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 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
THE CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE; AND THE CREATION OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE.
(A.D. 800.)
AN ODE.
I.
That God of God the universe Who made,Who spake, and from the void rushed forth the stars,
That God their orbits shaped, their movements swayed,
Wrote on their brows in shining characters
‘God's flock are we: our freedom is to go
That way His Finger points, in movements swift or slow:’
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‘Revere your kings; work Justice: Order cherish:
Live like Mine angels; not like beasts that perish;’—
Helping God's Poor. Primeval man obeyed:
Those earlier Patriarch kings were shepherds true:
Bad kings came next: in torrent ever new:
The blood-stream rolled o'er earth. Then rose that cry
‘One King should rule below: One God there reigns on high.’
II.
Then Empires rose: their subject kingsLike princely children lived in peace
Cowering successive 'neath the wings
Of Assur, Babylon, Persia, Greece.
Alas, those four great Empires to the world
Bequeathed not growth: the wheel round ran;
The sighing vans around were whirled;
They stored nor wheat nor bran:
Much for man's pride they wrought: nothing for Man.
The windy towers shadowed a barren strand:
The sea-gales ground but the sea-sand—
Rome rose at last; her Empire stretched o'er all.
In claim a firmament, in time a pall.
III.
What changed that Empire's good to ill?Ignorance that nations shrine—like man—a Spirit;
That sowing to the flesh their hope they kill,
Renounce that spiritual crown true States inherit.
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No God believing, every God it served:
Whate'er it touched its gold hand changed to gold:
Full-gorged it starved:
The pampered body throve from scalp to sole;
But on the spirit God sent leanness and bitter dole.
IV.
A nobler Rome hath risen!For centuries bound she lay in chains of Fate,
Far down in earth's dark prison:
She roamed on coasts unknown, sunless and desolate.
‘Lo here,’ man cried, ‘Lo there!’
The Earth incredulous wept in ever new despair—
Silence, astonished lands!
She lives! The great, true Rome among you stands!
Old Rome was but the statue's base:
This day the Christian Rome assumes its destined place.
V.
What functions gird this Wonder newThat stands a-gazing on the sun?
This Empire's Head Elect to Whom must he be true?
Kings have their realms each one:
He should have none:
A meteor course this Wonder may have run:
He may have lived unknown, or known to few.
His field of action is the earth's wide sphere:
No personal ends hath he; no interests small and near:
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To quell the kingly or the popular pride:
His first great function is to shield
From caitiff hand Christ's Bride;
I saw in heaven a Sign;
I saw a Sceptre and a man Divine:
Beneath, I saw a Dragon that pursued
A Woman o'er the earth, still raging for her blood.
VI.
That Emperor's next of functions is to guardJustice, God's Attribute
Which stamps distinction prime 'twixt man and brute,
In each man sees God's ward.
God's Mercy to God's Church belongs;
Through Love she lifts His people to His height;
The Emperor wields His Justice; tramples wrongs;
Renders man's life on earth the triumph of the Right.
The Emperor metes God's justice among kings:—
Justice and Mercy are the sister wings
Whereon God's new Creation issues forth,
New Heavens, new Earth—
Things old have passed away; things new have come to birth.
VII.
Not one of woman bornDivined the sequel this great Christmas morn
When paced Rome's mitred Sire to where,
That spot beside
Where hung of old Saint Peter crucified
That Frankish king knelt on that tombstone-stair!
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Dropt, silent, down
On that high kneeler's brow the Imperial Crown—
The crown one gazed
Round him like one by sudden lightning mazed:
Took passively that crown; then turned again to prayer.
VIII.
The Frank was chosen not the Goth,Though puissant both;
Though wider far the Gothic race had spread;
More oft for Rome had bled;
To politic wisdom had an earlier claim;
Had boasted first the Christian name.
Tell us, high-favoured, what was that which won
The birthright for the younger son?
The Frank long since had shown his right to rule:
Our Charles it was who smote that Idol, Irminsûl;
Yea, though that Idol centuries eight had cried
‘Here Roman Varus, with his Legions died’
The Goth was Arian: Christ, if less than God,
Had only earlier raised the Arabian Prophet's Rod!
—What mean those silver trumpets in mine ears.
Blown from the summits of St. Peter's fane?
They mean not mad ambitions, widows' tears;
They mean the warbling of celestial spheres
Echoed from Earth's low plain;
The Jubilee
Of every race and order and degree,
The Kingdom of the Just, the God-man's endless reign.
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IX.
Rise, then, thou chief of Empires and the last,The Church's Eldest Son!
Rise, first of Empires, for the whole world's Past
In thee lives on!
Ride forth, God's Warrior, armed with God's Command
To chase the great Brand-Wielder with Christ's brand
To the Asian deserts back, and wastes of burning sand.
In one brief century from the Impostor's death
Past Mecca's gates the fiery flood had rolled
In ruin o'er the Church's land of gold:
Bethlehem and Nazareth
The Sepulchre of Christ, were hers no more:
The Alexandrian Empire, Egypt hoar
The gem-crowned realms that held the south in fee
Dazzling the Afric limits of the Midland Sea,
Were lost: Iberia followed: trembled Gaul:
And Arab Horse were seen from Rome's eternal wall!—
Islam shall die! the Faith shall burst its chain!
Who smote the turbaned host on Poitiers' plain?
Charles Martel, grandsire of our Charlemagne!
Not East and South alone:—to Christ give thou
Those northern shores whereon ne'er grated Roman prow!
Show thou how great a thing Empire may be
While planet-stricken Emperors round thee nod,
When founded not on sanctities downtrod,
When not by greed and guilt
Ingloriously up-built,
But reared to be a fortress of the free,
A temple for our God.
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |