 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
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
361
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!
362
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!
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |