Poem by Aubrey Thomas De Vere

Nemesis

I DREAMED. Great bells around me pealed;
  The world in that sad chime was drowned;
Sharp cries as from a battle-field
  Were strangled in the wondrous sound:
Had all the kings of earth lain dead,
Had nations borne them lapped in lead
To torch-lit vaults with plume and pall,
Such bells had served for funeral.

’T was fantasy’s dark work! I slept
  Where black Baltard o’erlooks the deep;
Plunging all night the billows kept
  Their ghostly vigil round my sleep.
But I had fed on tragic lore
That day,—your annals, “Masters Four!”
And every moan of wind and sea
Was as a funeral chime to me.

1. Kinsale
2. To a Flower on the Skirts of Mont Blanc
3. A Ballad of Athlone; Or, How They Broke down the Bridge
4. Roisin Dubh; Or, the Bleeding Heart
5. Composed at Rydal, September, 1860

Rose Cooke Nemesis ("With eager steps I go")

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