Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RELIGIO NOVISSIMA, by AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RELIGIO NOVISSIMA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is an order by a northern sea
Last Line: And undispensed sustain its discipline!
Subject(s): Crime & Criminals; Discipline; Law & Lawyers; Order; Prisons & Prisoners; Attorneys; Convicts


There is an Order by a northern sea,
Far in the West, of rule and life more strict
Than that which Basil reared in Galilee,
In Egypt Paul, in Umbria Benedict.

Discalced it walks; a stony land of tombs,
A strange Petraea of late days, it treads!
Within its courts no high-tossed censer fumes;
The night-rain beats its cells, the wind its beds.

Before its eyes no brass-bound, blazoned tome
Reflects the splendor of a lamp high-hung:
Knowledge is banished from her earliest home
Like wealth: it whispers psalms that once it sung.

It is not bound by the vow celibate,
Lest, through its ceasing, anguish too might cease;
In sorrow it brings forth; and Death and Fate
Watch at Life's gate, and tithe the unripe increase.

It wears not the Franciscan's sheltering gown;
The cord that binds it is the Stranger's chain:
Scarce seen for scorn, in fields of old renown
It breaks the clod; another reaps the gain.

Year after year it fasts; each third or fourth
So fasts that common fasts to it are feast;
Then of its brethren many in the earth
Are laid unrequiemed like the mountain beast.

Where are its cloisters? Where the felon sleeps!
Where its novitiate? Where the last wolf died!
From sea to sea its vigil long it keeps—
Stern Foundress! is its Rule not mortified?

Thou that hast laid so many in an Order waste,
A Nation is thine Order! It was thine
Wide as a realm that Order's seed to cast,
And undispensed sustain its discipline!





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net