 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
Irish Odes.
I. AFTER ONE OF IRELAND'S FAMINE YEARS.
I
The golden dome, the Tyrian dyeAnd all that yearning ocean
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Ambition, or devotion
I leave them—leave the bank of Seine,
And those high towers that shade it
To tread my native fields again,
And muse on glories faded.
II
The monumental city standsAround me in its vastness
Girdling the spoils of all the lands
In war's imperial fastness.
That stony scroll of every clime
Some record boasts or sample;
Cathedral piles of oldest time
Huge arch and pillared temple.
III
They charge across the field of Mars;The earth beneath them shaking
As breaks a rocket into stars
The columned host is breaking:
It forms: it bursts:—new hosts succeed:
They sweep the Tuileries under:
The thunder from the Invalides
Answers the people's thunder.
IV
Behold! my heart is otherwhere,My soul these pageants cheer not:
A cry from famished vales I hear,
That cry which others hear not.
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Whose grief, not grace, first won me,
'Mid regal pomps ye haunt me most:
There most your power is on me.
V
Last night, what time the convent shadesFar-stretched, the pavement darkened
Where rose but late the barricades
Alone I stood, and hearkened;
Thy dove-note, O my country, thine,
In long-drawn modulation,
Went by me, linked with words divine
That stayed all earthly passion!
VI
A man entranced, and yet scarce sad,Since then I see in vision
The scenes whereof my boyhood had
Possession, not fruition.
Dark shadows sweep the landscape o'er
Each other still pursuing;
And lights from sinking suns once more
Grow golden round the ruin.
VII
Dark violet hills extend their chainsAthwart the saffron even,
Pure purple stains not distant plains:
And earth is mixed with heaven:
One cloud o'er half the sunset broods;
And from its ragged edges
The wine-black shower descends like floods
Down dashed from diamond ledges.
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VIII
Through rifted fanes the damp wind sweeps,Chanting a dreary psalter:
I see the bones that rise in heaps
Where rose of old the altar;
Once more beside the blessed well
I see the cripple kneeling:
I hear the broken chapel bell
Where organs once were pealing.
IX
I come, and bring not help, for GodWithdraws not yet the chalice:
Still on your plains by martyrs trod
And o'er your hills and valleys,
His name a suffering Saviour writes—
Letters black-drawn, and graven
On lowly huts, and castled heights,
Dim haunts of newt and raven.
X
I come, and bring not song; for whyShould grief from fancy borrow?
Why should a lute prolong a sigh,
Sophisticating sorrow?
Dull opiates, down! To wind and wave,
Lethean weeds I fling you:
Anacreontics of the grave,
Not mine the heart to sing you!
XI
I come the breath of sighs to breathe,Yet add not unto sighing
To kneel on graves, yet drop no wreath
On those in darkness lying.
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The Saviour's flock, and Mary's:
And guard their reliques well, O Isle,
Thou chief of reliquaries!
XII
Blessed are they that claim no partIn this world's pomp and laughter:
Blessed the pure; the meek of heart:—
Blest here; more blest hereafter.
‘Blessed the mourners.’ Earthly goods
Are woes, the Master preaches:
Embrace thy sad beatitudes
And recognize thy riches!
XIII
And if, of every land the guest,Thine exile back returning
Finds still one land unlike the rest
Discrowned, disgraced, and mourning,
Give thanks! Thy flowers, to yonder skies
Transferred pure airs are tasting;
And, stone by stone, thy temples rise
In regions everlasting.
XIV
Sleep well, unsung by idle rhymesYe sufferers late and lowly;
Ye saints and seers of earlier times
Sleep well in cloisters holy!
Above your bed the bramble bends
The yew tree and the alder:
Sleep well, O fathers, and O friends
And in your silence moulder!
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II. THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE.
I
Hark, hark that chime! The frosts are o'er!With song the birds force on the spring:
Thus, Ireland, sang thy bards of yore:
O younger bards, 'tis time to sing!
Your Country's smile that with the past
Lay dead so long—that vanished smile—
Evoke it from the dark and cast
Its light around a tearful isle!
II
Like severed locks that keep their lightWhen all the stately frame is dust
A Nation's songs preserve from blight
A Nation's name, their sacred trust.
Temple and pyramid eterne
May memorize her deeds of power;
But only from the songs we learn
How throbbed her life-blood hour by hour.
III
Thrice blest the strain that brings to oneWho weeps by some Australian rill
A worn out life far off begun
His Country's countenance beauteous still!
That 'mid Canadian wilds, or where
Rich-feathered birds are void of song,
Wafts back, 'mid gusts of Irish air
Old wood-notes loved and lost so long!
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IV
Well might the Muse at times forsakeHer Grecian hill, and sit where swerve
In lines like those of Hebé's neck
That wood-girt bay, yon meadow's curve,
Watching the primrose clusters throw
Their wan light o'er that ivied cave,
And airs by myrtles odoured blow
The apple blossom on the wave!
V
Thrice blest the strain that, when the MayAllures the young leaf from the bud
When robins, thrushlike, shake the spray
And deepening purples tinge the flood
Kindles new worlds of love and truth,
This world's lost Eden, still new-born,
In breast of Irish maid or youth
Reading beneath the Irish thorn:
VI
That wins from over-heated strifeBlinded ambition's tool; that o'er
The fields of unsabbatic life
The church-bells of the past can pour,
Around the old oak lightning-scarred
Can raise the untainted woods that rang
When, throned 'mid listening kerns, the bard
Of Oisin and of Patrick sang.
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VII
Saturnian years return! Ere longPeace, justice-built, the Isle shall cheer:
Even now old sounds of ancient wrong
At distance roll, but come not near:
Past is the iron age—the storms
That lashed the worn cliff, shock on shock;
The bird in tempest cradled warms
At last her wings upon the rock.
VIII
How many a bard may lurk even now,Ireland, among thy noble poor!
To Truth their genius let them vow,
Scorn the bad Syren's tinsel lure;
Faithful to illustrate God's word
On Nature writ; or re-revealing,
Through Nature, Christian lore transferred
From faith to sight by songs heart-healing.
IX
Fair land! the skill was thine of oldUpon the illumined scroll to trace
In heavenly blazon blue or gold
The martyr's palm the angel's face;
One day on every Muse's page
Be thine a saintly light to fling,
And bathe the world's declining age
Once more in its baptismal spring!
X
Man sows: a Hand Divine must reap:The toil wins most that wins not praise:
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May help the destined pile to raise,
Foundations fix for pier or arch;—
Above that spirit-bridge's span
To Faith's inviolate home may march,
In God's good time, enfranchised man.
III. INDUSTRY.
I
Free children of a land set freeA land late bound in fetters
Demand ye why your critic guest
Scoffs oft in you his betters?
Nor race alone nor creed to him
Is stumbling-block, or scandal:
Your rags offend! he loathes in you
Light purse and slipshod sandal.
II
His Virtue builds on Self-Respect:Upon that clay foundation
Nor rock nor sand his trophies stand,
The unit, and the nation:
Sad martyr of a finite Hope,
Nor seeks he, nor attains he
The all-heavenly prize. He toils for Earth;
But what he seeks that gains he.
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III
Grasp ye, with ampler aim, that goodHis tragic creed o'erprizes:
With loftier Mind revere in him
The Will that energizes
The strong right hand, the lion heart
The industrial truth and valour:
When comes reverse he too can die,
But not in dirt and squalor.
IV
Upon your brows the sunrise breaks:Then scorn the dirgeful ditty!
Never, be sure, the heart was strong
That dallied with self-pity.
Your Fathers' part was this—to bear—
That plague they bore God stayeth:
Be yours to act! To manhood born
Be men! ‘Who worketh, prayeth.’
V
Son of the sorrowing Isle, her eyesArraign thee for unkindness!
Her shipless seas, her stagnant moors
Accuse thy sloth or blindness:
Set free her greatness; sing to her
New harvests waving round thee,
‘Thy son with golden robe hath girt
With golden crown hath crowned thee!’
VI
Young maid that bend'st above thy wheelSo pure, so meek, so simple,
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Developes from the dimple
Smile on! thou cloth'st thy country's feet
Those feet long bare and bleeding!
Smile on! thou send'st her Faith abroad
With seemlier swiftness speeding!
VII
Advance, victorious Years! we landOn solid shores and stable:
Recede, dim seas, and painted cloud
Of legend and of fable!
The Heroic Age returns. Of old
Men fought with spears and arrows:
The sea-bank is the shield to-day:
The true knight drains and harrows!
IV. THE FOUNDATION OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY.
1851.
I
The Land, how lies she cold and deadWhen on her brow long since
Freedom its virtuous radiance shed
And drove the darkness thence?
The child at her its stone may fling;
The dragon-fly her cheek may sting—
‘Ho! murdered was she, or self-slain
This bulk with blackness in the brain?’
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II
'Tis past! the Realm has learned its want:The Nation wills its work:
Her eastern skies with lustre pant
Vacant till now and murk:
She vows with heavenly Faith to join
The manly mind, the fixed design
The mastering knowledge; public heart;
The nature crowned not quenched by art.
III
'Twas in a dolorous hour, 'twas thenWhen Famine plagued our coast,
And Penal Law, let loose again,
Trod feebly like a ghost
The land he once had stamped in blood
'Twas then her need we understood:
'Twas then her Genius from a cloud
Looked forth and cried to us aloud!
IV
The People heard; and, far and wide,Like some long clarion blast
By town, and plain, and mountain side
The inspiring Mandate passed:
His children's crust the peasant shared
With him that brought the news, and bared
A hearth already blank to aid
That great emprize so long delayed.
V
In Glendalough's green vale, and whereThe skylark shrills o'er Lee
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And house the brave and free;
From Cashel's rock, th' old Minster fane
Shall laugh in light o'er Thomond's plain;
Grey Arran pierce the sea-fog's gloom;
Kildare her vestal lamp relume.
VI
Where Shannon sweeps by lost AthloneTo Limerick's Castle walls
New college choirs the river's moan
Shall tune at intervals;
By kingly Clonmacnoise and Cong
Fresh notes shall burst of olden song
And by that wave-washed northern shore
Whereon they toiled—those ‘Masters Four.’
VII
They toiled and toiled till sank the night:They toiled till aching morn
Through mist of breakers rose with light
Uncertain and forlorn:
Their country's Present overcast,
They vowed thus much should live—her Past!
A beam o'er graves heroic shed
And haunt with dreams the Oppressor's bed.
VIII
Lo! where we stand one day shall spreadCloisters like branching wood:
On the great Founder's sculptured head
Our Irish sunshine brood!
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Through murmuring courts the red gown pass;
Religion's pageant and the vaunt
Of Learning mailed and militant.
IX
I see, entombed in marble state,Roderick—O'More—Red Hugh;
The two crowned Mourners —wise too late—
Their tardy wisdom rue:
I see the Martyrs of old time;
The warriors hymned in Irish rhyme,
And Burke and Grattan, just in deed
Though nurslings of an alien creed.
X
The vision deepens: tower-cast shadesWith sunset longer grow:—
High ranged round airy colonnades
Fronting that western glow,
Lean out stone Patrons, veiled all day
But vast at eve against the grey
Like those great Hopes that o'er us shine
Distinctest in our life's decline.
XI
'Tis night: the dusk arcades betweenGlimmers, O Derg, thy Lake!
The May moon o'er it trails serene
Her silver-woven wake:
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Half-way that radiance—and is lost
Returning from each ivied pile
That hallows Iniscaltra's Isle.
XII
The moon is set, and all is darkYet still those oars keep time:
The great clock shakes the courts, and hark,
That many-steepled chime!
From college on to college roll
The peals o'er creek and woody knoll!—
My Country, will it! Fancy's store
Is rich: yet Faith can grant thee more!
V. TO IRELAND—AGAINST FALSE FREEDOM.
I.
The Nations have their parts assign'd:The deaf one watches for the blind:
The blind for him that hears not hears:
Harmonious as the heavenly spheres
Despite their outward fret and jar
Their mutual ministrations are.
Some shine on history's earlier page;
Some prop the world's declining age:
One, one reserves her buried bloom
To flower perchance on Winter's tomb.
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II.
Greece, weak of Will but strong in Thought,To Rome her arts and science brought:
Rome, strong yet barbarous, gain'd from her
A staff, but, like Saint Christopher
Knew not for whom his strength to use
What yoke to bear, what master choose.
His neck the giant bent!—thereon
The Babe of Bethlehem sat! Anon
That staff his prop, that sacred freight
His guide, he waded through the strait
And enter'd at a new world's gate.
III.
On that new stage were played once moreThe parts in Greece rehearsed before:
Round fame's Olympic stadium vast
The new-born, emulous Nations raced;
Now Spain, now France the headship won
Unrisen the Russian Macedon:
But naught, O Ireland, like to thee
Hath been! A Sphinx-like mystery
At the world's feast thou sat'st death-pale;
And blood-stains tinged thy sable veil.
IV.
Apostle, first, of worlds unseen!For ages, then, deject and mean:—
Be sure, sad land, a concord lay
Between thy darkness and thy day!
Thy hand, had temporal gifts been thine,
Had lost perchance the things divine.
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Gave way when falsehood's flood went forth;
On the scarr'd coasts deform'd and cleft
Thou, like the Church's Rock, wert left!
V.
That Tudor tyranny which stood'Mid wrecks of Faith, was quench'd in blood
When Charles, its child and victim, lay
The Rebel-Prophet's bleeding prey.
Once more the destined wheel goes round!
Heads royal long are half discrown'd:
Ancestral rights decline and die:—
Thus Despotism and Anarchy
Alternate each the other chase
Twin Bacchantes wreathed around one vase.
VI.
The future sleeps in night: but thouO Island of the branded brow
Her flatteries scorn who rear'd by Seine
Fraternity's ensanguined reign
And for a sceptre twice abhorr'd
Twice welcomed the Cesarian sword!
Thy past, thy hopes, are thine alone!
Though crush'd around thee and o'erthrown,
The majesty of civil might
The hierarchy of social right
Firm state in thee for ever hold!
Religion was their life and mould.
VII.
The vulgar, dog-like eye can seeOnly the ignobler traits in thee;
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Dark reliques of the Oppressor's crime.
The Seer—what sees he? What the West
Has ne'er except in thee possess'd;
The childlike Faith, the Will like fate,
And that Theistic Instinct great
New worlds that summons from the abyss
‘The balance to redress of this.’
VIII.
Wait thou the end; and spurn the whileFalse Freedom's meretricious smile!
Stoop not thy front to anticipate
A triumph certain! Watch and wait!
The schismatic, by birth akin
To Socialist and Jacobin,
Will claim, when shift the scales of power
His natural place. Be thine that hour
With good his evil to requite;
To save him in his own despite;
And backward scare the brood of night!
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |