Selections from the poems of Aubrey De Vere

Preface

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 purification, 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 "Sorrows of Song " — are our best. The Enghsh lines have the definiteness and precision that belong to

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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 knigliting-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-shding 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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of a pageant pilgriming, and by a clear spirit of joyfulness 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 extend 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 hstening 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 viii PREFACE

from the saintly legends of the Church, and shows the abundance and power of that Ufe, 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 Ufe among mankind, was a spiritual deprivation to the northern imagination, which the noble lives of three later centuries have not yet made good. So complete is the gap now, that the times of which these poems reflect the imaginative beauty have the remoteness 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 Pentecost," here given, is, like " Aengus," only a solitary example. Others of this series are sown with fine

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imaginative effects, like that of the lonely Julian Tower casting the shadow of Rome on the consecration 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 Caedmon, 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 estabhshraent of the faith in Roman lands and along Asian shores, or moves through mediaeval times with Joan of Arc and episodes 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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that encompasses it, one feels that here is a modem poet, hke 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 luminousness, their peace — which suggests Fra Angelico, the halo of Christian art.

Yet one reads to little purpose, if he does not discern also an intellectual element, constant in the poet's work, which gives it mental as well as spiritual character. 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 significant. 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

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" Hildebrand." His prefaces disclose a similar distinctly historical aim in his tales, but their character 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 Hues — 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 characteristically 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 wa:: in to despair." But throughout the entire range of national and religious themes which in a long life-time

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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 gende 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 landscape 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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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 possesses 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 surrender 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 characteristic, 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 between 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 fires

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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 fundamental Christian quahty, 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 pecuUar, 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 Poefs 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

II

Thus ever day by day, and night by night, Through strength of him that 'mid the royal host Passed, and re-passed like thought, the bravest fell For ne'er against the inglorious or the small Cuchullain raised his hand. Then Ailill spake : " Let Fergus seek that champion in the woods. Gift-laden, and withdraw him from his king." But Fergus answered : " Sue and be refused ! That great one loves his country. Heard ye never How when King Conor's sin, that forfeit pledge Plighted with Usnach's sons, had left the Accursed Crownless, and Eman's bulwarks in the dust,

Her elders on CuchuUain worked, what time

He came my work of vengeance to complete ?

They said : ' CuchuUain loves his land o'er all !

The man besides, though terrible to foes,

Is tender to the weak. Through Eman's streets

Send ye proclaim, " Will any holy maid

To save the city take her station sole

On yonder bridge, at parting of the ways,

That city's Emblem-Victim, robed in black

Down from her girdle to the naked feet ;

Above that girdle this alone — the chains

Of Eman's gate, circUng that virgin throat

And down at each side streaming ? It may be

That dread one will relent, pitying in her

Great Uladh's self despoiled of robe and crown,

Her raiment bonds and shame." ' Of Eman's maids

But one, the best and purest, gave consent.

Alone she stood at parting of the ways ;

While near and nearer yet that war-car drew.

Wide-eyed she stood, death-pale ; it stopped ; she

spake : ' Eman, thy Mother, stands a widow now. Despoiled of crown, her raiment bonds and shame ; And many a famished babe that wrought no ill Lies 'mid her ruins wailing.' To the left The warrior turned his steeds. The land was saved."

Then spake the kings confederate : " Hard albeit That task, to draw CuchuUain from his charge. Seek him, and proffer terms ! " Fergus next morn Made way through those sea-skirting woods, and cried

Three times, "Setanta;" and Cuchullain heard. And knew that voice, and, beaming, issued forth, And clasped his ancient master round the neck, And led him to his sylvan cell. Therein Long time they held discourse of ancient days, Heaven-fair through mist of years. The youthful host Set forth their rural feast, whate'er the woods And they that in them dwelt, swine-herds and hinds, Yielded, their best : nor lacked it minstrel strain. Bird-song by autumn chilled, that brake through

boughs Lit by unwarming sunshine. Banquet o'er, Fergus disclosed the terms of Meave, and gifts By her and xAilill sent. Cuchullain rose And curtly answered : " Never will I break My vow ; nor wrong the land ; nor sell my king." Fergus too royal was to hear surprised. Or grieved, his friend's resolve, nor touched again Upon that pact unworthy. Happier themes Succeeded, mirthful some. Of these the last Made sport of Ailill. Fergus spake : " One night I sped to Meave's pavilion swift of foot ; War-tidings wait not. Ailill from afar Furtively followed, stung by jealous spleen. The queen had passed into the inner tent ; I sought her there. In the outer Ailill marked My sword, that morning thither sent, a loan. For Meave had vowed to out-brave its hilt with gems Blazoning her zone. His wrath was changed to joy ! He snatched it up ; he cried, ^ Hail, forfeit mine !

Hail Eric just ! ' and laughed his childish laugh.

Since then he neither frowns on me nor smiles.

He will not let me rule his foolish kings ;

Yet, deeming still my sword a charm 'gainst fate,

Wears it. An apter one I keep for him ;

One day 'twill raise a laugh ! " In graver mood

At parting Fergus spake : " I grant that pact

Proposed by Meave fitter for her than thee ;

Yet hide not if thou know'st of terms more meet."

To whom Cuchullain : " Fergus, terms there be.

Other and meeter. I divulge them not ;

Divine them he that seeks them ! " On the morn

Fergus declared his tidings to the chiefs

In synod met. A recreant churl arose,

And thus gave counsel : " Lure Cuchullain here

On pretext fair; and slay him at the feast."

Against that recreant Fergus hurled his spear,

And slew him, and continued : '' Hundreds six,

Our best, have perished, and our march is slow.

Now, warriors, hear my counsel, and my terms ;

Cuchullain scorns your gifts — of such no more !

'Twixt southern Erin and my Uladh's realm

Runs Neeth ; across that river lies a ford ;

Speak to Cuchullain : ' By that ford stand thou,

Guarding thy land. Against thee, day by day,

Be ours to send one champion — one alone.

While lasts that strife, forbear the host beside ! ' "

Then roared the kings a long and loud applause. Since wise appeared that counsel ; faith they pledged. And sureties in the hearing of the Gods :

Likewise Cuchullain, when his friend returned, Made answer : " Well you guessed ! a month or more My strength will hold ; meantime, our Uladh arms." To seal that pact he sought the hostile camp, And shared the banquet. Wondering, all men gazed ; And maidens, Hfted on the warriors' shields. Gladdened, so bright that youthful face. At morn Meave, when the chief departed, kissed his cheek : " Pity," she said, " that such a one should die ! " The one sole time that Meave compassion felt.

That eve Cuchullain drank the wave of Neeth, And wading reached Murthemn^'s soil, his charge. And knelt, and kissed it. As the sun declined, He clomb a rocky height, and northward gazed, And cried : " Ye Red Branch warriors, haste ! I keep The ford ; but who shall guard it when I die? "

Next morning by that stream the fight began. Two champions face to face ; and, every morn. Rang out, renewed, that combat ; every eve Again went up from that confederate host The shout of rage. Daily their bravest died. Thirty in thirty days. Feerbraoth fell, And Natherandal, though the Druid horde Above his javelins, carved at set of moon From the ever-sacred holly stem, had breathed Vain consecration, and with futile salve Anointed them ; confuted soon they sailed In ignominy adown that seaward tide With him that hurled them. Eterconnel next, Dalot, and Cuir: — yet he who laid them low

Was beardless at the lip. While thus they strove, A second month went by.

Such things beholding, The queen was moved ; and in her grew one day Craving for Cruachan. But on her ear Rolled forth that hour the lowings of that Bull, Cualgn^'s Donn ; for he from Dare's house Had heard, though far, the clamours of the host. And answered rage with rage. Then Meave resolved, " Though all my host should perish to a man, This foot shall tread no more my native plains Save with that Bull in charge ! "

To her by night Came Caihtin, who ever walked by night Shunning mankind, and Fergus most of all, — Caihtin, father of the Magic Clan, And thus addressed her : " Place in me thy trust ; I hate Cuchullain, for he scorns my spells, Resting his hope on virtue. In thy camp Ferdia bides, a Firbolg feared of all. Win him to meet Cuchullain. They in youth Were friends ; to slay that friend will lay a hand Icy as death upon Cuchullain's heart. Ferdia dies — thus much mine art foreshews ; Then I, since magic spells have puissance most Not on the body sick but spirit depressed. Fall on him with my seven and twenty sons, Magicians all. One are we ; thence with one May fight, thy pledge unflawed. A drop of blood Shed by our swords, though small as beetle's eye.

CUCHULLAIM 21

Costs him his Hfe." Fiercely the queen replied, " A Firbolg ! Never ! " CaiUtin resumed : "Then send for Lok Mac Favesh ! "

With the morn Mac Favesh sought her tent. Direful his mien ; Massive his stride ; his body brawny and huge ; For, though of Gaelic race, the stock of Ir, With him was mingled giant blood of old, Wild blood of Nemedh's brood, that hurled sea rocks 'Gainst the Fomorian. Oft the advancing tide Drowned both, in battle knit. Before the queen Boastful the sea-king laid his club, and spake : '' Queen, though to combat with a beardless boy Affronts my name, my lineage, and my strength. His petulance shall vex thine eye no more ! Uladh is thine to-morrow ! " At the dawn. By hundreds girt, the great ones of his clan, Down drave he to the ford, and onward strode Trampling the last year's branches strewn hard by That snapped beneath him. Hides of oxen seven , Sustained the brazen bosses of his shield ; And forth he stretched a hand that might have grasped A tiger's throat and choked him. O'er his helm Hovered an imaged demon raven-black. Cuchullain met him ; hours endured the strife, That mountained strength triumphant now, anon Cuchullain's might divine. Then first that might Was fully tasked. Upon the bank that day Stood up a Portent seen by none save him, A Shape not human. Terribly it fixed

On him alone its never-wandering eye ;

The dread Mor Reega, she that from the skies

O'er rules the battle-fields, and sways at will,

This way or that, the sable tides of death.

He gazed ; and, though incapable of fear,

Awe, such as heroes feel, possessed his heart ;

Its beatings shook his brain ; his corporal mould

Throbbed as a branch against some river swift ;

And backward turned his hair like berried trails

Of thorn athwart the hedge. Three several times

He saw her, yet fought on. With beckoning hand

At last that Portent summoned from the main

A huge sea-snake ; round him it twined its knots ;

Then on CuchuUain fell the rage from heaven ;

A sword-blow, and that vast sea-worm lay dead !

A sword uplifted, and Mac Favesh fell

Prone on the shuddering flood. In death he cried :

" Lay me with forehead turned to Uladh's realm ; —

They shall not say that fugitive I died."

CuchuUain wrought his will ; then, bleeding fast.

Stood upright, leaning on his spear aslant ;

A warrior battle-wearied.

From the bank Meantime, the dark magician, Cailitin, He and his sons, with wide and greedy eyes, That still, like one man's eyes, together moved. Had watched that fight, counting each drop that fell Down from Cuchullain's wounds. When faint he

stood, At once their cry rang out like one man's cry ;

Like one their seven and twenty javelins flew ; As swift, Cuchullain caught them on his shield ; An instant more, and all that horde accursed Was dealing with him. From the trampled ford Went up a mist of spray that veiled that strife, Though pierced by demon cries, and flash beside Of demon swords. O'er it at last up-towered, On-borne — such power to blend have spirits impure — A single Form — as when o'er seas storm-laid The watery column reels, and draws from heaven The cloud, and drowns the ship — a single Form, And Head, and Hand, clutching Cuchullain's crest ; Even then he sank not. O'er that mist of spray Glittered his sword. There fell a silence strange ; That spell, which made the many one, dissolved ; Slowly that mist dispersed; and on the sands That false Enchanter lay with all his sons. Black, bleeding bulks of death.

Amid them stood Cuchullain ; near him, seen by him alone, That dread Mor Reega, now benign. She spake : " I hated thee, because thy trust was less In me than Virtue's aid. I hate no more. Be strong ! a trial waits thee worse than this — No man is friend of mine till trial-proved."