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 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
Mother beloved!
I should not read you more. You kept, last night,
Long vigil: leaning now 'gainst yonder stone
Your head, your eyes alternate flash and close;
And sometimes ere the smile has left your lips
A momentary sleep sits on your lids.
Hear but one passage more: ‘Humility
Learn from humiliations; these are sent
To spare us degradations ours through pride:
Be humble thou; yet boast not humbleness:
Be ignorant rather than, through knowledge, vain.
Then when the trial finds thee, as a seal
Let Christ be on thy heart and on thine arm;
Walk on: fear naught: pure foot shall tread secure
Adder and serpent's crest.’ Again he writes:
‘What! Wouldst thou tread the lilies only? Nay,
But paths empurpled by the Feet divine,
And daily ways of death.’
I should not read you more. You kept, last night,
Long vigil: leaning now 'gainst yonder stone
Your head, your eyes alternate flash and close;
And sometimes ere the smile has left your lips
A momentary sleep sits on your lids.
Hear but one passage more: ‘Humility
Learn from humiliations; these are sent
To spare us degradations ours through pride:
Be humble thou; yet boast not humbleness:
Be ignorant rather than, through knowledge, vain.
Then when the trial finds thee, as a seal
Let Christ be on thy heart and on thine arm;
Walk on: fear naught: pure foot shall tread secure
Adder and serpent's crest.’ Again he writes:
‘What! Wouldst thou tread the lilies only? Nay,
But paths empurpled by the Feet divine,
And daily ways of death.’
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |