The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

Four years ago beside this lake
O'er which the mountain shadows close,
I walked in sadness for the sake
Of one that could no more partake
That grave joy it bestows.

‘Since she is gone,’ I said, ‘ah why
Have they not here her ashes laid?
Here strayed her feet in infancy:
The studious girl was glad to lie
Under yon oak-tree's shade.

296

‘By Old-Church, dear to her, a spot
Once consecrate, twice sanctified,
Beneath its yew she slumbers not,
Nor in the adjoining garden plot,
Nor by the water's side.

‘Ah that but once the lark might sing
Above his sister Poet's bed!
For she sang also. Ah that Spring
Her tardy northern flowers might fling
O'er that belovèd head!’

Such thoughts were mine: the mood is gone;
Once more, I stand this lake beside:
Maturer thoughts, and wisdom won
From years that like a dream are flown,
Cheer me instead, yet chide.

As deeply, with a purer heart,
She loved these mountains which I love,
And, loving, left them. Torn apart
From them and from the Poet's art,
She neither wept nor strove.

Amid the stress of daily life
She, for ethereal stillness framed,
Advanced, 'mid scenes for others rife
With petty troubles, care, and strife,
Uncrippled and unmaimed.

The call of Duty was a call
To her more constant and more strong
Than voice of wintry waterfall
Which from the mountain's echoing wall
Increases all night long.

297

The humblest tasks of day and hour,
If Duty's light around them shone,
Challenged her breast with mightier power
Than Placefell's brow or Yewcrag's bower
Illumed by moon or sun.

We dwell not in the sacred fane,
But seek for strength supernal there,
Elsewhere to use it. Not in vain
Did vales and hills her youth sustain,
For loftier loves prepare.

In crowded street and clamorous mews
Her face its placid candour kept:
Her heart, like flowers refreshed by dews
The mountain's noontide mists diffuse,
In endless sabbath slept.

To all her gentle ways was bound
A grace from woodland memories caught:
Her voice retained that touching sound,
Pathos not plaintive though profound,
Contented rills first taught.

Surely in sleep the torrents poured
For her their requiem; and the wind,
And many a valley wind-explored,
Answering in full harmonic chord,
Their solemn burthen joined.

In dreams unvanquished by the dawn
She saw red dawn the darkness rout,
Gradations saw of mountain lawn,
And ridge behind ridge far withdrawn
In ‘linkèd sweetness long drawn out;’

298

Saw tracts high up of whitening grass,
Sunshine of Earth when Heaven's had failed,
The crimson Birch-grove's feathery mass
By rain drops in a warm, still pass
With silver drapery veiled.

The dark gold of the autumnal gorse,
The auburn of the faded fern,
She saw. Thy murmur, Aira Force!
Kept pure its Arethusan course,
'Mid dirge of billows stern.

If ever now she moves to earth
That eye fast fixed upon the Throne,
In vale or city, south or north,
What sees she? All things nothing worth,
Save virtuous tasks well done.

Then rightly rests in death her head
Where life to her its duties gave:
Among the poor she clothed and fed,
And taught, and loved, and comforted,
Rightly remains her grave.

University of Virginia Library

LINES WRITTEN AT HALSTEADS.