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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.

Baltard

Nemesis

By Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902)

I DREAMED. Great bells around me pealed;

The world in that sad chime was drowned;

Sharp cries as from a battle-field

Were strangled in the wondrous sound:

Had all the kings of earth lain dead,

Had nations borne them lapped in lead

To torch-lit vaults with plume and pall,

Such bells had served for funeral.

’T was fantasy’s dark work! I slept

Where black Baltard o’erlooks the deep;

Plunging all night the billows kept

Their ghostly vigil round my sleep.

But I had fed on tragic lore

That day,—your annals, “Masters Four!”

And every moan of wind and sea

Was as a funeral chime to me.