Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
Critical and Biographical Essay by Alfred H. Miles
Aubrey de Vere (1814–1902)
THE GENERAL poetry of Mr. Aubrey de Vere is represented in Vol. IV. of The Poets and the Poetry of the Century, where it is introduced by a biographical and critical article from the pen of Mr. Mackenzie Bell. For biographical and bibliographical particulars the reader is referred to that article, while his attention is here invited to some of the religious verse which entitles Mr. de Vere to representation among the Sacred Poets.
Reverence and awe—essential characteristics of the devotional spirit—are strongly marked in Mr. de Vere’s religious verse; and short as some of his religious poems are, they seem to reproduce the very atmosphere of devotion from which they evidently sprung. Take, for example, the following lines on “The Divine Presence”:—
A Wordsworthian and a poet of nature, Mr. de Vere carries the devotional spirit with him among the hills and valleys of his love, and quite naturally, when most at home with nature, is nearest to nature’s God. Witness the lines on “Spring” and “Spring Thoughts,” given in the following pages. The parallels of nature and life, too, which are so perennial a source of inspiration to the poet, are tenderly present to his eyes and thoughts, as evidence the following “Lines”:—
