The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

At times I lift mine eyes unto ‘the Hills
Whence my salvation cometh’—ay, and higher—
And, the mind kindling with the heart's desire,
Mount to that realm nor blight nor shadow chills:
With concourse of bright forms that region thrills:
I see the Lost One midmost in the choir:
From heaven to heaven, on wings that ne'er can tire,
I soar; and God Himself my spirit fills.
If that high rapture lasted need were none
For aid beside, nor any meaner light,
Nothing henceforth to seek, and nought to shun:—
But my soul staggers at its noonday height
And, stretching forth blind hands, a shape undone,
Drops back into the gulfs of mortal night.

August 6, 1846.

2.

Then learn I that the Fancy's saintliest flight
Gives or a fleeting, or a false relief;
And fold my hands and say, ‘Let grief be grief,
Let winter winter be, and blight be blight!’
O Thou all-wise, all-just, and infinite!
Whate'er the good we clasped, the least, the chief,
Was Thine, not ours, and held by us in fief;
Thy Will consummate in my will's despite!
‘Blessèd the Dead:’ and they, they too, are blest
Who, dead to earth, in full submission find,
Buried in God's high Will, their Maker's rest:
Kneeling, the blood-drops from the Saviour's feet,
Their brows affusing, makes their Passion sweet;
And in His sepulchre they sleep enshrined.

August 6, 1846.

364

3.

Alone, among thy books, once more I sit;
No sound there stirs except the flapping fire:
Strange shadows of old times about me flit
As sinks the midnight lamp or flickers higher:
I see thee pace the room: with eye thought-lit
Back, back, thou com'st once more to my desire:
Low-toned thou read'st once more the verse new-writ,
Too deep, too pure for worldlings to admire.
That brow all honour, that all-gracious hand,
That cordial smile, and clear voice musical,
That noble bearing, mien of high command,
Yet void of pride—to-night I have them all.
Ah, phantoms vain of thought! The Christmas air
Is white with flying flakes. Where art thou—where?

Christmas, 1860.

4.

To-night upon thy roof the snows are lying;
The Christmas snows lie heavy on thy trees:
A dying dirge that soothes the year in dying
Swells from thy woodlands on the midnight breeze.
Our loss is ancient: many a heart is sighing
This night, a late one, or by slow degrees
Healssome old wound, to God's high grace replying:—
A time there was when thou wert like to these.
Where art thou? In what unimagined sphere
Liv'st thou, sojourner, or no transient guest?
By whom companioned? Access hath she near,
In life thy nearest, and beloved the best?
What memory hast thou of thy loved ones here?
Hangs the great Vision o'er thy place of rest?

Christmas, 1860.

365

5.

‘Sweet-sounding bells, blithe summoners to prayer!’
The answer man can yield not ye bestow:
Your answer is a little Infant bare
Wafted to earth on night-winds whispering low.
Blow him to Bethlehem, airs angelic, blow!
There doth the Mother-maid his couch prepare:
His harbour is her bosom! Drop him there
Soft as a snow-flake on a bank of snow.
Sole Hope of man! Sole Hope for us, for Thee!
‘To us a Prince is given: a Child is born!’—
Thou sang'st of Bethlehem, and of Calvary,
The Maid Immaculate, and the twisted Thorn.
Where'er thou art, not far, not far is He
Whose banner whitens in yon Christmas morn!

Christmas, 1860.

A Song of Faith. By Sir Aubrey de Vere.

ON REVISITING A SPOT BY THE ROTHA, NEAR AMBLESIDE.

Oct 17, 1862.

6.

I walked in dream. Alone the bright Boy stood
Half imaged in the waters round his feet:
His line had just been cast into the flood,
Then first; his glance leaped forth the spoil to meet!
The gold-brown curls about him waved, and sweet
The blithesome smile of parted lips; the blood
Flushing the fresh cheek like a rose whose hood
With night-dews glittering, airs of morning greet.
Ah me! Since there he stood full sixty years,
Snow-laden, on their wintry pinions frore
Have sailed beyond the limit of our spheres,
And like that fleeting pageant are no more—
That Boy my Father was! the autumnal day
He led me to that spot his hair was grey.

In 1845.

366

A FRAGMENT.

Like two smooth waves that o'er a foamless ocean
On slide in sequence past a grassy lea,
Made beautiful by sunrise and with motion
Serener than unmoved tranquillity,
Or like two gusts that toward one bowery shore
Successive sweep in fragrance, then go by,
Were those two Sisters. They who wept of yore
This day partake their happy rest on high,
Happier—how much—in heaven for each poor earthly sigh.

I. WRITTEN AT VEVEY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1856.

From terraced heights that rise in ranks
Thick set with almond, fig, and maize,
O'er waters blue as violet banks,
I hear the songs of boyhood's days.

Up walnut slopes, at morn and eve,
And downward o'er the pearly shore
From Clarens on they creep; nor leave
Uncheered cold Chillon's dungeon-floor.

Fair girls that please a mother's pride,
Bright boys from joy of heart that sing,
The voice of bridegroom and of bride,
Through clustered vines how clear they ring!

367

For me they blot these southern bowers:
The ghosts of years gone by they wake:
They send the drift of northern showers
Low-whispering o'er a narrower lake.

Once more upon the couch he lies
Who ruled his halls with stately cheer;
Waves slow the lifted hand; with eyes
And lips rewards the strains most dear.

And ah! from yon empurpled slope
What fragrance swells that arch beneath!
Geranium, jasmine, heliotrope—
They stay my breath: of her they breathe!

Flower-lover! wheresoe'er thou art
May flowers and sunshine greet thee still,
And voices vocal to the heart:
No sound approach of sad or ill!

II. WRITTEN NEAR SPEZIA, OCTOBER 19, 1856.

In boyhood's flush when first I strayed
'Mid those delicious, classic climes,
Troubling each river-bank and glade
With petulance of forward rhymes,

Of thee the oft recurrent thought
Was yet but casual, and could pass,
A brightness every shade might blot,
An image faithless to its glass:

But now that thou art gone, behold,
Where'er I roam, whate'er I see,

368

Of all I feel, the base or mould
Is one unchanging thought of thee.

Thousands with blank regard pass by
All-gracious Nature's open doors:
The barren heart, the beamless eye,
Ah not for these her priceless stores!

But thou, the nursling of the Muse—
On hearts as pure, as still as thine,
All beauty glistening lies like dews
Upon the smooth leaf of the vine!

Even now on yonder hill-girt plain
Sea-lulled, and hollowed like a vase,
I see thee gaze, and gaze again,
With bright and ever-brightening face;

And hear thee say, ‘More fair that vale,
With happy hearths and homesteads strewn,
Than Alpine summits darkly pale
Where loveless grandeur reigns alone.’

III. WRITTEN IN ISCHIA, FEBRUARY 1, 1859.

Here in this narrow island glen
Between the dark hill and the sea,
Remote from books, remote from men
I sit; but O how near to thee!

I bend above thy broidery frame;
I smell thy flowers; thy voice I hear:
Of Italy thou speak'st: that name
Woke long thy wish; at last thy tear!

369

Hadst thou but watched that azure deep;
Those rocks with myrtles mantled o'er;
Misenum's cape, yon mountains' sweep;
The smile of that Circean shore!

But seen yon crag's embattled crest,
Whereon Colonna mourned alone,
An eagle widowed in her nest,
Heart strong and faithful as thine own!

This was not in thy fates. Thy life
Lay circled in a narrower bound:
Child, sister, tenderest mother, wife—
Love made that circle holy ground.

Love blessed thy home—its trees, its earth,
Its stones—that ofttimes trodden road
Which linked the region of thy birth
With that till death thy still abode.

From the loud river's rocky beach
To that clear lake the woodlands shade
Love stretched his arms. In sight of each,
The place of thy repose is made.

IV. WRITTEN NEAR SPEZIA, 1864.

Since last with thee, my guide unseen,
I loved, where thou hadst loved, to stray,
Eight years have passed; and, still heart-green,
They tell me that my head is grey.

370

Again I mark yon nectared plain:
Again I pace the rhythmic shore:
But o'er my gladness triumphs pain;
I muse on things that are no more.

With thee how fares it? Endless youth
Is thine in regions still and pure:
In climes of Beauty and of Truth
Some place is thine, serene, secure.

From thee the obscuring mist at last
Is lifted; loosed the earthly bond:
The gloomy gates of death are passed,
And thine th' eternal Peace beyond:

Not lonely peace! Thine earlier lost
And latest, by thy side or knee,
With thee from that celestial coast
Look down as when they waited thee,

Singing those hymns that, earthward borne,
To these dull ears at last make way
From realms where life is always morn,
And climes where Godhead is the day.

TO A BIBLE.

She read thee to the last, beloved Book!
Her wasted fingers 'mid thy pages strayed;
Upon thy promises her heart was stayed;
Upon thy letters lingered her last look
Ere life and love those gentlest eyes forsook:

371

Upon thy gracious words she daily fed;
And by thy light her faltering feet were led
When loneliness her inmost being shook.
O Friend, O Saviour, O sustaining Word,
Whose conquering feet the Spirit-land have trod,
Be near her where she is, Incarnate Lord!
In the mysterious silence of the tomb
Where righteous spirits wait their final doom,
Forsake her not, O Omnipresent God!

SPRING.

Winter, that hung around us as a cloud,
Rolls slowly backward; from her icy sleep
Th' awakened earth starts up and shouts aloud,
The waters leap

From rock to rock with a tumultuous mirth,
With Bacchanalian madness and loud song;
From the fond bosom of the teeming earth
All young things throng;

And hopes rise bubbling from the deepest fountain
Of man's half-frozen heart. Faith trustingly
Rests its broad base on God, as doth a mountain
Upon the sea.

Affections pure, and human sympathies
The summer sun of charity relumes,
That fire divine that warms and vivifies,
But not consumes.

372

Love, vernal music, charity, hope, faith,
Warm the cold earth, fair visions from on high,
Teaching to scorn and trample fear of death;
For naught can die.

S. E. de Vere.

STANZAS.

Although I know that all my love,
My true love, is in vain; yet I
Must loose the strainèd cord that holds
My bursting heart within its folds,
And love or die.

Dear is the breath of early Spring
To the low-crouching violet;
The grateful river smiles upon
The glories of the sinking sun;
But dearer yet

Than breath of Spring to the young flower,
Or sun-burst to the clouded sea,
One glance of pity from thine eye,
The music of thy faintest sigh,
Sweet love, to me.

This dreary world is very cold:
A heavy sorrow presses down
My famished heart. One tear-drop shed
In memory of the faithful dead,
When I am gone.

S. E. de Vere.

373

CHARITY.

Though all the world reject thee, yet will I
Fold thee, with all thine errors, in my heart,
And cherish even thy weakness! Who can say
That he is free from sin; or that to him
Belongs to speak the judgments of the Lord,
To vindicate the majesty of Heaven?
Behold the Master! prostrate at His feet,
Shuddering with penitential agony,
Magdalen! O those mild forgiving eyes,
Mercy and pity blossoming in Love!
O lips full founts of pardon and of blessing!
Shall I, a sinner, scorn a sinner, or
Less love my brother seeing he is weak?
Shall not my heart yearn to his helplessness
Like the fond mother's to her idiot boy?
O cruel mockery, to call that love
Which the world's frown can wither! Hypocrite!
False friend! Base selfish man! fearing to lift
Thy soilèd fellow from the dust! From thee
The love of friends, the sympathy of kind
Recoil like broken waves from a bare cliff,
Waves that from far seas come with noiseless step
Slow stealing to some lonely ocean isle;—
With what tumultuous joy and fearless trust
They fling themselves upon its blackened breast,
And wind their arms of foam around its feet,
Seeking a home; but finding none, return
With slow, sad ripple, and reproachful murmur.
No! No! True Charity scorns not the love
Even of the guiltiest, but treasures up

374

The precious gift within its heart of hearts,
Freely returning love where wanted most,
Like flowers that from the generous air imbibe
The essences of life, and give them forth
Again in odours. Spirit of Love Divine
That filledst with tenderness the reverent eyes
Of Mary as she gazed upon her Babe,
Soften our stony nature; make us know
How much we need to be forgiven; build up
True Charity on humbleness of heart.

S. E. de Vere.

ODE.

THE ASCENT OF THE APPENNINES.

May, 1859.

I.

I move through a land like a land of dream,
Where the things that are, and that shall be, seem
Wov'n into one by a hand of air,
And the Good looks piercingly down through the Fair!
No form material is here unmated;
Here blows no bud, no scent can rise,
No song ring forth, unconsecrated
To meaning or model in Paradise!
Fallen, like man, is elsewhere man's earth;
Human, at best, in her sadness and mirth;
Or if she aspires after something greater,
Lifting her hands from her native dust,
In God she beholds but the Wise, the Just;
The Saviour she sees not in the Creator:

375

But here, like children of Saints who learn
The things above ere the things below,
Who choirs angelic in clouds discern
Ere the butterfly's wing from the moth's they know,
True Nature as ashes all beauty reckons
That claims not hereafter some happier birth;
She calls from the height to the depth; she beckons
From the nomad waste to a heavenly hearth:
‘The Curse is cancelled,’ she cries; ‘thou dreamer,
Earth felt the tread of her great Redeemer!’

II.

Ye who ascend with reverent foot
The warm vale's rocky stairs,
Though lip be mute, in heart salute
With praises and with prayers
The noble hands, now dust, that reared
Long ages since on crag or sward
Those Stations that from their cells revered
Still preach the Saviour-Lord!
Ah! unseductive here the breath
Of the vine-bud that blows in the breast of morn;
That orange bower, yon jasmine wreath,
Hide not the crown of thorn!
Here none can bless the spring, and drink
Those waters from the dark that burst,
Nor see the sponge and reed, and think
Of the Three Hours' unquenchèd thirst.
The Tender, the Beauteous receives its comment
From a truth transcendent, a life divine;
And the coin flung loose of the passing moment
Is stamped with Eternity's sign!

376

III.

Alas those days of yore
When Nature lay vassal to pagan lore!
Baia—what was she? A sorceress still
To brute transforming the human will!
Nor pine could whisper, nor breeze could move
But a breath infected ran o'er the blood
Like gales that whiten the aspen grove
Or gusts that darken the flood.
Beside blue ocean's level
The beauteous base ones held their revel,
Dances on the sea-sand knitting,
With shouts the sleeping shepherd scaring,
Like Oreads o'er the hill-side flitting,
Like Mænads thyrsus-bearing.
The Siren sang from the moonlit bay,
The Siren sang from the redd'ning lawn,
Until in the feastful cup of day
Lay melted the pearl of dawn.
Unspiritual intelligence
Changed Nature's fane to a hall of sense,
That rings with the upstart spoiler's jest,
And the beakers clashed by the drunken guest!

IV.

Hark to that convent bell!
False pagan world, farewell;
From cliff to cliff the challenge vaults rebounded!
Echo, her wanderings done,
Heart-peace at last hath won,

377

The rest of love on Faith not Fancy founded;
‘By the parched fountain let the pale flower die,’
She sings, ‘True Love, true Joy, triumphant reign on high!’

V.

The plains recede; the olives dwindle;
Lleave the chestnut slopes behind;
The skirts of the billowy pine-woods kindle
In the evening lights and wind:
Not here we sigh for the Alpine glory
Of peak primeval and death-pale snow;
For the cold grey mere, and the glacier hoary,
Or blue caves that yawn below:
The landscape here is mature and mellow;
Fruit-like, not flower-like:—hills embrowned;
Ridges of purple and ledges of yellow
From runnel to rock church-crowned:
'Tis a region of mystery, hushed and sainted:
Serene as the pictures of artists old
When Giotto the thoughts of his Dante painted:—
The summit is reached! Behold!
Like a sky condensed lies the lake far down;
Its curves like the orbit of some fair planet;
A fire-wreath falls on the cliffs that frown
Above it, dark walls of granite;
The hill-sides with homesteads and hamlets glow;
With wave-washed villages zoned below:
Down drops by the island's woody shores
The bannered barge with its gleam of oars.
No solitude here, no desert cheerless
Is needed pure thoughts or hearts to guard;
'Tis a ‘populous solitude,’ festal, fearless,
For men of good-will prepared.

378

The hermit may hide in the wood, but o'er it
Three times each day the chimes are rolled:
The black crag woos the cloud, but before it
The procession winds on white-stoled.
Farewell, O Nature! None meets thee here
But his heart goes up to a happier sphere!
He sees, from the blossom of sense unfolded
By the Paraclete's breath, its divine increase,
Rose-leaf on rose-leaf in sanctity moulded,
The flower of Eternal Peace;
The home and the realm of man's race above;
The Vision of Truth, and the Kingdom of Love!

VI.

There shall the features worn and wasted
Let fall the sullen mask of years:
There shall that fruit at last be tasted
Whose seed was sown in tears:
There shall that amaranth bloom for ever
Whose blighted blossom drooped erewhile
In this dim valley of exile,
And by the Babylonian river.
The loved and lost once more shall meet us;
Delights that never were ours shall greet us;
Delights for the love of the Cross foregone
Fullfaced salute us, ashamed of none.
Heroes unnamed the storm that weathered
There shall sceptred stand and crowned;
Apostles the wildered flocks that gathered
Sit, throned with nations round.
There, heavenly sweets from the earthly bitter
Shall rise like odour from herbs down-trod;

379

There, tears of the past like gems shall glitter
On trees that gladden the mount of God.
The deeds of the righteous, on earth despised,
By the lightning of God immortalized
Shall crown like statues the walls sublime
Of all the illuminate, mystic City,
Memorial emblems that conquer Time,
Yet tell his tale. That Pity
Which gave the lost one strength to speak,
That love in guise angelic stooping
O'er the grey old head, or the furrowed cheek,
Or the neck depressed and drooping,
Shall live for aye, at a flash transferred
From the wastes of earth to the courts of the Word;
The Thoughts of the Just, their frustrate schemes,
Shall lack not a place in the wondrous session;
The Prayers of the Saints, their griefs, their dreams,
Shall be manifest there in vision;
For they live in the Mind Divine, their mould,
That Mind Divine the unclouded mirror
Wherein the glorified Spirits behold
All worlds, undimmed by error.

VII.

Fling fire on the earth, O God,
Consuming all things base!
Fling fire upon man, his soul and his blood,
The fire of Thy Love and Grace:
That his heart once more to its natal place
Like a bondsman freed may rise,
Ascending for ever before Thy face
From the altar of Sacrifice!

380

And thou, Love's comrade, Hope,
That yield'st to Wisdom strength, to Virtue scope,
That giv'st to man and nation
The on-rushing plumes of spiritual aspiration,
Van-courier of the ages, Faith's swift guide,
That still the attained foregoest for the descried;
On, Seraph, on, through night and tempest winging!
On heavenward, on, across the void, vast hollow!
And be it ours, to thy wide skirts close clinging
Blindly, like babes, thy conquering flight to follow:
What though the storm of Time roar back beside us?
Though this world mock or chide us?
We shall not faint or fail until at last
The eternal shore is reached, all peril past!

The ‘Ambubajæ.’

A MOTHER'S SONG.

I.

O Time, whose silent foot down treads
The kingly towers and groves,
Who lay'st on loftiest, loveliest heads,
The hand that no man loves,
Take all things else beneath the skies,
But spare one infant's laughing eyes.

II.

O Time, who build'st the coral reef,
Whom dried-up torrents fear,
And rocks far hurled, like storm-blown sheaf,
From peak to glacier drear,
Waste all things else; but spare the while
The lovelight of one infant's smile!

381

III.

Where sunflowers late from Summer's mint
Brought back the age of gold,
Through thee once more the sleet showers dint
The black and bloomless mould:
But harm not, Time, and guard, O Nature,
What is not yours—this living creature!

IV.

From God's great love a Soul forth sprang
That ne'er till then had being:
The courts of heaven with anthems rang:
He blessed it, He the All-seeing!
Nor suns nor moons, nor heaven nor earth,
Can shape a Soul or match in worth.

V.

No thought of thee when o'er the leas
A child I raced delighted;
No thought when under garden trees
A girlish troth I plighted:
We knew not what the church bells said
That giddy morn the girl was wed:
Of thee they babbled, pretty maid!

A GIRL'S SONG.

Unkind was he, the first who sang
The spring-time shamed, the flower's decay!
What woman yet without a pang
Could hear of Beauty's fleeting May?

382

O Beauty! with me bide, and I
A maid will live, a maid will die.

Could I be always fair as now,
And hear, as now, the Poets sing
‘The long-lashed eyes, the lustrous brow,
The hand well worthy kiss and ring,’
Then, then some casual grace were all
That e'er from me on man should fall!

I sailed last night on Ina's stream:
Warm 'mid the wave my fingers lay;
The cold-lipped Naiad in my dream
Kissed them, and sighed, and slipped away—
Ah me! down life's descending tide
Best things, they say, the swiftliest glide.

A SONG OF AGE.

I

Who mourns? Flow on, delicious breeze!
Who mourns, though youth and strength go by?
Fresh leaves invest the vernal trees,
Fresh airs will drown my latest sigh:
This frame is but a part outworn
Of earth's great Whole that lifts more high
A tempest-freshened brow each morn
To meet pure beams and azure sky.

II

Thou world-renewing breath, sweep on,
And waft earth's sweetness o'er the wave!
That earth will circle round the sun
When God takes back the life He gave!

383

To each his turn! Even now I feel
The feet of children press my grave,
And one deep whisper o'er it steal—
‘The Soul is His Who died to save.’

A CHRISTIAN MAID.

Her coral lip a sunbeam smote;
Behind her shapely head
The white veil refluent seemed to float
Like cloud in ether spread:
She looked so noble, sweet and good,
Love clapped his hands for glee,
And cried, ‘This, this is Womanhood—
The rest but female be!’

So modest yet confiding too,
So tender to bestow
On each that loving honour due
To all things, high or low,
Her soft self-reverence part had none
In consciousness or pride,
A reflex of that worship won
From her by all beside.

So creaturely in all her ways,
So humbly great she seemed—
O Grecian lays, O Pagan praise,
Of such ye never dreamed!
Through sunshine on she moved as one
Innocuously possest—
Thy lot reversed, O Babylon!—
By some angelic guest.

384

Buoyant as bird in leafy bower,
As calm she looked as those
Who long have worn the nuptial flower
Upon their matron brows:
Yet ten years hence, when girl and boy
May mount her lap at will,
That virgin grace, that vestal joy
Now hers will haunt her still!

A CHRISTIAN POETESS.

ADELAIDE PROCTOR.

She stooped o'er earth's poor brink, light as a breeze
That bathes, enraptured, in clear morning seas,
And round her, like that wandering Minstrel, sent
Twofold delight—music with freshness blent:
Ere long in night her snowy wings she furled,
Waiting the sunrise of a happier world,
And God's New Song. O Spirit crystalline,
What lips shall better waft it on than thine?

IN MEMORY OF EDWIN, EARL OF DUNRAVEN.

Once more I pace thy pillared halls,
And hear the organ echoes sigh
In blissful death on storied walls:
But where art thou? not here; nor nigh.

Once more the rapt spring-breezes send
A flash o'er yonder winding flood,
And with the garden's fragrance blend
A fresher breath from lawn and wood.

385

Friend! where art thou? Thy works reply;
The lowly School; the high-arched Fane:
Who loves his kind can never die:
Who serves his God, with God shall reign.

Adare, 1873.

EPITAPH.

Great Love, death-humbled, yields awhile to earth
Its Bright One, waiting there the immortal birth:
Rich Love, made poor, can trust one Hope alone,
Its best, its holiest, to the cold grave-stone:
Eternal Easter of that Hope, be born!
The pure make perfect; comfort the forlorn.

AN EPITAPH WITHOUT A NAME.

I had a Name. A wreath of woven air,
A wreath of Letters blended, none knew why,
Floated, a vocal phantom, here and there,
For one brief season, like the dragon-fly
That flecks the noontide beam,
Flickering o'er downward, forest-darkened stream.
What word those Letters shaped I tell you not:
Wherefore should such this maiden marble blot?
Faint echo, last and least, of foolish Fame,
I am a Soul; nor care to have a Name.

386

EPITAPH.

From Youth's soft haunt she passed to Love's fair nest;—
Thence on to larger Love and heavenlier rest:
Four years their sunshine, two their shadows lent
To enrich a heart with either lot content.
Pray well, pure Spirit! and some sad grace accord
To him once more thy suppliant; once thy lord.

AGE.

Old age! The sound is harsh, and grates:
Yet Life's a semblance, not a Truth:
Time binds an hourly changing mask
On Souls in changeless light that bask—
Younger we grow when near the gates
Of everlasting Youth!

GENIUS AND SANCTITY.

“How high he soars!” Few say it when the flight
Is highest. Saints escape the vulgar sight.

DEATH.

Why shrink from Death? In ancient days, we know,
The slave was raised to freedom by a blow:—
Man's prison-house, not man, the hand of Death lays low.

387

FEBRUARY.

What dost thou, laggard Daffodil,
Tarrying so long beneath the sod?
Hesper, thy mate, o'er yonder hill
Looks down and strikes with silver rod
The pools that mirrored thee last year,
Yet cannot find thee far or near.

Pale Primrose! for a smile of thine
Gladly to earth these hands would pour
An ivied urn of purple wine,
Such as at Naxos Bacchus bore
Watching with fixed black eyes the while
That pirate bark draw near his isle!

Shake down, dark Pine, thy scalp of snow:
False witch, stripped bare, grim Ash-tree tall!
Ye ivy masses that now swing slow
Now shudder in spasms on the garden wall,
Shake down your load and the black mould strew;
The rosemary borders and banks of rue.

The Robin, winter's Nightingale,
Hung mute to-day on the blackthorn brake:
We heard but the water-fowl pipe and wail
Fluting aloud on the lake;
Who hears that bell-note so clear and free,
Though inland he stands, beholds the sea.

388

As the moon that rises of saffron hue
Ascending, changes to white,
So the year, with the Daffodil rising new,
On Narcissus will soon alight:
Rise up, thou Daffodil, rise! With thee
The year begins, and the spring-tide glee!

THE MATERIALIST'S RELIGION;

OR, PESSIMISM'S ‘DOWNWARD WAY.’

Ye Twelve Olympians crowned for aye,
Hurl back the Furies and the Fates!
Nightmares of Conscience, hence, away,
Beyond your famed Tartarean Gates!

Ye Woodgods, Lords of Lawlessness,
That din the dusk with bounding hoof,
Drive back the Olympian Twelve no less:
Their starry stillness means Reproof.

Ye children, scare with cowslip ball
Those Woodgods last! With idle breath
They mock that king who draggeth all
Into his own dread silence—Death.

Faith darkens, Love distempers, life:
The chaplets fade on Fancy's brow:
Come, Iris, with thy painless knife:
The last of Gods, and best, art thou!

389

SONG.

THE FLOWER OF THE TREE.

I

O the flower of the tree is the flower for me,
That life out of life, high-hanging and free,
By the finger of God and the south wind's fan
Drawn from the broad bough, as Eve from Man!
From the rank red earth it never upgrew:
It was woo'd from the bark in the glistening blue.

II

Hail, blossoms green 'mid the limes unseen,
That charm the bees to your honeyed screen,
As like to the green trees that gave you birth
As true tongue's kindness to true heart's worth!
We see you not; but, we scarce know why,
We are glad when the air you have breathed goes by.

III

O flowers of the lime! 'twas a merry time
When under you first we read old rhyme,
And heard the wind roam over pale and park,
We, not I, 'mid the lime-grove dark;
Summer is heavy and sad. Ye bring
With your tardy blossoms a second Spring.

390

EPIGRAMS.

Our new Reformation abhors the “Dogmatical”
As unmeet for an age so enlarged, and exotic:—
Why stop at the Credo, O seers unfanatical?
Don't you think the Commandments a little despotic?

With Clio's aid old Homer sang, 'tis known:—
When Batho sings, the merit's all his own.

Inconstant thou! There ne'er was any
Till now so constant—to so many!

ON A GREAT PLAGIARIST.

Phœbus drew back with just disdain
The wreath: the Delphic Temple frowned:
The suppliant fled to Hermes' fane,
That stood on lower, wealthier ground.

The Thief-God spake, with smile star-bright:
‘Go thou where luckier poets browse
The pastures of the Lord of Light,
And do—what I did with his cows.’

He stole, killed, and ate the whole of Apollo's herd before he was a day old.—See Homer's Hymn to Mercury.

391

THE TRUE HARP.

Soul of the Bard! stand up, like thy harp's majestical pillar!
Heart of the Bard, like its arch in reverence bow thee and bend!
Mind of the Bard, like its strings be manifold, changeful, responsive:
This is the harp God smites, the harp, man's master and friend!

SELF-LOVE.

Light-winged Loves! they come; they flee:
If we were dead they'd never miss us:
Self-Love! with thee is Constancy—
Thine eyes to one were true, Narcissus!

THE SERIOUS ‘VIVE LA BAGATELLE.’

Bright world! you may write on my heart what you will,
But write it with pencil not pen:
Your hand hath its skill: but a hand finer still
Will whiten your tablet again.

To the moment its laugh, and its smile to the flower!
Not niggard we give them: but why?
Old Time must devour the year as the hour:
Our trust is Eternity.

392

TO A FORMALIST.

On paper ruled Nature your virtues writ—
Why not erase the lines? Ah scant of wit!

University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

ON REVISITING A SPOT BY THE ROTHA, NEAR AMBLESIDE.

Oct 17, 1862.

6.

A FRAGMENT.

I. WRITTEN AT VEVEY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1856.

II. WRITTEN NEAR SPEZIA, OCTOBER 19, 1856.

III. WRITTEN IN ISCHIA, FEBRUARY 1, 1859.

IV. WRITTEN NEAR SPEZIA, 1864.

TO A BIBLE.

SPRING.

STANZAS.

CHARITY.

ODE.

THE ASCENT OF THE APPENNINES.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

A MOTHER'S SONG.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

A GIRL'S SONG.

A SONG OF AGE.

I

II

A CHRISTIAN MAID.

A CHRISTIAN POETESS.

ADELAIDE PROCTOR.

IN MEMORY OF EDWIN, EARL OF DUNRAVEN.

EPITAPH.

AN EPITAPH WITHOUT A NAME.

EPITAPH.

AGE.

GENIUS AND SANCTITY.

DEATH.

FEBRUARY.

THE MATERIALIST'S RELIGION;

OR, PESSIMISM'S ‘DOWNWARD WAY.’

SONG.

THE FLOWER OF THE TREE.

I

II

III

EPIGRAMS.

ON A GREAT PLAGIARIST.

THE TRUE HARP.

SELF-LOVE.

THE SERIOUS ‘VIVE LA BAGATELLE.’

TO A FORMALIST.