The Project Gutenberg eBook ofMay CarolsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world 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 atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: May CarolsAuthor: Aubrey De VereRelease date: October 16, 2012 [eBook #41077]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Don Kostuch*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAY CAROLS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world 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 atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: May CarolsAuthor: Aubrey De VereRelease date: October 16, 2012 [eBook #41077]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Don Kostuch
Title: May Carols
Author: Aubrey De Vere
Author: Aubrey De Vere
Release date: October 16, 2012 [eBook #41077]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Don Kostuch
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAY CAROLS ***
[Transcriber's Notes:]This text is derived fromhttp://archive.org/details/maycarolspoems00veregoogPage 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 PEOSERPINE, andOther 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.
{v}
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 many portions of a single mastering Truth, can hardly fail to appear—and with it the scope and aim of this Poem.
{vi}
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 theComplementof 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.
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{xv}
That sun-eyed Power which stands sublimeUpon 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 gazeThat deepens, onward as she rides,And shrinks not from the fontal blaze:But they—her daughter Arts—must hideWithin the cleft, content to seeDim skirts of glory waving wide,And steps of parting Deity.'Tis theirs to watch Religion breakIn 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, unexpressedWhat Man must know not, yet adore.For where her court true Wisdom keeps,'Mid loftier handmaids, one there standsDark as the midnight's starry deeps,A Slave, gem-crowned, from Nubia's sands.O thou whose light is in thy heartLove-taught Submission! without theeScience may soar awhile; but ArtDrifts barren o'er a shoreless sea.
{3}
I.
Who feels not, when the Spring once more,Stepping o'er Winter's grave forlornWith winged feet, retreads the shoreOf widowed Earth, his bosom burn?As ordered flower succeeds to flower,And May the ladder of her sweetsAscends, advancing hour by hourFrom 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 pairWho to Emmaus bent their way,Hearing, heard not. Like them our prayerWe 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 eyesWe feel through all the illumined swardSome upward-working Paradise.
{5}
II.Upon Thy face, O God, Thy worldLooks ever up in love and awe;Thy stars, in circles onward hurled,Still weave the sacred chain of law.In alternating antiphonsStream sings to stream and sea to sea;And moons that set and sinking sunsObeisance 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 wingsTo drown the fleet and fell the tower,Obeys thee as the bird that singsHer love-chant in a fleeting shower.Amid an ordered universeMan'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 frameSave with their foreheads to the ground?Soul-searching and all-cleansing Fire!To see Thy countenance were to die:Yet how beyond the bound retireOf Thy serene immensity?Thou mov'st beside us, if the spotWe change—a noteless, wandering tribe;The orbits of our life and thoughtIn 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}
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 ManThrough thee to man is easier made:Pronounce the consonant who canWithout the softer vowel's aid!
{8}
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 thisThat life which knows no parting breath?Unmeasured life? unwaning blissDread 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 moonIn swaddling bands lies dumb and bound!—Love's Captive! darker prison soonAwaits Thee in the garden ground.He wakens. Paradise looks forthBeyond the portals of the grave.Life, life thou gavest! life to Earth,Not Him. Thine Infant dies to save.
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VI.When from their lurking place the VoiceOf God dragged forth that fallen pair,Still seemed the garden to rejoice;The sinless Eden still was fair.They, they alone, whose light of graceBut 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 seenIn that severe, death-dooming eyeUnutterable depths sereneOf sadly-piercing sympathy.Not them alone that Eye beheld,But, by their side, that other Twain,In whom the race whose doom was knelledOnce more should rise; once more should reign.{10}It saw that Infant crowned with blood;—And her from whose predestined breastThat Infant ruled the worlds. She stood,Her foot upon the serpent's crest!Voice of primeval prophecy!She who makes glad whatever heartAdores her Son and Saviour, sheIn 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 waitsTo light them, while the western galeBlows softly on their bannered line:And, lo! down all the mountain stairsThe shepherd children come to joinThe 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 matchThe 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}
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, shapeThy music ever to one Name:—Thou too, clear stream, to cave and capeBe sure thou whisper of the same."By every isle and bower of muskThy 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 boreFar out above the moon-lit tide.The breeze obeyed. He breathed it o'erThe unforgetting pines; and died.
{13}
IX.Daily beneath His mother's eyesHer Lamb matured His lowliness:Twas hers the lovely SacrificeWith 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 doneThy flowers with falling dews are wet:Her tears fell never; for the sunThose tears that brightened never set.The house was silent as that shrineThe priest but entered once a year.There shone His emblem. Light Divine!Thy presence and Thy power was here!
{14}
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 glowWith 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 traceIn evening skies remembered lore,And shadows of His Father's face.One only knew Him. She aloneWho nightly to His cradle crept,And lying like the moonbeam prone,Worshipped her Maker as He slept.
{15}
XI.Bud forth a Saviour, Earth! fulfilThy first of functions, ever new!Balm-dropping heaven, for aye distilThy 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 skiesOn God's great altar rests even now:The Pentecostal glory liesFor ever round the Church's brow.From Son and Father, He, the LordOf Love and Life, proceeds alway:Upon the first creative wordCreation, trembling, hangs for aye.Nor less ineffably renewedThan when on earth the tie began,Is that mysterious MotherhoodWhich re-creates the worlds and man.
{16}
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 satBeneath the Throne ineffable,Chanting her clear Magnificat.Fed from the boundless heart of God,The joy within her rose more highAnd all her being overflowed,Until the awful hour was nigh.Then, then, there crept her spirit o'erThe shadow of that pain world-wideWhereof her Son the substance bore:—Him offering, half in Him she died;Standing like that strange Moon, whereonThe mask of Earth lies dim and dead,An orb of glory, shadow-strewn,Yet girdled with a luminous thread.
{17}
XIII.She stood: she sank not. Slowly fellAdown the Cross the atoning blood.In agony ineffableShe 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 swordPredicted pierced that hour her breast.She stood: she answered not a word.His own in John He gave. She woreThenceforth the Mother-crown of Earth.O Eve! thy sentence too she bore;Like thee in sorrow she brought forth.
{18}
XIV.From her He passed: yet still with herThe endless thought of Him found rest;A sad but sacred branch of myrrhFor ever folded in her breast.A Boreal winter void of light—So seemed her widowed days forlorn:She slept; but in her breast all nightHer 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 theeThat mystic life whose every breathFrom Life's low harpstring amorouslyDraws out the sweetened name of Death.Love stronger far than Death or Life!Thy martyrdom was o'er at lastHer eyelids drooped; and without strifeTo Him she loved her spirit passed.
{19}
XV.O Mother-Maid! to none save theeBelongs 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}
XVI.Mother of Love! Thy love to HimCherub and seraph can but guess:—A mother sees its image dimIn her own breathless tenderness.That infant touch none else could feelVibrates like light through all her sense:Far off she hears his cry: her zealWith lions fights in his defence.Unmarked his youth goes by: his hairStill smooths she down, still strokes apart:The first white thread that meets her thereGlides, like a dagger, through her heart.Men praise him: on her matron cheekThere 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 hearsHis foot, ere yet that foot is nigh:Wakes with a smile; and scarcely fears,If he but clasp her hand, to die.
{21}
XVII.Others, the hours of youth gone by,A mother's hearth and home forsake;And, with the need, the filial tieRelaxes, 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 theSonof Man to be,That so Thy brethren too might bearAdoptive Sonship, and with TheeThy 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}
XVIII."They have no wine." The tender guestWas 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 henceforthNo 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 goodWhich fails of Him to speak, and bleedOnce more with His all-cleansing blood!
{23}
XIX.The gifts a mother showers each dayUpon 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 sowsWith 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 standsAdjusted, 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 lessBecause they clasp a Mother too.
{24}
XX.When April's sudden sunset coldThrough boughs half-clothed with watery sheenBursts on the high, new-cowslipped wold,And bathes a world half gold half green,Then shakes the illuminated airWith din of birds; the vales far downGrow 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 bloodRings 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.
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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 strikeTheir 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!