SIR AUBREY DE VERE.

LVII.

JERUSALEM.

AND sitt'st thou there, O lost Jerusalem!

Bowed down, yet something still of royal state
Ennobling thee in ruin? Thee the weight

Of age regards not: thou art as the gem

Undimmed by time: yet is the diadem,

And thrones, that make thee like the common Great,

All perished, and thy People desolate;

Thy holiness a scoff, thy power a dream!

The arm of the Omnipotent is on

Thy guiltiness; a living Death art thou;

An all-enduring miracle: for God

Hath set, in record of His slaughtered Son,
His ineffaceable seal upon thy brow;

And cursed the land a dying Saviour trod!

LVIII.

THE CHILDREN BAND.

(THE CRUSADers. NO. V.)

ALL holy influences dwell within

The breast of Childhood: instincts fresh from God

Inspire it, ere the heart beneath the rod

Of grief hath bled, or caught the plague of sin.
How mighty was that fervour which could win

Its way to infant souls!-and was the sod

Of Palestine by infant Croises trod?
Like Joseph went they forth, or Benjamin,
In all their touching beauty, to redeem?

And did their soft lips kiss the sepulchre?

Alas! the lovely pageant, as a dream,

Faded! they sank not through ignoble fear; They felt not Moslem steel. By mountain, stream, In sands, in fens, they died-no mother near!

AUBREY DE VERE (THE YOUNGER).

LIX.

THE SUN-GOD.

I SAW the Master of the Sun. He stood

High in his luminous car, himself more bright;
An Archer of immeasurable might:

On his left shoulder hung his quivered load;

Spurned by his steeds the eastern mountains glowed; Forward his eager eye, and brow of light

He bent; and, while both hands that arch embowed, Shaft after shaft pursued the flying night.

No wings profaned that god-like form around His neck high-held an ever-moving crowd

Of locks hung glistening: while such perfect sound Fell from his bowstring, that th' ethereal dome Thrilled as a dew-drop; and each passing cloud Expanded, whitening like the ocean foam.

LX.

THE SETTING OF THE MOON NEAR CORINTH.

FROM that dejected brow in silence beaming

A light it seems too feeble to retain,

A sad calm tearful light through vapours gleaming,
Slowly thou sinkest on the Ægean main;

To me an image, in thy placid seeming

Of some fair mourner who will not complain;

Of one whose cheek is pale, whose eyes are streaming,
Whose sighs are heaved unheard,—not heaved in vain.

And yet what power is thine! as thou dost sink,
Down sliding slow along that azure hollow,
The great collected Deep thy course doth follow,
Amorous the last of those faint smiles to drink;

And all his lifted fleets in thee obey

The symbol of an unpresuming sway!

AUBREY DE VERE (THE YOUNGER).

LXI.

HER BEAUTY.

A TRANCËD beauty dwells upon her face,
A lustrous summer-calm of peace and prayer;
In those still eyes the keenest gaze can trace
No sad disturbance, and no touch of care.
Peace rests upon her lips, and forehead fair,
And temples unadorned. A cloistral grace
Says to the gazer over-bold, 'Beware,'

Yet love hath made her breast his dwelling-place.
An awful night abideth with the pure,

And theirs the only wisdom from above.
She seems to listen to some strain obscure
Of music in sidereal regions wove,

Or to await some more transcendent dower
From heaven descending on her like a dove.