Gael ! long centuries since, thy race 
 Trampled my race : their vengeance hour is 
 
 near ; 
 
 I bid thee to depart ! ' To him his friend ; 
 ' Ferdia, in the old days on Scatha's Isle 
 Thou wert my tribe, my house, my stock, my 
 
 race 1 
 
 Questioned I then on battle-plain, or when 
 On frosty nights we couched beneath one rug, 
 Ancestral claims, traditions of the clan 1 
 A change there is, Ferdia ! ' 
 
 Thus with words 
 
 Or mild, or stern in hope to save not slay, 
 Those friends contended. Sternest was the man 
 Whose conscience most aggrieved him. 
 
 ' To this Ford 
 
 Thou cam'st the first, old comrade ! choice of arms 
 Is therefore thine by right.' Cuchullain spake : 
 Ferdia chose the javelin. Arrow-swift, 
 While still the charioteers brought back the shaft, 
 The missiles flew. Keen-eyed as ocean bird 
 That, high in sunshine poised, glimpses his prey 
 Beneath the wave, and downward swooping slays 
 
 him, 
 
 Each watched the other's movements, if an arm 
 Lifted too high, or buckler dropped too lov:
 
 170 AUBKEY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Left bare a rivet. Long that fight endured : 
 Three times exhausted sank their hands : three 
 
 times 
 
 They sat on rocks for respite, each the other 
 Eyeing askance, not silent ; ' Lo the man 
 Who shields an ox-like or a swine-like race 
 That strikes no blow itself ! ' or thus ; ' Ah pledge 
 Of amity eterne in old time sworn ! 
 Ferdla, vow thy vow henceforth to maids ! 
 The man-race nothing heeds thee ! ' 
 
 Evening fell 
 
 And stayed perforce that combat, Slowly drew 
 The warriors near ; and as they noted, each, 
 The other bleeding, friendship unextinct 
 In all its strength returned : round cither's neck 
 That other wound his arms and kissed him thrice : 
 That night their coursers in the self-same field 
 Grazed, side by side : that night their charioteers 
 With rushes gathered from the self-same stream 
 Made smooth their masters' beds, then sat them- 
 selves 
 
 By the same fire. Cuchullain sent the half 
 Of every healing herb that lulled his wounds 
 To staunch Ferdla's ; while to him in turn 
 Ferdia sent whate'er of meats or drinks 
 Held strengthening power or cordial, to allay 
 Distempered nerve or nimble spirit infuse, 
 In equal portions shared.
 
 THE COMBAT AT THE FORD. 171 
 
 The second morn 
 They met at sunrise : ' Thine the choice of 
 
 arms;' 
 The Firbolg spake; the Gael made answer; 
 
 ' Spears ! ' 
 
 Then leaped the champions on their battle-cars 
 And launched them into battle. Dire their shock 
 In fiery orbits wheeling now ; anon 
 Wheel locked in wheel. Profounder wounds by 
 
 far 
 
 That day than on the first the warriors gored, 
 Since closer was the fight. With laughing lip 
 Not less that eve Cuchullain sang the stave 
 That chides in war ' Fomorian obstinacy : ' 
 Again at eve drew near they, slower now 
 For pain, and interwove fraternal arms : 
 Again-their coursers in the self-same field 
 Grazed side by side, and from the self-same stream 
 Again their charioteers the rushes culled : 
 Again they shared alike both meats and drinks, 
 Again those herbs allaying o'er their wounds 
 With incantations laid. 
 
 Forlorn and sad 
 
 Peered the third morning o'er the vaporous woods 
 The wan grey river with its floating weed. 
 And bubble unirradiate. From the marge 
 Cuchullain sadly marked the advancing foe : 
 ' Alas, my brother ! bcamless is thine eye ;
 
 172 AUBBEY DE VEKE's POEM8. 
 
 The radiance lives no longer on thy hair ; 
 
 And slow thy step.' The doomed one answered 
 
 calm, 
 
 ' Cuchullain, slow of foot, but strong of hand 
 Fate drags his victim to the spot decreed : 
 The choice to-day is mine : I choose the sword.' 
 So spake the Firbolg : and they closed in 
 
 fight : 
 
 And straightway from his heart to arm and hand 
 Rushed up the strength of all that buried race 
 By him so loved ! Once more it swelled his 
 
 breast : 
 
 Re-clothed in majesty each massive limb, 
 And flashed in darksome light of hair and eye 
 Resplendent as of old. Surpassing deeds 
 They wrought, while circled meteor-like their 
 
 swords, 
 
 Then fell like heaven's own bolt on shield or helm. 
 Long hours they strove till morning's purer gleam 
 Vanished in noon. Sharper that day their speech ; 
 For, in the intenser present, years gone by 
 Hung but like pallid, thin, horizon clouds 
 O'er memory's loneliest limit. Evening sank 
 Upon the dripping groves and shuddering flood 
 With rainy wailings. Not as heretofore 
 Their parting. Haughtily their mail they tossed 
 Each to his followers. In the self-same field 
 That night their coursers grazed not ; neither sat
 
 THE COMBAT AT THE FORD. 173 
 
 Their charioteers beside the self-same fire : 
 Nor sent they, each to other, healing herbs. 
 
 Ere morn the Firbolg drank tin strength of 
 
 dreams 
 
 Picturing his race's wrong ; and trumpet blasts 
 Swept o'er him blown from fields of ancient wars, 
 And thus he mused, half- wakened ; ' Not for 
 
 Meave ; 
 
 Not for the popular suffrage ; not for her 
 That maid who fain had held me from the snare, 
 Fight I that fight whose end shall crown this day. 
 O race beloved, this day your vengeance dawns 
 ReJ in the East ! The mightiest of the Gaels 
 Goes down before me. What if both should die ? 
 So best ! Thus too the Firbolg is avenged ! ' 
 Thus mused he. Stately from his couch he rose, 
 An I armed himself, sedate. Upon his breast 
 He laid, in iron sheathed, a huge, flat stone, 
 For thus he said, ' Though many a feat of arms 
 Is mine, from Scatha learned, or else self-taught, 
 The Gae-Bulg is Cuchullain's ! ' On his head 
 He fixed his helm, and on his arm his shield 
 Sable as night, with fifty bosses bound, 
 All brass ; the midmost like a noontide sun. 
 
 Cuchullain eyed him as he neared the Ford 
 And spake to Leagh ; ' This day, if thou should'st 
 
 mark 
 This hand or slack or sluggish, hurl, as wont,
 
 174 AUBREY DS VERB'S. POEMS. 
 
 Sharp storm of arrowy railing from thy lips 
 
 That so the battle-anger from on high 
 
 May flame on me.' The choice of arms was his : 
 
 He chose ' the Ford-Feat.' On the Firbolg's bro-.v 
 
 A shadow fell : ' All weapons there,' he mused, 
 
 ' Have place alike : if on him falls the rage 
 
 He will not spare the Gae-bulg ! ' * 
 
 Well they knew, 
 
 Both warriors, that the fortunes of that day 
 Must end the conflict ; that for one, or both. 
 The sun that hour ascending shone his List : 
 Therefore all strength of onset till that hour 
 By each or loosed or hoarded, craft of fight 
 Reined in one moment but to spring the next 
 Forward in might more terrible, compared 
 With that last battle was a trivial thing ; 
 Whilst every weapon, javelin, spear, or sword, 
 Lawful alike that day, scattered abroad 
 Huge flakes of dinted mail ; from every wound 
 Bounded the life-blood of a heart athirst 
 For victory or for death. The vernal day 
 Panted with summer ardours, while aloft 
 Noontide, a fire-tressed Fury, waved her torch, 
 Kindling the lit grove and its youngling green 
 From the azure-blazing zenith. As the heat 
 So waxed the warriors' frenzy. Hours went by : 
 
 * The Gae-bulg was a terrible weapon of war, almost ahv.iyn 
 fatal, but which hardly any warrior was able to use.
 
 THE COMBAT Al THE FORD. 17-J 
 
 That day they sought not rest on rock or mound, 
 Held no discourse. Slowly the sun decline,! ; 
 And as wayfarers oft when twilight falls 
 Advance with strength renewed, so they, refreshed, 
 Surpassed their deeds at morning. With a bound 
 Cuchullain, from the bank high springing, lit 
 Full on the broad boss of Ferdla's shield, 
 His dagger-point down turned. With spasm of 
 
 arm 
 
 Instant the Firbolg from its sable rim 
 Cast him astonished. Upward from, the Ford 
 Again Cuchullain reached that shield : again 
 With spasm of knee Ferdia flung him far, 
 While Leagh in scorn reviled him : ' As the flood 
 Shoots on the tempest's blast its puny foam ; 
 The oak-tree casts its dead leaf on the wave ; 
 The mill-wheel showers its spray ; the shameless 
 
 woman 
 
 Hurls on the more that babe which was her shame, 
 So hurls Ferdia forth that fairy-child 
 Whom men misdeemed for warrior ! ' 
 
 Then from heaven 
 
 Came down upon Cuchullain, like the night, 
 The madness-rage. The Foes confronted met : 
 Shivered their spears from point to haft : their 
 
 swo: (1 1 
 Flashed lightnings round them. Fate-compelled, 
 
 their feet.
 
 176 AUBREY DE VERB'S PO3MS. 
 
 Drew near, then reached, that stream which back- 
 ward fled 
 
 Leaving its channel dry. While raged that fight 
 Cuchullain's stature rose, huge bulk, immense, 
 Ascending still : as high Ferdla towered 
 Like Fomor old, or Nenied from the sea, 
 Those shields, their covering late from foot to 
 
 helm, 
 
 Shrinking, so seemed it, till above them beamed 
 Shoulders and heads. So close that fight, their 
 
 crests 
 
 That waved defiance, mingled in mid air ; 
 While all alon^ the circles of their shields 
 And all adown their swords ran, mad with rage, 
 Viewless for speed the demons of dark moors 
 And war-sprites of the valleys, Bocanachs 
 And Banacahs, whose scream, so keen its edge, 
 Might shear the centuried forest as the scythe 
 Shears meadow grass. To these in dread response 
 Thundered far off from sea-caves billow-beat 
 And halls rock- vaulted 'neath the eternal hills, 
 That race Tuatha, giant once, long since 
 To pigmy changed, th it forge from molten ores 
 For aye their clanging weapons, shield or spear, 
 On stony anvils, waiting the day decreed 
 Of vengeance on the Gael. That tumult scared 
 The horses of the host of Meave, that brake 
 From war-car or the tethering rope, and spread
 
 THE COMBAT AT THE FORD. 177 
 
 Ruin around. Camp-followers first, then chiefs 
 Innumerable were dragged along, or lay 
 'Neath broken axle, dead. The end was nigh : 
 Cuchullain's shield splintered upon his arm 
 Served him no more ; and through his fenceless 
 
 side 
 
 Ferdla drave the sword. Then first the Gael 
 Hurled forth this taunt ; ' The Firbolg, bribed by 
 
 Meave, 
 
 Has sold his ancient friend ! ' Ferdla spake, 
 ' No Firbolg he, that man in Scatha's isle, 
 Who won a maid, then left her ! ' Backward 
 
 stepped 
 
 Cuchullain paces three : he reached the bank ; 
 He uttered low ; ' The Gae-Bulg ! ' Instant, Leagh 
 Within his hand had lodged it. Bending low, 
 Low as that stream, the war-game's crowning 
 
 feat, 
 
 He launched it on Ferdla's breast. The shield, 
 The iron plate beneath, the stone within it, 
 Like shallow ice-films 'neath a courser's hoof 
 Burst. All was o'er. To earth the warrior sank : 
 Dying, he spake : ' Not thine this deed, O friend 
 Twas Meave who winged that bolt into my heart ! ' 
 
 Then ran Cuchullain to that great one dead, 
 And raised him in his arms, and laid him down 
 Beside the Ford, but on its northern bank, 
 Not in that realm by Ailill swayed and Meave : 
 
 L
 
 178 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Long time he looked the dead man in the face ; 
 Then by him fell in swoon. ' Cuchullain, rise ! 
 The men of Erin be upon thee ! Rise ! ' 
 Thus Leagli. He answered, waking ; ' Let them 
 
 come ! 
 
 To me what profit if I live or die 1 
 The man I loved is dead ! ' 
 
 But by the dead 
 
 Cuchullain stood ; and thus he made lament : 
 ' Ferdia ! On their head the curse descend 
 Who sent thee to thy death ! We meet no more ; 
 Never while sun, and moon, and earth endure. 
 
 ' Ferdia ! Far away in Scatha's isle 
 A great troth bound us and a vow life-long 
 Never to raise war-weapons each on each : 
 'Twas Finobar that snared thee ! She shall die. 
 
 ' Ferdia ! dearer to my heart wert thou 
 Than all beside if all were joined in one : 
 Dear was thy clouded face, and darksome eye ; 
 Thy deep, sad voice ; thy words so wise and few ; 
 Dear was thy silence : dear thy slow, grave ways, 
 Not boastful like the Gael's.' 
 
 Silent he stood 
 While Leagh in reverence from the dead man's 
 
 breast 
 Loosened his mail. There shone the torque of 
 
 Meave : 
 There where the queen had fixed it yet it lay.
 
 THE COMBAT AT THE FORD. 179 
 
 Cuchullain clutched it. ' Ha ! that torque I 
 
 spurned ! 
 
 Dark gem ill-lifted from the seas of Death ! 
 Swart planet bickering from the heavens of Fate ! 
 With what a baleful beam thou look'st on me ! 
 'Twas thou, 'twas thou, not I, that slew'st this 
 
 man ' 
 
 He dashed it on the rock, and with his heel 
 Crushed it to fragments. 
 
 Then, as one from trance 
 Waking, once more he spake : ' O me O me, 
 That I should see that face so great and pale ! 
 To-day face-whitening death is on that face ; 
 And in my hand my sword : 'tis crimson yet 
 That n ay when he and I triumphed in fight 
 By Formait's lake o'er Scatha's pirate foes 
 The woman fetched a beaker forth of wine, 
 And made us drink it both ; and made us vow 
 Friendship eterne. O friend, my hand this day 
 Tendered a bloody beaker to thy lip.' 
 
 Again he sang ; ' Queen Meave to Uladh's bound 
 Came down ; and dark the deed that grew thereof ; 
 Came down with all the hosting of her kings ; 
 And dark the deed that grew thereof. We two 
 Abode with Scatha in her northern isle, 
 Her pupils twinned. The sea-girt warrioress 
 That honoured few men honoured us alike : 
 We ate together of the self-same dish :
 
 180 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 We couched together 'neath the self -same shield 
 Now living man I stand, and he lies dead ! ' 
 
 He raised again his head : once more he sang : 
 ' Each battle was a game, a jest, a sport 
 Till came, fore-doomed, Ferdla to the Ford. 
 I loved the warrior though I pierced his heart. 
 Each battle was a game, a jest, a sport 
 Till stood, self-doomed, Ferdla by the Ford. 
 Huge lion of the forestry of war ; 
 Fair, central pillar of the House of Fame ; 
 But yesterday he towered above the world : 
 This day he lies along the earth, a shade.' 
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE 
 GREAT: 
 
 ALEXANDER AT TROY, 
 
 ANOINTING THE PILLAK ON THE GRAVE OF 
 ACHILLES. 
 
 (AcT I. SCENE IV.) 
 
 Mighty Sire, Achilles ! 
 Lift from the dimness of the dolorous realm 
 Thy face upon thy son ! In it I see it 
 Survives, though sad, the unvanquishable youth ; 
 In it alone. The phantom of a spear 
 Is all that now can weight that phantom hand
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 181 
 
 Which awed the Atridse ; and as though chain- 
 bound 
 
 Move the swift feet that once outsped thy Mother's 
 Bounding from wave to wave ; yet, not the less, 
 Monarch thou walkest. 'Mid the Strengthless 
 
 Heads 
 That, reverent, round thee flock like thee 
 
 lamenting, 
 
 Despite the embalm'd purpureal airs, and gleam 
 Immeasurable of amaranthine meads, 
 Lamenting still the strenuous airs of earth 
 And blasts from battle-fields ; like thee detesting 
 That frustrate, stagnant, ineffectual bourne 
 Where substance melts to shadow lift, great king, 
 Once more from out the gloom a face sun-bright, 
 Elysium's wonder, on thy son's, and hear him : 
 To thee this day he consecrates his greatness : 
 Whate'er malign and intercepting Death 
 Detracted from thy greatness he concedes thee ; 
 Remands thee from the gulf the deed unborn ; 
 Yields thee, ere won, his victory and his empire. 
 This is the anointing, this the sacrifice, 
 Wherewith he crowns thy tomb.
 
 182 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 ALEXANDER AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 (ACT II. SCENE VII.) 
 The JEWISH HIGH PRIEST, ALEXANDER. 
 
 High Priest. This is that scroll whereof I spake 
 
 to thee : 
 
 That Vision which the exiled prophet saw 
 Sitting in Susa, by Choaspes' flood : 
 ' In vision I beheld a Beast two-horned 
 Westward he pushed, and northward, and to south, 
 Nor any stood before him. After that, 
 Another mightier portent, swifter far 
 Rushed from the west, o'er face of all the earth 
 Which yet he touched not, flying upon wings ; 
 He smote against that Beast, and trod him down ; 
 Nor any might deliver. Then, a Voice 
 There reached me from betwixt the river banks : 
 " That Beast which thou beheldest is that king, 
 Lord of the Median and the Persian realms : 
 He that shall overcome him is the Greek." ' 
 This is that vision which our prophet saw. 
 
 Alex. That Voice your prophet heard was Voice 
 of God [After musiny.] 
 
 You will not wed my cause, and save your city 1 
 
 High Priest. We may not, and we will not. 
 
 A lex. Yet you know 
 
 Mine is the empire '\
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 13 
 
 High Priest. What is writ is writ. 
 
 Alex. What was that sacrifice you offered late 1 
 The like I have not seen. 
 
 High Priest. The shadow 'twas 
 
 Of substance onward striding. Ask no more : 
 We are a prophet-people : ours the Hope : 
 We are God's people, and we stand apart : 
 The kings of the earth may speed us, or may rend ; 
 Know us they cannot. 
 
 Alex. I too had a vision 
 
 yield you credence, Priest. I have repented 
 My first resolve and fling it from me far : 
 I tribute none demand, and in your city 
 Challenge no rule. 
 
 Your prophets spake in ancient days of me ; 
 Spake they in earlier days of Persian Cyrus 1 
 
 Hiyh Priest. By name, before his birth two 
 
 hundred years : 
 
 Hear thou God's edict : ' Cyrus is my shepherd : 
 I hold his right hand, loosening at his feet 
 The hearts of Monarchs. I will cut in twain 
 The bars of iron and the brazen gates.' 
 
 Alex. The Babylonian gates stood wide that 
 
 night 
 When back Euphrates shrank. 
 
 High Priest (reading}. l Be dry, ye rivers ! 
 In Babylon the desert beast shall hide ; 
 The dragon couch within her palaces ;
 
 184 AUBREY DE VEEE's POEMS. 
 
 The bittern shriek above her shallow pools.' 
 Young man, hold thou no hand to Babylon 
 For God hath judged her, lest thou share her 
 
 plagues. 
 
 Alex. Hers was the first of Empires and the 
 worst [After a pause.] 
 
 The day goes by ; lead onward to the gates. 
 O'er all the earth my empire shall be just, 
 Godlike my rule. 
 
 Ilijh Priest. Young man, beware ! God's prophet 
 Awards thee Persia's crown, but not the world's : 
 He who wears that should be the Prince of 
 
 Peace. 
 
 Thy portion lies in bounds. Limit and Term 
 Govern the world. Thou know'st the Voice was 
 
 God's 
 That spake. Two ways there are between them 
 
 choose. 
 
 Alex. I shall not fail to meditate these twain, 
 Then make election. 
 
 High Priest. Pardon, royal sir, 
 
 A little moment past your choice was made : 
 ; Tis known above ; and you one day will know it 
 You trust not God : the man you trust will fail 
 
 you. 
 
 Alex. What man 1 
 High Priest. Yourself. 
 Alex. At least I trust none other.
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 185 
 
 High Priest. My message is delivered. Sir, 
 farewell ! 
 [HiGH PRIEST departs. PTOLEMY enters.'] 
 
 Alex. There sits unwonted wonder on your brow, 
 My Ptolemy ! 
 
 Ptol. Sir, all men kneel to you, 
 
 You but to one, and him a man unknown ! 
 When first that long and strange procession reached 
 
 us 
 
 I saw an earnest inquest in your eye, 
 A pallor on your cheek. 
 
 Alex. You err, my friend : 
 
 I knelt, but not to one unseen till then. 
 Three years gone by, three months, and twenty 
 
 days, 
 
 At noon I sat in Macedonian Dium, 
 Musing the fortunes of this Asian war : 
 Then but decreed. There fell on me a trance 
 Filled with strange fear. Never save in that trance 
 Have I known fear. 
 
 Ptol. What saw you in it, Sir 1 
 
 Alex. Things as they were. 
 
 Plol. No more ? 
 
 Alex. Yea, things beside : 
 
 My captains grew ape-visaged, and chattering 
 
 rushed 
 
 On errands all confused, while down the street, 
 In the wide Agora, on the temple's steps,
 
 186 AUBREY DE VEEE'S POEMS. 
 
 The concourse, shrunk to pigmies, screamed and 
 
 strove ; 
 
 The tallest like a three years' child. Meanwhile, 
 There where benignant plains had spread but late 
 Heaven-high there hung in the east a mount, fire- 
 crowned, 
 
 And ruin-flanked a mount which seemed a world 
 Huger than man's. The pigmies and the apes 
 Saw it and laughed. 
 Plot. 'Twas strange ! 
 
 A lex. It was not slumber : 
 
 Parmenio and Philotas at my right 
 You, Ptolemy, at my left, witnessed and sware 
 That from my session ta'en till, sunset nigh, 
 The priesthood issued from the fane of Zeus, 
 I had not ceased from audience and command 
 Though sterner than my wont. The trance was 
 
 long, 
 
 And, as it deepened, darkness closed around. 
 Then from that darkness like a god this man 
 Drew near, methought, that mitre on his brow, 
 That gem-illumined breast-plate on his breast. 
 He spake,' Fear nought ; the God I serve shall 
 
 lay 
 
 His hand upon thy head and lead thee on 
 Triumphant through the danger and the gloom.' 
 This world is full of wonders, Ptolemy, 
 Or else it were not world for man, since man
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 187 
 
 Is marvellous most. Divulge this thiug to none, 
 Nor write it in thine annals of the war. 
 
 A PORTRAIT OF ALEXANDER. 
 
 (Acr III. SCENE I.) 
 PARMENIO and PHILOTAS. 
 
 Phi. You are a greater man, sir, than you know 
 And bear your honours meekly. Pray you pardon 
 My sometimes halting reverence. 
 
 Par. Here's a change ! 
 
 I have warned you oft to bate your perilous pride 
 Saying, ' My son be less.' Your whim is now 
 To show all humbleness. 
 
 Phi. I should be humble 
 
 To one who for his master has a god : 
 Unseen I heard the king expound his schemes, 
 Hephestion mildly plausive. 
 
 Par. Schemes ! What schemes 1 
 
 Phi. Kneel, Hercules, and Dionysus tremble ! 
 Tremble, thou Caucasus that hid'st thy head 
 In snows eterne ! Our great stage-king has sworn 
 To plant his buskin on thy wintry scalp ! 
 
 Par. What seeks the boy 1 
 
 Phi. From eastern Caucasus 
 
 Two rivers rush, the Indus and the Oxus, 
 One south, one north. He'll tie them, tail to 
 tail,
 
 183 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Like foxes caught, to test their strength and 
 
 prowess ; 
 Next, on those heights he seeks some herb to 
 
 enrich 
 
 The Stagyrite's medicine shop : and, lastly, thence 
 He'll o'er-gaze Scythia, which with proximate place 
 Is honoured in the order of his conquests. 
 
 Par. Renounce great Persia for a realm of bears ! 
 I march with him no more ! 
 
 Phi. You shall not need : 
 
 Besieging Tyre, he sent you to Damascus 
 To seal up sacred balms, and perfume-phials, 
 And inventory the wardrobe of Darius. 
 In Egypt you had no conspicuous place : 
 Now, for like cause, the Caspian Gates you pass 
 
 not, 
 
 Ecbatana your charge. Upon his treasure 
 He bids you sit like an old hen, and hatch it 
 While he strides on to victory. Snows of age 
 With what auspicious calm ye crown old heads ! 
 And hearts virile no more ! 
 
 Par. The king's a madman : 
 
 The worse for us ! Free him from that conceit 
 That he's a god, the man of men were he : 
 Since Marathon we have seen none other like him. 
 Phi. One-half his victories come but of his blind- 
 ness, 
 And noting not the hindrance.
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 189 
 
 Par. At Granicus 
 
 But that was chance. At Issus he was greater: 
 I set small store on Egypt or on Tyre : 
 Next came Arbela. Half a million foes 
 Melted like snow. To him Epaminondas 
 Was as the wingless creature to the winged. 
 
 Phi. I grant his greatness were his godship sane ! 
 But note his brow ; 'tis Thought's least earthly 
 
 temple : 
 
 Then mark beneath, that round, not human eye 
 Still glowing like a panther's ! In his body 
 No passion dwells, but all his mind is passion, 
 Wild intellectual appetite and instinct 
 That works without a law. 
 
 Par. But half you know him : 
 
 There is a zigzag lightning in his brain 
 That flies in random flashes yet not errs : 
 His victories seem but chances : link those 
 
 chances 
 
 And under them a science you shall find 
 Though unauthentic, contraband, illicit, 
 Yea, contumelious oft to laws of war. 
 Fortune, that as a mistress smiles on others, 
 Serves him as duty-bound : her blood is he, 
 Born in the purple of her royalties.
 
 190 AUBREY DE VERE'S POEMS. 
 
 PARMENIO'S BANISHMENT. 
 (Acx III. SCENE III.) 
 
 Alex. Caitiff and coward ! 
 
 The grey hair well thou know'st it saves that 
 
 head 
 Which else this sword had from thy shoulders 
 
 swept ! 
 
 I am requited justly who, unjustly 
 In glorious offices above thy peers 
 Stayed thee so long, for those high tasks unmeet 
 Which by Hephestion or by Ptolemy 
 In silence were vicariously discharged. 
 I strip thee of all functions to the last : 
 Take from him chain and sword ! [After a pause. 
 
 I stand rebuked ; 
 
 And, gazing on your countenances, lords, 
 Remember that the ruins of a man 
 Have in them ruin's claims. 
 The man who smote his king upon the face, 
 Who on his forehead nailed the name of liar, 
 Shall live, but not beside him, and not near, 
 Honours shall keep, but sway no battle field. 
 Back to Ecbatana ! Get thee hence, Parmenio ! 
 Arid guard its citadel with Harpalus 
 A pardoned man like thee. My purpose stood 
 Thou thence shouldst join us with our Thracian 
 
 aids :
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 191 
 
 It shall not be ; for 1 distrust thy sword 
 
 Though one time sharp, distrust, detest thy 
 
 counsel, 
 
 Yet trust thy faithfulness to guard my gold 
 And keep my Median capital in awe. 
 Depart : work waits. Thy son shall take no hurt 
 From his sire's fall On earth we meet no more. 
 Par. King for that pride which maddens and 
 
 will wreck you 
 
 Demands such lessening titles I depart. 
 I too, like you, have mused, and changed my 
 
 purpose : 
 
 That which it was and is let no man ask. 
 This is the ending of a life-long league 
 I laid my strong sword by your cradle's side ; 
 I taught you how to walk, and how to run, 
 To ride, to swim ; and when you sought to fly 
 I bade you to beware. 
 
 Could all this thing be painted, patched, adjusted 
 Reduced to spleen of fancy, proven a dream, 
 This day from out the starry count of time 
 Be blotted, cancelled, buried, and trod out 
 I'd not so have it for my heart is changed. 
 My head, you say, through age hath lost its 
 
 cunning ; 
 
 My heart hath insight still : I see your end : 
 I'll whisper it to Philip in the shades 
 For I shall see him soon.
 
 192 AUBREY DE VEEE's POEMS. 
 
 You shall succeed, and your success be ruin : 
 
 A name you shall achieve : in after years 
 
 The byeword it shall live of madness crowned : 
 
 By night the dagger and the spear by day 
 
 From you shall glance : snow- wastes and burning 
 
 sands 
 
 To you obsequious shall but choke the just ; 
 Yet all your greatness shall be changed to bane. 
 Your virtues shall not walk in Virtue's ways 
 But glorify your vices, and the beam 
 Of your bright mind blacken that mind to mad- 
 ness. 
 
 The empire you shall build in cloudy wreck 
 Shall melt around your deathbed premature 
 Which shall not be a warrior's : that first realm 
 Your father's work and mine, to dust shall fall, 
 The Royal house evanish as a wind, 
 Your mother, and your sisters, sons, and wife 
 Struck down successive by a vassal hand 
 In bloody base and ignominious death. 
 Lords, give ye way ! Some blood-drops in my 
 
 brain 
 At times make dim mine eyes ; but help I need 
 
 not. 
 
 Who's this ? Hephestion ? Tell my son, Philotas, 
 That after-musings on this morn's discourse 
 Have somewhat changed my sentence. Home, 
 they say,
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 193 
 
 Is best for age. I seek it. Eighty years 
 
 I've made my home on horseback Sirs, farewell. 
 
 ALEXANDER'S AMBITION. 
 
 (ACT III. SCENE IX.) 
 ALEXANDER and HEPHESTION. 
 
 Alex. Resume we our dispute ! 
 
 What if the race of gods began with men ? 
 If Nature, evermore through strife educing 
 Stronger from strong, throned on Olympus first 
 The heroic -proved of men as demi-gods, 
 And these through strife worked out the gods that 
 
 rule? 
 
 Concede me this as true and man's, ambition 
 Kindred may claim with gods. 
 
 Heph. Concede it ! never : 
 
 Greatness, be sure, came never from below : 
 That thought would drag from heaven itself its 
 
 greatness : 
 
 Rather the gods themselves make manifest 
 One higher far than they. 
 
 Sir, there are whispers, trust me, from beneath 
 These should be trampled and not parleyed with : 
 Esteem such thoughts among them. 
 
 Alex. This, that's great 
 
 My thought suggests ; an infinite progressioa 
 
 Heph. Nay, but a finite mocking infinite, 
 M
 
 194 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 And murdering what it mocks ; the highest term 
 In such a series but repeats the first, 
 Exaggerating still inherent flaws, 
 And in a nakeder shape though vaster scale 
 Showing man's nature shamed. 
 
 Alex. The gods have passions, 
 
 Not minds alone : in this they are like to men. 
 
 Heph. They act like men who have them : that 
 
 proves little : 
 
 Our ignorance doubtless misconceives their acts : 
 Twas not Apollo's spite that sentenced Marsyas : 
 'Twas no earth-instinct on Endymion smiled: 
 The self-same acts, in gods, in men, in beasts, 
 Know difference large. Acts lawful in the man 
 Are crimes in boys. 
 
 Alex. A race of gods hath fallen : 
 
 Then Zeus in turn may fall. I find no thrones 
 Whereon the gods themselves may sit secure ; 
 I find to man's advance no term or limit ; 
 No certain truth amid contending rites ; 
 No base for Faith. 
 
 Heph. Then man must live by Hope 
 
 Alex. And whence our hope 1 
 
 Heph. From all things good around us, 
 
 From all things fair the brightness of the 
 
 world, 
 
 The glory of its rivers and its seas, 
 The music in the wandering of its winds,
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 195 
 
 The magic in the spring-flowers fresh accost, 
 
 The gladdening sweetness and pure grace of 
 
 woman, 
 The questioning eyes of childhood. With one 
 
 voice 
 
 They preach one hope that virtue shall be crowned 
 One day, and Truth be known. 
 
 ALEXANDER'S LAST ILLNESS. 
 
 (Acr V. SCENE VIII.) 
 ALEXANDER and PTOLEMY. 
 
 Alex. We're stayed in the midst. 
 
 Ptol. Sire, may the mighty gods 
 
 Alex. I'm hindered of my own : my march is 
 hindered ! 
 
 That march was ordered for the third day hence : 
 
 This bends it to the fifth. 
 
 Ptol. Too quickly pass 
 
 Alex. Thus much the malice of o'er-weening 
 gods, 
 
 Or else their negligence, can fret our course ! 
 
 I'm maimed, and tamed, and shamed : but mind 
 can act 
 
 When the outward act is barred. Six audiences 
 
 I have given. The chief of my Thessalian horse 
 
 Had failed to impress his blacksmiths. Neliordates 
 
 Had sent no corn to Opis.
 
 196 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Ptol. Sire, your eyes 
 
 Are blood all blood. Where is it you feel the 
 
 pain 1 ? 
 Alex. I have wrestled oft with pain and flung it 
 
 ever : 
 
 Save for that fire in brain, and heart, and hand, 
 I am well enough. My strength as yet is whole. 
 To work ! You need the map. Despatch, this 
 
 even, 
 
 Heraclides to the Caspian, there to build 
 A fleet for exploration : let him search 
 If thence a passage lead not to the Euxine : 
 That found, a six weeks' march were spared and 
 
 more 
 Twixt Hellespont and Indus. 
 
 Ptol. One hour, my king, 
 
 But one, give rest to that 
 
 Alex. Recall Nearchus : 
 
 Command that he forbear those Arab pirates : 
 Bid him through help of theirs an army with 
 
 him 
 
 Circle all Afric, reach the Atlantic Pillars : 
 Thence eastward curving on the midland sea 
 He'll meet, near Carthage, or that coast Numidian, 
 Our westward-marching host. You're staring, 
 
 sir! 
 
 Ptol. All shall be done. 
 Alex. Ere sunset send to Egypt :
 
 SCENES FROM ' ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 197 
 
 We need a road to coast her sea. Her sands 
 Are fire that blasts my eyes. . 
 
 Ptol. The brain o'er-heated 
 
 Recalls Gedrosia's waste. 
 
 A lex. My brain's not touched : 
 
 I watch it : if there rise beyond its verge 
 A cloud, the slenderest, of bewildered thought 
 You'll learn it thus I close my lips for ever. 
 
 Ptol. Your thoughts are strong, my king, dis- 
 tinct, and plain. 
 
 Alex. A light of conflagration makes them 
 
 plain : 
 'Tis sent as from a pyre. 
 
 PtoL Immortal gods ! 
 
 Grant to this sufferer the balm of sleep ! 
 
 Alex. Sleep ! Can you guard me 'gainst ill 
 
 dreams in slumber ] 
 
 I'll tell you one. I died ; and lay in death 
 A century 'mid those dead Assyrian kings 
 In their old tomb by yonder stagnant lake. 
 Then came a trumpet-blast that might have waked 
 Methought a sleeping world. It woke not them. 
 I could not rise : I could not join the battle : 
 Yet I saw all. 
 
 Ptol. What saw you, sire 1 
 
 Alex. Twelve tents, 
 
 Each with my standard. On twelve hills they 
 stood
 
 198 AUBKEY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Which either on their foreheads blazoned wore, 
 Or from my spirit's instinct took great names, 
 Cithaeron, Haemus, Taurus, Libanus, 
 Parapomisus, and huge Caucasus, 
 With other five, and Athos in the midst. 
 Then from my royal tents on those twelve hills 
 Mailed in mine arms, twelve Alexanders crowned 
 With all their armies rushed into a plain 
 Which quaked for fear, and dashed across twelve 
 
 floods, 
 
 Euphrates, Issus, Tigris, Indus, Oxus, 
 And others with great names. They met those 
 
 Twelve 
 
 And, meeting, swelled in stature to the skies, 
 And grappled breast to breast and fought and 
 
 died, 
 
 Save four that, bleeding, each on other stared, 
 And leaned upon their swords. As thus they 
 
 stood, 
 Slow from that western heaven which domes the 
 
 accursed 
 
 Rome's bandit brood there moved a cloud night- 
 black, 
 
 Which onward-gathering mastered all the East 
 And o'er it rained a rain of fire. The earth 
 Split, and the rivers twelve in darkness sank ; 
 The twelve great mountains which had borne my 
 
 standard
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 199 
 
 Rifted and splintered crumbled to the plain ; 
 The bones of those twelve armies ceased from sight : 
 Then from the sun that died and dying moon 
 And stars death-sentenced fell great drops of blood 
 Large as their spheres till all. the earth was blood ; 
 And o'er that blood-sea rang a female cry, 
 ' The Royal House is dead.' 
 
 Ptol. My king, my friend 
 
 Alex. Phylax is dust. You cannot bid him 
 tend me ! 
 
 Ptol. Olympias, prescient, sent you, sire, from 
 
 Greece 
 
 But late its wisest leech. How oft you've said 
 ' A mother's prayers are hard to be withstood ! ' 
 
 Alex. I loved her in the old days : nor years, 
 
 nor wars 
 
 Disturbed that image. But a greater love 
 In its great anguish tramples out all others. 
 Impostors are they all those heart-affections : 
 They're dupes that make us dupes 
 There's not on earth a confidence unflawed. 
 I think he kept from me at Tyre a secret 
 Touching that princess. I from him concealed 
 That warning strange at Hierosolyma 
 Whereof it may be my contempt more late 
 When, old Parmenio doomed, I marched to India 
 Bore me ill fruit. Betwixt that warning strange 
 And this my sickness was there aught in common ]
 
 200 AUBKEY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Ptok It may be, sire, there was. 
 
 Alex. Ere yet that darkness 
 
 Hurled by injurious and malignant Fates 
 Against this unsubverted head, had found me 
 The Fates that hustle heroes out of life ; 
 The Fates that hustled gods into the abyss ; 
 The unobsequious Fates that mock at all things 
 In diligent musings at Ecbatana 
 I thus resolved ; to see once more that priest : 
 Then came that death 
 And in the gloomy raptures of just wrath 
 That mood went by. I marched to Babylon : 
 Then came the end. Who sings 1 
 
 Ptol. Poor Hebrew slaves ; 
 
 They weed the palace court. 
 
 THE SONG. 
 
 Behold, He giveth His Beloved sleep, 
 
 And they shall waken in a land of rest : 
 Behold, He leadeth Israel like a sheep : 
 
 His pasture is the mountain of the Blest. 
 Blessed are they whose hands are pure from guilt ; 
 
 Who bore the yoke from childhood, yet are free : 
 Jerusalem is as a city built 
 
 Wherein the dwellers dwell in unity. 
 
 Alex. That song's amiss. 
 
 Ptol. Sire, for your army's sake
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 201 
 
 Which like a wounded warrior moans in sleep, 
 Your Empire's sake, that, immature and weak 
 Is threatened in its cradle 
 
 Alex. 'Tis so : 'tis so : 
 
 It lacks completion ; and the years, the months, 
 The hours, like ravening wolves that hunt a stag 
 Come up upon my haunches. Six o' the clock 
 On the fifth morn ! At noon we cross Euphrates : 
 That hour you'll learn my plans ; 
 I'll cast this sickness from me like the rags 
 Flung from some lazar house ! Whose step is that ] 
 
 Ptol. Sire, there is none. 
 
 Alex. Let not Seleucus near me ! 
 
 Those onsets of his blundering, blind devotion, 
 So unlike his that perished 
 
 Ptol. Sire, none comes. 
 
 Alex. Be strong ! What shall be must. Shake 
 
 not : bend nearer ! 
 I have a secret one for thee alone : 
 'Twas not the mists from that morass disastrous, 
 Nor death of him that died, nor adverse gods, 
 Nor the Fates themselves ; 'twas something 
 
 mightier yet 
 And secreter in the great night, that slew me. 
 
 [SELEUCUS enters. 
 Welcome, Seleucus ! 
 
 Sel. Sire, I come unbidden 
 
 This Ptolemy has Greece but one who loves you ?
 
 202 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Alex. Welcome, my brave Seleucus ! In five 
 
 days 
 We march, at earliest dawn. A month shall find 
 
 us 
 
 Nighing old Egypt's coast. This scroll be yours : 
 It is a code for Alexandria's rule. 
 Therein I have made you lord. Till morn, farewell 
 [SELEUCUS departs reluctantly. 
 I note you shaken, Ptolemy : learn thence 
 Philosophy's a crutch for strength to play with : 
 It mocks us when we're weak. On the fifth day 
 Farewell. [As PTOLEMY is departing. 
 
 Return. Your tablets I would see them. 
 Write down the duty this of Eumenes 
 He cheats his tasks write down my burial place. 
 Likeliest you guess it. 
 
 Ptol. Macedonian Pella ? 
 
 Old ties are strong. You said when leaving 
 
 Greece, 
 
 ' Pella, not Athens, if I die.' 
 Alex. Not Pella. 
 
 Ptol. This Babylon where he you loved lies dead ? 
 Alex. 'Mid sands Egyptian by the Ammonian 
 
 grove 
 In my great Father's fane.
 
 SCENES FROM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 203 
 
 A SOLILOQUY. 
 
 (Acr V. SCENE IX.) 
 
 ARSINOE (on a balcony). 
 
 Silent stars 
 
 That flash from yonder firmament serene 
 Ye have no portion in these pangs of earth ; 
 Ye mock not man with infirm sympathy : 
 I thank you for your clear, unpitying brightness 
 That freezes Time's deceits. The Lord of Light 
 Sternly in you hath writ his four great Names 
 Truth, Justice, Wisdom, Order. Ye endure : 
 Our storms sweep o'er you but they shake you 
 
 not : 
 Darkness, our foe, but brings your hour of 
 
 triumph : 
 Your teaching is to bear. 
 
 The Lord of Light- 
 Is it a woman's weakness that would wish him 
 Another, tenderer name, the Lord of Love ? 
 A love that out of love created all things : 
 A love that, warring ever, willeth peace ; 
 A patient love, from ill educing good ; 
 A conquering love, triumphant over death ? 
 Ah me ! No land there is that clasps this Faith ! 
 To hold it were to feel from Heaven a hand 
 Laid on the aching breast of human kind,
 
 204 AUBREY BE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Laid on our own, and softer than the kiss 
 
 Of some imagined babe. Come quickly Death ; 
 
 Beyond thy gate is Truth. 
 
 DEATH OF ALEXANDER. 
 
 (ACT V. SCENE X.) 
 PTOLEMY and SELEUCUS. 
 
 Ptol. The greatest spirit that ever trod this earth 
 Hath passed from earth. He swifter than the 
 
 morn 
 
 O'er-rushed the globe. Expectant centuries 
 Condensed themselves into a few brief years 
 To work his will ; and all the buried ages 
 Summed their old wealth, to enrich, for man's 
 
 behoof, 
 
 With virtuous wisdom one Olympian mind 
 Which, grappling all things needing not expe- 
 rience 
 
 Yet scorned no diligence, the weapon shaped, 
 Itself, that hewed its way, nor left to others 
 The pettiest of those cares that, small themselves, 
 Are rivets which make whole the mail of greatness. 
 The world hath had its conquerors : one alone 
 Conquered for weal of them who bowed beneath 
 
 him 
 
 And in the vanquished found his firmest friends 
 And passionatest mourners.
 
 SCENES FEOM 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT.' 205 
 
 The world hath had its kings : but one alone 
 
 To whom a kingdom meant a radiant fabric 
 
 No tyrant's dungeon-keep, no merchant's mart, 
 
 But all-intelligential, so combining 
 
 All interests, aspirations, efforts, aims, 
 
 That man's great mind, therein made one o'er 
 
 earth, 
 
 Might show all knowledge in its boundless glass 
 As the sea shows the sun. Rough Macedon, 
 Boast ; yet be just ! Thou wert this Wonder's 
 
 nurse : 
 
 A mightier was his mother. Earth, take back 
 Thy chief of sons ! Henceforth his tomb art thou. 
 Sel. Lords, he has gone who made us what we 
 
 are ; 
 
 And we remanded to our nothingness 
 Have that, not words, to offer him for praise. 
 There stand among us some that watched his 
 
 boyhood ; 
 They have had their wish he lived his life. The 
 
 gods, 
 
 Feared they the next step of their earthly rival 
 Who pressed so near their thrones ? Your pardon 
 
 lords ! 
 He's dead who should this day have praised the 
 
 dead. 
 
 Happiest in this, he died before his friend. 
 Lords, we have lived in festival till now
 
 206 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 And knew it not. The approaching woes, they 
 
 best 
 Shall measure greatness gone. The men who 
 
 'scape 
 
 Building new fortunes on the wreck-strewn shore 
 Shall to their children speak in life's sad eve 
 Of him who made its morning. Let them tell 
 His deeds but half or no man will believe them : 
 It may be they will scarce themselves believe, 
 Deeming the past a dream. That hour, their tears 
 Down-streaming, unashamed, like tears in sleep 
 Will better their poor words : who hear shall cry, 
 Pale with strong faith, ' There lived an Alexander.' 
 
 CMDMON THE COWHERD, TEE FIRST 
 ENGLISH: POET. 
 
 N, a cowherd, being at a feast, declares when the 
 harp reaches him that lie cannot sing. As he sleeps, a 
 divine Voice commands him to sing. He obeys, and the 
 gift of song is imparted to him. Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 
 enrols him among her monks ; and in later years he sings 
 the revolt of the Fallen Angels, and many Christian 
 mysteries, thus becoming the first English poet. 
 
 ALONE upon the pleasant bank of Esk 
 Caedmon the Cowherd stood. The sinking sun 
 Reddened the bay, and fired the river-bank, 
 And flamed upon the ruddy herds that strayed
 
 C.EDMON THE COWHERD. 207 
 
 X 
 
 Along the marge, clear-imaged. None was nigh : 
 For that cause spake the Cowherd, 'Praise to God ! 
 He made the worlds ; and now, by Hilda's hand 
 Planteth a crown on Whithy's holy crest : 
 Daily her convent towers more high aspire : 
 Daily ascend her Vespers. Hark that strain ! ' 
 He stood and listened. Soon the flame-touched 
 
 herds 
 
 Sent forth their lowings, and the cliffs replied, 
 And Csedmon thus resumed : ' The music note 
 Rings through their lowings dull, though heard by 
 
 few ! 
 
 Poor kine, ye do your best ! Ye know not God, 
 Yet man, his likeness, unto you is God, 
 And him ye worship with obedience sage, 
 A grateful, sober, much-enduring race 
 That o'er the vernal clover sigh for joy, 
 With winter snows contend not. Patient kine, 
 What thought is yours, deep-musing 1 ? Haply this: 
 " God's help ! how narrow are our thoughts, and 
 
 few ! 
 
 Not so the thoughts of that slight human child 
 Who daily drives us with her blossomed rod 
 From lowland valleys to the pails long-ranged ! " 
 Take comfort, kine ! God also made your race ! 
 If praise from man surceased, from your broad 
 
 chests 
 That God would perfect praise, and, when ye died,
 
 208 ATJBEEY DE VERE's POEMS. 
 
 Resound it from yon rocks that gird the bay ; 
 God knoweth all things. Let that thought suffice ! ' 
 
 Thus spake the ruler of the deep-mouthed kine : 
 They were not his ; the man and they alike 
 A neighbour's wealth. He was contented thus : 
 Humble he was in station, meek of soul, 
 Unlettered, yet heart-wise. His face was pale ; 
 Stately his frame, though slightly bent by age : 
 Slow were his eyes, and slow his speech, and slow 
 His musing step ; and slow his hand to wrath ; 
 A massive hand, but soft, that many a time 
 Had succoured man and woman, child and beast, 
 And yet could fiercely grasp the sword. At times 
 As mightily it clutched his ashen goad 
 When like an eagle on him swooped some thought : 
 Then stood he as in dream, his pallid front 
 Brightening like eastern sea-cliffs when a moon 
 Unrisen is near its rising. 
 
 Round the bay 
 
 Meantime, as twilight deepened, many a fire 
 Up-sprang and horns were heard. Around the 
 
 steep 
 
 With bannered pomp and many a tossing plume 
 Advancing slow a cavalcade made way. 
 Oswy, Northumbria's King, the foremost rode, 
 Oswy triumphant o'er the Mercian host, 
 Invoking favour on his sceptre new ;
 
 THE COWHEBD. 209 
 
 
 
 With him an Anglian prince, student long time 
 In Bangor of the Irish, and a monk 
 Of Frankish race far wandering from the Marne : 
 They came to look on Hilda, hear her words 
 Of far-famed wisdom on the Interior Life ; 
 For Hilda thus discoursed : ' True life of man 
 Is life within : inward immeasurably 
 The being winds of all who walk the earth ; 
 But he whom sense hath blinded nothing knows 
 Of that wide greatness : like a boy is he, 
 A boy that clambers round some castle's wall 
 In search of nests, the outward wall of seven, 
 Yet nothing knows of those great courts within, 
 The hall where princes banquet, or the bower 
 Where royal maids discourse with lyre and lute, 
 Much less its central church and sacred shrine 
 Wherein God dwells alone.' Thus Hilda spake ; 
 And they that gazed upon her widening eyes 
 Low whispered, each to each, ' She speaks of things 
 Which she hath seen and known.' 
 
 On Whitby's height 
 The royal feast was holden : far below, 
 A noisier revel dinned the shore ; therein 
 The humbler guests made banquet. Many a tent 
 Gleamed on the yellow sands by ripples kissed ; 
 And many a savoury dish sent up its steam ; 
 The fanner from the field had brought his calf ; 
 
 N
 
 210 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Fishers that increase scaled which green-gulfed 
 
 seas 
 
 From womb crystalline, teeming, yield to man ; 
 And Jock, the woodsman, from his oaken glades 
 The tall stag, arrow-pierced. In gay attire 
 Now green, now crimson, matron sat and maid : 
 Each had her due : the ekler, reverence most, 
 The lovelier that and love. Beside the board 
 The beggar lacked not place. 
 
 When hunger's rage 
 
 Sharpened by fresh sea-air was quelled, the jest 
 Succeeded, and the tale of foreign lands ; 
 Yet, boast who might of distant chief renowned 
 His battle-axe, or fist that felled an ox, 
 The Anglian's answer was ' our Hilda ' still : 
 ' Is not her prayer trenchant as sworded hosts ? 
 Her insight more than wisdom of the seers 1 
 What birth like hers illustrious ? Edwin's self, 
 Deira's exile, next Northumbria's king, 
 Her kinsman was. Together bowed they not 
 When he of holy hand, missioned from Rome 
 Paulinus, o'er them poured the absolving wave 
 And joined to Christ 1 Kingliest was she, that 
 
 maid 
 Who spurned earth-crowns ! ' More late the miller 
 
 rose 
 He ruled the feast, the miller old, yet blithe
 
 THE COWHEED. 211 
 
 And cried, ' A song ! ' So song succeeded song, 
 For each man knew that time to chant his stave 
 But no man yet sang nobly. Last the harp 
 Made way to Cnedmon lowest at the board : 
 He pushed it back, answering, ' I cannot sing : ' 
 The rest around him flocked with clamour, ' Sing ! 
 And one among them, voluble and small, 
 Shot out a splenetic speech : ' This lord of kine, 
 Our herdsman, grows to ox ! Behold, his eyes 
 Move slow, like eyes of oxen ! ' 
 
 Slowly rose 
 
 Csedinon, and spake : ' I note full oft young men 
 Quick-eyed, but small-eyed, darting glances round 
 Now here, now there, like glance of some poor bird 
 That lights on all things and can rest on none : 
 As ready are they with their tongues as eyes ; 
 But all their songs are chirpings backward blown 
 On winds that sing God's song by them unheard : 
 My oxen wait my service : I depart.' 
 Then strode he to his cow-house in the mead 
 Displeased though meek, and muttered, ' Slow of 
 
 eye ! 
 
 My kine are slow : if rapid I, my hand 
 Might tend them worse.' Hearing his step, the 
 
 kine 
 Turned round their horned fronts ; and angry 
 
 thoughts 
 Went from him as a vapour. Straw he brought,
 
 212 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 And strewed their beds ; and they contented well 
 Laid down ere long their great bulks, breathing 
 
 deep 
 
 Amid the glimmering moonlight. He, with head 
 Propped on a favourite heifer's snowy flank, 
 Rested, his deer-skin o'er him drawn. Hard days 
 Bring slumber soon. His latest thought was this : 
 ' Though witless things we are, my kine and I, 
 Yet God it was who made us.' 
 
 As he slept, 
 
 Beside him stood a Man Divine, and spake : 
 ' Casdmon, arise, and sing.' Caedmon replied 
 ' My Lord, I cannot sing, and for that cause 
 Forth from the revel came I. Once, in youth 
 I willed to sing the bright face of a maid 
 And failed, and once a gold-faced harvest-field 
 And failed, and once the flame-eyed face of war 
 And failed again.' To him the Man Divine, 
 ' Those themes were earthly. Sing ! ' And Csed- 
 
 mon said, 
 ' What shall I sing, my Lord ? ' Then answer 
 
 came, 
 ' Cyedmon, stand up, and sing thy song of God.' 
 
 At once obedient, Csedmon rose, and sang ; 
 And help was with him from great thoughts of old 
 Yearly within his silent nature stored, 
 That swelled, collecting like a flood which bursts
 
 (XEDMON THE COWHERD. 213 
 
 In spring its icy bar. The Lord of all 
 
 He sang ; that God beneath whose Hand eterne, 
 
 Then when He willed forth-stretched athwart the 
 
 abyss, 
 
 Creation like a fiery chariot ran, 
 Forth-borne on wheels of ever-living stars : 
 Him first he sang. The builder here below 
 From fair foundations rears at last the roof ; 
 But Song, a child of heaven^ begins with heaven 
 The archetype divine, and end of all ; 
 More late descends to earth. He sang that hymn, 
 ' Let there be light, and there was light ; ' and lo ! 
 On the void deep came down the seal of God 
 And stamped immortal form. Clear laughed the 
 
 skies ; 
 
 From circumambient deeps the strong earth brake, 
 Both continent and isle ; while downward rolled 
 The sea-surge summoned to his home remote. 
 Then came a second vision to the man 
 There standing 'mid his oxen. Darkness sweet, 
 He sang, of pleasant frondage clothed the vales, 
 And purple glooms ambrosial cast from hills 
 Now by the sun deserted, which the moon, 
 A glory new-created in her place, 
 Silvered with virgin beam, while sang the bird 
 Her first of love-songs on the branch first- 
 
 flower'd 
 Not yet the lion stalked. And Caedmon sang
 
 214 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 O'er-awed, the Father of all humankind 
 Standing in garden planted by God's hand, 
 And girt by murmurs of the rivers four, 
 Between the trees of Knowledge and of Life, 
 With eastward face. In worship mute of God, 
 Eden's Contemplative he stood that hour, 
 Not her Ascetic, since, where sin is none, 
 No need for spirit severe. 
 
 And Caedmon sang 
 
 God's Daughter, Adam's Sister, Child, and Bride, 
 Our Mother Eve. Lit by the matin star 
 That nearer drew to earth and brighter flashed 
 To meet her gaze, that snowy Innocence 
 Stood up with queenly port : she turned ; she saw 
 Earth's King, mankind's great Father : taught by 
 
 God, 
 
 Immaculate, unastonished, undismayed, 
 In love and reverence to her Lord she drew, 
 And, kneeling, kissed his hand : and Adam laid 
 That hand, made holier, on that kneeler's head, 
 And spake ; ' For this shall man his parents leave, 
 And to his wife cleave fast.' 
 
 When Caedmon ceased, 
 
 Thus spake the Man Divine : ' At break of day 
 Seek out some prudent man and say that God 
 Hath loosed thy tongue ; nor hide henceforth thy 
 
 gift.' 
 Then Caedmon turned, and slept among his kine
 
 C^DMON THE COWHERD. 215 
 
 Dreamless. Ere dawn lie stood upon the shore 
 In doubt : but when at last o'er eastern seas 
 The sun, long wished for, like a god upsprang 
 Once more he found God's song upon his mouth 
 Murmuring high joy ; and sought an ancient 
 
 friend 
 
 And told him all the vision. At the word 
 He to the Abbess with the tidings sped 
 And she made answer, ' Bring me Caedmon here.' 
 
 Then clomb the pair that sea-beat mount of God 
 Fanned by sea-gale, nor trod, as others used, 
 The curving way, but faced the abrupt ascent 
 And halted not, so worked in both her will, 
 Till now between the unfinished towers they stood 
 Panting and spent. The portals open stood : 
 Caedmon passed in alone. Nor ivory decked 
 Nor gold, the walls. That convent was a keep 
 Strong 'gainst invading storm or demon hosts 
 And naked as the rock whereon it stood, 
 Yet, as a church, august. Dark, high-arched 
 
 roofs 
 
 Slowly let go the distant hymn. Each cell 
 Cinctured its statued saint, the peace of God 
 On every stony face. Like caverned grot 
 Far off the western window frowned : beyond, 
 Close by, there shook an autumn-blazoned tree : 
 No need for gems beside of storied glass.
 
 218 AUBREY DE VERE's POEMS. 
 
 He entered last that hall where Hilda sat 
 Begirt with a great company, the chiefs 
 Far ranged from end to end. Three stalls cross- 
 crowned 
 
 Stood side by side, the midmost hers. The years 
 Had laid upon her brows a hand serene ; 
 There left a strenuous blessing. Levelled eyes 
 Sable, and keen, with meditative might 
 Conjoined the instinct and the claim to rule : 
 Firm were her lips and rigid. At her right 
 Sat Finan, Aidan's successor, with head 
 Snow-white, and beard that rolled adown a breast 
 Never by mortal passion heaved in storm, 
 A cloister of majestic thoughts that walked 
 Humbly with God. High in the left-hand stall 
 Oswy was throned, a man in prime, with brow 
 Less youthful than his years. Exile long past 
 Or deepening thought of one disastrous deed 
 Had left a shadow in his eyes. The strength 
 Of passion held in check looked lordly forth 
 From head and hand : tawny his beard ; his hair 
 Thick-curled and dense. Alert the monarch sat 
 Half turned, like one on horseback set that 
 
 hears, 
 
 And he alone, the advancing trump of war. 
 Down the long gallery strangers thronged in mass 
 Dane or Norwegian, huge of arm through weight 
 Of billows oar-subdued, with stormy looks
 
 CJEDMON THE COWHERD. 217 
 
 Wild as their waves and crags ; Southerns keen- 
 browed ; 
 
 Pure Saxon youths fair-fronted, with mild eyes 
 These less than others strove for foremost place 
 And Pilgrim travel-worn. Behind the rest, 
 And higher-ranged in marble-arched arcade, 
 Sat Hilda's sisterhood. Clustering they shone 
 White-veiled and pale of face and still and meek, 
 An inly-bending curve, like some young moon 
 Whose crescent glitters o'er a dusky strait. 
 In front were monks dark-stoled ; for Hilda ruled, 
 Though feminine, two houses, one of men : 
 Upon two chasm-divided rocks they stood, 
 To various service vowed though single Faith ; 
 Nor ever, save at rarest festival, 
 Their holy inmates met. 
 
 ' Is this the man 
 Favoured, though late, with gift of song 1 ' thus 
 
 spake 
 
 Hilda with gracious smile. Severer then 
 She added : ' Son, the commonest gifts of God 
 He counts His best, and oft temptation blends 
 With ampler boon. Yet sing! That God who 
 
 lifts 
 
 The violet from the grass could draw not less 
 Song from the stone hard by. That strain thou 
 
 sang'st 
 Rehearse once more.'
 
 218 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Then Caedmon from his knees 
 Arose and stood. With princely instinct first 
 The strong man to the Abbess bowed, and next 
 To that great twain, the bishop and the king, 
 Last to that stately concourse each side ranged 
 Down the long hall ; dubious he answered thus : 
 ' Great Mother, if that God who sent the Song 
 Vouchsafe me to recall it, I will sing ; 
 But I misdoubt it lost.' Slowly his face 
 Down-drooped, and all his body forward bent 
 While brooding memory, step by step, retraced 
 Its backward way. Vainly long time it sought 
 The starting-point. Then Caedmon's large, soft 
 
 hands 
 
 Opening and closing worked ; for wont were they 
 In musings when he stood, to clasp his goad 
 And plant its point far from him, thereupon 
 Propping his stalwart weight. Customed support 
 Now finding not, unwittingly those hands 
 Reached forth, and on Saint Finan's crosier staff 
 Settling, withdrew it from the old bishop's grasp ; 
 And Caedmon leant thereon, while passed a smile 
 From chief to chief to see earth's meekest man 
 The spiritual sceptre claim of Lindisfarne. 
 They smiled : he triumphed : soon the Cowherd 
 
 found 
 
 That first fair corner-stone of all his Song ; 
 Thence rose the fabric heavenward. Lifting hands,
 
 C^DMON THE COWHEED. 219 
 
 Once more his lordly music he rehearsed, 
 The void abyss at God's command forth-flinging 
 Creation like a Thought ; where night had reigned, 
 The universe of God. 
 
 The singing stars 
 
 Which with the Angels sang when earth was made 
 Sang in his Song. From highest shrill of lark 
 To ocean's moaning under cliffs low-browed 
 And roar of pine-woods on the storm-swept hills, 
 No tone was wanting ; while to them that heard 
 Strange images looked forth of worlds new-born, 
 Fair, phantom mountains, and with forests plumed 
 Heaven-topping headlands for the first time glassed 
 In waters ever calm. O'er sapphire seas 
 Green islands laughed. Fairer, the wide earth's 
 
 flower, 
 
 Eden, on airs unshaken yet by sighs 
 From bosom still inviolate forth breathed 
 Immortal sweets that sense to spirit turned. 
 In part those noble listeners made that song ! 
 Their flashing eyes, their hands, their heaving 
 
 breasts, 
 
 Tumult self- stilled, and mute, expectant trance, 
 'Twas these that gave their bard his two-fold 
 
 might 
 
 That might denied to poets later born 
 Who, singing to soft brains and hearts ice-hard, 
 Applauded or contemned, alike roll round
 
 220 AUBKEY DE VEKE's POEMS. 
 
 A vainly-seeking eye, and, famished, drop 
 A hand clay-cold upon the unechoing shell, 
 Missing their inspiration's human half. 
 
 Thus Caedmon sang, and ceased. Silent awhile 
 The concourse stood, for all had risen as though 
 Waiting from heaven its echo. Each on each 
 Gazed hard and caught his hands. Fiercely ere 
 
 long 
 
 Their gratulating shout aloft had leaped 
 But Hilda laid her ringer on her lip, 
 Or provident lest praise might stain the pure, 
 Or deeming song a gift too high for praise. 
 She spake : ' Through help of God thy Song is 
 
 sound : 
 
 Now hear His Holy Word, and shape therefrom 
 A second hymn, and worthier than the first.' 
 
 She spake, and Finan standing bent his head 
 Above the sacred tome in reverence stayed 
 Upon his kneeling deacon's hands and brow, 
 And sweetly sang five verses, thus beginning, 
 ' Cum esset desponsata] and was still ; 
 And next rehearsed them in the Anglian tongue : 
 Then Caedmon took God's Word into his heart, 
 And ruminating stood, as when the kine, 
 Their flowery pasture ended, ruminate ; 
 And was a man in thought. At last the light
 
 CJEDMON THE COWHEBD. 221 
 
 Shone from his dubious countenance, and he 
 
 spake : 
 
 ' Great Mother, lo ! I saw a second Song ! 
 T'wards me it sailed ; but with averted face, 
 And borne on shifting winds. A man am I 
 Sluggish and slow, that needs must muse and 
 
 brood ; 
 
 Therefore those verses till the sun goes down 
 Will I revolve. If Song from God be mine 
 Expect me here at morn.' 
 
 The morrow morn 
 
 In that high presence Ctedmon stood and sang 
 A second Song, and worthier than his first ; 
 And Hilda said, ' From God it came, not man ; 
 Thou therefore live a monk among my monks, 
 And sing to God.' Doubtful he stood 'From 
 
 youth 
 
 My place hath been with kine ; their ways I know, 
 And how to cure their griefs.' Smiling she spake, 
 ' Our convent hath its meads, and kine ; with these 
 Consort each morn : at noon to us return.' 
 Then Csedmon knelt, and bowed, and said, ' So 
 
 be it : ' 
 
 And aged Finan, and Northumbria's king 
 Oswy, approved ; and all that host had joy. 
 
 Thus in that convent Caedmon lived, a monk, 
 Humblest of all the monks, save him that knelt
 
 222 AUBEEY DE VEEE's POEMS. 
 
 In cell close by, who once had been a prince. 
 
 Seven times a day he sang God's praises, first 
 
 When earliest dawn drew back night's sable veil 
 
 With trembling hand, revisiting the earth 
 
 Like some pale maid that through the curtain peers 
 
 Round her sick mother's bed misdoubting half 
 
 If sleep lie there, or death ; latest when eve 
 
 Through nave and chancel stole from arch to arch, 
 
 And laid upon the snowy altar-step 
 
 At last a brow of gold. In later years, 
 
 By ancient yearnings driven, through wood and 
 
 vale 
 
 He tracked Deirean or Bernician glades 
 To holy Ripon, or late-sceptred York 
 Not yet great Wilfrid's seat, or Beverley : 
 The children gathered round him, crying ' Sing ! ' 
 They gave him inspiration with their eyes, 
 And with his conquering music he returned it. 
 Oftener he roamed that strenuous eastern coast 
 To Jarrow and to Wearmouth, sacred sites 
 The well-beloved of Bede, or northward passed 
 To Bamborough, Oswald's keep. At Coldingham 
 His feet had rest ; there where St. Ebba's Cape 
 That ends the lonely range of Lammermoor 
 Sustained for centuries o'er the wild sea-surge 
 In region of dim mist and flying bird, 
 Fronting the Forth, those convent piles f ar-kenned, 
 The worn-out sailor's hope.
 
 (XEDMON THE COWHERD. 223 
 
 Fair English shores, 
 
 Despite those blinding storms of north and east, 
 Despite rough ages blind with stormier strife, 
 Or frozen by doubt, or sad with worldly care, 
 A fragrance as of Carmel haunts you still 
 Bequeathed by feet of that forgotten Saint 
 Who trod you once sowing the seed divine ! 
 Fierce tribes that kenned him distant round him 
 
 flocked ; 
 
 On sobbing sands the fisher left his net, 
 His lamb the shepherd on the hills of March, 
 Suing for song. With wrinkled face all smiles, 
 Like that blind Scian circling Grecian coasts, 
 If God the Song accorded, Ca3dmon sang ; 
 If God denied it, after musings deep 
 He answered, ' I am of the kine and dumb ; ' 
 The man revered his art, and fraudful song 
 Esteemed as fraudful coin. 
 
 Better than tale 
 They loved their minstrel's harp. The songs he 
 
 sang 
 
 Were songs to brighten gentle hearts ; to fire 
 Strong hearts with holier courage ; hope to breathe 
 Through spirits despondent, o'er the childless floor 
 Or widowed bed flashing from highest heaven 
 A beam half faith, half vision. Many a tear 
 His own, and tears of those that listened, fell 
 Oft as he sang that hand lovely as light
 
 224 ATJBBEY DE VERB'S FOEMS. 
 
 Forth stretched, and gathering from forbidden 
 
 boughs 
 
 That fruit fatal to man. He sang the Flood 
 Sin's doom that quelled the impure, yet raised to 
 
 height 
 
 Else inaccessible, the just. He sang 
 That patriarch facing at divine command 
 The illimitable waste then, harder proof, 
 Lifting his knife o'er him the seed foretold : 
 He sang of Israel loosed, the ten black seals 
 Down pressed on Egypt's testament of woe, 
 Covenant of pride with penance ; sang the face 
 Of Moses glittering still from Sinai's rocks, 
 The Tables twain and Mandements of God. 
 On Christmas nights he sang that jubilant star 
 Which led the Magians to the Bethlehem crib 
 By Joseph watched and Mary. Pale, in Lent, 
 Tremulous and pale, he told of Calvary, 
 Nor added word, but, as in trance, rehearsed 
 That Passion fourfold of the Evangelists, 
 Which, terrible and swift not like a tale 
 With speed of things which must be done not said 
 A river of bale from guilty age to age 
 Along the astonied shores of common life 
 Annual makes way, the history of the world, 
 Not of one day, one People. To its fount 
 Time's stream he tracked, that primal mystery sang 
 Which, chanted later by a thousand years,
 
 THE COWHERD. 225 
 
 Music celestial though with note that jarred, 
 Some wandering orb troubling its starry chime, 
 Amazed the nations, ' There was war in heaven : 
 Michael and they, his angels, warfare waged 
 With Satan and his angels.' Brief that war 
 That ruin total. Brief was Caedmon's song : 
 Therein the Eternal Face was undivulged : 
 Therein the Apostate's form no grandeur wore -. 
 The grandeur was elsewhere. 
 
 O holy House of Whitby ! on thy steep 
 Rejoice, howe'er the tempest, night or day, 
 Afflict thee, or the centuries slow to earth 
 Drag down thine airy arches' long suspense ; 
 Rejoice, for Caedmon in thy cloisters knelt, 
 And singing paced beside thy sounding sea ! 
 Long years he lived ; and with the whitening hair 
 More youthful grew in spirit, and more meek ; 
 Yea, those who saw him said he sang within 
 Then when the golden mouth but seldom breathed 
 Sonorous strain, and when that fulgent eye 
 No longer bright still on his forehead shone 
 Not flame but purer light, that after-glow 
 Which, when the sunset woods no longer burn, 
 Maintains high place on Alpine throne remote 
 Or utmost beak of promontoried cloud 
 And heavenward dies in smiles. Esteem of men 
 Daily he less esteemed, through single heart 
 More knit with God. To please a sickly child
 
 226 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 He sang his latest song, and, ending, said, 
 
 ' Song is but body, though 'tis body winged : 
 
 The soul of song is love : the body dead, 
 
 The soul should thrive the more.' That'Patmian 
 
 Sage 
 
 Whose head had lain upon the Saviour's breast, 
 Who in high vision saw the First and Last, 
 Who heard the harpings of the Elders crowned, 
 Who o'er the ruins of the Imperial House 
 And ashes of the twelve great Caesars dead 
 Witnessed the endless triumph of the Just, 
 That Sage, those glories ended, weak through age, 
 But seldom spake and gave but one command, 
 The great 'Mandatum Novunj, ' of his Lord, 
 ' My children, love each other ! ' Like to his 
 Was Caedmon's age. Weakness with happy stealth 
 Increased upon him : he was cheerful still : 
 He still could pace, though slowly, in the sun, 
 Still gladsomely converse with friends who wept, 
 Still lay a broad hand on his well-loved kine. 
 
 The legend of the last of Csedmon's days : 
 That hospital wherein the old monks died 
 Stood but a stone's throw from the monastery : 
 ' Make there my couch to-night,' he said, and 
 
 smiled : 
 
 They marvelled, yet obeyed. There, hour by hour, 
 The man, low-seated on his pallet-bed,
 
 C^DMON THE COWHERD. 227 
 
 In silence watched the courses of the stars, 
 
 Or casual spake at times of common things, 
 
 And three times played with childhood's days, and 
 
 twice 
 
 His father named. At last, like one that long 
 Compassed with good, is smit by sudden thought 
 Of greater good, thus spake he : ' Have ye, sons, 
 Here in this house the Blessed Sacrament ? ' 
 They answered, wrathful, ' Father, thou art strong ; 
 Shake not thy children ! Thou hast many days ! ' 
 ' Yet bring me here the Blessed Sacrament,' 
 Once more he said. The brethren issued forth 
 Save four that silent sat waiting the close. 
 Ere long in grave procession they returned, 
 Two deacons first, gold-vested ; after these 
 That priest who bare the Blessed Sacrament 
 And acolytes behind him, lifting lights. 
 Then from his pallet Cyedmon slowly* rose 
 And worshipped Christ, his God, and reaching 
 
 forth 
 
 His right hand, cradled in his left, behold ! 
 Therein was laid God's Mystery. He spake : 
 ' Stand ye in flawless charity of God 
 T'ward me, my sons ; or lives there in your 
 
 hearts 
 
 Memory the least of wrong?' The monks re- 
 plied : 
 ' Father, within us lives nor wrong nor wrath
 
 228 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 But love, and love alone.' And he : ' Not less 
 Am I in charity with you, my sons, 
 And all my sins of pride, and other sins, 
 Humbly I mourn.' Then, bending the old head 
 O'er the old hand, Caedinon received his Lord 
 To be his soul's viaticum, in might 
 Leading from life that seems to life that is ; 
 And long, unpropped by any, kneeling hung 
 And made thanksgiving prayer. Thanksgiving 
 
 made, 
 
 He sat upon his bed and spake : ' How long 
 Ere yet the monks begin their matin psalms ? ' 
 ' That hour is nigh,' they answered ; he replied, 
 ' Then let us wait that hour,' and laid him down 
 With those kine-tending and harp-mastering hands 
 Crossed on his breast, and slept. 
 
 Meanwhile the monks, 
 The lights removed in reverence of his sleep, 
 Sat mute nor stirred such time as in the Mass 
 Between 'Orate Fratres' glides away, 
 And 'Hoc est Corpus Meum.' Northward far 
 The great deep, seldom heard so distant, roared 
 Round those wild rocks half way to Bamborough 
 
 Head ; 
 
 For now the mightiest spring-tide of the year 
 Following the magic of a maiden moon, 
 Approached its height. Nearer, that sea which 
 
 sobbed
 
 C-ffiDMON THE COWHEItD. 229 
 
 In many a cave by Whitby's winding coast 
 
 Or died in peace oil many a sandy bar 
 
 From river-mouth to river-mouth outspread, 
 
 They heard, and mused upon eternity 
 
 That circles human life. Gradual arose 
 
 A softer strain and sweeter, making way 
 
 O'er that sea-murmur hoarse ; and they were ware 
 
 That in the black far-shadowing church whose 
 
 bulk 
 Up-towered between them and the moon, the 
 
 monks 
 
 Their matins had begun. A little sigh 
 That moment reached them from that central 
 
 gloom 
 
 Guarding the sleeper's bed ; a second sigh 
 Succeeded : neither seemed the sigh of pain ; 
 And some one said, 'He wakens.' Large and 
 
 bright 
 
 Over the church-roof sudden rushed the moon 
 And smote the cross above that sleeper's couch, 
 And smote that sleeper's face. The smile thereon 
 Was calmer than the smile of life. Thus died 
 Ciedrnon, the earliest bard of English song.
 
 230 AUBREY DK VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 
 
 BEDK issues forth from Jarrow, and visiting certain 
 villagers in a wood, expounds to them the Beatitudes of 
 Our Lord. Wherever he goes he seeks records of past 
 times, and promises in return that he will bequeath to his 
 fellow-countrymen translations from divers Sacred Script- 
 ures, and likewise a history of God's Church in their land. 
 Having returned to his monastery, he dies a happy death 
 on the Feast of the Ascension, while finishing his transla- 
 tion of St. John's Gospel. 
 
 WITH one lay -brother only, blessed Bede, 
 
 In after times ' The Venerable ' named, 
 
 Passed from his convent, Jarrow. Where the 
 
 Tyne 
 
 Blends with the sea, all beautiful it stood 
 Bathed in the sunrise. At the mouth of Wear 
 A second convent, Wearmouth, rose. That hour 
 The self-same matin splendour gilt them both, 
 And in high speech of mingling lights, not words, 
 Both sisters praised their God. 
 
 ' Apart, yet joined ' 
 
 So mused the old man gazing on the twain : 
 Then onward paced with head above his book 
 Murmuring his office. Algar walked behind, 
 A youth of twenty years, with tonsured head 
 And face though young forlorn. An hour had 
 
 passed ; 
 
 They reached a craggy height, and looking back 
 Beheld once more beyond the forest roof
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 231 
 
 Those two fair convents glittering at their feet 
 Those two clear rivers winding ! Bound by rule 
 Again the monk addressed him to his book ; 
 Lection and psalm recited thus he spake : 
 
 ' Why placed our holy Founder thus so near 
 His convents ! Why, albeit a single rule, 
 At last a single hand, had sway o'er both, 
 Placed them at distance 1 Hard it were to guess : 
 I know but this, that severance here on earth 
 Is strangely linked with union of the heart, 
 Union with severance. Thou hast lost, young 
 
 friend, 
 
 But lately lost thy boyhood's dearest mate, 
 Thine earliest friend, a brother of thy heart, 
 True Christian soul though dwelling in the world ; 
 Fear not such severance can extinguish love 
 Here, or hereafter ! He whom most I loved 
 Was severed from me by the tract of years : 
 A child of nine years old was I when first 
 Jarrow received me : pestilence ere long 
 Swept from that house her monks, save one alone, 
 Ceolfrid, then its abbot. Man and child, 
 We two the lonely cloisters paced ; we two 
 Together chaunted in the desolate church : 
 I could not guess his thoughts ; to him my ways 
 Were doubtless as the ways of some sick bird 
 Watched by a child. Not less I loved him well :
 
 232 ATJBEEY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Me too he somewhat loved. Beneath one roof 
 
 We dwelt and yet how severed ! Save in God, 
 
 What know men, one of other 1 Here on earth 
 
 Perhaps 'tis wiser to be kind to all 
 
 In large goodwill of helpful love, yet free, 
 
 Than link to one our heart 
 
 Poor youth ! that love which walks in narrow 
 
 ways 
 Is tragic love, be sure.' 
 
 With gentle face 
 
 The novice spake his gratitude. Once more, 
 His hand upon the shoulder of the youth, 
 For now they mounted slow a bosky dell, 
 The old man spake yet not to him in voice 
 Scarce louder than the murmuring pines close 
 
 by; 
 
 For, by his being's law he seemed, like them, 
 At times when pensive memories in him stirred, 
 Vocal not less than visible : ' How great 
 Was he, our Founder ! In that ample brow 
 What brooding weight of genius ! In his eye 
 How strangely was the pathos edged with light ! 
 How oft, his churches roaming, flashed its beam 
 From pillar on to pillar, resting long 
 On carven imagery of flower or fruit, 
 Or deep-dyed window whence the heavenly choirs 
 Gave joy to men below ! With what a zeal 
 He drew the cunningest craftsmen from all climes
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 233 
 
 To express his thoughts in form ; while yet his 
 
 hand, 
 
 Like meanest hand among us, patient toiled 
 In garden and in bakehouse, threshed the corn, 
 Or drave the calves to milk-pail ! Earthly rule 
 Had proved to him a weight intolerable ; 
 In Spiritual Beauty, there and there alone, 
 Our Bennet Biscop found his native haunt, 
 The lucent planet of his soul's repose : 
 And yet O wondrous might of human love 
 One was there, one, to whom his heart was 
 
 knit, 
 
 Siegfried, in all unlike him save in worth. 
 His was plain purpose, rectitude unwarped, 
 Industry, foresight. On his friend's behalf 
 He ruled long years those beauteous convents 
 
 twain, 
 
 Yet knew not they were beauteous ! An abyss 
 Severed in spirit those in heart so near : 
 More late exterior severance came : three years 
 In cells remote they dwelt by sickness chained : 
 But once they met to die. I see them still : 
 The monks had laid them on a single bed ; 
 Weeping, they turned them later each to each : 
 I saw the snowy tresses softly mix ; 
 I saw the faded lips draw near and meet ; 
 Thus gently interwreathed I saw them die 
 Strange strength of human love ! '
 
 234 AUBBEY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Still walked they on : 
 
 As high the sun ascended woodlands green 
 Shivered all golden ; and the old man's heart 
 Brightened like them. His ever active mind 
 Inquisitive took note of all it saw ; 
 And as some youth enamoured lifts a tress 
 Of her he loves and wonders, so the monk, 
 Well loving Nature loved her in detail, 
 Now pleased with nestling bird, anon with flower, 
 Now noting how the beech from dewy sheath 
 Pushed forth its silken leaflets fringed with down, 
 Exulting next because from sprays of lime 
 The little fledgeling leaves, like creatures winged, 
 Brake from their ruddy shells. Jesting, he cried : 
 ' Algar ! but hear those birds ! Men say they sing 
 To fire their young, shell-bound, with gladsome 
 
 news 
 
 And bid them seek the sun ! ' Sadly the youth 
 With downward front replied : ' My friend is 
 
 dead ; 
 
 For me to gladden were to break a troth.' 
 Upon the brow of Bede a shadow fell ; 
 Silent he paced, then stopped : ' Forgive me, 
 
 Algar ! 
 
 Old men grow hard. Yet boys and girls salute 
 The May: like them the old must have their 
 
 maying ; 
 This is perchance my last.'
 
 BEDK'S LAST MAY. 235 
 
 As thus he spake 
 
 They reached the summit of a grassy hill ; 
 Beneath there wound a stream, upon its marge 
 A hamlet nestling lonely in the woods : 
 Its inmates saw the Saint and t'wards him sped 
 Eager as birds that, when the grain is flung 
 In fountained cloister-court of Eastern church, 
 From all sides flock with sudden rush of wings, 
 Darkening the pavement. Youths and maids 
 
 came first ; 
 
 Their elders followed : men his garments kissed, 
 Women his hands. The venerable man 
 Stretched forth his arms as though to clasp them 
 
 all: 
 
 Above them next he signed his Master's cross ; 
 Then, while the tears ran down his aged face, 
 Brake forth in grateful joy : 'To God the praise ! 
 When, forty years ago, I roamed this vale 
 A haunt it was of rapine and of wars ; 
 Now see I pleasant pastures, peaceful homes, 
 And faces peacefuller yet. That God Who walked 
 With His disciples 'mid the sabbath fields 
 While they the wheat-ears bruised, His sabbath 
 
 keeps 
 
 Within your hearts this day ! His harvest ye ! 
 Once more a-hungered are His holy priests ; 
 They hunger for your souls ; with reverent palms 
 Daily the chaff they separate from the grain ;
 
 236 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Daily His Church within her heart receives you, 
 Yea, with her heavenly substance makes you 
 
 one ; 
 
 Ye grow to be her eyes that see His truth ; 
 Her ears that hear His voice ; her hands that 
 
 pluck 
 
 His tree of life ; her feet that walk His ways. 
 Honouring God's priests ye err not, O my friends ; 
 Yea, thus ye honour God. In Him rejoice ! ' 
 
 So spake he, and his gladness kindled theirs ; 
 With it their courage. One her infant brought 
 And sued for him a blessing. One, bereaved, 
 Cried out : ' Your promised peace has come at 
 
 last ; 
 
 No more I wish him back to earth ! ' Again 
 Old foes shook hands ; while now, their fears 
 
 forgotten, 
 
 Children that lately nestled at his feet 
 Clomb to his knees. Then called from out that 
 
 crowd 
 A blind man; 'Read once more that Book of 
 
 God! 
 
 For, after you had left us, many a mouth 
 I, who can neither see the sun nor moon, 
 Saw oft the God-Man walking farms and fields 
 Of that fair Eastern land ! ' He spake, and lo ! 
 AH those around that heard him clamoured, 
 
 'Read!'
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 237 
 
 Then Bede, the Sacred Scriptures opening, lit 
 Upon the ' Sermon on the Mount,' and read : 
 ' The Saviour lifted up His holy eyes 
 On His disciples, saying, Blessed they ; ' 
 Expounding next the sense. ' Why fixed the Lord 
 His eyes on them that listened ? Friends, His 
 
 eyes 
 Go down through all things searching out the 
 
 heart ; 
 
 He sees if heart be sound to hold His word 
 And bring forth fruit in season, or as rock 
 Naked to bird that plucks the random seed. 
 Friends, with the heart alone we understand ; 
 Who doth His will shall of the doctrine know 
 If His it be indeed. When Jesus speaks 
 Fix first your eyes upon His eyes divine, 
 There reading what He sees within your heart : 
 If sin He sees, repent ! ' 
 
 With hands upheld 
 
 A woman raised her voice, and cried aloud, 
 ' Could we but look into the eyes of Christ 
 Nought should we see but love ! ' And Bede 
 
 replied : 
 
 ' From babe and suckling God shall perfect praise ! 
 Yea, from His eyes looks forth the Eternal Love, 
 Though oft, through sin of ours, in sadness veiled ; 
 But when he rests them on disciples true 
 Not on the stranger, love is love alone !
 
 238 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 O great, true hearts that love so well your Lord ! 
 That heard so trustingly His Tidings Good, 
 So long by trial proved have kept His Faith, 
 To you He cometh cometh with reward 
 In heaven, and here on earth.' 
 
 With brightening face 
 As one who flingeth largess far abroad, 
 Once more he raised the sacred tome, and read, 
 Read loud the Eight Beatitudes of Christ ; 
 Once more the venerable man made pause, 
 Giving his Master's Blessings time to sink 
 Through hearts of those who heard. Anon with 
 
 speech 
 Though fervent, grave, he showed the glory and 
 
 grace 
 
 Of those majestic Virtues crowned by Christ 
 While virtues praised by worldlings passed un- 
 named ; 
 
 How wondrously consentient each with each 
 Like flowers well sorted or like notes well joined : 
 Then changed the man to deeper theme ; he 
 
 showed 
 
 How these high Virtues ere to man consigned 
 Were warmed and moulded in the God-Man's 
 
 heart ; 
 
 Thence born, and in its sacred blood baptised. 
 ' What are these Virtues but the Life of Christ ? 
 The poor in spirit : must not they be lowly
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 239 
 
 Whose God is One that stooped to wear our 
 
 flesh 1 
 The meek; was He not meek Whom sinners 
 
 mocked ? 
 
 The mourners 1 sent not He the Comforter ? 
 Zeal for the good ; was He not militant ? 
 The merciful ; He came to bring us mercy ; 
 The pure in heart ; was He not virgin-born ? 
 Peacemakers ; is not He the Prince of Peace 1 
 Sufferers for God ; He suffered first for man. 
 O Virtues blest by Christ, high doctrines ye ! 
 Dread mysteries ; royal records ; standards red 
 Wrapped by the warrior King, His warfare past, 
 Around His soldiers' bosoms ! Recognise 
 O man, that majesty in lowness hid ! 
 Put on Christ's garments. Fools shall call them 
 
 rags- 
 Heed not their scoff ! A prince's child is man, 
 Born in the purple ; but his royal robes 
 None other are than those the Saviour dyed, 
 Treading His Passion's wine-press all alone : 
 Of such alone be proud ! ' 
 
 The old man paused ; 
 Then stretched his arms abroad, and said : ' This 
 
 day 
 
 Like eight great Angels making way from Heaven 
 Each following each, those Eight Beatitudes, 
 Missioned to earth by Him who made the earth
 
 240 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Have sought you out ! What welcome shall be 
 
 theirs 1 ' 
 
 In silence long he stood ; in silence watched 
 With faded cheek now flushed and widening eyes 
 The advance of those high tidings. As a man 
 Who, when the sluice is cut, with beaming gaze 
 Pursues the on-rolling flood from fall to fall, 
 Green branch adown it swept, and showery spray 
 Silvering the berried copse, so followed Bede 
 The progress of those high Beatitudes 
 Brightening with visible beams of faith and love 
 That host in ampler circles, speechless some 
 And some in passionate converse. Saddest brows 
 Most quickly caught, that hour, the glory-touch, 
 Keflected it the best. 
 
 In such discourse 
 
 Peaceful and glad the hours went by, though Bede 
 Had sought that valley less to preach the Word 
 Than see once more his children. Evening nigh 
 He shared their feast ; and heard with joy like 
 
 theirs 
 
 Their village harp ; and smote that harp himself. 
 In turn become their scholar, hour by hour 
 Forth dragged he records of their chiefs and kings, 
 Untangling ravelled evidence, and still 
 Tracking traditions upward to their source, 
 Like him, that Halicarnassean sage,
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 241 
 
 Of antique history sire. ' I trust, my friends, 
 To leave your sons, for lore by you bestowed 
 Fair recompense, large measure well pressed down, 
 Recording still God's kingdom in this land, 
 History which all may read, and gentle hearts 
 Loving, may grow in grace. Long centuries 
 
 passed, 
 
 If wealth should make this nation's heart too fat, 
 And things of earth obscure the things of heaven, 
 Haply such chronicle may prompt high hearts 
 Wearied with shining nothings, back to cast 
 Remorseful gaze through mists of time, and note 
 That rock whence they were hewn. From youth 
 
 to age 
 
 Inmate of yonder convent on the Tyne, 
 I question every pilgrim, priest or prince 
 Or peasant grey, and glean from each his sheaf : 
 Likewise the Bishops here and Abbots there 
 Still send me deed of gift, or chronicle 
 Or missive from the Apostolic See. 
 Praise be to God Who fitteth for his place 
 Not only high but mean ! With wisdom's strength 
 He filled our mitred Wilfrid, born to rule ; 
 To saintly Cuthbert gave the spirit of prayer ; 
 On me, as one late born, He lays a charge 
 Slender, yet helpful still.' 
 
 Then spake a man 
 Burly and big, that last at banquet sat,
 
 242 AUBEEY DE VEEE'S POEMS. 
 
 ' Father, is history true ? ' and Bede replied, 
 ' The man who seeks for Truth like hidden gold, 
 And shrinks from falsehood as a leper's touch 
 Shall write true history ; not the truth unmixed 
 With fancies, base or high ; not truth entire ; 
 Yet truth beneficent to man below. 
 One Book there is that errs not : ye this day 
 Have learned therefrom your Lord's Beatitudes : 
 That Book contains its histories like them none 
 Since written none from standing point so high, 
 With insight so inspired, such measure just 
 Of good and ill, such fruit of aid divine. 
 The slothful spurn that Book; the erroneous 
 
 warp it : 
 
 But they who read its page, or hear it read, 
 Their guide God's Spirit and the Church of God, 
 Shall hear the voice of Truth for ever nigh, 
 Shall see the Truth, now sunlike, and anon 
 Like dagger-point of light from dewy grass 
 Flashed up, a word that yet confutes a life, 
 Pierces perchance a nation's heart ; shall see 
 Far more the Truth Himself in human form 
 Walking not farms and fields of Eastern lands 
 Alone, but these our English fields and farms ; 
 Shall see Him on the dusky mount at prayer ; 
 Shall see Him in the street and by the bier ; 
 Shall see Him at the feast and at the grave ; 
 Now from the boat discoursing, and anon
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 243 
 
 Staying the storm or walking on its waves ; 
 Thus shall our land become a holy land 
 And holy those who tread her ! ' Lifting then 
 Heavenward that tome, he said, ' The Book of 
 
 God! 
 As stands God's Church 'mid kingdoms of this 
 
 world 
 
 Holy alone, so stands 'mid books this Book ! 
 Within the " Upper Chamber " once that Church 
 Lived in small space ; to-day she fills the 
 
 world : 
 
 This Book which seems so slender is a world : 
 It is an Eden of mankind restored ; 
 It is a heavenly City lit with God : 
 From it the Spirit and the Bride say " Come : " 
 Blessed who reads this Book ! ' 
 
 Above the woods 
 Meantime the stars shone forth ; and came that 
 
 hour 
 
 When to the wanderer and the toiling man 
 Repose is sweet. Upon a leaf -strewn bed 
 The venerable man slept well that night : 
 Next morning young and old pursued his steps 
 As southward he departed. From a hill 
 O'er-looking far that sea-like forest tract 
 And many a church f ar-kenned through smokeless 
 
 air 
 He blessed that kneeling concourse, adding thus,
 
 244 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 ' Pray still O friends for me, since spiritual foes 
 Threat most the priesthood : pray that holy 
 
 death, 
 
 Due warning given, may close a life too blest ! 
 Pray well since I for you have laboured well, 
 Yea, and will labour till my latest sigh, 
 Not only seeking you in wilds and woods 
 Year after year, but in my cell at night 
 Changing to accents of your native tongue 
 God's Book Divine. Farewell, my friends, fare- 
 well !' 
 He left them ; in his heart this thought, ' How 
 
 like 
 
 The great death-parting every parting seems ! ' 
 But deathless hopes were with him and the 
 
 May ; 
 His grief went by. 
 
 So passed a day of Bede's ; 
 
 And many r studious year was stored with such ; 
 Enough but one for sample. Two glad weeks 
 He and his comrade onward roved. At eve 
 Convent or hamlet known long since and loved 
 Gladly received them. Bede with heart as glad 
 Renewed with them the memory of old times, 
 Recounted benefits by him received 
 Then strong in youth, from just men passed away, 
 And preached his Master still with power so sweet 
 The listeners ne'er forgat him. Evermore,
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 245 
 
 Parting, he planted in the ground a cross 
 
 And bade the neighbours till their church was 
 
 built 
 
 Round it to pray. Meanwhile his youthful mate 
 Changed by degrees. The ever- varying scene, 
 The biting breath yet balmy breast of Spring, 
 And most of all that old man's valiant heart 
 Triumphed above his sadness, fancies gay 
 Pushing beyond it like those sunnier shoots 
 That gild the dark vest of the vernal pine. 
 He took account of all things as they passed ; 
 He laughed ; he told his tale. With quiet joy 
 His friend remarked that change. The second 
 
 week 
 
 They passed to Durham ; next to Walsingham ; 
 To Gilling then ; to stately Richmond soon 
 High throned above her Ouse ; to Ripon last : 
 Then Bede made pause, and spake ; ' Not far is 
 
 York; 
 
 Egbert who fills Paulinus' saintly seat 
 Would see me gladly : such was mine intent, 
 But something in my bosom whispers " Nay, 
 Return to that fair river crossed by night 
 The Tees, the fairest in this Northern land : 
 Beside its restless wave thine eye shall rest 
 On vision lovelier far and more benign 
 Than all it yet hath seen."' Northward once 
 
 more
 
 246 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 They faced, and three days travelling reached at 
 
 eve 
 
 Again those ivied cliffs that guard the Tees : 
 There as they stood a homeward dove with flight 
 Softer for contrast with that turbulent stream 
 Sailed through the crimson eve. ' No sight like 
 
 that ! ' 
 
 Thus murmured Bede ; 'ever to me it seems 
 A Christian soul returning to its rest.' 
 A shade came o'er his countenance as he mused ; 
 Algar remarked that shade, though what it meant 
 He knew not yet. The old man from that hour 
 Seemed mirthful less, less buoyant, beaming less, 
 Yet not less glad. 
 
 At dead of night, while hung 
 The sacred stars upon their course half-way 
 He left his couch, and thus to Egbert wrote 
 Meek man too meek the brother of the king, 
 With brow low bent and onward sweeping hand 
 Great words, world-famed : ' Remember thine 
 
 account ! 
 
 The Lord's Apostles are the salt o' the earth ; 
 Let salt not lose its savour ! Flail and fan 
 Are given thee. Purge thou well thy threshing 
 
 floor! 
 
 Repel the tyrant ; hurl the hireling forth ; 
 That so from thy true priests true hearts may learn 
 True faith, true love, and nothing but the truth ! '
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 247 
 
 Before the lark he rose the morrow morn 
 And stood by Algar's bed, and spake : ' Arise ! 
 Playtime is past : the great good work returns ; 
 To Jarrow speed we ! ' Homeward, day by day 
 Thenceforth they sped with foot that lagged no 
 
 more, 
 
 That youth, at first so mournful, joyous now, 
 That old man oft in thought. Next day while 
 
 eve 
 
 Descended dim and clung to Hexham's groves 
 He passed its abbey, silent. Wonder-struck 
 Algar demanded, ' Father, pass you thus 
 That church where holy John 1 ordained you 
 
 priest 1 
 
 Pass you its Bishop, Acca, long your friend *? 
 Yearly he woos your visit ; tells you tales 
 Of Hexham's saintly Wilfrid ; shows you still 
 Chalice or cross new-won from distant shores : 
 Nor these alone : glancing from such last year 
 A page he read you of some Pagan bard 
 With smiles ; yet ended with a sigh, and said 
 " Where is he now 1 " ' The man of God replied : 
 1 Desire was mine to see mine ancient friend ; 
 For that cause came I hither : time runs short ' : 
 Then, Algar sighing, thus he added mild, 
 ' Let go that theme ; thy mourning time is past : 
 Thy gladsome time is now.' As on they walked 
 
 i St. John of Beverley.
 
 248 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Later he spake : ' It may be I was wrong ; 
 Old friends should part in hope.' 
 
 On Jarrow's towers, 
 Bright as that sunrise while that pair went 
 
 forth 
 
 The sunset glittered when, their wanderings past, 
 Bede and his comrade by the bank of Tyne 
 Once more approached the gates. Six hundred 
 
 monks 
 Flocked forth to meet them. ' They had grieved, 
 
 I know,' 
 
 Thus spake, low-voiced the venerable man, 
 ' If I had died remote. To spare that grief 
 Before the time intended I returned.' 
 Sadly that comrade looked upon his face, 
 Yet saw there nought of sadness. Silent each 
 Advanced they till they met that cowled host : 
 But three weeks later on his bed the boy 
 Remembered well those words. 
 
 Within a cell 
 
 To Algar's near that later night a youth 
 Wrote thus to one far off, his earliest friend : 
 ' O blessed man ! was e'er a death so sweet ! 
 He sang that verse, "A dreadful thing it is 
 To fall into the hands of God, All- Just ; " 
 Yet awe in him seemed swallowed up by love ; 
 And oft-times with the Prophets and the Psalms
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 249 
 
 He mixed glad minstrelsies of English speech, 
 Songs to his childhood dear ! 
 
 ' O blessed man ! 
 The Ascension Feast of Christ our Lord drew 
 
 nigh; 
 He watched that splendour's advent ; sang its 
 
 hymn : 
 
 " All-Glorious King, Who, triumphing this day 
 Into the heaven of heavens didst make ascent, 
 Forsake us not, poor orphans ! Send Thy Spirit 
 The Spirit of Truth the Father's promised Gift 
 To comfort us, His children : Hallelujah." 
 And when he reached that word, "Forsake us 
 
 not," 
 
 He wept not tears of grief. With him we wept ; 
 Alternate wept ; alternate read our rite ; 
 Yea, while we wept we read. So passed that day, 
 The sufferer thanking God with labouring breath, 
 " God scourges still the son whom He receives." 
 
 ' Undaunted, unamazed, daily he wrought 
 His daily task ; instruction daily gave 
 To us his scholars round him ranged, and said, 
 " I will not have my pupils learn a lie, 
 Nor, fruitless, toil therein when I am gone." 
 Full well he kept an earlier promise, made 
 Oft-times to humble folk, in English tongue 
 Rendering the Gospels of the Lord. On these
 
 250 AUBREY DE VEBE'S POEMS. 
 
 The last of these, the Gospel of Saint John, 
 He laboured till the close. The days went by, 
 And still he toiled, and panted, and gave thanks 
 To God with hands uplifted ; yea, in sleep 
 He made thanksgiving still. When Tuesday came 
 Suffering increased ; he said, " My time is short ; 
 How short it is I know not." Yet we deemed 
 He knew the time of his departure well. 
 
 ' On Wednesday morn once more he bade us 
 
 write : 
 
 We wrote till the third hour, and left him then, 
 To pace, in reverence of that Feast all-blest, 
 Our cloister court with hymns. Meantime a youth 
 Algar by name there was who left him never ; 
 The same that hour beside him sat and wrote : 
 More late he questioned : " Father well-beloved, 
 One chapter yet remaineth ; have you strength 
 To dictate more ? " He answered : " I have 
 
 strength ; 
 
 Make ready son, thy pen, and swiftly write." 
 When noon had come he turned him round and 
 
 said, 
 
 " I have some little gifts for those I love ; 
 Call in the Brethren ; " adding with a smile 
 " The rich man makes bequests and why not I ? " 
 Then gifts he gave, incense or altar-cloth, 
 To each commanding, " Pray ye for my soul !
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 251 
 
 Be strong in prayer and offering of the Mass 
 For ye shall see my face no more on earth : 
 Blessed hath been my life ; and time it is 
 That unto God God's creature should return ; 
 Yea, I desire to die and be with Christ." 
 Thus speaking he rejoiced till evening's shades 
 Darkened around us. That disciple young 
 Once more addressed him, "Still one verse re- 
 mains ; " 
 The master answered, " Write and write with 
 
 speed ; " 
 
 And dictated. The young man wrote ; then said 
 " 'Tis finished now." The man of God replied, 
 " Well say'st thou son, ' 'tis finished.' In thy hands 
 Receive my head and move it gently round 
 For comfort great it is and joy in death 
 Thus, on this pavement of my little cell 
 Facing that happy spot whereon so oft 
 In prayer I knelt, to sit once more in prayer 
 Thanking my Father." "Glory," then he sang 
 " To God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; " 
 And with that latest Name upon his lips 
 Passed to the Heavenly Kingdom.' 
 
 Thus with joy 
 
 Died holy Bede upon Ascension Day 
 In Jarrow Convent. May he pray for us 
 And all who read his annals of God's Church 
 In England housed, his great bequest to man !
 
 252 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 ON VISITING A HAUNT OF 
 COLERIDGE'S. 
 
 FROM Lynton, where the double streams 
 Through forest-hung ravines made way, 
 And bounded into seas late grey 
 
 That shook with morning's earliest beams 
 I wandered on to Porlock Bay ; 
 
 And thence, for love of him who sang 
 His happiest songs beside their rills, 
 To ' seaward Quantock's heathy hills n 
 
 Advanced, while lane and hedge-grove rang, 
 And all the song-birds ' had their wills.' 
 
 There, like a sweet face dimmed with pain 
 The scene grew dark with mist and shower 
 Its yellow leaf the autumnal bower 
 
 Moulted full fast ; and as the rain 
 Washed the last fragrance from the flower 
 
 I heard the blue-robed schoolboy's tongue 
 Thrilling Christ's Hospital once more 
 With mythic chant and antique lore 
 
 While round their Bard his playmates hung 
 Wondering, and sighed, the witchery o'er. 
 
 1 See Coleridge's ' Recollections of Love. 1
 
 ON VISITING A HAUNT OF COLERIDGE'S. 253 
 
 I saw him tread soft Devon's coombes 
 Ah ! thence he drew that southern grace 
 Which in his songs held happy place 
 
 Amid their mystic northland glooms, 
 Like some strange flower of alien race : 
 
 Nor less 'twas his the steeps to climb 
 Where, high o'er cloud and precipice, 
 Mind, throned among the seas of ice, 
 
 Watches from specular tower sublime 
 Far vis.'o is kenned through freezing skies, 
 
 Outlines of Thought, like hills through mist 
 
 That stretch athwart the Infinite 
 
 In dread mathesis lines of light 
 Such Thoughts the Muse's spell resist ; 
 
 Above her mark they wing their flight ! 
 
 The songs he gave us, what were they 
 But preludes to some loftier rhyme 
 That would not leave the spheral chime, 
 
 The concords of eternal day, 
 And speak itself in words of Time ? 
 
 ever-famished Heart ! O hands 
 That still ' drew nectar in a sieve ! ' 
 At birth of thine what witch had leave 
 
 To bind such strength in willow bands, 
 The web half -woven to unweave '?
 
 254 AUBB.EY DE VERE's POEMS. 
 
 O for those Orphic songs unheard 
 That lived but in the Singer's thought ! 
 Who sinned ? Whose hand the ruin wrought 1 
 
 Unworthy was the world or Bard 
 To clasp those Splendours all but caught ? 
 
 What Bard of all who e'er have sung 
 Since that lark sang when Eve had birth 
 Song's inmost soul had uttered forth 
 
 Like thee ? from Song's asperge had flung 
 Her lesser baptism o'er the earth ? 
 
 The world's base Poets have not kept 
 Song's vigil on her vestal height, 
 Nor scorned false pride and foul delight, 
 
 Nor with the weepers rightly wept, 
 Nor seen God's visions in the night ! 
 
 Profane to enthrone the Sense, and add 
 A gleam that lies to shapes that pass, 
 Ah me ! in song as in a glass 
 
 They might have shown us glory-clad 
 His Face Who ever is and was ! 
 
 They might have shown us cloud and leaf 
 
 Lit with the radiance uncreate ; 
 
 Love throned o'er vanquished Lust and Hate, 
 Joy, gem-distilled through rocks of Grief, 
 
 And Justice conquering Time and Fate !
 
 ON VISITING A HAUNT OF COLERIDGE'S. 255 
 
 But they immodest brows have crowned 
 With violated bud and flower : 
 Courting the high Muse ' par amour ' 
 
 Upon her suppliants she hath frowned, 
 And sent them darkness for a dower. 
 
 Thy song was pure : thy heart was high : 
 Thy genius through its strength was chaste : 
 And if that genius ran to waste 
 
 Unblemished as its native sky 
 O'er diamond rocks the river raced ! 
 
 Great Bard ! To thee in youth my heart 
 Rushed as the maiden's to the boy 
 When love, too blithesome to be coy, 
 
 No want forbodes and feels no smart, 
 A selfless love, self -brimmed with joy ! 
 
 Still sporting with those amaranth leaves 
 
 That shape for few their coronals 
 
 I ask not on whose head it falls 
 That crown the Fame Pandemian weaves 
 
 Thee, thee the Fame Uranian calls ! 
 
 For wildered feet point thou the path 
 Which mounts to where triumphant sit 
 The Assumed of Earth all human yet, 
 
 From sun-glare safe and tempest's wrath. 
 Who sing for love ; nor those forget
 
 256 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 The Elders crowned that, singing, fling 
 Their crowns upon the Temple floor ; 
 Those Elders ever young, though hoar, 
 
 Who count all praise an idle thing 
 Save His who lives for evermore ! 
 
 THE DEATH OF COPERNICUS. 
 
 COPERNICUS died at Fraemberg, a small city at the 
 mouth of the Vistula, A.D. 1543, and, as has been said, 
 though the fact is not certain, the day after he received 
 the first printed copy of that great work, dedicated to Pope 
 Paul III., which embodied his astronomical discoveries, 
 and substituted the Copernican for the Ptolemaic system 
 of the universe. That work he had withheld from publi- 
 cation for thirty-six years, fearing lest the conclusions he 
 had arrived at might possibly prove unsound scientifically, 
 and, in that case, till confuted, be dangerous to Faith. 
 These misgivings he had discarded on re-examining the 
 grounds of his philosophy. 
 
 HAIL, silent, chaste, and ever sacred stars ! 
 Ye bind my life in one ! I well remember 
 When first your glory pierced my youthful heart : 
 'Twas Christmas Eve near midnight. From a boat 
 I watched you long ; then, rowing, faced the deep : 
 Above the storm-loved cliff of Elsinore 
 Sworded Orion high and higher rose 
 With brightening belt. The city clocks struck 
 
 twelve : 
 Straight from the countless towers rang out their 
 
 chimes
 
 THE DEATH OF COPERNICUS. 257 
 
 Hailing the Babe new-born. Along the sea 
 Vibration waved ; and in its depth the stars 
 Danced as they flashed answering that rapturous 
 
 hymn 
 
 ' Glory to God on high and peace on earth.' 
 I shall not long behold them saith my leech : 
 He errs : I suffer little. 
 
 On my bed 
 
 Yon lies my tome one man's bequest to men. 
 Is the gift good ? From youth to age I toiled 
 A gleaner in the starry harvest field : 
 Lo, there one gathered sheaf 
 I think I laboured with a stainless aim 
 If not a single aim. In ancient times 
 Pythagoras had gleams of this high lore : 
 Let coming ages stamp his name upon it ; 
 I count it his, not mine. 
 
 My earlier book 
 
 In substance was as this. But thus I mused ; 
 Christ's simple ones may take offence and cry 
 ' Tis written, " God hath made the earth so 
 
 strong 
 
 That it cannot be moved ; " science avers 
 It moves around the sun.' Such questioner 
 Deserves all reverence. Faith is more than 
 
 Science ; 
 But 'twixt the interpretation and the text 
 
 Q
 
 258 AUBREY D3 VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Lies space world-wide. That text meant this no 
 
 more 
 
 So solid is the earth concussion none, 
 Though mountains fell, can move it. Here i.s 
 
 naught 
 
 Of motion round the sun. Solidity 
 To such advance were needful not a bar : 
 Far flies the pebble forward flung ; the flower 
 Drops at the flinger's foot. 
 
 Again I mused ; 
 
 T he Truth of Nature with the Truth Revealed 
 Accords perforce ; not so the illusive gloss 
 By Nature's scholiasts forced on Nature's page : 
 That gloss of Ptolemy's made great Nature lis 
 A thousand years, and more. Through countless 
 
 errors 
 
 Thus only, Science feels her way to Truth. 
 May I not err like Ptolemy ? Distrustful 
 I hid my book for thirty years and six 
 Cross- questioning with fresh inquest patient skies 
 And found there nothing that arraigned my lore, 
 Much that confirmed it. From the Minster tower 
 Canon that time at Warnia though unworthy, 
 I made me charts of angle, sine, and arc : . 
 Those, vigils left my feet so numbed at morn 
 They scarce could find the altar-step, my hands 
 Scarce lift the chalice ! Day by day I prayed 
 With adjuration added, ' If, my God,
 
 THE DEATH OF COPERNICUS. 2.">9 
 
 Thou seest my pride suborn my faculties 
 Place me, a witless one, among those witless 
 That beg beneath church porches.' Likewise I 
 
 sued 
 
 The poor beside whose beds I ministered 
 For their sake I had learned the healing craft 
 To fence- me with their prayers. 
 
 Discovered truths 
 
 I blabbed not to the many but the wise, 
 Such men as raised our stateliest fanes. In these 
 I found amazement less than I presaged : 
 There seemed a leaning in the minds of men 
 As when a leaning cornfield shows the wind 
 To such results as in Bologna's schools 
 Made way when there I dwelt. I note this day 
 The ecclesiastics of the higher sort 
 Are with me more than those whose lore is Nature ; 
 These hate the foot that spurns prescription's fence ; 
 Not so my friend the bishop of old Kulm ; 
 He cries, ' Go forward ! ' Thirty years ago 
 Milan's famed painter he of the ' Last Supper ' 
 Whispered me thus, ' The earth goes round the 
 
 sun.' 
 There are whose guess is prophecy. 
 
 This night 
 
 I make election : twofold choice is mine ; 
 The first, to hurl this book on yonder sea ;
 
 260 AUBKEY DE VERE's POEMS. 
 
 The last, to fling it on a flood more vast 
 And fluctuating more, the mind of man, 
 Crying, 'Fare forth and take what God shall 
 
 send !' 
 
 One doubt alone remains ; no text it touches 
 But dangers from within. In days gone by 
 I saw a youth beside a casement stand 
 The sea not distant and a heaven all stars : 
 Christ's Advent was our theme. He cried, 'Look 
 
 forth ! 
 Yon skies confute the old Faith ! When Earth was 
 
 young 
 
 Wistful as lovers, credulous as children, 
 Men deemed that Earth the centre of the world 
 The stars its lackeys and its torch-bearers. 
 Such science is foredoomed: mankind will learn 
 This sphere is not God's ocean but one drop 
 Showered from its spray. Came God from heaven 
 
 for that ? 
 Speak no more words ! ' 
 
 That was a tragedy ! 
 
 A mood may pass ; yet moods have murdered souls : 
 It proved not thus with him. 
 
 I looked again : 
 
 That face was as an angel's : from his brow 
 The cloud had passed. .Reverent, I spake no word: 
 It may be that my silence helped him best : 
 Later, albeit at timos such moods recurred,
 
 THE DEATH OF COP2RNICUS. 261 
 
 That man was helpful to a nation's soul : 
 In death he held the Faith. 
 
 This Earth too small 
 For Love Divine ! Is God not Infinite 1 
 If so, His Love is infinite. Too small ! 
 One famished babe meets pity oft from man 
 More than an army slain ! Too small for Love ! 
 Was Earth too small to be of God created 1 
 Why then too small to be redeemed 1 
 
 The sense 
 
 Sees greatness only in the sensuous greatness : 
 Science in that sees little : Faith sees naught : 
 The small, the vast, are tricks of earthly vision : 
 To God, that Omnipresent All-in-Each, 
 Nothing is small, is far. 
 
 More late I knew 
 
 A hoary man dim-eyed, with restless hands, 
 A zealot barbed with jibe and sco.T still launched 
 At priests, and kings, and holy womanhood : 
 One night descending from my tower he spake ; 
 ' A God, and God incarnate but for man 
 That reasoning beast ; and all yon glittering orbs 
 In cold obstruction left ! ' 
 
 Diverse those twain ! 
 
 That youth, though dazzled by the starry vastness 
 And thus despising earth, had awe for God : 
 That grey-haired fool believed in matter only. 
 Compassion for those starry races robbed
 
 2G2 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 By earth, like Esau, of their birthright just 
 Is pretext. They that know not of a God 
 How know they that the stars have habitants 7 
 'Tis Faith and Hope that spread delighted hands 
 To such belief; no formal proof attests it. 
 Concede them peopled ; can the sophist prove 
 Their habitants are fallen 1 That too admitted 
 Who told him that redeeming foot divine 
 Ne'er trod those spheres 1 That fresh assumption 
 
 granted 
 
 What then 1 Is not the Universe a whole ? 
 Doth not the sunbeam herald from the sun 
 Gladden the violet's bosom ? Moons uplift 
 The tides : remotest stars lead home the lost : 
 Judaea was one country, one alone : 
 Not less Who died there died for all. The Cross 
 Brought help to vanished nations : Time opposed 
 No bar to Love : why then should Space oppose 
 
 one 1 ? 
 
 We know not what Time is nor what is Space ; 
 Why dream that bonds like theirs constrain the 
 
 Unbounded ] 
 
 If Earth be small, likelier it seems that Love 
 Compassionate most and condescending most 
 To Sorrow's nadir depths, should choose that Earth 
 For Love's chief triumph missioning thence her 
 
 gift 
 Even to the utmost zenith!
 
 THE DEATH OF COPERNICUS. 2(53 
 
 To the Soul 
 
 Far more than to the intellect of man 
 I deemed the gift vouchsafed when on me first 
 This new-born Science dawned. I said 'Long 
 
 since 
 
 We call God infinite : what means that term 1 
 A boy since childhood walled in one small field 
 Could answer nothing. He who looks on skies 
 Ablaze with stars, not hand-maids poor of earth 
 But known for worlds of measureless bulk and 
 
 swiftness, 
 
 Has mounted to another grade of spirit, 
 Proceeded man. The stars do this for man ; 
 They make Infinitude imaginable : 
 God, by our instincts felt as infinite, 
 When known becomes such to our total being 
 Mind, spirit, heart, and soul. The greater Theist 
 Should make the greater Christian. 
 
 Yet, 'tis truo 
 
 Best gifts may come too soon. No marvel this : 
 The earth was shaped for myriad forms of great- 
 ness, 
 
 As Freedom, Genius, Beauty, Science, Art, 
 Some extant, some to be : such forms of greatness 
 Are through God's will greatness conditional : 
 Where Christ is greatest these are great; else- 
 where 
 Great only to betray. Sweetly and sagely
 
 26 1 AUBREY I>E VERE'S POEMS. 
 
 In order grave the Maker of all worlds 
 
 Still modulates the rhythm of human progress ; 
 
 His angels on whose song the seasons float 
 
 Keep measured cadence : all good things keep time 
 
 Lest Good should strangle Better. Aristotle 
 
 Aspired like me to base on fact and proof 
 
 Nature's philosophy. Fate said him nay : 
 
 That Fate was kindness hidden 
 
 The natural science of great Aristotle 
 
 Died young: his logic lived and helped the 
 
 Church 
 To map her Christian Science. 
 
 Ancient Thought 
 
 And Christian Faith, opposed in most beside, 
 Held man in reverence, each. Much came of that : 
 Matter dethroned, a place remained for spirit : 
 Old Grecian song called man creation's Lord ; 
 The Christian Creed named him his Maker's 
 
 Image ; 
 
 One was a humble reverence ; one a proud : 
 Science that day perchance had made men 
 
 prouder ; 
 
 The Ptolemaic scheme had place and use 
 Till Christian Faith conquering the earth had 
 
 crowned it : 
 
 The arch complete its centering is removed : 
 That Faith which f ranchised first the soul of man 
 Franchises next his mind.
 
 THE DKATII OP COPEBNICUS. 265 
 
 Another knowledge 
 Man's appanage now, was snatched awhile from 
 
 men, 
 
 The lore of antique ages said or sung : 
 It rolled, a river through the Athenian vales ; 
 It sank as though by miracle in earth : 
 A fount unsealed by hand divine, it leaps 
 Once more against the sun. 
 
 That strange new birth 
 Had place when first I trod Italian soil : 
 Men spake of bards to Dante's self unknown 
 To Francis, Bernard, Dominic, Aquinas : 
 Great Albert knew them not ! The oracles 
 Of lying gods were dumb : but dumb not less 
 The sage Greek poets, annalists, orators, 
 For God had uttered voice, and leaned from 
 
 heaven 
 
 Waiting the earth's response. The air was mute, 
 Mute, for the Saviour God had breathed it late, 
 Left it His latest sigh. The ages passed : 
 Alone were Apostolic voices heard ; 
 Then Fathers of the Church; the Schoolmen 
 
 last. 
 
 Clamour had ceased : the " Credo " for that cause 
 Was plainlier heard. The winds and waves had 
 
 fallen ; 
 
 And there was a great calm stillness of spirit 
 At heart of storm extern. At last God's Truth
 
 206 AUBKKY DE VERB S POEMS. 
 
 Had built o'er earth the kingdom of God's Peace : 
 The penance-time was passed : Greece spake once 
 
 more : 
 
 What was that speech but prophecy fulfilled, 
 ' The heathen shall become thy heritage ] 
 The utmost parts of the earth bs thy possession 1 ' 
 Cephisus and Ilyssus flow again : 
 Grey wastes with roses flame. Two epochs blend ; 
 Shall not God's angels reap two harvest fields 
 Severing the wheat from tares ] 
 
 Severance is needful ; 
 
 Yea, needfuller yet will prove as ages pass : 
 The nobler songs of Greece divulged in verse 
 Such Truths as Nature had retained though 
 
 fallen, 
 Man's heart had prized. Aye, but with these 
 
 there mixed 
 
 Music debasing. Christendom this day 
 Confronts two gifts and trials likewise twain : 
 She must become the mother of great Nations ; 
 Each Nation with the years will breed its Book, 
 Its Bible uninspired. But if these Books 
 Should prove but sorcerers' juggling wares, these 
 
 prophets 
 
 Stand up false prophets and their word a lie, 
 A voice from those two Books of Greece and Home 
 Will sound their sentence, crying ; ' In the night 
 We sang sweet songs the auguries of dawn ;
 
 THE DEATH OF COPERNICUS. 2(37 
 
 We sang the Mother-land, the household loves, 
 The all-reverend eld, the virgin sanctitude, 
 The stranger's right, the altar reared to Pity ; 
 Ye, 'mid the noontide glories turned to black, 
 Outshamed our worst with worse.' 
 
 Should that voice peal 
 
 Woe to the Nations which have sinned that sin ! 
 Truth's golden bowl will at the cistern break, 
 Song's daughters be brought low. 
 
 For these two gifts, 
 
 The Science new, the Old Lore revived, the time 
 Seems opportune alike. The earth finds rest : 
 That Rome which warred on Christ is judged ; 
 
 has vanished ; 
 
 Those direful heresies of three centuries more, 
 The hordes barbaric, and, barbaric thrice 
 Those Christian Emperors vexing still Christ's 
 
 Church : 
 
 The Antipopes are gone, not less : the Impostor 
 Scowls at the West in vain. Yet who can tell 
 If in some age remote or near a cloud 
 Blacker than aught that shook the olden world 
 May rush not from clear skies 1 That hour 
 
 upon us 
 
 " Quieta non movere " may become 
 Wisdom's sum total ; to repress, not spur 
 Progressive thought the hour's necessity ; 
 Against their will the truthfullest spirits may cry
 
 '2^8 AUBREY DE VERB S POEMS. 
 
 ' Better to wait than launch the bark of knowledge 
 There when the breakers roar ! 
 
 The time is fit: 
 Work, and in hope, though sin that hope may 
 
 cheat ; 
 
 Work, knowing this, that when God's lesser gifts 
 Are mocked by mortals, God into that urn 
 Which stands for aye gift-laden by His throne 
 Thrusts deeplier yet His hand and upward draws 
 His last then chief of mercies Retribution. 
 Should man abusing use this knowledge vast 
 Not for relieving of God's suffering poor 
 But doubling of their burthens ; not for peace 
 But keener sharpening of war's battle-axe 
 And fleshlier solace of the idle and rich, 
 God will to such redouble pain for sin. 
 Such lot may lie before us. This is sure 
 That, as colossal Sanctity walks oft 
 In humblest vales, not less a pigmy race 
 May strut on mountains. If from heights of 
 
 science 
 Men should look forth o'er worlds on worlds 
 
 unguessed 
 
 And find therein no witness to their God, 
 Nought but man's image chaunting hymns to man 
 ' Great is thy wisdom, Man, and strong thy hand,' 
 God will repay the madness of that boast 
 With madness guilty less, a brain imbecile.
 
 THE DEATH OF COPERNICUS. 269 
 
 Races there live, once sage and brave, that now 
 
 Know not to light a fire ! If impious men 
 
 Press round Truth's gate with Intellect's fleshlier 
 
 lust 
 
 For what is Godless Intellect but fleshly ] 
 Sudden a glacial wind shall issue forth 
 And strike those vile ones blind ! 
 
 Should that day come 
 Let no man cease from hope. Intensest ill 
 Breeds good intensest. For the sons of God 
 That knowledge won by bad men will survive. 
 If fleets one day should pass the onrushing storm 
 That Cross which lights their prow will reach but 
 
 sooner 
 
 The lands that sit in night. If Empires new 
 Wage war on Faith, each drop of martyr blood 
 Will sow once more Faith's harvest. Virgin 
 
 spirits 
 
 Raised from a child-like to an angel pureness 
 Will walk in Chastity's sublimer flame, 
 Households become as convents grave and high, 
 God's earthquake shake men to their fitting places 
 True men and false, the sons of light and night, 
 No more as now confused. God's Church will 
 
 make, 
 
 Since though she errs not yet her best may err, 
 For sins of good men dead due expiation, 
 Then for her second triumph claim as site
 
 270 AtTBEEY DE VERB'S PO3MS. 
 
 A planet's not an empire's girth. True kings 
 Will fence their thrones with freemen not with 
 
 serfs ; 
 
 True priests by serving rule. The Tree of Life 
 First made our spirits food, that Tree which 
 
 slew us 
 
 Will prove her sister. Knowledge then will clasp 
 Supremacy o'er matter, earth's fruition 
 Not by the facile plucking of a fruit 
 But by the valorous exercise austere 
 Of faculties, God's gift. 
 
 ' Lift up your heads, 
 Ye everlasting gates,' the Psalmist sang 
 *So shall the King of Glory enter in.' 
 Lives there who doubts that when the starry gates 
 Lift up their heads like minster porches vast 
 At feasts before a marvelling nation's eyes, 
 And show, beyond, the universe of God, 
 Lives there who doubts that, entering there, man's 
 
 mind 
 
 Must see before it far a God Who enters 
 Flashing from star to star? Lives there who 
 
 doubts 
 
 That those new heavens beyond all hope distent 
 Must sound their Maker's praise 1 Religion's self 
 That day shall wear an ampler crown. All Truths 
 Now constellated in the Church's Creed 
 Yet dim this day because man's mind is dim,
 
 THE DEATH OF COPERNICUS. 271 
 
 Perforce dilating as man's mind dilates 
 
 O'er us must hang, a new Theology, 
 
 Our own, yet nobler even as midnight heavens 
 
 Through crystal ether kenned more sharply shine 
 
 Than when mist veiled the stars ! Let others 
 
 doubt 
 My choice is made. 
 
 The stars ! Once more they greet me ! 
 Thanks to the wind that blows yon casement back ! 
 'Tis cold : but vigi'.s old have taught me patience. 
 Is this the last time, O ye stars 1 Not so; 
 'Tis not the death-chill yet. Those northern 
 
 heavens 
 Yield me once more that Northern Sign long 
 
 loved, 
 
 That northern sea, its glass, though many a star 
 Faints now in broader beams. Yon winter moon 
 Has changed this cell thick-walled and oft-times 
 
 dim 
 
 Into a silver tent. O light, light, light, 
 How great thou art ! Thou only, free of space, 
 Bindest the universe of God in one : 
 Matter, methinks, in thee is turned to spirit : 
 What if our bodies, death-subdued, shall rise 
 All light compact of light ! 
 
 I had forgotten 
 Good Cardinal Schomberg's missive : here it lies :
 
 272 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 I read it three weeks past. ' The Holy Father 
 Wills that your labours stand divulged to man ; 
 Wills likewise that his name should grace your 
 
 tome 
 
 As deJicate to him.' I read in haste : 
 That such high grace should 'scape my memory 
 
 thus 
 
 Argues, I think, some failure of my powers. 
 So be it ! Their task is wrought. 
 
 The tide descends : 
 
 The caves send forth anew those hoarse sea- 
 thunders 
 
 Lulled when full flood satiates their echoing roofs: 
 They tell me this, that God, their God, hath 
 
 spoken 
 
 And the great deep obeys. That deep forsakes 
 The happy coasts where fishers spread their nets, 
 The fair green slopes with snowy flocks bespread, 
 The hamlets red each morn with cloaks of girls 
 And loud with shouting children. Forth he fares 
 To solitudes of ocean waste and wide 
 Cheered by that light he loves. I too obey : 
 I too am called to face the Infinite, 
 Leaving familiar things and faces dear 
 Of friends and tomes forth leaning from yon wall : 
 Me too the Uncreated Light shall greet 
 When cleansed to bear it. O, how sweet was 
 life!
 
 AUTUMNAL ODE. 273 
 
 How sweeter must have proved had I been 
 
 worthy 
 
 ({rant me Thy Beatilic Vision, Lord : 
 Then shall these eyes star- wearied see and live ! 
 1889. 
 
 AUTUMNAL ODE. 
 
 DEDICATED TO MY SISTER. 
 I. 
 
 MINSTREL and Genius to whose songs or sighs 
 
 The round earth modulates her changeful sphere, 
 That bend'st in shadow from yon western skies 
 And lean'st, cloud-hid, along the woodlands 
 
 sere, 
 
 Too deep thy notes, too pure, for mortal ear ! 
 Yet Nature hears them : without aid of thine 
 How sad were her decline ! 
 
 From thee she learns with just and soft gradation 
 Her dying hues in death to harmonise ; 
 Through thee her obsequies 
 A glory wear that conquers desolation. 
 Through thee she singeth, 'Faithless were the 
 
 sighing 
 
 Breathed o'er a beauty only born to fleet : 
 A holy thing and precious is the dying 
 
 Of that whose life was innocent and sweet. 
 From many a dim retreat 
 i:
 
 274 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Lodged on high-bosomed, echoing mountain 
 lawn 
 
 Or chiming convent 'mid dark vale withdrawn, 
 From cloudy shrine or rapt oracular seat 
 Voices of loftier worlds that saintly strain repeat. 
 
 ii. 
 
 It is the Autumnal Epode of the year : 
 The Nymphs that urge the seasons on their 
 
 round 
 They to whose green lap flies the startled deer 
 
 When bays the far-off hound, 
 They that drag April by the rain-bright hair, 
 Though sun-showers daze her and the rude winds 
 
 scare, 
 
 O'er March's frosty bound, 
 They by whose warm and furtive hand unwound 
 
 The cestus falls from May's new- wedded breast 
 Silent they stand beside dead Summer's bier 
 With folded palms and faces to the West, 
 And their loose tresses sweep the dewy ground. 
 
 in. 
 
 A sacred stillness hangs upon the air, 
 
 A sacred clearness. Shapes remote draw nigh : 
 Glistens yon Elm-grove to its heart laid bare 
 
 And all articulate in its symmetry 
 
 With here and there a branch that from on hk'h
 
 AUTUMNAL ODE. 275 
 
 Far flashes washed in wan and watery gleam : 
 Beyond, the glossy lake lies calm a beam 
 Upheaved, as if in sleep, from its slow central 
 stream. 
 
 IV. 
 
 This quiet is it Truth, or some fair mask 1 
 
 Is pain no more? Shall Sleep be lord, not 
 
 Death ? 
 Shall sickness cease to afflict and overtask 
 
 The spent and labouring breath ? 
 Is there 'mid all yon farms and fields, this day, 
 
 No grey old head that drops 1 No darkening 
 
 eye 1 ? 
 Spirits of Pity, lift your hands and pray 
 
 Each hour, alas, men die ! 
 
 v. 
 
 The love songs of the Blackbird now are done : 
 Upon the o'ergrown, loose, red-berried cover 
 The latest of late warblers sings as one 
 That trolls at random when the feast is over : 
 From bush to bush the dusk-bright cobvelxs 
 
 hover 
 
 Silvering the dried- up rill's exhausted urn ; 
 No breeze is fluting o'er the green morass ; 
 Nor falls the thistle-down : in deep-drenched grass 
 Now blue, now red, the shifting dew-gems 
 Durn.
 
 276 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Mine ear thus torpid held, methinks mine eye 
 Is armed the more with visionary power : 
 As with a magnet's force each redd'ning bower 
 
 Compels me through the woodland pageantry : 
 
 Slowly I track the forest skirt : emerging, 
 Slowly I climb from pastoral steep to steep : 
 
 I see far mists from reedy valleys surging : 
 I follow the procession of white sheep 
 That fringe with wool old stock and ruined rath, 
 
 How staid to-day, how eager when the lambs 
 Went leaping round their dams ! 
 
 I cross the leaf-choked stream from stone to stone, 
 Pass the hoar ash tree, trace the upland path, 
 
 The furze-brake that in March all golden shone 
 Reflected in the shy kingfisher's bath. 
 
 VII. 
 
 No more from full-leaved woods that music 
 swells 
 
 Which all the summer filled the satiate ear : 
 A fostering sweetness still from bosky dells 
 
 Murmurs ; but I can hear 
 A harsher sound when down, at intervals, 
 The dry leaf rattling falls. 
 Dark as those spots which herald swift disease 
 The death-blot marks for death the leaf yet rirm: 
 Beside the leaf down-trodden trails the worm:
 
 AUTUMNAL ODE. 277 
 
 In forest depths the haggard, whitening grass 
 Repines at youth departed. Half-stripped trees 
 
 Reveal, as one who says, ' Thou too must pass,' 
 Plainlier each day their quaint anatomies. 
 Yon Poplar grove is troubled ! Bright and bold 
 Babbled his cold leaves in the July breeze 
 As though above our heads a runnel rolled : 
 
 His mirth is o'er ; subdued by old October 
 
 He counts his lessening wealth, and, sadly 
 
 sober, 
 Tinkles his minute tablets of wan gold. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Be still, ye sighs of the expiring year ! 
 
 A sword there is : ye play but with the sheath ! 
 Whispers there are more piercing yet more dear 
 
 Than yours, that come to me the boughs 
 
 beneath ; 
 And well-remembered footsteps known of old 
 
 Tread soft the mildewed mould. 
 O magic memory of the things that were ; 
 
 Of those whose hands our childish locks carest, 
 Of one so angel-like in tender care, 
 
 Of one in majesty so god-like drest ; 
 
 phantom faces painted on the air 
 Of friend or sudden guest ; 
 
 1 plead in vain : 
 
 The woods revere but cannot heal my pain.
 
 278 AUBREY DE VERB'S POEMS. 
 
 Ye sheddings from the Yew tree and the Pine 
 If on your rich and aromatic dust 
 
 I laid my forehead, and my hands put forth 
 In that last beam which warms the forest floor 
 No answer to my yearnings would be mine ; 
 To me no answer through those branches hoar 
 Would reach in noonday trance or moony gust ! 
 Her secret Heaven would keep, and mother 
 
 Earth 
 
 Speak from her deep heart, ' Where thou know'st 
 not, trust ! ' 
 
 That pan,7j is past. Once more my pulses keep 
 A tenor calm that knows nor grief nor joy ; 
 
 Once more I move as one that died in bleep 
 And treads, a Spirit, the haunts he trod, a boy, 
 
 And sees them like-unlike, and sees beyond: 
 
 Then earthly life comes back, and I despond. 
 
 Ah life, not life ! Dim woods of crimsoned beech 
 That swathe the hills in sacerdotal stoles 
 
 Burn on, burn on ! the year ere long will reach 
 That day made holy to Departed Souls, 
 
 The day whereon man's heart, itself a priest, 
 Descending to that Empire pale wherein 
 Beauty and Sorrow dwell, but pure from Sin, 
 
 Holds ' with God's Church at once its fast and 
 feast.
 
 AUTUMNAL ODE. 279 
 
 Dim woods, they, they alone your vaults should 
 
 tread, 
 
 The sad and saintly Dead ! 
 Your pathos those alone ungrieved could meet 
 
 Who fit them for the Beatific Vision : 
 The things which, as they pass us, seem to cheat 
 To them would be a music-winged fruition, 
 A cadence sweetest in its soft subsiding ; 
 Transience to them were dear ; for theirs the 
 
 - abiding 
 
 Dear as that Pain which clears from fleshly film 
 The spirit's eye, matures each spirit-germ 
 Frost-bound on earth, but at the appointed term 
 Mirror of Godhead in the immortal realm. 
 
 x. 
 
 Lo there the regal Exiles .'under shades 
 
 Deeper than ours, yet in a finer air 
 Climbing, successive, elders, youths, and maids, 
 The penitential mountain's ebon stair : 
 The earth-shadow clips that halo round their 
 
 hair : 
 
 And as lone outcasts watch a moon that wanes 
 Receding slowly o'er their native plains, 
 Thus watch they wistful something far but fair. 
 Serene they stand, and wait 
 Self-banished by the ever-open gate ;
 
 280 AUBREY DE VERE'S POEMS. 
 
 Awhile self-banished from the All-pitying Eyes, 
 Lest mortal stain should blot their Paradise. 
 Silent they pace, ascending high and higher 
 
 The hills of God, a hand on every heart 
 That willing burns, a vase of cleansing fire 
 
 Fed by God's love in souls from God apart : 
 Each lifted face with thirst of long desire 
 
 Is pale ; but o'er it grows a mystic sheen 
 
 Because on them God's Face by them un- 
 seen 
 
 Is turned, through narrowing darkness, hourly 
 nigher. 
 
 XL 
 
 Sad thoughts, why roam ye thus in your unrest 
 The bourne unseen ? Why scorn our mortal 
 
 bound ? 
 
 Is it not kindly, Earth's maternal breast 1 
 Is it not fair, her head with vine- wreaths 
 
 crowned? 
 
 Farm-yard and barn are heaped with golden store ; 
 High piled the sheaves illume the russet plain ; 
 Hedges and hedge-row trees are yellowed o'er 
 
 With waifs and trophies of the labouring wain : 
 Why murmur, ' Change is change when downward 
 
 ranging ; 
 
 Spring's upward change but pointed to the un- 
 changing ? '
 
 AUTUMNAL ODE. 281 
 
 Vet, Oh how just your sorrow, if ye knew 
 
 The true grief's sanction true ! 
 'Tis not the flight of youth that chiefly moves 
 
 us; 
 
 'Tis not alone the pang for friends departed : 
 The Autumnal pain that raises while it proves us 
 Wells from a holier source and deeper-hearted ! 
 For this a sadness swells above our mirth ; 
 For this a bitter runs beneath the sweetness; 
 The throne that shakes not is the Spirit's 
 
 right ; 
 
 The heart and hope of Man are infinite ; 
 Heaven is his home, and, exiled here on earth, 
 Completion most betrays the incompleteness ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Heaven is his home. But hark ! the breeze 
 
 increases 
 
 The sunset forests, catching sudden fire 
 Flash, swell, and sing, a million-organed choir: 
 Roofing the West, rich clouds in glittering fleeces 
 O'er-arch ethereal spaces and divine 
 Of heaven's clear hyaline. 
 No dream is this ! Beyond that radiance golden 
 
 God's Sons I see, His armies bright and strong ; 
 The ensanguined Martyrs here with palms high 
 
 holden, 
 The virgins there, a lily lifting throng !
 
 282 AUBREY DE VERE's POEMS. 
 
 The Splendours nearer draw. In choral blending 
 
 The Prophets' and the Apostles' chant I hear ; 
 I see the Salem of the Just descending 
 With gates of pearl and diamond bastions 
 
 sheer. 
 The walls are agate and chalcedony : 
 
 On jacinth street and jasper parapet 
 The unwaning light is light of Deity 
 
 Not beam of lessening moon or suns that set. 
 That indeciduous forestry of spires 
 Lets fall no leaf ! those lights can never 
 
 range : 
 
 Saintly fruitions and divine desires 
 Are blended there in rapture without change. 
 Man was not made for things that leave us, 
 For that which goeth and returneth, 
 For hopes that lift us yet deceive us, 
 
 For love that wears a smile yet mourneth ; 
 Not for fresh forests from the dead leaves spring- 
 ing, 
 
 The cyclic re-creation which, at best, 
 Yields us betrayal still to promise clinging 
 But tremulous shadows of the realm of rest : 
 
 For things immortal Man was made, 
 God's Image latest from His hand, 
 
 Co-heir with Him Who in Man's flesh arrayed 
 Holds o'er the worlds the Heavenly-Human 
 wand :
 
 AUTUMNAL ODE. -83 
 
 His portion this sublime 
 To stand where access none hath Space or Time, 
 Above the starry host, the Cherub band, 
 To stand to advance and, after all, to stand ! 
 Cur rag h Chase, Octala; 1876. 
 
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