The Project Gutenberg EBook of May Carols, by Aubrey De Vere This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: May Carols Author: Aubrey De Vere Release Date: October 16, 2012 [EBook #41077] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAY CAROLS *** Produced by Don Kostuch [Transcriber's Notes:] This text is derived from http://archive.org/details/maycarolspoems00veregoog Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. Dedicated to Fr. Richard Trout who brings his love of Christ and the Virgin Mary to life in his preaching at Corpus Christi Parish. "Thanks for the homilies." [End Transcriber's Notes:] _By the same Author._ I. THE SEARCH AFTER PEOSEEPINE, and Other Poems. 12mo 7s. 6d. J. H. and J. Parker, Oxford and London. II. POEMS (MISCELLANEOUS AND SACRED). Fcap. 8vo 4s. 6d. Burns and Lambert, London. MAY CAROLS. London: Printed by Spottiswoode & Co New-street Square. MAY CAROLS. BY AUBREY DE VERE. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, & ROBERTS. 1857. _The right of translation is reserved._ TO THE VERY REVEREND HENRY EDWARD MANNING THESE POEMS ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED {v} INTRODUCTION. The wisdom of the Church, which consecrates the fleeting seasons of Time to the interests of Eternity, has dedicated the month of May (the birthday festival, as it were, of Creation) to her who was ever destined in the Divine Counsels to become the Mother of her Creator. It belongs to her, of course, as she is the representative of the Incarnation, and its practical exponent to a world but too apt to forget what it professes to hold. The following Poems, written in her honour, are an attempt to set forth, though but in mere outline, each of them some one of the great Ideas or essential Principles embodied in that all-embracing Mystery. On a topic so comprehensive, converse statements, at one time illustrating the highest excellence compatible with mere creaturely existence, at another, the infinite distance between the chief of creatures and the Creator, may seem, at first sight, and to some eyes, contradictory, although in reality, mutually correlative. On an attentive perusal, however, that harmony which exists among the {vi} many portions of a single mastering Truth, can hardly fail to appear--and with it the scope and aim of this Poem. With the meditative, descriptive pieces have been interspersed. They are an attempt towards a Christian rendering of external nature. Nature, like Art, needs to be spiritualised, unless it is to remain a fortress in the hands of an adverse Power. The visible world is a passive thing, which ever takes its meaning from something above itself. In Pagan times, it drew its interpretation from Pantheism; and to Pantheism--nay, to that Idolatry which is the popular application of Pantheism--it has still a secret, though restrained tendency, not betrayed by literature alone. A World without Divinity, Matter without Soul, is intolerable to the human mind. Yet, on the other hand, there is much in fallen human nature which shrinks from the sublime thought of a Creator, and rests on that of a sheathed Divinity diffused throughout the universe, its life, not its maker. Mere personified elements, the Wood-God and River-Nymph, captivate the fancy and do not over-awe the soul. For a bias so seductive, no cure is to be found save in authentic Christianity, the only practical Theism. The whole truth, on the long run, holds its own better than the half truth; and minds repelled by the thought of a God who stands afar off, and created the universe but to abandon it to general laws, fling themselves at the feet of a God made Man. In other words, {vii} the Incarnation is the _Complement_ of Creation. In it is revealed the true nature of that link which binds together the visible and invisible worlds. When the "Word was made Flesh," a bridge was thrown across that gulf which had else for ever separated the Finite from the Infinite. The same high Truth which brings home to us the doctrine of a Creation, consecrates that Creation, reconstituting it into an Eden meet for an unfallen Adam and an unfallen Eve; nay, exalting it into a heavenly Jerusalem, the dwelling-place of the Lamb and of the Bride. It does this, in part, through symbols and associations founded on the all-cleansing Blood and the all-sanctifying Spirit --symbols and associations the reverse of those in which an Epicurean mythology took delight, and which the very superficial alone can confound with such. This is perhaps the aspect of Religion least above the level of Poetry. As to its form, the present work belongs to the class of serial poems, a species of composition happily revived in recent times, as by Wordsworth, in his "Ecclesiastical Sketches," and "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty," by Landor, and, with preeminent success, by the author of "In Memoriam." It was in common use among our earlier poets, who derived it from Petrarch and the Italians. Most often the interest of such poems was of a personal sort, as in the serial sonnets of Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, Drummond, Daniel, and Drayton; as well as the "Aurora" of Lord {viii} Stirling, and the "Astrea" of Sir John Davies. Occasionally, it was of a more abstract character. In both cases, alike, advantage was derived from a method of writing which unites an indefinite degree of continuity with a somewhat lawless variety, and which gains in brevity by the omission of connecting bonds. In Herbert's "Temple," Vaughan's "Silex Scintillans," and the chief poems of Donne and Crashaw, the unity is but that of kindred thoughts, and a common subject, not of a complete design. Habington's "Castara," a noble work too little known, combines a personal with an abstract interest. In it many poems on religious and philosophical subjects are grouped for support round a single centre; that centre being the sustained homage paid by the poet to one not unworthy, apparently, of his reverence and love. {ix}{x}{xi}{xii} CONTENTS PAGE Prologue xv PART I. Who feels not, when the Spring once more 3 Upon Thy face, O God, thy world 5 All but unutterable Name 6 Sancta Maria 7 Dei Genitrix 8 Virgo Virginum 9 Ascending from the convent-grates 11 Adolescentulae amaverunt te nimis 12 Mater Christi 13 Mater Christi 14 Mater Creatoris 15 Mater Salvatoris 16 Mater Dolorosa 17 Mater Dolorosa 18 Mater Admirabilis 19 Mater Amabilis 20 Mater Filii 21 Mater Divinae Gratiae 22 Mater Divinae Gratiae 23 When April's sudden sunset cold 24 As children when, with heavy tread 25 Mariae Cliens 26 Fest. Visitationis 28 Not yet, not yet! the Season sings 29 Fest. Nativitatis B.V.M. 30 The moon, ascending o'er a mass 32 A dream came to me while the night 33 Fest. Purificationis 34 Fest. Epiphaniae 35 The sunless day is sweeter yet 36 Legenda 37 PART II. Conservabat in Corde 41 Ascensio Domini 42 Ascensio Domini 43 Elias 44 Stronger and steadier every hour 45 Speculum Justitiae 46 Munera 48 Predestinata 49 Three worlds there are:--the first of Sense-- 51 Alas! not only loveliest eyes 52 Idolatria 53 Tota Pulchra 55 Stella Matutina 57 Janua Coeli 58 If sense of Man's unworthiness 60 Causa Nostra Laetitiae 61 Stella Maris 62 Blossom for ever, blossoming Rod! 64 Unica 65 Magnificat 66 Mystica 67 Expectatio 68 Still on the gracious work proceeds 70 Turris Eburnea 71 Who doubts that thou art finite? Who 73 They seek not; or amiss they seek 74 A sudden sun-burst in the woods 75 Dominica Pentecostes 76 Dominica Pentecostes 78 Turris Davidica 79 "Tu sola interemisti omnes Haereses" 80 PART III. In vain thine altars do they heap 83 Babylon 84 The golden rains are dashed against 85 Sedes Sapientiae 86 Sedes Sapientiae 87 Here, in this paradise of light 88 Fest. B.V.M. de Monte Carmelo 89 Come from the midnight mountain tops 91 Advocata Nostra 92 Thronus Trinitatis 93 Cultus Sanctorum 94 Fest. S. S. Trinitatis 96 Where is the crocus now, that first 98 "Ad Nives" 99 Fest. Puritatis 101 Cloud-piercing Mountains! Chance and Change 103 Foederis Arca 104 Domus Aurea 105 Respexit Humilitatem 106 Respexit Humilitatem 107 "Sine Labe originali Concepta" 109 "Sine Labe originali Concepta" 110 Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold 111 Corpus Christi 112 Corpus Christi 114 Pleasant the swarm about the bough 115 Sing on, wide winds, your anthems vast 116 Coeli enarrant 117 Caro factus est 119 A woman "clothed with the sun" 121 No ray or all their silken sheen 122 Epilogue 125 _PROLOGUE._ That sun-eyed Power which stands sublime Upon the rock that crowns our globe, Her feet on all the spoils of time, With light eternal on her robe, She, sovereign of the orb she guides, On Truth's broad sun may root a gaze That deepens, onward as she rides, And shrinks not from the fontal blaze: But they--her daughter Arts--must hide Within the cleft, content to see Dim skirts of glory waving wide, And steps of parting Deity. 'Tis theirs to watch Religion break In types from Nature's frown or smile, The legend rise from out the lake, The relic consecrate the isle. 'Tis theirs to adumbrate and suggest; To point toward founts of buried lore; Leaving, in reverence, unexpressed What Man must know not, yet adore. For where her court true Wisdom keeps, 'Mid loftier handmaids, one there stands Dark as the midnight's starry deeps, A Slave, gem-crowned, from Nubia's sands. O thou whose light is in thy heart Love-taught Submission! without thee Science may soar awhile; but Art Drifts barren o'er a shoreless sea. {3} MAY CAROLS PART I. MAY CAROLS. PART I. I. Who feels not, when the Spring once more, Stepping o'er Winter's grave forlorn With winged feet, retreads the shore Of widowed Earth, his bosom burn? As ordered flower succeeds to flower, And May the ladder of her sweets Ascends, advancing hour by hour From scale to scale, what heart but beats? Some Presence veiled, in fields and groves, That mingles rapture with remorse;-- Some buried joy beside us moves, And thrills the soul with such discourse {4} As they, perchance, that wondering pair Who to Emmaus bent their way, Hearing, heard not. Like them our prayer We make:--"The night is near us . . Stay!" With Paschal chants the churches ring; Their echoes strike along the tombs; The birds their Hallelujahs sing; Each flower with floral incense fumes. Our long-lost Eden seems restored; As on we move with tearful eyes We feel through all the illumined sward Some upward-working Paradise. {5} II. Upon Thy face, O God, Thy world Looks ever up in love and awe; Thy stars, in circles onward hurled, Still weave the sacred chain of law. In alternating antiphons Stream sings to stream and sea to sea; And moons that set and sinking suns Obeisance make, O God, to Thee. The swallow, winter's rage o'erblown, Again, on warm May breezes borne, Revisiteth her haunts well-known; The lark is faithful to the morn. The whirlwind, missioned with its wings To drown the fleet and fell the tower, Obeys thee as the bird that sings Her love-chant in a fleeting shower. Amid an ordered universe Man's spirit only dares rebel:-- With light, O God, its darkness pierce! With love its raging chaos quell! {6} III. All but unutterable Name! Adorable, yet awful, sound! Thee can the sinful nations frame Save with their foreheads to the ground? Soul-searching and all-cleansing Fire! To see Thy countenance were to die: Yet how beyond the bound retire Of Thy serene immensity? Thou mov'st beside us, if the spot We change--a noteless, wandering tribe; The orbits of our life and thought In Thee their little arcs describe. In the dead calm, at cool of day, We hear Thy voice, and turn, and flee:-- Thy love outstrips us on our way: From Thee, O God, we fly--to Thee. {7} _Sancta Maria._ IV. Mary! To thee the humble cry. What seek they? Gifts to Pride unknown. They seek thy help--to pass thee by:-- They murmur, "Show us but thy Son." The childlike heart shall enter in; The virgin soul its God shall see:-- Mother, and maiden pure from sin, Be thou the guide: the Way is He. The mystery high of God made Man Through thee to man is easier made: Pronounce the consonant who can Without the softer vowel's aid! {8} _Dei Genitrix._ V. I see Him: on thy lap He lies 'Mid that Judaean stable's gloom: O sweet, O awful Sacrifice! He smiles in sleep, yet knows His doom. Thou gav'st Him life! But was not this That life which knows no parting breath? Unmeasured life? unwaning bliss Dread Priestess, lo! thou gav'st Him death! Beneath the tree thy mother stood: Beneath the cross thou too shalt stand:-- O Tree of Life! O bleeding Rood! Thy shadow stretches far its hand. That God who made the sun and moon In swaddling bands lies dumb and bound!-- Love's Captive! darker prison soon Awaits Thee in the garden ground. He wakens. Paradise looks forth Beyond the portals of the grave. Life, life thou gavest! life to Earth, Not Him. Thine Infant dies to save. {9} _Virgo Virginum._ VI. When from their lurking place the Voice Of God dragged forth that fallen pair, Still seemed the garden to rejoice; The sinless Eden still was fair. They, they alone, whose light of grace But late made Paradise look dim, Stood now, a blot upon its face, Before their God; nor gazed on Him. They glanced not up; or they had seen In that severe, death-dooming eye Unutterable depths serene Of sadly-piercing sympathy. Not them alone that Eye beheld, But, by their side, that other Twain, In whom the race whose doom was knelled Once more should rise; once more should reign. {10} It saw that Infant crowned with blood;-- And her from whose predestined breast That Infant ruled the worlds. She stood, Her foot upon the serpent's crest! Voice of primeval prophecy! She who makes glad whatever heart Adores her Son and Saviour, she In thee, that hour, possessed a part! {11} VII. Ascending from the convent-grates, The children mount the woodland vale. 'Tis May-Day Eve; and Hesper waits To light them, while the western gale Blows softly on their bannered line: And, lo! down all the mountain stairs The shepherd children come to join The convent children at their prayers. They meet before Our Lady's fane: On yonder central rock it stands, Uplifting, ne'er invoked in vain, That cross which blesses all the lands. Before the porch the flowers are flung; The lamp hangs glittering 'neath the Rood; The "Maris Stella" hymn is sung; Their chant each morn to be renewed. Ah! if a secular muse might dare, Far off, the children's song to catch; To echo back, or burthen bear!-- As fitly might she hope to match The linnet's note as theirs, 'tis true: Yet, now and then, that borrowed tone, Like sunbeams flashed on pine or yew, Might shoot a sweetness through her own! {12} _Adolescentulae amaverunt te nimis._ VIII. "Behold! the wintry rains are past; The airs of midnight hurt no more: The young maids love thee. Come at last: Thou lingerest at the garden-door. "Blow over all the garden; blow, Thou wind that breathest of the south, Through all the alleys winding low, With dewy wing and honeyed mouth. "But wheresoever thou wanderest, shape Thy music ever to one Name:-- Thou too, clear stream, to cave and cape Be sure thou whisper of the same. "By every isle and bower of musk Thy crystal clasps, as on it curls, We charge thee, breathe it to the dusk; We charge thee, grave it in thy pearls." The stream obeyed. That Name he bore Far out above the moon-lit tide. The breeze obeyed. He breathed it o'er The unforgetting pines; and died. {13} _Mater Christi._ IX. Daily beneath His mother's eyes Her Lamb matured His lowliness: Twas hers the lovely Sacrifice With fillet and with flower to dress. Beside His little cross He knelt; With human-heavenly lips He prayed: His Will within her will she felt; And yet His Will her will obeyed. Gethsemané! when day is done Thy flowers with falling dews are wet: Her tears fell never; for the sun Those tears that brightened never set. The house was silent as that shrine The priest but entered once a year. There shone His emblem. Light Divine! Thy presence and Thy power was here! {14} _Mater Christi._ X. He willed to lack; He willed to bear; He willed by suffering to be schooled; He willed the chains of flesh to wear: Yet from her arms the worlds He ruled. As tapers 'mid the noontide glow With merged yet separate radiance burn, With human taste and touch, even so, The things He knew He willed to learn. He sat beside the lowly door: His homeless eyes appeared to trace In evening skies remembered lore, And shadows of His Father's face. One only knew Him. She alone Who nightly to His cradle crept, And lying like the moonbeam prone, Worshipped her Maker as He slept. {15} _Mater Creatoris._ XI. Bud forth a Saviour, Earth! fulfil Thy first of functions, ever new! Balm-dropping heaven, for aye distil Thy grace like manna or like dew! "To us, this day, a Child is born.'" Heaven knows not mere historic facts:-- Celestial mysteries, night and morn, Live on in ever-present Acts. Calvary's dread Victim in the skies On God's great altar rests even now: The Pentecostal glory lies For ever round the Church's brow. From Son and Father, He, the Lord Of Love and Life, proceeds alway: Upon the first creative word Creation, trembling, hangs for aye. Nor less ineffably renewed Than when on earth the tie began, Is that mysterious Motherhood Which re-creates the worlds and man. {16} _Mater Salvatoris._ XII. O Heart with His in just accord! O Soul His echo, tone for tone! O Spirit that heard, and kept His word! O Countenance moulded like His own! Behold, she seemed on Earth to dwell; But, hid in light, alone she sat Beneath the Throne ineffable, Chanting her clear Magnificat. Fed from the boundless heart of God, The joy within her rose more high And all her being overflowed, Until the awful hour was nigh. Then, then, there crept her spirit o'er The shadow of that pain world-wide Whereof her Son the substance bore:-- Him offering, half in Him she died; Standing like that strange Moon, whereon The mask of Earth lies dim and dead, An orb of glory, shadow-strewn, Yet girdled with a luminous thread. {17} _Mater Dolorosa._ XIII. She stood: she sank not. Slowly fell Adown the Cross the atoning blood. In agony ineffable She offered still His own to God. No pang of His her bosom spared; She felt in Him its several power. But she in heart His Priesthood shared: She offered Sacrifice that hour. "Behold thy Son!" Ah, last bequest! It breathed His last farewell! The sword Predicted pierced that hour her breast. She stood: she answered not a word. His own in John He gave. She wore Thenceforth the Mother-crown of Earth. O Eve! thy sentence too she bore; Like thee in sorrow she brought forth. {18} _Mater Dolorosa._ XIV. From her He passed: yet still with her The endless thought of Him found rest; A sad but sacred branch of myrrh For ever folded in her breast. A Boreal winter void of light-- So seemed her widowed days forlorn: She slept; but in her breast all night Her heart lay waking till the morn. Sad flowers on Calvary that grew;-- Sad fruits that ripened from the Cross;-- These were the only joys she knew: Yet all but these she counted loss. Love strong as Death! She lived through thee That mystic life whose every breath From Life's low harpstring amorously Draws out the sweetened name of Death. Love stronger far than Death or Life! Thy martyrdom was o'er at last Her eyelids drooped; and without strife To Him she loved her spirit passed. {19} _Mater Admirabilis._ XV. O Mother-Maid! to none save thee Belongs in full a Parent's name; So fruitful thy Virginity, Thy Motherhood so pure from blame! All other parents, what are they? Thy types. In them thou stood'st rehearsed, (As they in bird, and bud, and spray). Thine Antitype? The Eternal First! Prime Parent He: and next Him thou! Overshadowed by the Father's Might, Thy "Fiat" was thy bridal vow; Thine offspring He, the "Light of Light." Her Son Thou wert: her Son Thou art, O Christ! Her substance fed Thy growth:-- She shaped Thee in her virgin heart, Thy Mother and Thy Father both! {20} _Mater Amabilis._ XVI. Mother of Love! Thy love to Him Cherub and seraph can but guess:-- A mother sees its image dim In her own breathless tenderness. That infant touch none else could feel Vibrates like light through all her sense: Far off she hears his cry: her zeal With lions fights in his defence. Unmarked his youth goes by: his hair Still smooths she down, still strokes apart: The first white thread that meets her there Glides, like a dagger, through her heart. Men praise him: on her matron cheek There dawns once more a maiden red. Of war, of battle-fields they speak: She sees once more his father dead. In sickness--half in sleep--she hears His foot, ere yet that foot is nigh: Wakes with a smile; and scarcely fears, If he but clasp her hand, to die. {21} _Mater Filii._ XVII. Others, the hours of youth gone by, A mother's hearth and home forsake; And, with the need, the filial tie Relaxes, though it does not break. But Thou wert born to be a Son. God's Son in heaven, Thy will was this, To pass the chain of Sonship on, And bind in one whatever is. Thou cam'st the _Son_ of Man to be, That so Thy brethren too might bear Adoptive Sonship, and with Thee Thy Sire's eternal kingdom share. Transcendently the Son Thou art: In this mysterious bond entwine, As in a single, two-celled heart, Thy natures, human and divine. {22} _Mater Divinae Gratiae._ XVIII. "They have no wine." The tender guest Was grieved their feast should lack for aught. He seemed to slight her mute request: Not less the grace she wished He wrought. O great in Love! O full of Grace! That winds in thee, a river broad, From Christ, with heaven-reflecting face, Gladdening the City of thy God:-- Be this thy gift: that man henceforth No more should creep through life content (Draining the springs impure of earth) With life's material element. Let sacraments to sense succeed: Let nought be winning, nought be good Which fails of Him to speak, and bleed Once more with His all-cleansing blood! {23} _Mater Divinae Gratiae._ XIX. The gifts a mother showers each day Upon her softly-clamorous brood: The gifts they value but for play,-- The graver gifts of clothes and food,-- Whence come they but from him who sows With harder hand, and reaps, the soil; The merit of his labouring brows, The guerdon of his manly toil? From Him the Grace: through her it stands Adjusted, meted, and applied; And ever, passing through her hands, Enriched it seems, and beautified. Love's mirror doubles Love's caress: Love's echo to Love's voice is true:-- Their Sire the children love not less Because they clasp a Mother too. {24} XX. When April's sudden sunset cold Through boughs half-clothed with watery sheen Bursts on the high, new-cowslipped wold, And bathes a world half gold half green, Then shakes the illuminated air With din of birds; the vales far down Grow phosphorescent here and there; Forth flash the turrets of the town; Along the sky thin vapours scud; Bright zephyrs curl the choral main; The wild ebullience of the blood Rings joy-bells in the heart and brain: Yet in that music discords mix; The unbalanced lights like meteors play; And, tired of splendours that perplex, The dazzled spirit sighs for May. {25} XXI. As children when, with heavy tread, Men sad of face, unseen before, Have borne away their mother dead-- So stand the nations thine no more. From room to room those children roam, Heart-stricken by the unwonted black: Their house no longer seems their home: They search; yet know not what they lack. Years pass: Self-Will and Passion strike Their roots more deeply day by day; Old servants weep; and "how unlike" Is all the tender neighbours say. And yet at moments, like a dream, A mother's image o'er them flits: Like her's their eyes a moment beam; The voice grows soft; the brow unknits. Such, Mary, are the realms once thine, That know no more thy golden reign. Hold forth from heaven thy Babe divine! O make thine orphans thine again! {26} _Mariae Cliens._ XXII. A little longer on the earth That aged creature's eyes repose (Though half their light and all their mirth Are gone); and then for ever close. She thinks that something done long since Ill pleases God:--or why should He So long delay to take her hence Who waits His will so lovingly? Whene'er she hears the church-bells toll She lifts her head, though not her eyes, With wrinkled hands, but youthful soul, Counting her lip-worn rosaries. And many times the weight of years Falls from her in her waking dreams: A child her mother's voice she hears: To tend her father's steps she seems. {27} Once more she hears the whispering rains On flowers and paths her childhood trod; And of things present nought remains Save the abiding sense of God. Mary! make smooth her downward way! Not dearer to the young thou art Than her. Make glad her latest May; And hold her, dying, on thy heart. {28} _Fest. Visitationis._ XXIII. The hilly region crossed with haste, Its last dark ridge discerned no more, Bright as the bow that spans a waste She stood beside her Cousin's door; And spake:--that greeting came from God! Filled with the Spirit from on high Sublime the aged Mother stood, And cried aloud in prophecy,-- "Soon as thy voice had touched mine ears The child in childless age conceived Leaped up for joy! Throughout all years Blessed the woman who believed." Type of Electing Love! 'tis thine To speak God's greeting from the skies! Thy voice we hear: thy Babe divine At once, like John, we recognise. Within our hearts the second birth Exults, though blind as yet and dumb. The child of Grace his hands puts forth, And prophesies of things to come. {29} XXIV. Not yet, not yet! the Season sings Not of fruition yet, but hope; Still holds aloft, like balanced wings, Her scales, and lets not either drop. The white ash, last year's skeleton, Still glares, uncheered by leaf or shoot, 'Gainst azure heavens, and joy hath none In that fresh violet at her foot. Yet Nature's virginal suspense Is not forgetfulness nor sloth: Where'er we wander, soul and sense Discern a blindly working growth. Her throne once more the daisy takes, That white star of our dusky earth; And the sky-cloistered lark down-shakes Her passion of seraphic mirth. Twixt barren hills and clear cold skies She weaves, ascending high and higher, Songs florid as those traceries Which took, of old, their name from fire. Sing! thou that need'st no ardent clime To sun the sweetness from thy breast; And teach us those delights sublime Wherein ascetic spirits rest! {30} _Fest Nativitatis B.V.M._ XXV. When thou wert born the murmuring world Boiled on, nor dreamed of things to be, From joy to sorrow madly whirled;-- Despair disguised in revelry. A princess thou of David's line; The mother of the Prince of Peace; That hour no royal pomps were thine: The earth alone her boon increase. Before thee poured. September rolled Down all the vine-clad Syrian slopes Her breadths of purple and of gold; And birds sang loud from olive tops. Perhaps old foes, they knew not why, Relented. From a fount long sealed Tears rose, perhaps, to Pity's eye: Love-harvests crowned the barren field. {31} The respirations of the year. At least, grew soft. O'er valleys wide Pine-roughened crags again shone clear; And the great Temple, far descried, To watchers, watching long in vain, To patriots grey, in bondage nursed, Flashed back their hope--"The Second Fane In glory shall surpass the First!" {32} XXVI. The moon, ascending o'er a mass Of tangled yew and sable pine, What sees she in yon watery glass? A tearful countenance divine. Far down, the winding hills between, A sea of vapour bends for miles, Unmoving. Here and there, dim-seen, The knolls above it rise like isles. The tall rock glimmers, spectre-white; The cedar in its sleep is stirred; At times the bat divides the night; At times the far-off flood is heard. Above, that shining blue!--below, That shining mist! O, not more pure Midwinter's landscape, robed in snow, And fringed with frosty garniture. The fragrance of the advancing year-- That, that assures us it is May. Ah, tell me! in the heavenlier sphere Must all of earth have passed away? {33} XXVII. A dream came to me while the night Thinned off before the breath of morn, Which filled my soul with such delight As hers who clasps a babe new-born. I saw--in countenance like a child-- (Three years methought were hers, no more) That maid and mother undefiled The Saviour of the world who bore. A nun-like veil was o'er her thrown; Her locks by fillet-bands made fast, Swiftly she climbed the steps of stone;-- Into the Temple swiftly passed. Not once she paused her breath to take; Not once cast back a homeward look:-- As longs the hart his thirst to slake, When noontide rages, in the brook, So longed that child to live for God; So pined, from earth's enthralments free, To bathe her wholly in the flood Of God's abysmal purity! Anna and Joachim from far Their eyes on that white vision raised: And when, like caverned foam or star Cloud-hid, she vanished, still they gazed. {34} _Fest. Purificationis._ XXVIII. Twelve years had passed, and, still a child, In brightness of the unblemished face, Once more she scaled those steps, and smiled On Him who slept in her embrace. As in she passed there fell a calm Around: each bosom slowly rose Like the long branches of the palm When under them the south wind blows. The scribe forgot his wordy lore; The chanted psalm was heard far off; Hushed was the clash of golden ore; And hushed the Sadducean scoff. Type of the Christian Church! 'twas thine To offer, first, to God that hour, Thy Son--the Sacrifice Divine, The Church's everlasting dower! Great Priestess! round that aureoled brow Which cloud or shadow ne'er had crossed, Began there not that hour to grow A milder dawn of Pentecost? {35} _Fest. Epiphaniae._ XXIX. A veil is on the face of Truth: She prophesies behind a cloud; She ministers, in robes of ruth, Nocturnal rites, and disallowed. Eleusis hints, but dares not speak; The Orphic minstrelsies are dumb; Lost are the Sibyl's books, and weak Earth's olden faith in Him to come. But ah, but ah, that Orient Star! On straw-roofed shed and large-eyed kine It flashes, guiding from afar The Magians to the Child Divine. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh they bring-- Love, Worship, Life severe and hard: Well pleased the symbol gifts the King Accepts; and Truth is their reward. Rejoice, O Sion, for thy night Is past: the Lord, thy Light, is born. The Gentiles shall behold thy light; The kings walk forward in thy morn. {36} XXX. The sunless day is sweeter yet Than when the golden sun-showers danced On bower new-glazed or rivulet; And Spring her banners first advanced. By wind unshaken hang in dream The wind-flowers o'er their dark green lair; And those thin poppy cups that seem Not bodied forms, but woven of air. Nor bird is heard; nor insect flits. A tear-drop glittering on her cheek, Composed but shadowed, Nature sits-- Yon primrose not more staid and meek. The light of pensive hope unquenched On those pathetic brows and eyes, She sits, by silver dew-showers drenched, Through which the chill spring-odours rise. Was e'er on human countenance shed So sweet a sadness? Once: no more. Then when his charge the Patriarch led Dream-warned to Egypt's distant shore. Down on her Infant Mary gazed; Her face the angels marked with awe; Yet 'neath its dimness, undisplaced, Looked forth that smile the Magians saw. {37} _Legenda._ XXXI. As, flying Herod, southward went That Child and Mother, unamazed, Into Egyptian banishment, The weeders left their work, and gazed. The bright One spake to them and said, "When Herod's messengers demand, "Passed not the Infant, Herod's dread,-- "Passed not the Infant through your land? "Then shall ye answer make, and say, "Behold, since first the corn was green "No little Infant passed this way; "No little Infant we have seen." Earth heard; nor missed the Maid's intent-- As on the Flower of Eden passed With Eden swiftness up she sent A sun-browned harvest ripening fast. By simplest words and sinless wheat The messengers rode back beguiled; And by that truthfullest deceit Which saved the little new-born Child! {38} PART II. {39}{40} {41} PART II. _Conservabat in Corde._ I. As every change of April sky Is imaged in a placid brook, Her meditative memory Mirrored His every deed and look. As suns through summer ether rolled Mature each growth the spring has wrought, So Love's strong day-star turned to gold Her harvests of quiescent thought. Her soul was as a vase, and shone Translucent to an inner ray; Her Maker's finger wrote thereon A mystic Bible new each day. Deep Heart! In all His sevenfold might The Paraclete with thee abode; And, sacramented there in light, Bore witness of the things of God. {42} _Ascensio Domini_. II. 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 led 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, outbrave 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! The sword lies broken at thy feet-- His triumph is thy victory! {43} _Ascensio Domini._ III. I take this reed--I know the hand That wields it must ere long be dust-- And write, upon the fleeting sand Each wind can shake, 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! {44} _Elias._ IV. O thou that rodest up the skies, Thy task fulfilled, on steeds of fire,-- That somewhere, sealed from mortal eyes, Some air immortal dost respire! Thou that in heavenly beams enshrined, In quiet lulled of soul and flesh, With one great thought of God thy mind Dost everlastingly refresh! Where art thou? age succeeds to age; Thou dost not hear their fret and jar: With thy celestial hermitage Successive winters wage not war. Still as a corse with field-flowers strewn Thou liest; on God thine eyes are bent: And the fire-breathing stars alone Look in upon thy cloudy tent. Behold, there is a debt to pay! Like Enoch, hid thou art on high: But both shall back return one day, To gaze once more on earth, and die. {45} V. Stronger and steadier every hour The pulses of the season's glee, As toward her zenith climbs that Power Which rules the purple revelry. Trees, that from winter's grey eclipse Of late but pushed their topmost plume, Or felt with green-touched finger-tips For spring, their perfect robes assume. Like one that reads, not one that spells, The unvarying rivulet onward runs: And bird to bird, from leafier cells, Sends forth more leisurely response. Through the gorse covert bounds the deer:-- The gorse, whose latest splendours won Make all the fulgent wolds appear Bright as the pastures of the sun. A balmier zephyr curls the wave; More purple flames o'er ocean dance; And the white breaker by the cave Falls with more cadenced resonance; While, vague no more, the mountains stand With quivering line or hazy hue; But drawn with finer, firmer hand, And settling into deeper blue. {46} _Speculum Justitiae._ VI. Not in Himself the Eternal Word Lay hid upon creation's day: His Loveliness abroad He poured On all the worlds; and pours for aye. Not in Himself the Incarnate Son, In whom Man's race is born again, His glory hides. The victory won, He rose to send His "Gifts on Men." In sacraments--His dread behests; In Providence; in granted prayer; Before the time He manifests His glory, far as man may bear. He shines not from a vault of gloom; The horizon vast His splendour paints: Both heaven and earth His beams illume; His light is glorious in His saints. {47} He shines upon His Church--that Moon Who, in the watches of the night, Transmits to man the entrusted boon; A sister orb of sacred light. And thou, pure mirror of His grace!-- As sun reflected in a sea-- So, Mary, feeblest eyes the face Of Him thou lovest discern in thee. {48} _Munera._ VII. Not for herself does Mary hold Among the saints that queenly throne, Her seat predestined from of old; But for the brethren of her Son. Pure thoughts that make to God their quest, With her find footing o'er the clouds; Like those sea-crossing birds that rest A moment on the sighing shrouds. In her our hearts, no longer nursed On dust, for spiritual beauty yearn; From her our instincts, as at first, An upward gravitation learn. Her distance makes her not remote: For in true love's supernal sphere No more round self the affections float-- More near to God, to man more near. In her, the weary warfare past, The port attained, the exile o'er, We see the Church's barque at last Close-anchored on the eternal shore! {49} _Predestinata._ VIII. Eternal Beauty, ere the spheres Had rolled from out the gulfs of night, Sparkled, through all the unnumbered years, Before the Eternal Father's sight. Like objects seen by Man in dream, Or landscape glassed on morning mist, Before His eyes it hung--a gleam Flashed from the eternal Thought of Christ. It stood the Archetype sublime Of that fair world of finite things Which, in the bands of Space and Time, Creation's glittering verge enrings. Star-like within the depths serene Of that still vision, Mary, thou With Him, thy Son, of God wert seen Millenniums ere the lucid brow {50} Of Eye o'er Eden founts had bent,-- Millenniums ere that second Fair With dust the hopes of man had blent, And stained the brightness once so fair. Elect of Creatures! Man in thee Beholds that primal Beauty yet,-- Sees all that Man was formed to be,-- Sees all that Man can ne'er forget! {51} IX. Three worlds there are:--the first of Sense-- That sensuous earth which round us lies; The next of Faith's Intelligence; The third of Glory, in the skies. The first is palpable, but base; The second heavenly, but obscure; The third is star-like in the face-- But ah! remote that world as pure! Yet, glancing through our misty clime, Some sparkles from that loftier sphere Make way to earth;--then most what time The annual spring-flowers re-appear. Amid the coarser needs of earth All shapes of brightness, what are they But wanderers, exiled from their birth, Or pledges of a happier day? Yea, what is Beauty, judged aright, But some surpassing, transient gleam; Some smile from heaven, in waves of light, Rippling o'er life's distempered dream? Or broken memories of that bliss Which rushed through first-born Nature's blood When He who ever was, and is, Looked down, and saw that all was good? {52} X. Alas! not only loveliest eyes, And brows with lordliest lustre bright, But Nature's self--her woods and skies-- The credulous heart can cheat or blight. And why? Because the sin of man Twixt Fair and Good has made divorce; And stained, since Evil first began, That stream so heavenly at its source. O perishable vales and groves! Your master was not made for you; Ye are but creatures: human loves Are to the great Creator due. And yet, through Nature's symbols dim, There are with keener sight that pierce The outward husk, and reach to Him Whose garment is the universe. For this to earth the Saviour came In flesh; in part for this He died; That man might have, in soul and frame, No faculty unsanctified. That Fancy's self--so prompt to lead Through paths disastrous or defiled-- Upon the Tree of Life might feed; And Sense with Soul be reconciled. {53} _Idolatria._ XI. The fancy of an age gone by, When Fancy's self to earth declined, Still thirsting for Divinity, Yet still, through sense, to Godhead blind, Poor mimic of that Truth of old, The patriarchs' hope--a faith revealed-- Compressed its God in mortal mould, The prisoner of Creation's field. Nature and Nature's Lord were one! Then countless gods from cloud and stream Glanced forth; from sea, and moon, and sun: So ran the pantheistic dream. And thus the All-Holy, thus the All-True, The One Supreme, the Good, the Just, Like mist was scattered, lost like dew, And vanished in the wayside dust. {54} Mary! through thee the idols fell: When He the nations longed for [Footnote 1] came-- True God yet Man--with man to dwell, The phantoms hid their heads for shame. [Footnote 1: "The Desire of the Nations."] His place or thine removed, ere long The bards would push the sects aside; And lifted by the might of song Olympus stand re-edified. {55} _Tota Pulchra._ XII. A broken gleam on wave and flower-- A music that in utterance dies-- O Poets, and O Men! what more Is all that Beauty which ye prize? And ah! how oft Corruption works Through that brief Beauty's force or wile! How oft a gloom eternal lurks Beneath an evanescent smile! But thou, serene and smiling light Of every grace redeemed from Sense, In thee all harmonies unite That charm a pure Intelligence. Whatever teaches mind or heart To God by loveliest types to mount, Mary, is thine. Of each true Art The parent art thou, and the fount. {56} Those pictures, fair as moon or star, The ages dear to Faith brought forth, Formed but the illumined calendar Of her, that Church which knows thy worth. Not less doth Nature teach through thee That mystery hid in hues and lines: Who loves thee not hath lost the key To all her sanctuaries and shrines. {57} _Stella Matutina._ XIII. Shine out, O Star, and sing the praise Of that unrisen Sun whose glow Thus feeds thee with thine earlier rays-- The secret of thy song we know. Thou sing'st that Sun of Righteousness, Sole light of this benighted globe, Whose beams, reflected, dressed and dress His Mother in her shining robe. Pale Lily, pearled around with dew, Lift high that heaven-illumined vase, And sing the glories ever new Of her, God's chalice, "full of grace." Cerulean Ocean, fringed with white, That wear'st her colours evermore, In all thy pureness, all thy might, Resound her name from shore to shore. That fringe of foam, when drops the sun To-night, a sanguine stain shall wear:-- Thus Mary's heart had strength, alone, The passion of her Lord to share. {58} _Janua Coeli._ XIV. The night through yonder cloudy cleft, With many a lingering last regard, Withdraws--but slowly--and hath left Her mantle on the dewy sward. The lawns with silver dews are strewn; The winds lie hushed in cave and tree; Nor stirs a flower, save one alone That bends beneath the earliest bee. Peace over all the garden broods; Pathetic sweets the thickets throng; Like breath the vapour o'er the woods Ascends--dim woods without a song: Or hangs, a shining, fleece-like mass O'er half yon lake that winds afar Among the forests, still as glass, The mirror of that Morning Star {59} Which, halfway wandering from the sky, Amid the rose of morn delays And (large and less alternately) Bends down a lustrous, tearful gaze. Mother and home of spirits blest! Bright gate of Heaven and golden bower! Thy best of blessings, love and rest, Depart not till on earth thou shower! {60} XV. If sense of Man's unworthiness With Nature's blameless looks at strife, Should wake with wakening May, and press New-born contentment out of life: If thoughts of sable breed and blind Should stamp upon the springing flower, Or blacker memories haunt the mind As ravens haunt the ruined tower:-- O then how sweet in heart to breathe Those pure Judean gales once more; From Bethlehem's crib to Nazareth In heart to tread that Syrian shore! To watch that star-like Infant bring To one of soul as clear and white May-lilies, fresh from Siloa's spring, Or Passion-flower with May-dews bright! To follow, earlier yet, the feet Of her the "hilly land" who trod With true love's haste, intent to greet That aged saint beloved of God. Before her, like a stream let loose, The long vale's flowerage, winding, ran: Nature resumed her Eden use; And Earth was reconciled with Man. {61} _Causa Nostra Laetitiae._ XVI. Whate'er is floral on the earth To thee, O Flower, of right belongs; Whate'er is musical in mirth, Whate'er is jubilant in songs. Childhood and springtide never cease For him thy freshness keeps from stain: Dew-drenched for him, like Gideon's fleece, The dusty paths of life remain. Spirit of Brightness and of Bliss! Thou threaten'st none! A sinless lure, Thy fragrance and thy gladsomeness Draw on to Christ; to Christ secure. Hope, Hope is Strength! That joy of thine To us is Glory's earliest ray! Through Faith's dim air, O star benign, Look down, and light our onward way! {62} _Stella Maris._ XVII. I left at morn that blissful shore O'er which the fruit-bloom fluttered free; And sailed the wildering waters o'er, Till sunset streaked with blood the sea. My sleep the hoarse sea-thunders broke, And sudden chill. Their feet foam-hid, Huge cliffs leaned out, through vapour-smoke, Like tower, and tomb, and pyramid. In the black shadow, ghostly white The breaker raced o'er foaming shoals: From caverns of eternal night Came wailings, as of suffering souls. Sudden, through clearing mists, the star Of ocean o'er the billow rose: Down dropped the elemental war; Tormented chaos found repose. {63} Star of the ocean! dear art thou, Ah! not to earth and heaven alone: The suffering Church, when shines thy brow Upon her penance, stays her moan. The Holy Souls draw in their breath; The sea of anguish rests in peace; And, from beyond the gates of death, Up swell the anthems of release. {64} XVIII. Blossom for ever, blossoming Rod! Thou did'st not blossom once to die: That Life which, issuing forth from God, Thy life enkindled, runs not dry. Without a root in sin-stained earth, 'Twas thine to bud Salvation's flower. No single soul the Church brings forth But blooms from thee and is thy dower. Rejoice, O Eve! thy promise waned; Transgression nipt thy flower with frost But, lo! a mother man hath gained Holier than she in Eden lost. {65} _Unica._ XIX. While all the breathless woods aloof Lie hush'd in noontide's deep repose, That dove, sun-warmed on yonder roof, With what a grave content she coos! One note for her! Deep streams run smooth The ecstatic song of transience tells. O what a depth of loving truth In thy divine contentment dwells! All day, with down-dropt lids, I sat, In trance; the present scene forgone. When Hesper rose, on Ararat, Methought, not English hills, he shone. Back to the ark, the waters o'er, The primal dove pursued her flight: A branch of that blest tree she bore Which feeds the Church with holy light. I heard her rustling through the air With sliding plume--no sound beside, Save the sea-sobbings everywhere, And sighs of that subsiding tide. {66} _Magnificat._ XX. She took the timbrel, as the tide Rushed, refluent, up the Red Sea shore: "The Lord hath triumphed," she cried: Her song rang out above the roar Of lustral waves that, wall to wall, Fell back upon the host abhorred: Above the gloomy watery pall, As eagles soar, her anthem soared. Miriam, rejoice! a mightier far Than thou, one day shall sing with thee! Who rises, brightening like a star Above yon bright baptismal sea? That harp which David touched who rears Heaven-high above those waters wide? The Prophet-Queen! Throughout all years She sings the Triumph of the Bride! {67} _Mystica._ XXI. As pebbles flung for sport, that leap Along the superficial tide, But enter not those chambers deep Wherein the beds of pearl abide; Such those light minds that, grazing, spurn The surface text of Sacred Lore, Yet ne'er its deeper sense discern, Its hails of mystery ne'er explore. Ah! not for such the unvalued gems; The priceless pearls of Truth they miss: Not theirs the starry diadems That light God's temple in the abyss! Ah! not for such to gaze on her That moves through all that empire pale; At every shrine doth minister, Yet never drops her vestal veil. "The letter kills." Make pure thy Will; So shalt thou pierce the Text's disguise: Till then, revere the veil that still Hides truth from truth-affronting eyes. {68} _Expectatio._ XXII. A sweet exhaustion seems to hold In spells of calm the shrouded eve: The gorse itself a beamless gold Puts forth:--yet nothing seems to grieve. The dewy chaplets hang on air; The willowy fields are silver-grey; Sad odours wander here and there;-- And yet we feel that it is May. Relaxed, and with a broken flow, From dripping bowers low carols swell In mellower, glassier tones, as though They mounted through a bubbling well. The crimson orchis scarce sustains Upon its drenched and drooping spire The burden of the warm soft rains; The purple hills grow nigh and nigher. {69} Nature, suspending lovely toils, On expectations lovelier broods, Listening, with lifted hand, while coils The flooded rivulet through the woods. She sees, drawn out in vision clear, A world with summer radiance drest, And all the glories of that year Which sleeps within her virgin breast. {70} XXIII. Still on the gracious work proceeds;-- The good, great tidings preached anew Yearly to green enfranchised meads, And fire-topped woodlands flushed with dew. Yon cavern's mouth we scarce can see; Yon rock in gathering bloom lies meshed; And all the wood-anatomy In thickening leaves is over-fleshed. That hermit oak which frowned so long Upon the spring with barren spleen, Yields to the holy Siren's song, And bends above her goblet green. Young maples, late with gold embossed,-- Lucidities of sun-pierced limes, No more surprise us--merged and lost Like prelude notes in deepening chimes. Disordered beauties and detached Demand no more a separate place: The abrupt, the startling, the unmatched, Submit to graduated grace; While upward from the ocean's marge The year ascends with statelier tread To where the sun his golden targe Finds, setting, on yon mountain's head. {71} _Turris Eburnea._ XXIV. This scheme of worlds, which vast we call, Is only vast compared with man: Compared with God, the One yet All, Its greatness dwindles to a span. A Lily with its isles of buds Asleep on some unmeasured sea:-- O God, the starry multitudes, What are they more than this to Thee? Yet girt by Nature's petty pale Each tenant holds the place assigned To each in Being's awful scale:-- The last of creatures leaves behind The abyss of nothingness: the first Into the abyss of Godhead peers; Waiting that vision which shall burst In glory on the eternal years. {72} Tower of our Hope! through thee we climb Finite creation's topmost stair; Through thee from Sion's height sublime Towards God we gaze through purer air. Infinite distance still divides Created from Creative Power; But all which intercepts and hides Lies dwarfed by that surpassing Tower! {73} XXV. Who doubts that thou art finite? Who Is ignorant that from Godhead's height To what is loftiest here below The interval is infinite? O Mary! with that smile thrice-blest Upon their petulance look down;-- Their dull negation, cold protest-- Thy smile will melt away their frown! Show them thy Son! That hour their heart Will beat and burn with love like thine; Grow large; and learn from thee that art Which communes best with things divine. The man who grasps not what is best In creaturely existence, he Is narrowest in the brain; and least Can grasp the thought of Deity. {74} XXVI. They seek not; or amiss they seek;-- The cold slight heart and captious brain:-- To Love alone those instincts speak Whose challenge never yet was vain. True Gate of Heaven! As light through glass, So He who never left the sky To this low earth was pleased to pass Through thine unstained Virginity. Summed up in thee our hearts behold The glory of created things:-- From His, thy Son's, corporeal mould Looks forth the eternal King of Kings! {75} XXVII. 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! {76} _Dominica Pentecostes._ XXVIII. 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 matutinal anthem vast Which winds, like sunrise, round the globe, Following the 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 lifts her brow from out the dust? Who fixes on a world restored A gaze like Eve's, but more august? Who bends it heaven-ward on her Lord? {77} 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'er-shadowed Mary once O'ershades Humanity to-day; And bids her fruitful prove in sons Co-heritors with Christ for aye. {78} _Dominica Pentecostes._ XXIX. 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 built, and shaped, and organised, Existed but in skeleton; Till down on that predestined frame, Complete through all its sacred mould, The 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. {79} _Turris Davidica._ XXX. The towered City loves thee well, Strong Tower of David's House! In thee She hails the unvanquished citadel That frowns o'er Error's subject sea. With magic might that Tower repels A host that breaks where foe is none,-- No foe but statued Saints in cells High-ranged, and smiling in the sun. There stands Augustin; Leo there; And Bernard, with a maiden face Like John's; and, strong at once and fair, That Spirit-Pythian, Athanase. Upon thy star-surrounded height God's angel keepeth watch and ward; And sunrise flashes thence ere night Hath left dark street and dewy sward. {80} _"Tu sola interemisti omnes Haereses."_ XXXI. What tenderest hand uprears on high The standard of Incarnate God? Successive portents that deny Her Son, who tramples? She who trod On Satan erst with starlike scorn! Ah! never Alp looked down through mist As she, that whiter star of morn, Through every cloud that darkens Christ! Roll back the centuries:--who were those That, age by age, their Lord denied? Their seats they set with Mary's foes:-- They mocked the Mother as the Bride. Of such was Arius; and of such He whom the Ephesian Sentence felled, [Footnote 2] Her Title triumphed. At the touch [Footnote 3] Of Truth the insurgent rout was quelled. [Footnote 2: Nestorius.] [Footnote 3: Dei-para.] Back, back the hosts of Hell were driven As forth that sevenfold thunder rolled:-- And in the Church's mystic Heaven There was great silence as of old. {81} MAY CAROLS. PART III. {82} {83} PART III. I. In vain thine altars do they heap With blooms of violated May Who fail the words of Christ to keep; Thy Son who love not, nor obey. Their songs are as a serpent's hiss; Their praise a poniard's poisoned edge; Their offering taints, like Judas' kiss, Thy shrine; their vows are sacrilege. Sadly from such thy countenance turns: Thou canst not stretch thy Babe to such (Albeit for all thy pity yearns) As greet Him with a leper's touch. Who loveth thee must love thy Son. Weak Love grows strong thy smile beneath: But nothing comes from nothing; none Can reap Love's harvest out of Death. {84} _Babylon._ II. The watchman watched along the walls: And lo! an hour or more ere light Loud rang his trumpet. From their halls The revellers rushed into the night. There hung a terror on the air; There moved a terror under ground;-- The hostile hosts, heard everywhere, Within, without--were nowhere found. "The Christians to the lions! Ho!"-- Alas! self-tortured crowds, let be! Let go your wrath; your fears let go: Ye gnaw the net, but cannot flee. Ye drank from out Orestes' cup; Orestes' Furies drave ye wild. Who conquers from on high? Look up! A Woman, holding forth a Child! {85} III. The golden rains are dashed against Those verdant walls of lime and beech With which our happy vale is fenced Against the north; yet cannot reach The stems that lift yon leafy crest High up above their dripping screen: The chestnut fans are downward pressed On banks of bluebell hid in green. White vapours float along the glen, Or rise from every sunny brake;-- A pause amid the gusts--again The warm shower sings across the lake. Sing on, all-cordial showers, and bathe The deepest root of loftiest pine! The cowslip dimmed, the "primrose rathe" Refresh; and drench in nectarous wine Yon fruit-tree copse, all blossomed o'er With forest-foam and crimson snow-- Behold! above it bursts once more The world-embracing, heavenly bow! {86} _Sedes Sapientiae._ IV. O that the wordy war might cease! Self-sentenced Babel's strife of tongues! Loud rings the arena. Athletes, peace! Nor drown the wild-dove's Song of Songs. Alas, the wanderers feel their loss: With tears they seek--ah, seldom found-- That peace whose volume is the Cross; That peace which leaves not holy ground. Mary, who loves true peace loves thee! A happy child, not taught of Scribes, He stands beside the Church's knee; From her the lore of Christ imbibes. Hourly he drinks it from her face: For there his eyes, he knows not how, The face of Him she loves can trace, And, crowned with thorns, the sovereign brow. "Behold! all colours blend in white! Behold! all Truths have root in Love!" So sings, half lost in light of light, Her Song of Songs the mystic Dove. {87} _Sedes Sapientiae._ V. "Wisdom hath built herself a House, And hewn her out her pillars seven." [Footnote 4] Her wine is mixed. Her guests are those Who share the harvest-home of heaven. [Footnote 4: Proverbs ix. 1.] Who guards the gates? The flaming sword Of Penance. Every way it turns: But healing from on high is poured On each that fire seraphic burns. 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. {88} VI. 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; Sings, pauses, sings; shoots up anew; Attains his topmost height, and 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 thy Word Makes way indeed into the soul, An answering echo there is stirred:-- Of thee the part is as the whole. {89} _Fest. B.V.M. de Monte Carmelo._ VII. 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, Thou saw'st approach 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 the garden of the West, Balm-breathing Orient! Whisper low The secret of thy spicy nest. {90} "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." [Footnote 5] [Footnote 5: Cant. viii. 5.] {91} VIII. Come from the midnight mountain tops, The mountains where the panthers play: Descend; the veil of darkness drops; Come fair and fairer than the day! Our hearts are wounded with thine eyes: They character in words of light Thereon the mystery of the skies: The "Name o'er every name" they write. Come from thy Lebanonian peaks Whose sacerdotal cedars nod Above the world, when morning breaks-- The Mountain of the House of God. The land thou lov'st--well is she! The ploughers on her back may plough; But in her vales upgrows the Tree Of Life, and binds the bleeding brow. {92} _Advocata Nostra._ IX. 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. 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! {93} _Thronus Trinitatis._ X. 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." {94} _Cultus Sanctorum._ XI. 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. 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, cleansing, hurt the adoring eye; {95} 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 Of Him some line or lineament. {96} _Fest. S. S. Trinitatis._ XII. 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;-- {97} 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. {98} XIII. Where is the crocus now, that first, When earth was dark and heaven was grey, A prothalamion flash, up-burst? Ah, then we deemed 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 to that which slips our hold: The thorn assumes her snowy dress; Laburnum bowers their robes of gold. Down waves successive of the year We drop; but drop once more to rise, With ampler view, as on we steer, Of lovelier lights and loftier skies. {99} _"Ad Nives."_ XIV. Before the morn began to break The bright One bent above that pair Whose childless vows aspired to take The mother of their Lord for heir. 'Twas August: even in midnight shade The roofs were hot, and hot the street:-- "Build me a fane," the vision said, "Where first your eyes the snow shall meet." [Footnote 6] [Footnote 6: Santa Maria Maggiore, on the Esquiline, at Rome.] With snow the Esquiline was strewn At morn!--Fair Legend! who but thinks Of thee, when first the breezes blown From summer Alp to Alp he drinks? He stands: he hears the torrents dash: Slowly the vapours break; and lo! Through chasms of endless azure flash The peaks of everlasting snow. {100} He stands; he listens; on his ear Swells softly forth some virgin hymn: The white procession windeth near, With glimmering lights in sunshine dim. Mother of Purity and Peace! They sing the Saviour's name and thine Clothe them for ever with the fleece Unspotted of thy Lamb Divine! {101} _Fest. Puritatis._ XV. Far down the bird may sing of love; The honey-bearing blossom blow: But hail, ye hills that rise above The limit of perpetual snow! O Alpine City, with thy walls Of rock eterne and spires of ice, Where torrent still to torrent calls, And precipice to precipice;-- How like that holier City thou, The heavenly Salem's earthly porch, Which rears among the stars her brow, And plants firm feet on earth--the Church! "Decaying, ne'er to be decayed," Her woods, like thine, renew their youth: Her streams, in rocky arms embayed, Are clear as virtue, strong as truth. {102} At times the lake may burst its dam; Black pine and rock the valley strew; But o'er the ruin soon the lamb Its flowery pasture crops anew. She, too, in regions near the sky Up-piles her cloistered snows, and thence Diffuses gales of purity O'er fields of consecrated sense. On those still heights a love-light glows The plains from them alone receive;-- Not all the Lily! There thy Rose, O Mary, triumphs, morn and eve! {103} XVI. Cloud-piercing Mountains! Chance and Change More high than you their thrones advance. Self-vanquished Nature's rockiest range Gives way before them like the trance Of one that wakes. From morn to eve Through fissured clefts her mists make way; At Night's cold touch they freeze, and cleave Her crags; and, with a Titan's sway, Flake off and peel the rotting rocks, And heap the glacier tide below With isles of sand and floating blocks, As leaves on streams when tempests blow. Lo, thus the great decree all-just, O Earth, thy mountains hear; and learn From fire and frost its import--"dust Thou art; and shalt to dust return." He only is Who ever was; The All-measuring Mind; the Will Supreme. Rocks, mountains, worlds, like bubbles pass: God is; the things not God but seem. {104} _Foederis Arca._ XVII. From end to end, O God, Thy Will With swift yet ordered might doth reach: Thy purposes their scope fulfil In sequence, resting each on each. In Thee is nothing sudden; nought From harmony and law that swerves: The orbits of Thine act and thought In soft succession wind their curves. O then with what a gradual care Must thou have shaped that sacred shrine, That Ark of grace, ordained to bear The burthen of the Babe divine! How many a gift within her breast Lay stored, for Him a couch to strew! How many a virtue lined His nest! How many a grace beside Him grew! Of love on love what sweet excess! How deep a faith! a hope how high!-- Mary! on earth of thee we guess; But we shall see thee when we die! {105} _Domus Aurea._ XVIII. She mused upon the Saints of old; Their toils, their pains, she longed to share Of Him she mused, the Child foretold; To Him her hands she stretched in prayer. No moment passed without its crown; And each new grace was used so well It drew some tenfold talent down, Some miracle on miracle. O golden House! O boundless store Of wealth by heavenly commerce won! When God Himself could give no more, He gave thee all; He gave His Son! Blessed the Mother of her Lord! And yet for this more blessed still, Because she heard and kept His Word-- High servant of His sovereign Will! {106} _Respexit Humilitatem._ XIX Not all thy purity, although The whitest moon that ever lit The peaks of Lebanonian snow Shone dusk and dim compared with it;-- Not that great love of thine, whose beams Transcended in their virtuous heat Those suns which melt the ice-bound streams, And make earth's pulses newly beat:-- It was not these that from the sky Drew down to thee the Eternal Word: He looked on thy humility; He knew thee, "Handmaid of thy Lord." Let no one claim with thee a part; Let no one, Mary, name thy name, While, aping God, upon his heart Pride sits, a demon robed in flame. Proud Vices, die! Where Sin has place Be Sin's familiar self-disgust. Proud Virtues, doubly die; that Grace At last may burgeon from your dust. {107} _Respexit Humilitatem._ XX. Supreme among the things create Omnipotence revealed below, More swift than thought, more strong than fate, Such, such, Humility, art thou! All strength beside is weakness. Might Belongs to God: and they alone, Self-emptied souls and seeming-slight, Are filled with God and share his throne. O Mary! strong wert thou and meek; Thy meekness gave thee strength divine: Thyself in nothing didst thou seek; Therefore thy Maker made Him thine. Through Pride our parents disobeyed; Rebellious Sense avenged the crime: The soul, the body's captive made, Became the branded thrall of time. {108} With barrenness the earth was cursed; Inviolate she brought forth no more Her fruits, nor freely as at first:-- Thou cam'st, her Eden to restore! Low breathes the wind upon the string; The harp, responsive, sounds in turn: Thus o'er thy Soul the Spirit's wing Creative passed; and Christ was born. {109} _"Sine Labe originali Concepta."_ XXI. Met in a point [Footnote 7] the circles twain Of temporal and eternal things Embrace, close linked. Redemption's chain Drops thence to earth its myriad rings. [Footnote 7: The Incarnation.] 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! 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 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. {110} _"Sine Labe originali Concepta."_ XXII. 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-- 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 her own. In thee she saw her prime restored: She saw ascend a spotless Throne For Him, her Saviour, and her Lord. The Church had spoken. She that dwells Sun-clad with beatific light, From Truth's unvanquished 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. {111} XXIII. Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold, Spring, sacred now from blasts and blights, Lifts in a 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 (While o'er the altar mounts the Host) Some chapel on the Irish hills. {112} _Corpus Christi._ XXIV. Rejoice, O Mary! and be glad, Thou Church triumphant here below! He cometh, in meekest emblems clad; Himself he cometh to bestow! That body which thou gav'st, O Earth, He giveth 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 unsealed; And Love to Him she loves is true. {113} "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 comes! Blue Heaven, thine incense breathe O'er all the consecrated sod; And thou, O Earth, with flowers enwreathe The steps of thine advancing God! {114} _Corpus Christi._ XXV. What music swells on every gale? What heavenly Herald rideth past? Vale sings to vale, "He comes; all hail!" Sea sighs 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 back the 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!" {115} XXVI. 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 noon-tide sloth's excuse. Panting, but pleased, the cattle stand Knee-deep in water-weed and sedge, And scarcely crop the 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! {116} XXVII. Sing on, wide winds, your anthems vast! The ear is richer than the 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; 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. "The Spirit bloweth where He wills"-- Effluence of that Life Divine Which wakes the Universe, and stills, In Thy strong refluence make us Thine! {117} _Coeli enarrant._ XXVIII. 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. Before the Vision angels fell, As though the face of God they saw; And all the panting miracle Found rest within the arms of Law. {118} 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 crowned Creature; The Bride; the New Jerusalem! {119} _Caro factus est._ XXIX. 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 edged with vast unmeasured black; And all of natural good she bore Confessed her supernatural lack. 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. {120} 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! He came. That world His priestly robe; The Kingly Pontiff raised on high The worship of the starry globe:-- The gulf was bridged, and God was nigh. {121} XXX. A woman "clothed with the sun," [Footnote 8] Yet fleeing from the Dragon's rage!-- The strife in Eden-bowers begun Swells upward to the latest age. [Footnote 8: Rev. xii. 1.] 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, wakes, and strives. Around her head the stars are set; A dying moon beneath her wanes: But he that letteth still must let: The Power accurst awhile remains. 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! {122} XXXI. 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. {123} EPILOGUE. {124} {125} _Epilogue_ Regent of Change, thou waning Moon, Whom they, the sons of night, adore, Her feet are 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 Of Time go by; meantime the key, O salutary crucifix, Of all the worlds, we clasp in thee. {126} Truth deeplier felt by none than him [Footnote 9] Who at the Alban mountain's foot, Wandering no more in shadows dim, Lay down, a lamb-like offering mute. [Footnote 9: Robert Isaak Wilberforce.] His mighty lore found rest at last In Faith, and woke in God. Ah, Friend! When life which is not Life is past, Pray that like thine may be my end. Thy fair large front; thine eyes' grave blue; Thine English ways so staid and plain;-- Through native rosemaries and rue Memory creeps back to thee again. Beside thy dying bed were writ Some snatches of these random rhymes; Weak Song, how happy if with it Thy name should blend in after times. Rome, April 27, 1857. London: Printed by Spottiswoode & Co. New-street Square. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of May Carols, by Aubrey De Vere *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAY CAROLS *** ***** This file should be named 41077-8.txt or 41077-8.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/4/1/0/7/41077/ Produced by Don Kostuch Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. *** START: FULL LICENSE *** THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license. Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works 1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. 1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. 1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. 1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United States. 1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: 1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed: This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org 1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. 1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. 1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. 1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg-tm License. 1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. 1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. 1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided that - You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." - You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work. - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. 1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. 1.F. 1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. 1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem. 1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. 1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. 1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life. Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact For additional contact information: Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive and Director gbnewby@pglaf.org Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS. The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate. International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.