Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902)Extracts from The Search after Proserpine: Coleridge
H
Of true and just proportion; and his ear
That inner tone could hear
Which flows beneath the outer: therefore he
Was as a mighty shell, fashioning all
The winds to one rich sound, ample and musical.
Wearied with vigils, and the frequent birth
Of tears when turned to earth:
Therefore, though farthest ken to him was given,
Near things escaped him: through them—as a gem
Diaphanous—he saw; and therefore saw not them.
That God not less in humblest forms abides
Than those the great veil hides,
Such men a tremor of bright reverence reaches;
And thus, confronted ever with high things,
Like cherubim they hide their eyes between their wings.
With awe revolved the planetary page,
From infancy to age,
Of Knowledge; sedulous and proud to give her
The whole of his great heart for her own sake;
For what she is; not what she does, or what can make.
Converse of trumpets held by cloudy forms,
And speech of choral storms:
Spirits of night and noontide bent to woo him:
He stood the while, lonely and desolate
As Adam, when he ruled the world, yet found no mate.
Aspiring, yet in supplicating guise;
His sweetest songs were sighs:
Adown Lethean streams his spirit drifted,
Under Elysian shades from poppied bank
With Amaranths massed in dark luxuriance dank.
Which may not Priest, or King, or Conqueror spare,
And yet a Babe can bear,
Has come to thee. Through life a goodly vision
Was thine; and time it was thy rest to take.
Soft be the sound ordained thy sleep to break—
When thou art waking, wake me, for thy Master’s sake!