The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

Yields from red caves to glorify
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 stands
Around 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.

351

Sad eyes, as of a noontide ghost,
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 shades
Far-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 chains
Athwart 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.

352

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 God
Withdraws 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 why
Should 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.

353

Sleep, chaste and true, a little while,
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 part
In 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 rhymes
Ye 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!

University of Virginia Library

I. AFTER ONE OF IRELAND'S FAMINE YEARS.

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