The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

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.

University of Virginia Library

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.