The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere :: :: University of Virginia Library

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.