The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

I fawn not on the Roman height—
Cæsarian laurels, wreathe not ye
A harp of Christian Psalmody!
Whoever builds, but not on Right
Though high he build as eagle's flight
Can never true acceptance find
With manly heart or equal mind.
Though every State, though land and sea
Though all the flying years of Time
Should bend to Power unjust the knee
And venerate with rite and rhyme
True sway is God's, and his alone
Who holds from God a righteous throne.

But I the Fisherman revere
Who left the Galilean lake
And all he loved for Christ's dear sake;—
Who left his nets and rules a sphere.

415

Rock of the Rock! From Him alone,
Eternal Rock, and Corner Stone,
That Name and Function didst thou take
Through Him that great Confession make!
Rock of the Rock! A Rock is She
Who, built on thee and strong by thee,
Resounds it everlastingly!
‘And will ye also go away?’—
‘To whom, O Master, shall we go?
The words of Life that lasts for aye
With Thee are found. Behold we know—
We doubt not—we are sure indeed—
Thou art the Christ, the expected One;
Thou art the Christ, the promised Seed,
The Living God's Anointed Son.’

Mystery of Unity,
Of all the Mysteries the key!
Prime Sacrament that bind'st like Fate
Created things and uncreate!
Godhead in Persons Three in One:
In Him all harmonies began:
And from His archetypal throne
Descends the chain that ends in Man.
In One our Race transgressed and died:
In One it lives, the Crucified.
‘One Faith, one Baptism;’—Truth is one
For separate Truths or new or old
Form still one family one fold
One everlasting unison.
‘I say to thee, thou art the Rock;
And on this Rock My Church I found:
Nor Powers of Hell, nor mortal shock
That Church shall level with the ground.

416

And I the Keys will give to thee
Of heaven's great Kingdom, earth around:
That which thou loosest loosed shall be;
And what thou bindest shall be bound.’

The cloud of Time is lifted. Lo!
What man is He that, sole and slow,
Forth moves o'er Haran's well-loved plain
With forehead turned to Canaan?
That Unity which Abel's blood
Dissolved; which God restored in Seth,
Which Noah rescued from the Flood
Again Corruption dooms to death.
Nimrod has lifted up on high
The brand of godless Tyranny:
And Anarchy, the converse woe,
Has reigned and lies with Babel low.
The single, long transmitted Tongue
Is broken into dialects:
The single Faith, held fast so long
Gives way to idols and to sects.
That Covenant whose rainbow span
Embraced the total hopes of man,
Totters and shakes but is not dead.
Again through One it rears its head
And, narrowing to a centre, forth
One day shall spring to clasp the earth.
Abraham goes forth! Hail, Patriarch true!
He bids the Patriarch world adieu
Sole Patriarch of an order new.
‘Simon, behold, your souls to gain,
Satan hath longed with longings sore,
That he may sift you even as grain
Is sifted on the granary floor:

417

But I for thee My prayer have made;
That thy Faith fail not, nor decay:
Converted once be strong to aid;
Strengthen thy Brethren day by day.’

The cloud of Time is raised once more:
A city shades a far-off shore;
And the red sunset many a mile
Burns silent on the silent Nile.
An old man dies: around his bed
Twelve Patriarch Brethren take their stand:
Each kneels: on each he lays his hand:
One crowns he—o'er the rest the head.
‘Lion of all the sacred Fold
O Judah, in thy strength thou art:—
Till Shiloh comes, the King foretold,
Thy Sceptre never shall depart.’
The seal of Royal State on one
Is pressed once more—on one alone.

Long ran the promise underground:
Long pined the sacred Race in chains
Then, bursting from their prison-bound
Retrod at last their Fathers' plains
Resurgent from Egyptian glooms
That figured first those Catacombs
Wherein, for centuries three, abode
The Christian Judah sealed by God.
The Law was given: a brazen band
It fenced from baser realms that land
Predestined from the first to be
An isthmus in a stormy sea
Joining the Patriarchs' Church with her
In whom the Apostles minister

418

And making visibly of twain
One Church, one Household, and one Reign.
Then rose at last the Throne decreed;
Who grasped the sceptre? Judah's seed—
The Shepherd summoned from above,
The sworded man who wept and strove
That King heart-frail yet strong through Love.
‘Lovest thou Me with mightier love
Than these, thy brethren?’—‘Master, yea;
Thou knowest I love Thee.’—‘Simon, prove
Thy love and feed My lambs for aye.
Lovest thou Me with love more deep
Than these, the others?’—‘Master, yea;
Thou knowest I love Thee.’—‘Feed My sheep:
Shepherd and feed them day by day.’

Who chains that Shepherd? Chain who will,
The Evangel is unshackled still!
Forth, like an eagle from its eyry
Abroad o'er all the world it flies
And, poised in regions solitary
Gives back the sunset to the skies.
The Day of Pentecost had come:
Descending from that upper room
Who first the Gospel trumpet blew,
Opening Christ's Kingdom to the Jew?
Before the Gentiles next who laid
His great commission, undismayed
Washing the feet, and hands, and head
Of realms unclean till then and dead?
Who, when the Council long had sate,
Closed with a word the loud debate?
Who with a royal meekness took
A younger brother's frank rebuke?

419

‘Simon, when thou wert young, behold
Thy girdle thou didst bind at will;
And in the peaceful days of old
Thy footsteps freely wandered still:
But when thy head is old and grey
Thy hands thou shalt stretch forth; and lo
Thee shall another gird that day
And bear thee where thou wouldst not go.’

A thousand years passed by between
The earlier and the later storms
Ere yet across the golden scene
Rushed back old Error's myriad forms.
That Eastern hand which raised again
Samaria's altar withered soon,
And on that altar bones of men
Were burned beneath the Arabian Moon.
But, in the West, o'er all the lands
The Rock cast far its sacred shade
Till regions bare as desert sands
Grew green at last with wood and glade.
—What Power was that which, strong yet meek,
The equipoise of earth maintained
Lifted the poor, upheld the weak?
That bound the haughty; freed the chained?
The Church of God, that Church which wound
Around the globe the Apostles' zone—
What clasped that zone? that girdle bound?
The Roman Unity alone.

He who established Power on earth
And sanctioned Order and Degree
First raised, supreme o'er hut and hearth,
The sceptre of Paternity;

420

And next, o'er every realm and nation,
The delegated thrones of Kings
Within the bounds of civil station
Potent above terrestrial things.
Lastly he raised and raised o'er all
The Sceptre Apostolical.
Whoe'er, seduced by pride or fear,
Affronts, within its proper sphere
That great Pontific dignity—
Though Emperor or King he be,
Though arms and arts make strong his cause
And large pretence of ancient laws
O'erlaid by centuries of wrong;
Though every pen and every tongue
Hail him Deliverer; and the acclaim
Of ages echoes back his name—
That prince against God's edict fights
Sole basis of inferior rights,
He that abets betrays him too;
A flatterer, and no liegeman true.
He Roman is; but takes his side
With Pagan Rome self-deified
Against the Saviour and the Bride.
‘Not for the world My prayer I make:
I pray for those Thou gavest to Me:
I taught them all things for Thy sake—
Make perfect Thou their Unity:
As Thou with Me art One even so
Make them My flock in one agree
Father, that thus the world may know
That I am Thine and come from Thee.’

Who chains the Apostle? Chain who will
The hands that bind he blesses still!

421

Them that abhor him them that fly
Still, still he follows with his eye
As some white peak o'er seaward streams
Casts glances far and snowy gleams.
They that renounce thee beg thine alms:
They live but on thy grace benign;
Thine are their Creeds and thine their Psalms:
Whate'er they keep of Faith is thine.
Whate'er of Truth with them remains
Is theirs but in Tradition's right:
Their sheep that die on wealthier plains
Are pastured on thy hills by night.
True Shepherd King! all powers beside
Are transient and an empty show:
Around thee like a shifting tide
The world's great pageants ebb and flow.
True pilot of the Saviour's Bark!
Who sails with thee is safe: the flood
But lifts more high Thy sacred Ark
And floats it to the feet of God.
Thy God revealed His Son to thee:
Thy Maker called thee from above:
He chose thee from eternity,
He sealed thee with electing love.
—Thy Strength is Prayer. For them pray most
With love matured in God's own beam
Who make of liberty their boast
Yet sell true freedom for a dream!

Prince of the Apostles! Like an hour
The years have passed since first that Word
Which signed thee with vicarial power
Beside that Syrian lake was heard.
O, strong since then, from heaven's far shore
Hold forth that Cross of old reversed;

422

O bind the world to Christ once more:
The chains of Satan touch and burst.
Strengthen the Apostolic Thrones:
Make strong without and pure within
That Temple built of living stones
With planetary discipline:
Strengthen the thrones of Kings: the State
Encompass with religious awe;
Paternal rule corroborate:
Impart new majesty to Law:
Strengthen the City and the Orb
Of Earth till each has reached its term:
Insurgent powers and impious curb;
The righteous and the just confirm.

University of Virginia Library

HYMN.

THE FEAST OF ST. PETER'S CHAIR AT ROME. A few lines at the beginning of this poem are taken from a well-known passage in St. Jerome.

THE FEAST OF ST. PETER'S CHAIR AT ROME.

A few lines at the beginning of this poem are taken from a well-known passage in St. Jerome.