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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO AUBREY DE VERE by WILLIAM WATSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: POET, WHOSE GRAVE AND STRENUOUS LYRE IS STILL
Last Line: REVERES THE REVERENCE WHICH IT CANNOT FEEL.
Subject(s): DE VERE, AUBREY THOMAS (1814-1902);
POET, whose grave and strenuous lyre is still
For Truth and Duty strung; whose art eschews
The lighter graces of the softer Muse,
Disdainful of mere craftsman's glittering skill:
Yours is a soul from visionary hill
Watching and harkening for ethereal news,
Looking beyond life's storms and death's cold dews
To habitations of the eternal will.

Not mine your mystic creed; not mine, in prayer
And worship, at the ensanguined Cross to kneel!
But when I mark your faith how pure and fair,
How based on love, on passion for man's weal,
My mind, half envying what it cannot share,
Reveres the reverence which it cannot feel.



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