Selections from the Poems of Aubrey De Vere. Edited with a preface by Georg Edward Woodberry

Preface

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The qualities of Aubrey de Vere's poetry are not far to seek. Lyrical in verse, strong in style, mainly historical in theme, heroic or spiritual in substance, above all placid, it stirs and tranquillizes the soul in the presence of lovely scenes, high actions, and those "Great ideas that man was born to learn;" and its outlook is upon the field of the soul regenerate, where suffering is remembered only through its purifi cation, blessed in issues of sweetness, dignity, and peace. It takes wide range, but is predominantly either Bardic or Christian. The sympathy of the poet with the ancient Irish spirit must have been fed with patriotic fervour, akin to renewed inspiration, to permit him to render the old lays of his country with such fidelity to their native genius. Cuchullain once more becomes credible to fancy, — the imagination of a childhood world ; and the songs of Oiseen and Ethell strike with a music as of anvils.

The versions of the three monuments of old Irish story — the "Sor rows of Song " — are our best. The English lines have the definiteness and precision that belong to v VI

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primitive narrative ; and yet each tale is involved in that atmosphere of "the shore of old romance," of the marvellous, the picturesque, the childlike, which appeals to our eyes like the distances of spring — the haze of time lying along the early world. In each of the three mythic poems there are pictures of novel and strange beauty : the boy, Cuchullain, riding laughing home in his car after the deeds of his knighting-day, with the leashed wide-winged birds flying over him, the six leashed stags following the chariot captive, the bandits' heads upon its front ; or, the lovers, Naisi and Deirdre, hand in hand on the foot-bridge pouring forth the lay that hemmed them with the clansmen of Usnach ; or, King Lir, " with under-sliding arms," by the bed of the gold-woven bridal veil, lifting the children from its dawn-touched glittering tissue to " the first light from the sky."

These are such pictures as Burne-Jones is too often thought to have invented. Of all, Cuchullain is the noblest figure in this old Irish verse; and the poem which relates his deeds — with its episodic tales of his youth, the background of his island-boyhood with the friend he was doomed to slay, and the long duel between them which closes in his lament over the dead man he loved and his retirement to the forest — is so inwrought with bravery, pathos, and emotional beauty as to give it the first place, while the hero's Achillean return to the host places it among true epics. The second of the three " Sorrows " — " The Sons of Usnach " — is characterized by a strange processional beauty, as

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VII of a pageant pilgriming, and by a clear spirit of joyful ness in the midst of the moving cloud of fate, like " the tempest's heart of calm." But the last — " The Children of Lir " — touches the heart most deeply. The idea of the poem — the first human effort to ex tend the bounds of Divine Mercy, to reach through the " dark backward and abysm " of the thousand pagan years, and gather to its fold these children to be the first-fruits of Christ in their land — is very noble ; but great as is the idea, it is subdued into a simple idyl of childhood. The poem is, indeed, unique, and the handling (Tennyson treated it less admirably) is exquisite. The children in their home are dear, and in their transformation into swans there is no discord. The swan-nature, already half-human in poetic tradition, blends of itself with the ideal image of childhood ; and the nearness of the little exiles to humanity, after their change, is sustained by their mystical night-long singing overheard by men, and by the tale told their poet listening solitary by the sea in the sixth century of their woe.

In their life with nature, too, a new aspect sympathetic with childhood emerges ; and lastly, though lost, they still live in a world of their own, as children do. This beautiful tradition of the Irish race must become a part of the child-literature of our language. The Christian element in this last story prepares the way for the poet's more voluminous and distinctly religious work — and it is with poets of religion that he is to be classed — in which he selects his themes PREFA CE from the saintly legends of the Church, and shows the abundance and power of that life, idealized in holy tradition, which converted the nations and revivified the world. The Reformation was a source of great mortality in literature; and the loss which Protestantism sustained in surrendering the Catholic centuries, with their long record of this ideal life among mankind, was a spiritual deprivation to the northern imagination, which the noble lives of three later centuries have not yet made good.

So com plete is the gap now, that the times of which these poems reflect the imaginative beauty have the remote ness of a golden age, and in reading the verse a sense of dreaminess invades the mind. This portion of the poet's work makes its mass ; and its interest, though various, is so even that one could as easily divide the summer landscape as choose and pick amid its beauty. The subjects are, in the main, from Irish, English, or Roman traditions of the early Church. The tales of St. Patrick, which illustrate the conversion of Ireland, are roughened by the old Bardic strength overcome by the new gospel, and masculine vigour is thus infused into it, while a poetic continuity with the primitive lays is preserved. "Aengus," which is here selected, is a representative instance of these legends, but milder than the most.

The tales of Saxon times, which illustrate the conversion of England, are almost pastoral in tone ; and again, " St. Cuthbert's Pente cost," here given, is, like "Aengus," only a' solitary example. Others of this series are sown with fine

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IX imaginative effects, like that of the lonely Julian Tower casting the shadow of Rome on the consecra tion of Westminster Abbey : — " On Saxon feasts she fixed a cold gray gaze; 'Mid Christian hymns heard but the old acclaim — 'Consul Romanus'; " or, with eloquent lines, like those on the Primates of Canterbury : — " From their fronts, Stubborned with marble from St. Peter's Rock, The sunrise of far centuries forth shall flame; " or, with passages of brief pathos, like Bede's words " Poor youth ! that love which walks in narrow ways Is tragic love, be sure." The poem, devoted to Cædmon, is especially rich in such felicities both of image and phrase. So these Christian poems succeed one another, as the poet's memory wanders back to the legends of the Empire on the first establishment of the faith in Roman lands and along Asian shores, or moves through mediæval times with Joan of Arc and epi sodes of the Cid that recall Cuchullain in their light-hearted performance of natural deeds, now under the Cross.

The beauty of these separate stories is equable and full of a softened charm ; but in them, too, as in the Bardic myths, there abides that distance of time, which makes them remote, as if they were not of our own. They are highly pictorial ; and in reading them, each secluded in that silent, old-world air

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X that encompasses it, one feels that here is a modem poet, like those early painters of pious heart who spent their lives in picturing scenes from the life of Christ ; and one recalls, perhaps, some Convent of San Marco where each monastic cell bears on its quiet walls such scenes from the shining hand of the Florentine on whose face fell heaven's mildest light. These poems of Aubrey de Vere — to characterize them largely — are scenes from the life of Christ in Man ; and there is something in them — in their gladness, their lumi nousness, their peace — which suggests Fra Angelico, the halo of Christian art. Yet one reads to little purpose, if he does not dis cern also an intellectual element, constant in the poet's work, which gives it mental as well as spiritual charac ter. It is not so much thought, as comprehension, which his poetry most evinces : that comprehension which is the genius of the historian and grasps the governing principles, follows the essential ideas, watches the doubtful issues of the inward world of conviction and illusion, of which alone the fate is sig nificant.

This philosophic interest in history is most directly expressed in his two dramas, " Alexander the Great" and "St. Thomas of Canterbury," where social movements, so irresistible as to be rightly called providential principles, were centred in great personalities. In these, his eye sees, not the men merely, but ideas greater than they, of which, indeed, they were servants ; and this is true, also, of such single portraits as " Odin," " Constantine," and PREFA CE XI " Hildebrand." His prefaces disclose a similar distinctly historical aim in his tales, but their charac ter as particular narratives renders it less obvious ; the poetical element in them absorbs and conceals the didactic purpose. He has also occasionally inwoven in his verse more abstract and purely logical argument, of which "The Death of Copernicus" is an example.

His sonnets and odes show, in addition, occupation with political and other modern questions. In his single contemporary Irish tale, " The Sisters " — a tale which makes one regret so complete an absorption of his narrative power in other lines — the criticism upon Ireland's history has both edge and weight, and its conversational temper is charming. Together with the gaunt reality of " The Year of Sorrow," this story of the actual reveals the heart of a patriot, near to his living land. Indeed, in whatever division of his verse he approaches the subject of Ireland, his style gathers fire, and often, as must be the case, deepens into melancholy passion. This is shown most character istically in the ideal conception of Ireland, which he sometimes suggests, as a Sacrificial Nation, whose lot is to show forth spiritual virtues under perpetual earthly misfortune, and it is natural to such a mind ; but there is difficulty even in its poetical acceptance, so heavy is the weight of a nation's burden.

It is a great conception, but it is not a political idea. It is the young Richard's refuge — "that sweet way I was in to despair." But throughout the entire range of national and religious themes which in a long life-time PREFA CE XII the poet has touched, one recognizes a conscientious and keen thoughtfulness as well as the other qualities of warmth, imagination, and delight in natural and moral beauty which are more upon the surface of the verse ; and to miss this reflective temperament would be to lose sight of much of the inward significance of these longer poems. Of shorter pieces he has written few in comparison with the body of his work. For one who belongs to the generation of Tennyson and was the youthful friend of Wordsworth, the impersonality of his verse is marked. He paid the tribute to Love, which is required of the gentle heart, in a few musical lyrics, usually with the sad cadence ; he paid also his tribute to human liberty and the general hope of man in some fervid sonnets that spoke from the breast ; and, lastly, he paid his tribute to his friends — for he was rich in friendships — laying his loyal laurel upon each remembered grave.

Finally — to compress much miscellaneous verse into small space — in " Antar and Zara " he treated a difficult theme of love with a delicacy and truth of feeling and a melodic power that justified its inscription to Tennyson ; in many odes and sonnets he exhibited the love of nature, the sentiment for land scape and its living creatures, and the sense of the moral power of the external world, which became a true disciple of Wordsworth and continuer of his tradition ; and in "The Search after Proserpine," and elsewhere, he is a neighbour to Shelley. In all this portion of his work, which is more nearly related to

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XIII his own century, except at rare moments he remains impersonal, and deals with ideas through images, in accordance with the great tradition of poetry from the first, for their own and not for the poet's sake. Such, in general, is the poet's work. But it pos sesses some qualities which so highly distinguish it in modern verse and give it peculiar character beyond what has been indicated, that a word more must be said. One constant element is its praise of the life of the lowly, in the old Christian sense, as the soil of many virtues, and those the noblest and most endearing. The affinities of his subject-matter, both on the national and the religious side, make this natural ; but its source is rather in a true sympathy with lowly lives and knowledge of them, whether among the poor by fate or those who have renounced by choice the things of fortune ; and the ground of this praise — and this is the significant matter — is one that was old when Rousseau was born.

So Truth comes into her own again. A second distinguishing element in the verse, as a whole, is its praise of devotion, that loyal sur render to a man or a cause which is one of the ideal passions of Love, and the vital triumph of the soul. To realize what is denoted by this character istic, and how sharply it severs old and new, it needs only a thought of the quite different way in which — to take the main instance — Tennyson presents this virtue, in his greatest poem of man's life — how maimed and impotent in Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, how doomed to tragic failure in the lesser

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persons, for Galahad's career is magical, not human ; and the fact that this enfeebling of the principle of devotion is not a trait that, in Tennyson, most strikes a modern reader, measures the distance be tween the moral ideals that are and those that were. In this, also, Aubrey de Vere returns to the ancient fountains. A third such element in the verse is its purity, which is due, in part, to the fact that the poet is fond of youth, and fills his poems with many fair figures, fresh and ardent and beautiful, and touches with especial delicacy the tenderness of childhood and the grace of boyhood, so that there is a morning air in his world ; but something is also due to his own limpid sincerity and the clarifying power of that spirit which can but represent virtue, however suffering, as joyful.

His heroes are always glad. And lastly, to bring these remarks to an end, faith is an element in this verse, not to be passed over in silence. It is faith of the sort not to be rivalled among our poets by any other than Shelley, — faith in the power of truth to subdue mankind to goodness. What to Shelley was dream and vision is here that golden age of the triumph of Christ over the heathen world, when whole nations heard and were baptized. That this is not fanciful paradox a single passage will show, and it affords a striking and useful literary parallel : — " They slept not, on the loud-resounding shore In glory roaming. Many a feud that night Perished; and vengeful vows, now mockery made, Lay quenched in their own shame. Far shone the sires PREFA CE XV Crowning dark hills with gladness; soared the song; And heralds sped from coast to coast to tell How He the Lord of all, no Power Unknown, But like a man rejoicing in his house, Ruled the glad earth.

With earliest red of dawn Northward once more the winged war-ships rushed, Swift as of old to that long hated shore — Not now with axe and torch. His Name they bare Who linked in one the nations." This is the feast, the chant, the flame of " Laon and Cythna." In this faith, again, there is the funda mental Christian quality, that older spirit, of which the other elements that have just been mentioned are also branches. Thus, in all this poetry, however its phases be successively turned to the eye, or itself be inwardly searched, there is one light and one breath' — the light of the Spirit and the breath thereof. It cannot but have a peculiar, though in its own century almost an exotic, charm. Joy and peace, the first Christian message, spread abroad with its music ; and, heard or unheard, the song of the poet speeds that old evangel.

NOTE Of the poems comprised in the following selections, " Cuchullain " is from " The Foray of Queen Meave," and " Naisi's Wooing " from " The Sons of Usnach " ; "Oiseen and St. Patrick," "An Old Poet's Love," and " Zara to Antar " are from the several groups of poems similarly entitled ; in all other cases, with the exception of the stanza, 'A Farewell,' the poems are given entire. A few titles have been inserted by the editor where none was given by the author. The text of " Cuchullain " follows the earlier edition. G. E. W. Beverly, Mass., September, 1894. CONTENTS PAGE Preface v Old Irish Lays I " Soul of the Bard ! stand up, like thy harp's majestical pillar "........ 2 Cuchullain ........ 3 Naisi's Wooing 63 The Children of Lir ....... 72 Miscellaneous Poems 113 Odin, the Man 115 Oiseen and St. Patrick I. The Great Contention . . . . .123 II.

Oiseen's Youth . . . . . . 12S Aengus 133 The Bard Ethell 141 St. Cuthbert's Pentecost 154 King Henry at the Tomb of King Arthur . . .182 The Infant Bridal 1 88 St. Francis and Perfect Joy 199 The Death of Copernicus 205 The Year of Sorrow 219 The Sisters; or, Weal in Woe 228 CONTENTS PAGE Lyrics, Sonnets, and Epigrams 267 " Not willingly the Muses sing of love " . 268 Song (" Sing the old song, amid the sounds dispersing ")........ 269 To (" My hope, in happier days than these ") . 270 An Old Poet's Love 270 Trouvere Songs I. "I make not songs, but only find " . . 273 II. " Phcebus paced the wooded mountains " 273 Peasant's Song (" Hark, the Spring ! She calls ! ") . 274 Zara to Antar 275 Marriage Song (" Love begins upon the heights ") . 275 Song (" Seek not the tree of silkiest bark ") . . 276 Lines (" Heart-winged once; self-doomed") . . 277 A Lament 278 " They Never Met " 279 To I. " She sat amid a soft-eyed company " . 279 II.

" Happy are they who kiss thee, morn and even" 2go III. " The spring of my sweet life thou madest thine" 2go IV. " Let me be near thee, and I will not touch " 281 V. " Pause, lovely Lady, pause ! with downward eye" 282 To an Infant 2g2 Human Life 2g, Æschylus 2g4 Tasso's House at Sorrento .... CONTENTS XIX PAGE Lyrics, Sonnets, and Epigrams — continued. The Renaissance and Savonarola .... 285 Galatea and Urania; or, Art and Faith . . . 286 The Poet's Song ....... 287 Solitude without Vocation 288 A Poet to a Painter 2SS The Poet's Choice ....... 2S9 On Reading an Untrue Charge 290 Poland and Russia ....... 290 Islam ......... 291 The American Struggle ...... 292 On the Centenary of American Liberty . . . 292 Epigrams I. A Farewell 293 II. An Epitaph 294 III. Three Prayers 294 IV. A Traveller's Grace 294 V. On a Great Plagiarist 295 VI.

An Epicurean's Epitaph .... 295 VII. An Epitaph without a Name . . . 296 VIII. De Via 296 Memorial Poems 297 "An Altar I would rear beside the Rhine" . . 298 Christmas, 1860 299 At Vevey 3°' William Rowan Hamilton 302 Edwin, Earl of Dunraven 303 Sir John Simeon 3°4 CONTENTS XX PAGE Cardinal Newman ....... 30s Cardinal Manning ....... 30; Robert Browning ....... 30; Alfred Tennyson ....... 30. OLD IRISH LAYS Soul of the Bard! stand up, like thy harp's majestical pillar ! Heart of the Bard, like its arch in reverence bow thee and bend! Mind of the Bard, like its strings be manifold, changeful, responsive : This is the harp God smites, the harp, man's master and friend! CUCHULLAIN The Foray of Queen Meave relates the story of the inva sion of ULADH by that Queen, while a spell of enchantment held its people impotent.

CUCHULLAIN alone arrested her advance; but, on his retirement, her host ravaged the land. On their retreat, the spell being broken, the host of ULADH attacked them, and suffered defeat, which Cuchullain turned into victory. Fergus is an exiled chief of Uladh, fighting on the side of the invaders. The following passages contain the DEEDS OF Cuchullain. I Meantime within Murthemne's land its lord, Cuchullain, musing like a listening hound, For many a rumour filled that time the air, Sat in remote Dun Dalgan all alone, Chief city of his realm. On Uladh's verge, Southward, that lesser realm dependent lay, Girt by a racing river. Silent long He watched : at last he heard a sound like wind In woods remote ; and earthward bowed his head ; And said, " That sound is distant thirty leagues, And huge that host " ; then bade prepare his car, And southward sped, counsel to hold as wont With Faythleen nigh to Tara.

Eve grew dim, When, lo ! a chariot from the woods emerged In swift pursuit ; an old man urged the steeds, A grey old man that chattered evermore, LA YS With blinking eyes that ceased not from amaze, Now to himself, now to his charioteer. That sight displeased Cuchullain ; ne'ertheless He stayed his course ; and Saltain soon drew nigh, Clamouring, " O son — and when was son like thee — Forsake not thou thy father ! In old time, Then when some God had laid on me his hand, Dectara, my wife, immured me in my house, Year after year, and weighed the lessening dole ; But thou, to manhood grown, though even to her Reverent, didst pluck her from that place usurped, Lifting thy poor old father." At that word Cuchullain left his car, and kissed his sire, And soothed his wandering wits with meat and wine ; And spake dissembling : " Lo, these mantles warm !

For thee it was I stored them ! Night is near ; Lie down and rest." Thus speaking, with both hands He spread them deftly forth, and Saltain slept. Then, tethering first the horses of his sire, Lastly his own, upon the chill, wet grass He likewise lay, and slept not. On, at dawn, They drave ; but Faythleen, witch perverse of will That oft through spleenful change her purpose slew, Had broken tryst ; and northward they returned. That day Cuchullain clomb a tree-girt rock And kenned beyond the forest's roof a host Innumerable, the standards of Queen Meave, And Fergus, and the great confederate kings. The warrior eyed them long with bitter smile ; CUCHULLAIN 5 He spake few words : " At fifty thousand men I count them." To his father then he turned : " Haste to Emania ! Bid the Red Branch Knights Attend me in Murthemne.

I till then Hang on the invaders' flank, a fiery scourge." Saltain made answer : " Be it ! northward I ; But Dectara, thy mother and my wife, I will not see till thou art by my side ; For dreadful are her eyes as death or fate ; And many deem her mad." He spake, and drave Northward ; nor ceased from chatterings all day long, Since, like a poplar, vocal was the man Not less than visible. Meantime his son Took counsel in his heart, and made resolve To skirt in homeward course that eastern sea, The wood primeval 'twixt him and the foe, Still sallying night and day through alley and glade And taming thus their pride. Three days went by. Then stood Cuchullain where great wood-ways met ; And, lo ! betwixt four yews a warrior's grave, The pillar-stone above it ! O'er that stone In mirthful mood he twined an osier wreath, Cyphering thereon his name in Ogham signs ; For thus he said : " On no man unawares Fall I, but warned."

The hostile host approached, And halting stood in wonder at that wreath ; Yet none could spell the Ogham. Last drew nigh Fergus, and read it ; on him fell that hour Memories full dear, and loud he sang and long ; He sang a warrior's praise, yet named him not ; He sang : " From name of man to name of beast A warrior changed ; then mightiest grew of men ! " And, as he sang, the cheek of Meave grew red. Next morn Neara's sons outsped the rest, Car-borne with brandished spears, and, ere the dew Was lifted, came to where Cuchullain sat Beneath an oak, sporting with black-birds twain That followed him for aye. Toward the youths He waved his hand : " Away, for ye are young ! " In answer forth they flung their spears ; he caught them, And snapt them on his knee ; next, swift as fire, Sprang on the twain, and slew them with his sword, One blow ; anon he loosed their horses' bits, And they, with madness winged, rejoined the host, Bearing those headless bulks.

Forth looked the queen ; Beheld ; and, trembling, cried : " It might have been Orloff, my son ! " That eve, at banquet ranged The warriors questioned Fergus : "Who is best Among the Uladh chiefs? " Ere answer came King Conor's son self-exiled, Conlinglas, Upleaping cried, " Cuchullain is his name ! Cuchullain ! From his childhood man was he ! On Eman Macha ever was his thought, Its walls, its bulwarks, and its Red Branch Knights, The wonder of the world." Then told the prince CUCHULLAIN 7 l7 the self How, when his mother mocked his zeal, that child Fared forth alone, with wooden sword and shield, And fife, and silver ball ; and how he hurled His little spears before him as he ran, And caught them ere they fell ; and how, arrived, He spurned great Eman's gates, and scaled its wall And lighted in the pleasaunce of the king, His mother's brother, Conor Conchobar ; And how the noble youths of all that land, There trained in warlike arts, had on him dashed With insult and with blows ; and how the child This way and that had hurled them, while the king Who sat that hour with Fergus, playing chess, Gazed from his turret wondering.

Next he told How to that child, Setanta first, there fell Cuchullain's nobler name. " To Eman near There dwelt an armourer, Cullain was his name, That earliest rose, and latest with his forge Reddened the night ; mail-clad in might of his The Red Branch Knights forth rode ; the bard, chief, Claimed him for friend. One day, when Conor's Partook his feast, the armourer held discourse : ' The Gods have made my house a house of fame ; The craftsmen grin and grudge because I prosper ; The forest bandits hunger for my goods, Yea, and would eat mine anvil if they might — Trow ye what saves me, Sirs? A Hound is mine ; Each eve I loose him ; lion-like is he ; for i > The blood of many a rogue is on his mouth ; The bravest, if they hear him bay far off, Flee like a deer ! ' Setanta's shout rang loud That moment at the gate, and, with it blent, The baying of that hound ! ' The boy is dead,' King Conor cried in horror.

Forth they rushed — There stood he, bright and calm, his rigid hands Clasping the dead hound's throat ! They wept joy; The armourer wept for grief. ' My friend is dead ! My friend that kept my house and me at peace : My friend that loved his lord ! ' Setanta heard, Then first, that cry forth issuing from the heart Of him whose labour wins his children's bread — That cry he honours yet. Red-cheeked he spake : ' Cullain ! unwittingly I did thee wrong ! I make amends. I, child of kings, henceforth Abide, thy watch-hound, warder of thy house.' Thenceforth the ' Hound of Cullain ' was his name And Cullain's house well warded." Stern of brow, The queen arose : " Enough of fables, lords ! Drink to the victory ! Ere yon moon is dead, We knock at gates of Eman." High she held The crimson goblet. Instant, felt ere heard, Vibration strange troubled the moonlit air ; A long-drawn hiss o'er-ran it ; then a cry, Death-cry of warrior wounded to the death.

They rose ; they gazed around ; Cuchullain stood, High on a rock. The swift one said in heart, CUCHULLAIN 9 " I will not slay her ; yet her pride shall die ! " Again that hiss ; instant the golden crown Fell from her head ! In wrath she glared around ; Once more that hiss long-drawn, and in her hand The goblet, shivered, stood ! She cast it down ; She cried, " Since first I sat, a queen new-crowned, Never such ignominy, or spleen of scorn, Hath mocked my greatness ! " Fiercely rushed the chiefs Against the aggressor. Through the high-roofed woods They saw him distant, like a falling star Kindling the air with speed. Ere long, close by He stood with sling high holden. At its sound Ever some great one died ! The morrow morn Cuchullain reached a lawn ; tall autumn grass Whitened within it, but the beech trees round Were russet brown, the thorn-brakes berry-flushed ; Passing, he raised his spear and launched it forth Earthward ; there stood it buried in the soil Halfway, and quivering.