 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
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XXVI. THE CHURCH OF ST. AMBROSE AT MILAN.
Here still remains the Apostolic ChairWhence good Saint Ambrose, patriarchal man,
Thy spiritual sceptre swayed, Milan!
Yonder the Font, divine Augustine, where
The life that never ends for thee began;
And—near as death to life—behold them there!
Those Gates, to him the portals of despair,
Whose closing spake the blood-stained Emperor's ban.
He, the world's master, and her lord, as one
By lightning smitten on his noon-tide throne,
Fell from his pride, and without speech departed:
While thou, dejected Afric's humblest son,
To seats a Mother's tears had made thine own
With regal step didst mount, no longer feeble-hearted.
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |