Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

OF THE

SAXON SAINTS

BY

AUBREY DE Vere

'Hic sunt in fossa Bedæ Venerabilis ossa

(Old Inscription

LONDON

C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., I PATERNOSTER SQUARE

1879

A

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

OCT 211919
GIFT OF

WILLIAM ENDICOTT, JR.

(The rights of translation ana of reproduction are reserved)

TO THE

VENERABLE BEDE

'Mid quiet vale or city lulled by night
Well-pleased the wanderer, wakeful on his bed,
Hears from far Alps on fitful breeze the sound
Of torrents murmuring down their rocky glens,
Strange voice from distant regions, alien climes :--
Should these far echoes from thy legend-roll
Delight of loftier years, these echoes faint,
Thus waken, thus make calm, one restless heart
In our distempered day, to thee the praise,
Voice of past times, O Venerable Bede!

PREFACE.

MANY YEARS AGO a friend remarked to me on the strangeness of the circumstance that the greatest event in the history of a nation, its conversion to Christianity, largely as it is often recorded in national legends, has never been selected as a theme for poetry. That event may indeed not supply the materials necessary for an Epic or a Drama, yet it can hardly fail to abound in details significant and pathetic, which especially invite poetic illustration. With the primary interest of that great crisis, many others, philosophical, social, and political, generally connect themselves. Antecedent to a nation's conversion, the events of centuries have commonly either conduced to it, or thrown obstacles in its way; while the history as well as the character of that nation in the

« AnteriorContinuar »