The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere :: :: University of Virginia Library

SAINT LEO THE GREAT.

(ATTILA BEFORE ROME, A.D. 452.)

Leaguering doomed walls—as when on some wild coast
The high-ridged deep, storm-drifted from afar,
Makes way in thunder, whitening reef and bar,
Leaguering great Rome, the old world's shame yet boast,

165

Comes up at last that dread Barbarian host:—
To meet them, placid as that morning star
Whose rising quells the elemental war
Forth moves, his hands upon his bosom crossed,
That Puissance new, the Church's mitred Sire!
His eye is fixed: as reeds before the breeze
Bending, that host sinks down on suppliant knees:
The standards droop: the trumpet blasts expire:
The Man of Fate in heaven his sentence sees;
The embattled Gentiles tremble and retire.