Trees, that from winter's gray eclipse
Of late but pushed their topmost plume,
Or felt with green-touched finger-tips
For spring, their perfect robes assume.While, vague no more, the mountains stand
With quivering line or hazy hue;
But drawn with finer, firmer, hand,
And settling into deeper blue.
Mr. De Vere is an exquisite student of nature, with fine perceptions that have been finely cultivated. Take this picture of the lark:—
From his cold nest the skylark springs;
Sings, pauses, sings; shoots up anew;
Attains his topmost height, and sings
Quiescent in his vault of blue.
And here is a description of the later spring:—
Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold,
Spring, sacred now from blasts and blights,
Lifts in a firm, untrembling hold
Her chalice of fulfilled delights.Confirmed around her queenly lip
The smile late wavering, on she moves;
And seems through deepening tides to step
Of steadier joys and larger loves.
The little volume contains many passages such as these. We have space to quote but one of the poems complete, to show the manner in which Mr. De Vere unites the real, the symbolic, and the external, with the spiritual. Like most of his poems, it is marked by artistic finish and grace, and many of the lines have a natural beauty of unsought alliteration and assonance.
When all the breathless woods aloof
Lie hushed in noontide's deep repose
The dove, sun-warmed on yonder roof,
With what a grave content she coos!One note for her! Deep streams run smooth:
The ecstatic song of transience tells.
O, what a depth of loving truth
In thy divine contentment dwells!All day with down-dropt lids I sat
In trance; the present scene foregone.
When Hesper rose, on Ararat,
Methought, not English hills, he shone.Back to the Ark, the waters o'er,
The primal dove pursued her flight:
A branch of that blest tree she bore
Which feeds the Church with holy light.I heard her rustling through the air
With sliding plume,—no sound beside,
Save the sea-sobbings everywhere,
And sighs of the subsiding tide.