old poem of the week: the queen's vespers

Half kneeling yet and half reclining,

She held her harp against her knees.

Aloft the ruddy roofs were shining,

And sunset touched the trees,

From the gold border gleamed like snow

Her foot; a crown enriched her brow;

Dark gems confined that crimson vest

Close-moulded on her neck and breast.

In silence lay the cloistral court

And shadows of the convent towers,

Well ordered now in stately sort

Those royal halls and bowers.

The choral chaunt had just swept by;

Bright arms lay quivering yet on high:

Thereon the warriors gazed, and then

Glanced lightly at the Queen again.

While from her lip the wild hymn floated,

Such grace in those uplifted eyes

And sweet, half-absent looks, they noted

That, surely, through the skies

A spirit, they deemed, flew forward ever

Above that song’s perpetual river,

And smiling from its joyous track,

Upon her heavenly face looked back.

-Aubrey de Vere (1814-1902)