The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

‘And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. [OMITTED] ‘And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was taken up to God, and to His throne.’— Apocalypse xii. 1, 5.

121

I. THE ‘UNKNOWN GOD.’

Behind this vast and wondrous frame
Of worlds whereof we nothing know
Except their aspect and their name,
Beneath this blind, bewildering show

Of shapes that on the darkness trace
Transitions fair and fugitive
Lies hid that Power upon whose Face
No child of man shall gaze and live.

Like one on purple heights that stands
While mountain echoes round him roll
Screening his forehead with his hands
And following far through gulfs of soul

Some thought that still before him flies—
Thus, Power eternal and unknown,
We muse on Thine immensities
Yet find Thee in Thy Son alone.

Emanuel, God with us, in Him
We see the Unmeasured, and the Vast
Like mountain outlines, large and dim,
On lifted mists at sunrise cast.

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‘The Word made Flesh!’ O Power Divine
Through Him alone we guess at Thee,
And deepliest feel that He is Thine
When throned upon His Mother's knee.

II. ASCENSIO DOMINI.

Rejoice, O Earth, thy crown is won!
Rejoice, rejoice, ye heavenly host!
And thou, the Mother of the Son,
Rejoice the first; rejoice the most!

Who captive led captivity,
From Hades' void circumference
Who raised the Patriarch Band on high,
There rules, and sends us graces thence.

Rejoice, glad Earth, o'er winter's grave
With altars wreathed and clarions blown;
And thou, the Race Redeemed, out-brave
The rites of Nature with thine own!

Rejoice, O Mary! thou that long
Didst lean thy breast upon the Sword—
Sad nightingale, the Spirit's song
That sang'st all night! He reigns, restored!

Rejoice! He goes, the Paraclete
To send! Rejoice! He reigns on high!
That Sword lies broken at thy feet!
His triumph is thy victory.

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III. ASCENSIO DOMINI.

I take this reed—I know the hand
That wields it must ere long be dust—
And write upon the fleeting sand
Each tide o'er-sweeps, the words ‘I trust.’

And if that sand one day was stone
And stood in courses near the sky
For towers by earthquake overthrown
Or mouldering piecemeal, what care I?

Things earthly perish: life to death
And death to life in turn succeeds:
The Spirit never perisheth:
The chrysalis its Psyche breeds.

True life alone is that which soars
To Him who triumphed o'er the grave:
With Him on life's eternal shores
I trust one day a part to have.

Ah, hark! above the springing corn
That chime! in every breeze it swells!
Ye bells that wake the Ascension morn,
Ye give us back our Paschal bells!

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IV.

A sudden sun-burst in the woods
But late sad Winter's palace dim!
O'er quickening boughs and bursting buds
Pacific glories shoot and swim.

As when some heart, grief-darkened long
Conclusive joy by force invades,
So swift the new-born splendours throng;
Such lustre swallows up the shades.

The sun we see not; but his fires
From stem to stem obliquely smite
Till all the forest aisle respires
The golden-tongued and myriad light:

The caverns blacken as their brows
With floral fire are fringed: but all
Yon sombre vault of meeting boughs
Turns to a golden fleece its pall

As o'er it breeze-like music rolls:
O Spring, thy limit-line is crossed!
O Earth, some orb of singing Souls
Brings down to thee thy Pentecost!

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V. DOMINICA PENTECOSTES.

Clear as those silver trumps of old
That woke Judea's jubilee;
Strong as the breeze of morning, rolled
O'er answering woodlands from the sea

That Evangelic anthem vast
Which winds, like sunrise, round the globe,
Following that sunrise, far and fast
And trampling on his fiery robe.

Once more the Pentecostal torch
Lights on the courses of the year:
The ‘Upper Chamber’ of the Church
Is thrilled once more with joy and fear.

Who rears her brow from out the dust?
Who fixes on a world restored
A gaze like Eve's, but more august?
Who lifts it heaven-ward on her Lord?

It is the Birthday of the Bride!
The new begins; the ancient ends:
From all the gates of Heaven flung wide
The promised Paraclete descends.

He who o'ershadowed Mary once
O'ershades Humanity to-day;
And bids her fruitful prove in sons
Co-heritors with Christ for aye.

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VI. DOMINICA PENTECOSTES.

The Form decreed of tree and flower
The Shape susceptible of life
Without the infused, vivific Power
Were but a slumber or a strife.

He whom the plastic Hand of God
Himself created out of earth
Remained a statue and a clod
Till Spirit infused to life gave birth.

So till that hour the Church. In Christ
Her awful structure, nerve and bone,
Though founded, shaped, and organized
Existed but in skeleton

Till down on that predestined frame,
Complete through all its sacred mould
That Pentecostal Spirit came,
The self-same Spirit Who of old

Creative o'er the waters moved:
Thenceforth the Church, made One and Whole,
Arose in Him, and lived, and loved;
His Temple she, and He her Soul.

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VII.

Here, in this paradise of light,
Superfluous were both tree and grass:
Enough to watch the sunbeams smite
Yon white flower sole in the morass!

From his cold nest the skylark springs
Soars, pauses, sings; shoots up anew;
Attains his topmost height, then sings
Quiescent in his vault of blue.

With eyes half-closed I watch that lake
Flashed from whose plane the sun-sparks fly
Like Souls new-born that shoot and break
From thy deep sea, Eternity!

Ripplings of sunlight from the wave
Ascend the white rock high and higher;
Soft gurglings fill the satiate cave;
Soft airs amid the reeds expire.

All round the lone and luminous meer
The dark world stretches far and free
That skylark's song alone I hear;
That flashing wave alone I see.

O myriad Earth! Where'er a Word
Of thine makes way into the soul
An echo million-fold is stirred:
Of thee the part is as the whole!

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VIII. REGINA CŒLI.

In some celestial realm we know
The God-man keeps His court sublime
As Adam ruled the sphere below
In that first Eden's sinless prime.

He too, that second Adam, hears
Those rivers four engird His bound;
Serene advance of sleepless years
With God's accomplished Counsels crowned,

Around Him, close as Eden leaves,
The Souls consummate hang in trance:
Like wind the Spirit among them weaves
Eternal song, or through the expanse

On-wafts, like snowy clouds high-piled
Those pilgrims of God's trackless Will,
The white hosts of the Undefiled
Whom love divine alone could fill.

The lustral mist for aye ascends:
All creatures mix secure from strife:
At last the Tree of Knowledge blends
Its branches with the Tree of Life.

An Eve partakes that Eden. She
Who decked His cradle shares His throne:—
The Solitudes of Deity
These, these are His, and His alone.

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IX. FEST. SS. TRINITATIS.

Fall back, all worlds, into the abyss
That man may contemplate once more
That which He ever was Who is;
The Eternal Essence we adore.

Angelic hierarchies! recede
Beyond extinct Creation's shade—
What were ye at the first? Decreed:
Decreed, not fashioned! thought, not made!

Like wind the untold Millenniums passed:
Sole-throned He sat; yet not alone:
Godhead in Godhead still was glassed;
The Spirit was breathed from Sire and Son.

Prime Virgin, separate and sealed;
Nor less of social Love the root!
Dimly in lowliest shapes revealed;
Entire in every Attribute:

Thou liv'st in all things and around;
To Thee external is there nought;
Thou of the boundless art the bound;
And still Creation is Thy Thought.

In vain, O God, our wings we spread;
So distant art Thou—yet so nigh.
Remains but this when all is said
For Thee to live; in Thee to die.

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X. FESTUM SS. TRINITATIS.

Like some broad flood whose conquering course
Shakes the dim forests night and day
On sweeps the prime Creative Force,
And re-creates the worlds alway.

The eternal Mind, the sole-born Thought
Shape-entering matter's stamp and mould,
Through all the spaces wonder-fraught
Speaks Law and Order as of old.

That Love which, ere it overflowed
And beat on lone Creation's shore
Issuing from Both with Both abode
Proceeds, abides, for evermore.

Yet man who—not in brow or breast
But soul, and reason, and free-will—
Imaged his Maker and expressed
Ignored that Triune Mystery still!

Here failed his science, failed as sight
Earth's motion fails to mark! Ah me!
Our eye can track the swallow's flight;
The circling sphere it cannot see!

And yet as Sense, abashed, down kneels
And wins from Science lore sublime
To kneeling science Faith reveals
Mysteries transcending space and time.

The Infinite remains unknown
Too vast for man to understand:
In Him, the ‘Woman's Seed,’ alone
We trace God's footprint in the sand.

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XI. THRONUS TRINITATIS.

Each several Saint the Church reveres,
What is he but an altar whence
Some separate Virtue ministers
To God a separate frankincense?

Each beyond each, not made of hands
They rise, a ladder angel-trod:
Star-bright the last and loftiest stands:
That altar is the Throne of God.

Lost in the uncreated light
A Form all Human rests thereon:
His shade from that surpassing height
Beyond Creation's verge is thrown.

Him ‘Lord of lords, and King of kings,’
The chorus of all worlds proclaim:
‘He took from her,’ one angel sings
At intervals, ‘His human frame.’

XII. REGINA SANCTORUM OMNIUM.

He seemed to linger with them yet:
But late ascended to the skies
They saw—ah, how could they forget?—
The form they loved, the hands, the eyes.

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From anchored boat, in lane or field
He taught; He blessed, and brake the bread;
The hungry filled; the afflicted healed;
And wept, ere yet He raised, the dead.

But when, like some supreme of hills
Whose feet shut out its summit's snow
That, hid no longer, heavenward swells
As further from its base we go,

Abroad His perfect Godhead shone
Each hour more plainly kenned on high
And clothed His Manhood with the sun
And, lifting, cleansed the adoring eye;

Then fixed His Church a deepening gaze
Upon His Saints. With Him they sate
And, burning in that Godhead's blaze,
They seemed that Manhood to dilate.

His were they: of His likeness each
Had grace some fragment to present
And nearer brought to mortal reach
Some imitable lineament.

XIII. ADVOCATA.

I saw, in visions of the night
Creation like a sea outspread
With surf of stars and storm of light
And movements manifold and dread.

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Then lo, within a Human Hand
A Sceptre moved that storm above:
Thereon, as on the golden wand
Of kings new-crowned, there sat a Dove.

Beneath her gracious weight inclined
That Sceptre drooped. The waves had rest:
And Sceptre, Hand, and Dove were shrined
Within a glassy ocean's breast.

His Will it was that placed her there!
He at whose word the tempests cease
Upon that Sceptre planted fair
That peace-bestowing type of Peace!

XIV. EXALTAVIT HUMILES.

The Chief of Creatures lived unknown
Sharing her Maker's sacred cloud
Like some fair headland flower-bestrewn
That sleeps within its sea-born shroud.

The Brethren sought precedence: Christ
To them gave titles. He, their God,
For Him ‘the Son of Man’ sufficed:
The hidden way with Him she trod.

She died: the idols sank, and they
Those four great Heresies, whose pride
Successive blurred the fount of day
Her Son's Divinity denied:

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As God, as Man, secure He reigned:
Then came her hour: then shone her crown
And theirs, that Saintly Court unstained
While guests of earth, by earth's renown.

Humility was crowned though late:
That boastful, pagan greatness fell:
And on their thrones the Meek ones sate
‘Judging the tribes of Israel.’

XV.

Where is the crocus now that first
When earth was dark and heaven was grey
A prothalamion flash, up burst?
Ah, then we thought not of the May!

The clear stream stagnates in its course;
Narcissus droops in pallid gloom;
Far off the hills of golden gorse;
A dusk Saturnian face assume.

The seeded dandelion dim
Casts loose its air-globe on the breeze;
Along the grass the swallows skim;
The cattle couch among the trees.

Yet ever lordlier loveliness
Succeeds the charm that cheats our hold:
The thorn assumes her snowy dress;
Laburnum bowers their robes of gold.

Down waves successive of the year
The season slides; but sinks to rise
With ampler view, as on we steer,
Of lovelier lights and loftier skies.

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XVI.

A low ground-mist, the hills between
Measuring their intervals, distends
Ridge beyond ridge, the sylvan scene;
Far off the reddening river bends

From bridge to town. On hueless air
The moon suspends her pearly shell
Above the eastern ledges bare;
But sunset throngs yon western dell

That pants through amethystine mist
And gleams as though the Sons of God
Through golden ether stooped, and kissed
Some Syrian vale the Saviour trod!

The beatific Splendours wane:
The hills, of all that sweetness gone,
A roseate memory still retain:
Thou compline chime, peal on, peal on!

Of Him thou sing'st whose Blood erased
Earth's ancient stain by power divine;
Of them, that second Pair, who paced
That second Eden, Palestine.

136

XVII. IN CIVITATE SANCTIFICATA REQUIEVI.

In silence, like a ridge of snows
Slow reared in lands for ever calm,
On Sion's brow the Temple rose;
In stillness grew as grows the palm.

Far off, on ridges vapour-draped,
Was hewn and carved each destined stone:
Far off the axe the cedars shaped
Upon their native Lebanon.

So rose that Temple holier far
Incarnate Godhead's sacred shrine:
Round her there swelled no din of war:
The peace that girt her was divine.

The deep foundations of that fane
Were laid ere lived the hills and seas
In many a dread, unquarried vein
Of God's deep Will, and fixed Decrees.

High Queen of Peace! Her God possessed,
Her heart could feel no earthly want:
His kingdom, 'stablished in her breast,
Triumphant was, not militant:

And day by day more amply played
His love about its raptured thrall
Like some eternal sunset stayed
On cliff rich-veined, or mountain wall.

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XVIII. QUASI CEDRUS EXALTATA SUM IN LIBANO.

Behold! I sought in all things rest:
My Maker called me: I obeyed:
On me He laid His great behest:
In me His tabernacle made.

The world's Creator thus bespake
‘My Salem be thy heritage:
Thy rest within mine Israel make:
In Sion root thee, age by age.’

Within the City well-beloved
Thenceforth I grew from flower to fruit:
And in an ancient race approved
Behold thenceforth I struck my root.

Like Carmel's cedar, or the palm
That gladdens 'mid Engaddi's dew
Or Plane-tree set by waters calm
I stood, and round my fragrance threw.

Behold! I live where dwells not sin:
I breathe in climes no foulness taints:
I reign in God's fair Court, and in
The full assembly of His Saints.

Ecclesiasticus xxiv.

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XIX. SAPIENTIA.

My flowers are flowers of gladness: mine
The boughs of honour and of grace:
Pure as the first bud of the vine
My fragrance freshens all the place.

The Mother of fair Love am I:
With me is Wisdom's name and praise:
With me are Hope, and Knowledge high,
And sacred Fear, and peaceful days.

Through garden plots my course I took
To bathe the beds of herb and tree:
Then to a river swelled my brook:
Anon that river was a sea.

More high that sea shall rise and shine
Far off, a prophet-beam of morn;
Because my doctrine is not mine
But light of God for Seers unborn.

Ecclesiasticus xxiv.

XX. BEATI MITES.

Thy song is not the song of morn
O thrush, but calmer and more strong;
While sunset woods around thee burn
And echoing stems thy strain prolong.

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O songstress of the thorn whereon
As yet the white but streaks the green
Sing on! sing on! Thou sing'st as one
That sings of what his eyes have seen!

In thee some Seraph's rapture tells
Of joys we guess not! Heaven draws near:
I hear the immortal City's bells:
The triumph of the Blest I hear.

The whole wide earth, to God heart-bare
Basks like some happy Umbrian vale
By Francis trodden and by Clare
When anthems sweetened every gale

When Greatness thirsted to be good
When faith was meek and love was brave
When hope by every cradle stood
And rainbows spanned each new-made grave.

XXI. SINE LABE ORIGINALI CONCEPTA.

Her foot is on the Lord of Night:
On Heaven, not him, are fixed her eyes:
That foot is, as a lily, light;
Not less that Serpent writhes and dies!

O Eve, he dies, that tempter fell!
O Earth, that pest whose poison-spume
Exasperate with the fires of hell
Thy blood envenomed, meets his doom!

140

But whence the conquering puissance? Lo!
That Woman clasps the ‘Woman's Seed:’
That Infant quells the infernal foe:
Messiah triumphs: His the deed!

The weight she feels not she transmits:
The weight of worlds her arms sustain:
Who made the worlds—in heaven Who sits—
Through her that foe hath touched and slain!

XXII. SINE LABE ORIGINALI CONCEPTA.

Could she, that Destined One, could she
On whom His gaze was stayed for aye
Transgress like Eve, partake that Tree
Become, like her, the Dragon's prey?

Had He no Pythian shaft that hour
Her Son—her God—to pierce that Foe
Which strove her greatness to devour,
Eclipse her glories? Deem not so!

He saw her in that First Decree:
He saw the Assailant; sent the aid:—
Filial it was, His love for thee
Ere thou wert born; ere worlds were made.

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XXIII. SINE LABE ORIGINALI CONCEPTA.

When man gives up the ghost, behold,
Honouring his God's Decree august
His body melts: the mortal mould
Revisiteth its native dust.

The bulwarks of the breast give way:
Those eyes that glorying watched the sun:
Each atom-speck of mortal clay
Foregoes its nature—all save one.

A something—germ or power—survives,
That seed which linked, from birth to death,
The structure's myriad cyclic lives
That remnant never perisheth!

That seed reserved, too fine, too small
For eye to scan, for chance to mar
Shall soar to meet God's trumpet-call,
Re-clad, and glittering like a star.

With Man so fared it at the Fall:
The Race lay dead: She did not die:
One seed survived—the hope of all—
Thy pledge, Redeemed Humanity!

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XXIV. SINE LABE ORIGINALI CONCEPTA.

Met in a point the circles twain
Of temporal and eternal things
Embrace, close linked. Redemption's chain
Drops thence to earth its myriad rings.

In either circle, from of old
That point of meeting stood decreed;
Twin mysteries cast in one deep mould
‘The Woman,’ and ‘the Woman's Seed.’

Mary, long ages ere thy birth
Resplendent with Salvation's Sign
In thee a stainless hand the earth
Put forth, to meet the Hand Divine!

The Word made Flesh; the Way; the Door;
The link that dust with Godhead blends!
Through Him the worlds their God adore:
Through thee that God to man descends.

The Incarnation.

XXV. SINE LABE ORIGINALI CONCEPTA.

A soul-like sound, subdued yet strong,
A whispered music, mystery-rife,
A sound like Eden airs among
The branches of the Tree of Life—

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At first no more than this; at last
The voice of every land and clime
It swept o'er Earth a clarion blast:
Earth heard, and shook with joy sublime.

Mary! thy triumph was Earth's own!
In thee she saw her prime restored:
She saw ascend a spotless Throne
For Him, her Saviour, and her Lord.

First trophy of all-conquering Grace
First victory of that Blood all pure
Of man's once fair, but fallen Race,
Thou stood'st, the monument secure.

The Church had spoken. She that dwells
Sun-clad with beatific light,
From Truth's uncounted citadels
From Sion's Apostolic height

Had stretched her sceptred hands, and pressed
The seal of Faith, defined and known,
Upon that Truth till then confessed
By Love's instinctive sense alone.

XXVI. FREMUERUNT GENTES.

The sordid World, insane through pride
Masking her sin in virtue's name
Rejects, usurps, self-deified,
The Immaculate Mother's sacred claim.

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‘The Earth is mine, and Earth's desires:
My Science reigns from zone to zone:
I warm my hands o'er Nature's fires;
I reap the fields those hands have sown:

‘From depths unknown I crept unseen
Through worm and beast to Man's estate:
My hands are clean: I rule, a Queen
Immortal and Immaculate.’

Thus boasteth Pride with brazen brow;
That Pride which still ‘believes a lie’:—
The counter-boast of Grace art thou,
Immaculate Humility!

Therefore, like Western hill that flings
O'er sunset vales its gradual shade
Thy power shall wax while sensuous things
Dissolve, and earthly grandeurs fade.

In the world's eve thy Star shall flash
Through reddening skies that cease to weep
While kings to earth their sceptres dash
And angel bands the harvest reap.

XXVII. THE RAINBOW.

All-glorious shape that fleet'st wind-swept
Athwart the empurpled pine-girt steep,
That, sinless, from thy birth hast wept,
All-gladdening, till thy death must weep;

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That in eterne ablution still
Thine innocence in shame dost shroud
And, washed where stain was none, dost fill
With light thy penitential cloud;

Illume with peace our glooming glen
O'er-arch with hope yon distant sea
To angels whispering and to men
Of her whose lowlier sanctity

In God's all-cleansing freshness shrined
Renounced all pureness of her own,
And aye her lucent brow inclined
God's ‘Handmaid’ meek, before His throne.

XXVIII. ANCILLA DOMINI.

The crown of Creatures, first in place,
Was, of all creatures, creature most:
By nature nothing; all by grace;
Redemption's first and loftiest boast.

Handmaid of God in heart and will
Without His life she seemed a death
A void that He alone could fill
A word suspended on His breath.

Yet—void and nothing—she in Him
The Creature's sole perfection found;
She was the great Rock's shadow dim;
She was the silence not the sound.

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On golden airs, by Him upheld,
She knelt, a soft Subjection mute
A hushed Dependance, tranced and spelled,
Still yearning towards the Absolute.

She was a sea-shell from the deep
Of God; her function this alone
Of Him to whisper as in sleep,
In everlasting undertone.

This hour on Him her eyes are set!
And those who tread the earth she trod
Like her themselves in her forget
And her remember but in God.

XXIX.

Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold
Spring, sacred now from blasts and blights,
Lifts high in firm, untrembling hold
Her chalice of fulfilled delights.

Confirmed around her queenly lip
The smile late wavering, on she moves;
And seems through deepening tides to step
Of steadier joys and larger loves.

The stony Ash itself relents,
Into the blue embrace of May
Sinking, like old impenitents
Heart-touched at last; and, far away,

The long wave yearns along the coast
With sob suppressed, like that which thrills,
Whilst o'er the altar mounts the Host,
Some chapel on the Irish hills.

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XXX. CORPUS CHRISTI.

Rejoice, thou Church of God! be glad,
This day triumphant here below!
He cometh, in lowliest emblems clad;
Himself He cometh to bestow!

That Body which thou gav'st, O Earth
He gives thee back—that Flesh, that Blood—
Born of the Altar's mystic birth;
At once thy Worship and thy Food.

He who of old on Calvary bled
On all thine altars lies to-day
A bloodless Sacrifice, but dread
The Lamb in heaven adored for aye.

His Godhead on the Cross He veiled;
His Manhood here He veileth too:
But Faith has eagle eyes unscaled,
And Love to Him she loves is true.

‘I will not leave you orphans. Lo!
While lasts the world with you am I.’
Saviour! we see Thee not; but know
With burning hearts that Thou art nigh!

He cometh! Blue Heaven, thine incense breathe
O'er all the consecrated sod;
And thou, O Earth, with flowers enwreathe
The steps of thine advancing God!

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XXXI. CORPUS CHRISTI.

What music swells on every gale?
What heavenly Herald speedeth past?
Vale sings to vale, ‘He comes; all hail!’
Sea sobs to sea, ‘He comes at last.’

The Earth bursts forth in choral song;
Aloft her ‘Lauda Sion’ soars;
Her myrtle boughs at once are flung
Before a thousand Minster doors.

Far on the white processions wind
Through wood and plain and street and court:
The kings and prelates pace behind
The King of kings in seemly sort.

The incense floats on Grecian air
Old Carmel echoes Calpè's chant,
In every breeze the torches flare
That curls the waves of the Levant.

On Ramah's plain in Bethlehem's bound
Is heard to-day a gladsome voice:
‘Rejoice,’ it cries, ‘the Lost is found!
With Mary's joy, O Earth, rejoice!’

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XXXII. THE TWO LAST GIFTS.

‘Behold thy Mother!’ From the Cross
He gave her—not to one alone:
We are His Brethren; unto us
He gave a Mother as to John.

Behold the greatest gift of Christ
Save that wherein Himself He gives,
The wonder-working Eucharist,
Sole life of each that truly lives:

Mysterious Bread not joined and knit
With him that eats, like mortal food,
But, fire-like, joining him with It
And blending with the Church of God!

Mary! from thee the Saviour took
That Flesh He gives! The mercies twain
Like streams of a divided brook
But separate to meet again.

XXXIII. DOMUS AUREA.

‘Wisdom hath built herself a House,
And hewn her out her pillars seven:’
Her wine is mixed: her guests are those
Who share the harvest-home of heaven.

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The fruits upon her table piled
Are gathered from the Tree of Life:
Around are ranged the undefiled,
And those that conquered in the strife.

Who tends the guests? Who smiles away
Sad memories? bids misgiving cease?
A crowned one countenanced like the day
The Mother of the Prince of Peace!

Proverbs ix. 1.

XXXIV.

Pleasant the swarm about the bough;
The meadow-whisper round the woods;
And for their coolness pleasant now
The murmur of the falling floods.

Pleasant beneath the thorn to lie
And let a summer fancy loose;
To hear the cuckoo's double cry;
To make the noontide sloth's excuse.

Panting, but pleased, the cattle stand
Knee-deep in water-weed and sedge
And scarcely crop that greener band
Of osiers round the river's edge.

But hark! Far off the south wind sweeps
The golden-foliaged groves among
Renewed or lulled, with rests and leaps—
Ah! how it makes the spirit long

To drop its earthly weight and drift
Like yon white cloud, on pinions free
Beyond that Mountain's purple rift
And o'er that scintillating sea!

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XXXV. FEST. ASSUMPTIONIS.

The mother of the heavenly Child
Who made the worlds, and who redeemed,
The maid and mother undefiled
She died: or else to die she seemed.

Once more above the late-entombed
They bent. What found they? Vacant space:
To heaven had Mary been assumed
And only flowers were in the place.

O happy earth! Elected sphere!
Hope of that starry host above!
Thou too thy Maker's voice shalt hear;
Thou too thy great Assumption prove!

The earth shall be renewed: the skies
Shall bloom with glories unrevealed:
Each season new but typifies
The wonders then to be unsealed.

Revives, each spring, a world that died:
A world by summer's store increased
Shall hear ere long that mandate wide
‘Prepare the glad Assumption Feast!’

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XXXVI. ELIAS AND ENOCH.

O thou that rodest up the skies,
Assumed ere death, on steeds of fire
That, rapt from earth in mortal guise
Some air immortal dost respire;

That, ambushed in the enshrouding sheen,
In quiet lulled of soul and flesh,
With one great thought of Him, the Unseen,
Thy ceaseless vigil dost refresh;

Old lion of Carmelian steeps!
Upon God's mountain, where, O where,
Or couchant by His unknown deeps,
Mak'st thou thine everlasting lair?

Hast thou, that earlier Seer beside
Who ‘walked with God, and was not,’ him
By contemplation glorified
When faith, in shallower hearts, grew dim,

Hast thou—despite corporeal bars—
A place among those Hierarchies,
Who fix on Mary's Throne, like stars,
The light of never-closing eyes?

Behold, there is a debt to pay!
With Enoch hid thou art on high:
Yet both shall back return one day,
To gaze once more on earth, and die.

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XXXVII. FEST. DE MONTE CARMELO.

Carmel, with Alp and Apennine
Low whispers in the wind that blows
Beneath the Eastern stars, ere shine
The lights of morning on their snows.

Of thee, Elias, Carmel speaks,
And that white cloud so small at first
Her Type, that neared the mountain peaks
To quench a dying nation's thirst.

On Carmel like a sheathed sword
Thy monks abode till Jesus came;
On Carmel then they served their Lord;
Then Carmel rang with Mary's name.

Blow over all the garden; blow
O'er all God's garden of the West
Balm-breathing Orient! Whisper low
The secret of thy spicy nest!

‘Who from the Desert upward moves
Like cloud of incense onward borne?
Who moving, rests on Him she loves?
Who mounts from regions of the Morn?

‘Behold! The apple-tree beneath—
There where of old thy Mother fell,
I raised thee up. More strong than Death
Is Love; more strong than Death or Hell.’

Cant. viii. 5, iii. 6.

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XXXVIII. VAS SPIRITUALE.

High, wingèd Heart, and crowned with fire!
O winged with pinions of the morn
O crowned with flames whose every spire
Bears witness to that crown of thorn!

Fair Dove of God, that, still at rest,
On speed'st in never wavering flight
Winging the illimitable Breast—
The Omnipresent Infinite;

We stagnate as in seas of lead,
Ice-cold, or warmed with earthly fires:
O that like thine our souls were fed
With sun-like yet serene desires!

A vase of quenchless love thou art
Drawn from that boundless Breast divine:—
O that in thee, on-rushing Heart,
Might rest, one hour, this heart of mine!

XXXIX.

Sing on, wide winds, your anthem vast!
Man's ear is richer than his eye:
Upon the eye no shape can cast
Such impress of Infinity.

And thou, my Soul, thy wings of might
Put forth: thou too, one day shalt soar
And, onward borne in heavenward flight,
The starry universe explore;

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Breasting that breeze which waves the bowers
Of Heaven's bright forest never mute
Whereof perchance this earth of ours
Is but the feeblest forest-fruit.

Of all those worlds unnumbered none
There lives but from that Blood all pure
Ablution, or its crown, hath won;
Its state redeemed, or state secure.

‘The Spirit bloweth where He wills’—
O Effluence of that Life Divine
Which wakes the Universe, and stills,
In Thy strong refluence make us Thine!

XL. CŒLI ENARRANT.

Sole Maker of the Worlds! They lay
A barren blank a void a nought
Beyond the ken of solar ray
Or reach of archangelic thought.

Thou spak'st; and they were made! Forth sprang
From every region of the abyss
Whose deeps, fire-clov'n, with anthems rang,
The spheres new-born and numberless.

Thou spak'st: upon the winds were found
The astonished Eagles. Awed and hushed
Subsiding seas revered their bound;
And the strong forests upward rushed.

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Before that Vision angels fell
As though the Face of God they saw;
And all the panting Miracle
Found rest within the arms of Law.

Perfect, O God, Thy primal plan,
That scheme frost-bound by Adam's sin:
Create, within the heart of Man,
Worlds meet for Thee; and dwell therein.

From Thy bright realm of Sense and Nature
Which flowers enwreathe and stars begem,
Shape Thou Thy Church; the crownèd Creature;
The Bride; the New Jerusalem!

XLI. CARO FACTUS EST.

When from beneath the Almighty Hand
The suns and systems rushed abroad
Like coursers which have burst their band
Or torrents when the ice is thawed;

When round in luminous orbits flung
The great stars gloried in their might;
Still, still a bridgeless gulf there hung
'Twixt Finite things and Infinite.

That crown of light Creation wore
Was girdled by the abysmal black;
And all of natural good she bore
Confessed her supernatural lack.

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For what is Nature at the best?
An arch suspended in its spring;
An altar step without a priest;
A throne whereon there sits no king.

As one stone-blind that fronts the morn
The World before her Maker stood
Uplifting suppliant hands forlorn,
God's creature yet how far from God!

O Shepherd Good! The trackless deep
He pierced, that Lost One to restore!
His Universe, a wildered sheep,
Upon His shoulder home He bore!

That Universe His Priestly robe,
The Kingly Pontiff raised on high
The worship of the starry globe:—
The gulf was bridged, and God was nigh.

XLII. CONDESCENSIO.

When was it that in act began
That Condescension from on high
Consummated in God made Man,
Its shrine for all eternity?

'Twas when the Eternal Father spake,
The Eternal Son in act replied:
When sudden forth from darkness brake
The new-shaped worlds on every side.

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Instant that All-Creative Power
A meek, sustaining Power became,
A Ministration hour by hour
From death preserving Nature's frame.

Instant into Creation's breast
Nor merged nor mixed He passed, and gave
Continuance to the quivering guest
That else had found at birth its grave.

In finite mansions He, the Immense,
In service reigning, made abode,
Bore up—a Law, a Providence—
The weight of worlds, ‘His people's load.’

He came once more—not then to reign;
In servant's form to serve, and die
The ‘Lamb before the ages slain,’
‘The Woman's Seed’ of prophecy.

XLIII. THE CREATED WISDOM.

Created Wisdom at the gate
Of Heaven's eternal House, I played:
The Eternal Wisdom Uncreate
Beheld me ere the worlds were made.

I danced the void abyss above:
Of lore unwrit the characters
I traced with wingèd feet, and wove
The orbits of the unshaped stars.

159

I flashed—a Thought in light arrayed—
Beneath the Eternal Wisdom's ken:
When came mine hour I lived, and played
Among the peopled fields of men.

Blessed is he that keeps my ways,
That stands in reverence on my floor,
That seeks my praise, my word obeys,
That waits and watches by my door.

Proverbs viii. 27—34.

XLIV. REGINA ANGELORUM.

(Evangelism in Cœla.)

Ere yet mankind was made; ere yet
The sun and she that rules the night
Were in their heavenly stations set,
God's Sons were playing in His sight.

Age after age those armies vast
In winding line had upward flown
Yet ne'er their shadows higher cast
Than on the first step of the Throne

And downward through the unsounded space
If those had sunk who soared above
They ne'er had found the buried base
Of Godhead's Condescending Love.

Then He, the God Who made them, proved:
For, high and higher as they soared
Hymning the Eternal Son beloved
The God from God, and Lord from Lord,

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He showed them, in that Form decreed,
Their God made man—man's hope and trust—
‘The Woman, ’and ‘The Woman's Seed,’
He showed; the Unbounded bound in dust.

As when from some world-conquering height
The shepherd sees, ere risen the sun,
His advent clothe the cloud with light
Before them thus that Vision shone:

And while, in wonder half half fear,
That Child, that Mother fixed their eye,
He bade those heavenward hosts revere
Their God in His Humility.

Set was that Infant as a sign:—
In endless bliss confirmed were they
Who hailed that hour the Babe Divine;
Self-sentenced those who turned away.

XLV. REGINA ANGELORUM.

(Spes Cœlestis.)

Their Trial past, more near the Throne,
And rapt thenceforth to holier skies,
Still on that Maid and Babe foreshown
The Elect of Angels fixed their eyes.

A Spirit-galaxy they hung;
A Cross unmeasured, limned in fire
And instinct-shaped, that swayed and swung
On winds of unfulfilled desire.

161

They worshipped Him, that God made Man;
To Him they spread their hands in power:
Unmarked the exhausted centuries ran:
That trance millennial seemed an hour.

'Twixt Finite things and Infinite
They saw the Patriarch's Ladder thrown;
Saw One Who o'er it moved in light:
They saw, and knelt with foreheads prone.

Make answer, sinless Angels, say
Ye who that hour your God adored
Less strong, less dear, is she this day,
That Mother of your destined Lord?

XLVI. REGINA ANGELORUM.

(In Cœlo Coronata.)

Angelic City in the skies
Not built of stones but Spirits pure
Irradiate by the Eternal Eyes,
And in the Eternal Love secure;

Angelic City, selfless chaste
By Him thou watch'st upholden still,
That neither Future know'st, nor Past
Tranced in thy God's all-present Will;

Thy mind a mirror sphered of gold
Wherein alone His splendours shine;
Thy heart a vase His Hand doth hold
That yields to Him alone its wine;

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For one brief moment proved and tried;
Thenceforth man's help in trial's stress;
Bright Sister of the Church—the Bride—
The elder Sister, yet the less:

O like, unlike! O crownèd Twain!
Celestial both, yet one terrene;
Behold, ye sing the same glad strain;
Ye glory in the self-same Queen!

XLVII. MULIER AMICTA SOLE.

A Woman ‘clothèd with the sun,’
Yet fleeing from the Dragon's rage!
The strife in Eden-bowers begun
Swells upward to the latest age.

That Woman's Son is throned on high;
The angelic hosts before Him bend:
The sceptre of His empery
Subdues the worlds from end to end.

Yet still the sword goes through her heart
For still on earth His Church survives:
In her that Woman holds a part:
In her she suffers, and she strives.

Around her head the stars are set;
A dying moon beneath her wanes:
By Death hath Death been slain: and yet
The Power accurst awhile remains.

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Break up, strong Earth, thy stony floors
And snatch to penal caverns dun
That Dragon from the pit that wars
Against the Woman and her Son!

Rev. xii. 1.

‘And her Child was caught up unto God, and to His Throne’ (Apoc. xiv. 5).

XLVIII.

Regent of Change, thou waning Moon
Whom they, the sons of night, adore
Her foot is on thee! Late or soon
Heap up upon the expectant shore

The tides of Man's Intelligence;
Or backward to the blackening deep
Remit them! Knowledge won from Sense
But sleeps to wake and wakes to sleep.

Where are the hands that reared on high
Heaven-threat'ning Babel? where the might
Of them, that giant progeny
The Deluge dealt with? Lost in night.

The child who knows his creed doth stretch
A sceptred hand o'er Space and hold
The end of all those threads that catch
In wisdom's net the starry fold.

The Sabbath comes: the work-days six
Go by. Meantime, of things to be
O Salutary Crucifix
We clasp the burning heart in thee:

We clasp the end that knows no end;
The Love that fears no lessening moon;
The Truth wherein all mysteries blend;
His Truth, His word—the One Triune.

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XLIX. OTHER SHEEP I HAVE.

Fire-breathing concourse of the Stars
That tremble as with Love's delight
How dungeon-girt by custom's bars
How wrapped and swathed in error's night

His soul must be who nightly lifts
On you his wide and wandering eyes
Yet doubts that ye partake the gifts
Bequeathed by Calvary's Sacrifice!

Lift up your heads, Eternal Gates
Of God's great Temple in the sky!
That Blood your lintels consecrates:—
The Avenging Angel passes by!

The King of Glory issues forth:
The King of Glory enters in:
That Blood which cleansed from sin our earth
Or cleansed your spheres, or kept from sin.

L.

Is this, indeed, our ancient earth?
Or have we died in sleep and risen?
Has earth, like man, her second birth?
Rises the palace from the prison?

Hills beyond hills ascend the skies;
O'er winding valleys heaven-suspended,
Huge forests rich as sunset's dyes
With rainbow-braided clouds are blended.

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What means it? Glory, sweetness, might?
Not these but something holier far;
Shadows of Him, that Light of Light
Whose priestly vestment all things are.

The veil of sense transparent grows:
God's Face shines out that veil behind
Like yonder sea-reflected snows—
Here man must worship, or be blind.

LI.

No ray of all their silken sheen
The leaves first fledged have lost as yet:
Unfaded, near the advancing queen
Of flowers, abides the violet.

The rose succeeds; her month is come;
The flower with sacred passion red:
She sings the praise of martyrdom
And Him for whom His martyrs bled.

The perfect work of May is done:
Hard by, a new perfection waits:
The twain, a sister and a nun,
A moment parley at the grates.

The whiter Spirit turns in peace
To hide her in the cloistral shade:
'Tis time that you should also cease,
Slight carols in her honour made.

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EPILOGUE. THE SON OF MAN.

I gazed—it was the Paschal night—
In vision on the starry sphere:
Like suns the stars made broad their light:
Then knew I Earth to Heaven drew near.

The Thrones of Darkness down were hurled;
The veil was rent; the bond was riven:
Then knew I that Man's little world
Had reached its home—the heart of heaven.

Made strong by God, mine eyes with awe
Still roved from star-changed sun to sun
That ringed the earth in ranks, and saw
A Spirit o'er each, that stood thereon.

And, clasped by every Spirit, stood
More high, the Venerable Sign:
Then knew I that the Atoning Blood
Had reached that sphere; the Blood Divine.

From orb to orb an anthem passed;
‘The Blessing of the Lord of All
Hath reached us from the least and last
Of stars that light the Heavenly Hall;

‘For He, that Greatest, loves the Least;
Puts down the mighty; lifts the low:
On Earth began His Bridal Feast:
Our Triumph is its overflow!’

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Then Earth, that great ‘New Earth’ foretold,
Assumed those glories long her due:
Or were they hers indeed of old
Though veiled till then from mortal view?

While—with her changing—far and wide
Those worlds around her, blent in one,
Became that ‘City of the Bride’
Which needs no light of moon or sun.

Their splendour had not suffered change
As, kenned through myriad senses new,
Self-radiant street, and columned range
To one unmeasured Temple grew.

Ere long through all that throbbing frame
Of things beheld and things unseen
Rolled forth that Name which none can name
Save those that breathe not clime terrene.

And down that luminous Infinite
I saw an Altar and a Throne;
And, near to each, a Form, all light
That, resting, moved, and moved Alone:

But if He filled that Throne or knelt
That Altar nigh, or Lamb-like lay,
I saw not. This I saw and felt
That Son of Man was God for aye.

That Son of God was Man and stood,
And from His Vest, more white than snow,
Slowly there dawned a Cross of Blood
That through the glory seemed to grow:

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Above the heavens His Hands He raised
To bless those Worlds whose race was run;
And lo! in either palm there blazed
The blood-red sign of Victory won;

That Blood the Bethlehem Shepherds eyed
Warming His cheek Who slept apart:
That Blood He drew—the Crucified—
Far-fountained from His Mother's Heart.

‘There shall be New Heavens, and a New Earth.’

University of Virginia Library

III. PART III. MARIÆ IN CŒLIS.