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
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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 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 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.
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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
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
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"
Epilogue 125
{xv}
PROLOGUE.
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.
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MAY CAROLS
PART I.
I.
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}
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}
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}
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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}
Ascending from the convent-grates,
The children mount the woodland vale.
'Tis
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
"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!
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