SIR AUBREY DE VERE. LVII. JERUSALEM. AND sitt'st thou there, O lost Jerusalem! Bowed down, yet something still of royal state 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, 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. Its way to infant souls!-and was the sod Of Palestine by infant Croises trod? 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; 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, 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, And yet what power is thine! as thou dost sink, 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, Yet love hath made her breast his dwelling-place. And theirs the only wisdom from above. Or to await some more transcendent dower |