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diff --git a/old/66094-0.txt b/old/66094-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8e6c402..0000000 --- a/old/66094-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10898 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dreams and Images, by Various - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Dreams and Images - An Anthology of Catholic Poets - -Author: Various - -Editor: Joyce Kilmer - -Release Date: August 20, 2021 [eBook #66094] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Benjamin Fluehr, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/Canadian Libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DREAMS AND IMAGES *** -DREAMS AND IMAGES - -AN ANTHOLOGY OF CATHOLIC POETS - - - - -DREAMS AND IMAGES - -AN ANTHOLOGY - -_of_ - -CATHOLIC POETS - -_Edited by_ - -JOYCE KILMER - -TORONTO - -THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY - -LIMITED - - - - -Copyright, 1917, - -Boni & Liveright, Inc. - - -Printed in the U. S. of America - - - - -ACKNOWLEDGMENT - - -For advice and assistance in collecting and arranging these poems, -I am grateful to many friends, especially to Mr. T. R. Smith, Miss -Caroline Giltinan and Mr. John Bunker. The publishers, editors and -authors who have kindly consented to let me use copyright material -are numerous and I assure them of my deep sense of obligation. In -particular I desire to thank the following publishers for their -generous permission to use all that I required from their lists: -Charles Scribner’s Sons, John Lane Company, Small, Maynard & Company, -P. J. Kennedy Sons, Frederick A. Stokes Company, _The Catholic -World_, Houghton Mifflin Company, The Encyclopaedia Press, Henry -Holt & Company, The Devin-Adair Company, Little, Brown & Company, The -Macmillan Company, Elkin Mathews, _The Ave Maria_, Laurence Gomme, and -Wilfrid Meynell. - - J. K. - - - - - To - - REV. JAMES J. DALY, S.J. - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -This is not a collection of devotional poems. It is not an attempt -to rival Orby Shipley’s admirable “Carmina Mariana” or any other -similar anthology. What I have tried to do is to bring together the -poems in English that I like best that were written by Catholics since -the middle of the Nineteenth Century. There are in this book poems -religious in theme; there are also love-songs and war songs. But I -think that it may be called a book of Catholic poems. For a Catholic is -not a Catholic only when he prays; he is a Catholic in all the thoughts -and actions of his life. And when a Catholic attempts to reflect in -words some of the Beauty of which as a poet he is conscious, he cannot -be far from prayer and adoration. - -The Church has never been without her great poets. And in the -Nineteenth Century there was a splendid renascence of Catholic poetry -written in English. It had already begun when Francis Thompson -wrote his Essay on Shelley, in which he longed for the by-gone days -when poetry was “the lesser sister and helpmate of the Church; the -minister to the mind, as the Church to the soul.” The members of the -Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were not Catholics, but their movement was -related to the renascence of Catholic poetry--it was an attempt to -restore to art and letters some of the glory of the days before what -is called the Reformation. Coventry Patmore carried the theories of the -Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to their logical conclusion, as Newman did -those of the Tractarians. Coventry Patmore became a Catholic, and found -in his Faith his inspiration and his theme. And his disciple Francis -Thompson, born to the Faith which Patmore reached by way of the divine -adventure of conversion, with art even greater than that of his master, -made of the language of Protestant England an instrument of Catholic -adoration. - -A few of the poets represented in this book were not yet Catholics when -they wrote the poems I have quoted. But I do not think that anyone will -find fault with me for including Newman and Hawker among the Catholic -poets. I am very sorry that the limitations of space have made me -exclude many poems dear to me, many poems that are part of the world’s -literary heritage. There should be many Catholic anthologies. - -The poet sees things hidden from other men, but he sees them only in -dreams. A poet is (by the very origin of the word) a maker, but a -maker of images, not a creator of life. This is a book of reflections -of the Beauty which mortal eyes can see only in reflection, a book of -dreams of that Truth which one day we shall waking understand. A book -of images it is, too, containing representations carved by those who -worked by the aid of memory, the strange memory of men living in Faith. - - JOYCE KILMER. - - August, 1917. - 165th Regiment, Camp Mills, Mineola, New York. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - BELLOC, HILAIRE - Our Lord and Lady 1 - To the Balliol Men Still in Africa 2 - The South Country 3 - The Early Morning 6 - The Prophet Lost in the Hills at Evening 6 - The Birds 7 - Courtesy 8 - Noel 9 - - BENSON, ROBERT HUGH - After a Retreat 10 - The Teresian Contemplation 11 - - BLUNT, WILFRED SCAWEN - How Shall I Build 12 - Song 13 - The Desolate City 13 - - BRAYTON, TERESA - A Christmas Song 16 - - CAMPBELL, NANCY - Like One I Know 18 - - CARBERY, ETHNA - Mea Culpa 19 - In Tir-na’n-Og 20 - - CARROLL, P. J. - Lady Day in Ireland 22 - St. Patrick’s Treasure 23 - - CASEY, D. A. - The Spouse of Christ 24 - - COLUM, PADRAIC - Christ the Comrade 25 - An Old Woman of the Roads 25 - - CONWAY, KATHERINE ELEANOR - The Heaviest Cross of All 26 - Saturninus 28 - - COX, ELEANOR ROGERS - Dreaming of Cities Dead 29 - Death of Cuchulain 30 - Gods and Heroes of the Gael 32 - At Benediction 34 - - CUSTANCE, OLIVE - Primrose Hill 34 - Twilight 35 - - DALY, THOMAS A. - To a Thrush 36 - To a Plain Sweetheart 40 - To a Robin 40 - The Poet 41 - October 42 - - DE VERE, AUBREY - Sorrow 43 - Human Life 44 - Cardinal Manning 45 - Song 45 - - DOLLARD, JAMES B. - The Sons of Patrick 46 - Song of the Little Villages 48 - The Soul of Karnaghan Buidhe 49 - - DONAHUE, D. J. - The Angelic Chorus 51 - - DONNELLY, ELEANOR - Ladye Chapel at Eden Hall 52 - Mary Immaculate 52 - - DOWNING, ELEANOR - The Pilgrim 53 - On the Feast of the Assumption 54 - Mary 55 - - DOWSON, ERNEST - Extreme Unction 58 - Benedictio Domini 58 - Carthusians 58 - - DRANE, AUGUSTA T. - Maris Stella 60 - - EARLS, S.J., MICHAEL - An Autumn Rose Tree 62 - To a Carmelite Postulant 63 - - EDEN, HELEN PARRY - A Purpose of Amendment 64 - The Confessional 65 - An Elegy 66 - Sorrow 70 - - EDMUND, C.P., FATHER - Our Lady’s Death 71 - - EGAN, MAURICE FRANCIS - Vigil of the Immaculate Conception 71 - The Old Violin 72 - Maurice de Guerin 73 - He Made Us Free 73 - - FABER, FATHER - Grandeur of Mary 75 - Right Must Win 77 - - FITZPATRICK, JOHN - Mater Dolorosa 79 - - FURLONG, ALICE - Yuletide 79 - - GAFFNEY, O.P., FRANCIS A. - Our Lady of the Rosary 81 - - GARESCHÉ, S.J., EDWARD F. - At the Leap of the Waters 81 - Niagara 83 - - GILTINAN, CAROLINE - Communion 85 - - GRIFFIN, GERALD - The Nightingale 86 - - GUINEY, LOUISE IMOGEN - Tryste Noel 86 - The Wild Ride 87 - Ode for a Master Mariner Ashore 89 - In Leinster 91 - - HAWKER, ROBERT STEPHEN - Aunt Mary 92 - King Arthur’s Wassail 93 - - HAYES, JAMES M. - Old Nuns 94 - The Mother of the Rose 95 - Transfiguration 96 - - HICKEY, EMILY M. - Beloved, It Is Morn 97 - A Sea Story 98 - - HOPKINS, S.J., GERARD - The Starlight Night 99 - The Habit of Perfection 100 - Spring 101 - - IRIS, SCHARMEL - The Friar of Genoa 102 - - JOHNSON, LIONEL - The Dark Angel 103 - Te Martyrum Candidatus 105 - Christmas and Ireland 106 - To My Patrons 108 - Our Lady of the Snows 109 - Cadgwith 111 - A Friend 112 - The Statue of King Charles at Charing Cross 113 - - KELLY, BLANCHE MARY - The Housewife’s Prayer 115 - Brother Juniper 116 - - KELLEY, MGR., F. C. - The Throne of the King 117 - - LATHROP, GEORGE PARSONS - The Child’s Wish Granted 127 - Charity 128 - - LATHROP, ROSE HAWTHORNE - A Song Before Grief 128 - The Clock’s Song 129 - - LEAMY, SIR EDMUND - Ireland 130 - - LEAMY, EDMUND (Senior) - Music Magic 132 - Gethsemane 133 - My Lips Would Sing---- 134 - My Ship 135 - Visions 135 - - LESLIE, SHANE - Ireland, Mother of Priests 137 - - LINDSAY, RUTH TEMPLE - The Hunters 138 - - LIVINGSTON, FATHER - In Cherry Land 140 - - M. S. M. - Surrender 141 - - MANGAN, JAMES CLARENCE - Pentecost 142 - Dark Rosaleen 143 - - MACDONAGH, THOMAS - What is White? 146 - Wishes for My Son 147 - - MACMANUS, SEUMAS - Resignation 148 - In Dark Hour 150 - - MAYNARD, THEODORE - A Song of Colours 151 - The World’s Miser 152 - Cecidit, Cecidit, Babylon Magna 153 - A Song of Laughter 154 - Apocalypse 155 - - MCCARTHY, DENIS A. - St. Brigid 156 - Rosa Mystica 160 - The Poor Man’s Daily Bread 161 - - MCGEE, THOMAS D’ARCY - To Ask Our Lady’s Patronage 162 - - MEYNELL, ALICE - A General Communion 163 - The Shepherdess 163 - Christ in the Universe 164 - “I Am the Way” 165 - Via, et Veritas, et Vita 166 - Unto Us a Son is Given 166 - To a Daisy 167 - The Newer Vainglory 168 - - MEYNELL, WILFRID - The Folded Flock 168 - - MORIARTY, HELEN L. - Convent Echoes 169 - - NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY - England 170 - The Pillar of the Cloud 171 - The Greek Fathers 171 - Relics of Saints 172 - The Sign of the Cross 173 - - O’DONNELL, C.S.C., CHARLES L. - The Son of God 173 - To St. Joseph 174 - The Dead Musician 175 - - O’HAGAN, THOMAS - Giotto’s Campanile 178 - - O’REILLY, JOHN BOYLE - Name of Mary 179 - - O’REILLY, MARY A. - A Christmas Carol 180 - - O. SHEEL, SHAEMAS - Roma Mater Sempaeterna 182 - Mary’s Baby 183 - They Went Forth to Battle 183 - He Whom A Dream Hath Possessed 184 - - PALLEN, CONDÉ BENOIST - Maria Immaculata 186 - The Raising of the Flag 191 - The Babe of Bethlehem 194 - - PATMORE, COVENTRY - The Toys 195 - “If I Were Dead” 197 - Departure 197 - Regina Cœli 199 - - PEARSE, P. H. - Ideal 199 - - PHILLIPS, CHARLES - Music 200 - - PLUNKETT, JOSEPH M. - I See His Blood Upon the Rose 202 - The Stars Sang in God’s Garden 202 - - PROBYN, MAY - Is It Nothing to You? 203 - The Bees of Myddleton Manor 204 - - PROCTOR, ADELAIDE ANNE - A Legend 210 - The Sacred Heart 211 - The Annunciation 214 - Our Daily Bread 216 - - RANDALL, JAMES RYDER - My Maryland 217 - Magdalen 220 - Why the Robin’s Breast Was Red 221 - - REPPLIER, AGNES - Le Repos in Egypte--The Sphinx 221 - - ROCHE, JAMES JEFFREY - Andromeda 222 - Nature the False Goddess 223 - Three Doves 224 - The Way of the World 225 - - ROONEY, JOHN JEROME - Ave Maria 225 - Revelation 227 - Marquette on the Shores of the Mississippi 229 - The Empire Builder 230 - The Men Behind the Guns 233 - - RUSSELL, S.J., MATTHEW - A Thought From Cardinal Newman 234 - - RYAN, ABRAM J. - The Conquered Banner 235 - A Child’s Wish 237 - Sword of Robert E. Lee 238 - Song of the Mystic 239 - - SETON, E. - Mary, Virgin and Mother 242 - - SIGERSON DORA - The Wind on the Hills 242 - - SPALDING, JOHN LANCASTER - Believe and Take Heart 244 - - STODDARD, CHARLES WARREN - Ave Maria Bells 245 - Stigmata 246 - The Bells of San Gabriel 247 - - STRAHAN, G.S.C., SPEER - The Poor 249 - The Promised Country 250 - Holy Communion 250 - - SWAN, CAROLINE D. - Stars of Cheer 251 - - TABB, JOHN BANNISTER - Christ and the Pagan 252 - Out of Bounds 253 - Father Damien 253 - Recognition 253 - “Is Thy Servant a Dog?” 254 - - THOMPSON, FRANCIS - Lilium Regis 254 - To the English Martyrs 255 - The Hound of Heaven 261 - The Dread of Height 267 - To My Godchild 270 - - TYNAN, KATHERINE - Michael the Archangel 272 - Planting Bulbs 274 - Sheep and Lambs 275 - The Making of Birds 276 - The Man of the House 278 - - WALSH, THOMAS - Cœlo et in Terra 279 - Egidio of Coimbra 281 - - - - -Dreams and Images - - - - -OUR LORD AND OUR LADY - -BY HILAIRE BELLOC - - - They warned Our Lady for the Child - That was Our Blessed Lord, - And She took Him into the desert wild, - Over the camel’s ford. - - And a long song She sang to Him - And a short story told: - And She wrapped Him in a woolen cloak - To keep Him from the cold. - - But when Our Lord was grown a man - The Rich they dragged Him down, - And they crucified Him in Golgotha, - Out and beyond the Town. - - They crucified Him on Calvary, - Upon an April day; - And because He had been her little Son - She followed Him all the way. - - Our Lady stood beside the Cross, - A little space apart, - And when She heard Our Lord cry out - A sword went through Her Heart. - - They laid Our Lord in a marble tomb, - Dead, in a winding sheet. - But Our Lady stands above the world - With the white Moon at Her feet. - - - - -TO THE BALLIOL MEN STILL IN AFRICA - -BY HILAIRE BELLOC - - - Years ago when I was at Balliol, - Balliol men--and I was one-- - Swam together in winter rivers, - Wrestled together under the sun. - And still in the heart of us, Balliol, Balliol, - Loved already, but hardly known, - Welded us each of us into the others: - Called a levy and chose her own. - - Here is a House that armours a man - With the eyes of a boy and the heart of a ranger, - And a laughing way in the teeth of the world - And a holy hunger and thirst for danger: - Balliol made me, Balliol fed me, - Whatever I had she gave me again: - And the best of Balliol loved and led me, - God be with you, Balliol men. - - I have said it before, and I say it again, - There was treason done, and a false word spoken, - And England under the dregs of men, - And bribes about, and a treaty broken: - But angry, lonely, hating it still, - I wished to be there in spite of the wrong. - My heart was heavy for Cumnor Hill - And the hammer of galloping all day long. - - Galloping outward into the weather, - Hands a-ready and battle in all: - Words together and wine together - And song together in Balliol Hall. - Rare and single! Noble and few!... - Oh! they have wasted you over the sea! - The only brothers ever I knew, - The men that laughed and quarrelled with me. - - * * * * * - - Balliol made me, Balliol fed me, - Whatever I had she gave me again; - And the best of Balliol loved and led me, - God be with you, Balliol men. - - - - -THE SOUTH COUNTRY - -BY HILAIRE BELLOC - - - When I am living in the Midlands - That are sodden and unkind, - I light my lamp in the evening: - My work is left behind; - And the great hills of the South Country - Come back into my mind. - - The great hills of the South Country - They stand along the sea; - And it’s there walking in the high woods - That I could wish to be, - And the men that were boys when I was a boy - Walking along with me. - - The men that live in North England - I saw them for a day: - Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, - Their skies are fast and grey; - From their castle-walls a man may see; - The mountains far away. - - The men that live in West England - They see the Severn strong, - A-rolling on rough water brown, - Light aspen leaves along. - They have the secret of the Rocks, - And the oldest kind of song. - - But the men that live in the South Country - Are the kindest and most wise, - They get their laughter from the loud surf, - And the faith in their happy eyes - Comes surely from our Sister the Spring - When over the sea she flies; - The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, - She blesses us with surprise. - - I never get between the pines - But I smell the Sussex air; - Nor I never come on a belt of sand - But my home is there. - And along the sky the line of Downs - So noble and so bare. - - A lost thing could I never find, - Nor a broken thing mend: - And I fear I shall be all alone - When I get towards the end. - Who will there be to comfort me - Or who will be my friend? - - I will gather and carefully make my friends - Of the men of the Sussex Weald, - They watch the stars from silent folds, - They stiffly plough the field. - By them and the God of the South Country - My poor soul shall be healed. - - If I ever become a rich man, - Or if ever I grow to be old, - I will build a house with deep thatch - To shelter me from the cold, - And there shall the Sussex songs be sung - And the story of Sussex told. - - I will hold my house in the high wood - Within a walk of the sea, - And the men that were boys when I was a boy - Shall sit and drink with me. - - - - -THE EARLY MORNING - -BY HILAIRE BELLOC - - - The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other: - The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother, - The moon on my left and the dawn on my right. - My brother, good morning: my sister, good night. - - - - -THE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS AT EVENING - -BY HILAIRE BELLOC - - - Strong God which made the topmost stars - To circulate and keep their course, - Remember me; whom all the bars - Of sense and dreadful fate enforce. - - Above me in your heights and tall, - Impassable the summits freeze, - Below the haunted waters call - Impassable beyond the trees. - - I hunger and I have no bread. - My gourd is empty of the wine. - Surely the footsteps of the dead - Are shuffling softly close to mine! - - It darkens. I have lost the ford. - There is a change on all things made. - The rocks have evil faces, Lord, - And I am awfully afraid. - - Remember me! the Voids of Hell - Expand enormous all around. - Strong friend of souls, Emmanuel, - Redeem me from accursed ground. - - The long descent of wasted days, - To these at last have led me down; - Remember that I filled with praise - The meaningless and doubtful ways - That lead to an eternal town. - - I challenged and I kept the Faith, - The bleeding path alone I trod; - It darkens. Stand about my wraith, - And harbour me--almighty God! - - - - -THE BIRDS - -BY HILAIRE BELLOC - - - When Jesus Christ was four years old, - The angels brought Him toys of gold, - Which no man ever had bought or sold. - - And yet with these He would not play. - He made Him small fowl out of clay, - And blessed them till they flew away: - _Tu creasti Domine_. - - Jesus Christ, Thou child so wise, - Bless mine hands and fill mine eyes, - And bring my soul to Paradise. - - - - -COURTESY - -BY HILAIRE BELLOC - - - Of Courtesy, it is much less - Than Courage of Heart or Holiness, - Yet in my Walks it seems to me - That the Grace of God is in Courtesy. - - On Monks I did in Storrington fall, - They took me straight into their Hall; - I saw Three Pictures on a wall, - And Courtesy was in them all. - - The first Annunciation; - The second the Visitation; - The third the Consolation, - Of God that was Our Lady’s Son. - - The first was of Saint Gabriel; - On Wings a-flame from Heaven he fell; - And as he went upon one knee - He shone with Heavenly Courtesy. - - Our Lady out of Nazareth rode---- - It was her month of heavy load; - Yet was Her face both great and kind, - For Courtesy was in Her Mind. - - The third it was our Little Lord, - Whom all the Kings in arms adored; - He was so small you could not see - His large intent of Courtesy. - - Our Lord, that was Our Lady’s Son, - Go bless you, People, one by one; - My Rhyme is written, my work is done. - - - - -NOEL - -BY HILAIRE BELLOC - - -I - - On a winter’s night long time ago - (_The bells ring loud and the bells ring low_), - When high howled wind, and down fell snow - (Carillon, Carilla). - Saint Joseph he and Notre Dame, - Riding on an ass, full weary came - From Nazareth into Bethlehem, - And the small child Jesus smile on you. - - -II - - And Bethlehem inn they stood before - (_The bells ring less and the bells ring more_), - The landlord bade them begone from his door - (Carillon, Carilla). - “Poor folk” (says he), “must lie where they may, - For the Duke of Jewry comes this way, - With all his train on a Christmas Day.” - And the small child Jesus smile on you. - - -III - - Poor folk that may my carol hear - (_The bells ring single and the bells ring clear_), - See! God’s one child had hardest cheer! - (Carillon, Carilla). - Men grown hard on a Christmas morn; - The dumb beast by and a babe forlorn. - It was very, very cold when our Lord was born. - And the small child Jesus smile on you. - - -IV - - Now these were Jews as Jews may be - (_The bells ring merry and the bells ring free_). - But Christian men in a band are we - (Carillon, Carilla). - Empty we go, and ill be-dight, - Singing Noel on a Winter’s night. - Give us to sup by the warm firelight, - And the small child Jesus smile on you. - - - - -AFTER A RETREAT - -BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON - - - What hast thou learnt to-day? - Hast thou sounded awful mysteries, - Hast pierced the veiléd skies, - Climbed to the feet of God, - Trodden where saints have trod, - Fathomed the heights above? - _Nay, - This only have I learnt, that God is love._ - - What hast thou heard to-day? - Hast heard the Angel-trumpets cry, - And rippling harps reply; - Heard from the Throne of flame - Whence God incarnate came - Some thund’rous message roll? - _Nay, - This have I heard, His voice within my soul._ - - What hast thou felt to-day? - The pinions of the Angel-guide - That standeth at thy side - In rapturous ardours beat, - Glowing, from head to feet, - In ecstasy divine? - _Nay, - This only have I felt, Christ’s hand in mine._ - - - - -THE TERESIAN CONTEMPLATIVE - -BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON - - - She moves in tumult; round her lies - The silence of the world of grace; - The twilight of our mysteries - Shines like high noonday on her face; - Our piteous guesses, dim with fears, - She touches, handles, sees, and hears. - - In her all longings mix and meet; - Dumb souls through her are eloquent; - She feels the world beneath her feet - Thrill in a passionate intent; - Through her our tides of feeling roll - And find their God within her soul. - - Her faith and awful Face of God - Brightens and blinds with utter light; - Her footsteps fall where late He trod; - She sinks in roaring voids of night; - Cries to her Lord in black despair, - And knows, yet knows not, He is there. - - A willing sacrifice she takes - The burden of our fall within; - Holy she stands; while on her breaks - The lightning of the wrath of sin; - She drinks her Saviour’s cup of pain, - And, one with Jesus, thirsts again. - - - - -HOW SHALL I BUILD - -BY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT - - - How shall I build my temple to the Lord, - Unworthy I, who am thus foul of heart? - How shall I worship who no traitor word - Know but of love to play a suppliant’s part? - How shall I pray, whose soul is as a mart, - For thoughts unclean, whose tongue is as a sword - Even for those it loves, to wound and smart? - Behold how little I can help Thee, Lord. - - The Temple I would build should be all white, - Each stone the record of a blameless day; - The souls that entered there should walk in light, - Clothed in high chastity and wisely gay. - Lord, here is darkness. Yet this heart unwise, - Bruised in Thy service, take in sacrifice. - - - - -SONG - -BY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT - - - O fly not, Pleasure, pleasant-hearted Pleasure; - Fold me thy wings, I prithee, yet and stay: - For my heart no measure - Knows, or other treasure - To buy a garland for my love to-day. - - And thou, too, Sorrow, tender-hearted Sorrow, - Thou gray-eyed mourner, fly not yet away: - For I fain would borrow - Thy sad weeds to-morrow, - To make a mourning for love’s yesterday. - - The voice of Pity, Time’s divine dear Pity, - Moved me to tears: I dared not say them nay, - But passed forth from the city, - Making thus my ditty - Of fair love lost forever and a day. - - - - -THE DESOLATE CITY - -BY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT - - - Dark to me is the earth. Dark to me are the heavens. - Where is she that I loved, the woman with eyes like stars? - Desolate are the streets. Desolate is the city. - A city taken by storm, where none are left but the slain. - - Sadly I rose at dawn, undid the latch of my shutters, - Thinking to let in light, but I only let in love. - Birds in the boughs were awake; I listen’d to their chaunting; - Each one sang to his love; only I was alone. - - This, I said in my heart, is the hour of life and pleasure. - Now each creature on earth has his joy, and lives in the sun, - Each in another’s eyes finds light, the light of compassion, - This is the moment of pity, this is the moment of love. - - Speak, O desolate city! Speak, O silence in sadness! - Where is she that loved in my strength, that spoke to my soul? - Where are those passionate eyes that appealed to my eyes in passion? - Where is the mouth that kiss’d me, the breast that I laid to my - own? - - Speak, thou soul of my soul, for rage in my heart is kindled. - Tell me, where didst thou flee in the day of destruction and fear? - See, my arms enfold thee, enfolding thus all heaven, - See, my desire is fulfilled in thee, for it fills the earth. - - Thus in my grief I lamented. Then turned I from the window, - Turn’d to the stair, and the open door, and the empty street, - Crying aloud in my grief, for there was none to chide me, - None to mock my weakness, none to behold my tears. - - Groping I went, as blind. I sought her house, my beloved’s. - There I stopp’d at the silent door, and listen’d and tried the - latch. - Love, I cried, dost thou slumber? This is no hour for slumber, - This is the hour of love, and love I bring in my hand. - - I knew the house with its windows barr’d, and its leafless fig-tree, - Climbing round by the doorstep, the only one in the street; - I knew where my hope had climbed to its goal and there encircled, - All those desolate walls once held, my beloved’s heart. - - There in my grief she consoled me. She loved when I loved not. - She put her hand in my hand, and set her lips to my lips. - She told me all her pain and show’d me all her trouble. - I, like a fool, scarce heard, hardly return’d her kiss. - - Love, thy eyes were like torches. They changed as I beheld them. - Love, thy lips were like gems, the seal thou settest on my life. - Love, if I loved not then, behold this hour thy vengeance; - This is the fruit of thy love and thee, the unwise grown wise. - - Weeping strangled my voice. I call’d out, but none answered; - Blindly the windows gazed back at me, dumbly the door; - She whom I love, who loved me, look’d not on my yearning, - Gave me no more her hands to kiss, show’d me no more her soul. - - Therefore the earth is dark to me, the sunlight blackness, - Therefore I go in tears and alone, by night and day; - Therefore I find my love in heaven, no light, no beauty, - A heaven taken by storm, where none are left but the slain! - - - - -A CHRISTMAS SONG - -BY TERESA BRAYTON - - - O Lord, as You lay so soft and white, - A Babe in a manger stall, - With the big star flashing across the night, - Did you know and pity us all? - Did the wee hands, close as a rosebud curled, - With the call of their mission ache, - To be out and saving a weary world - For Your merciful Father’s sake? - - Did You hear the cries of the groping blind, - The woe of the leper’s prayer, - The surging sorrow of all mankind, - As You lay by Your Mother there? - Beyond the shepherds, low bending down, - The long, long road did You see - That led from peaceful Bethlehem town - To the summit of Calvary? - - The world grown weary of wasting strife, - Had called for the Christ to rise; - For sin had poisoned the springs of life - And only the dead were wise. - But, wrapped in a dream of scornful pride, - Too high were its eyes to see - A Child, foredoomed to be crucified, - On a peasant Mother’s knee. - - But, while the heavens with glad acclaim - Sang out the tale of Your birth, - A mystic echo of comfort came - To the desolate souls of earth. - For the thrill of a slowly turning tide - Was felt in that grey daybreak, - As if God, the Father, had sanctified - All sorrow for One Man’s sake. - - O Child of the Promise! Lord of Love! - O Master of all the earth! - While the angels are singing their songs above, - We bring our gifts to Your birth. - Just the blind man’s cry, and the lame man’s pace, - And the leper’s pitiful call; - On these, over infinite fields of space, - Look down, for You know them all. - - - - -LIKE ONE I KNOW - -BY NANCY CAMPBELL - - - Little Christ was good, and lay - Sleeping, smiling in the hay; - Never made the cows round eyes - Open wider at His cries; - Never when the night was dim, - Startled guardian Seraphim, - Who above Him in the beams - Kept their watch round His white dreams; - Let the rustling brown mice creep - Undisturbed about His sleep. - Yet if it had not been so-- - Had He been like one I know, - Fought with little fumbling hands, - Kicked inside His swaddling bands, - Puckered wilful crimsoning face-- - Mary Mother, full of grace, - At that little naughty thing, - Still had been a-worshipping. - - - - -MEA CULPA - -BY ETHNA CARBERY - - - Be pitiful, my God! - No hard-won gifts I bring-- - But empty, pleading hands - To Thee at evening. - - Spring came, white-browed and young, - I, too, was young with Spring. - There was a blue, blue heaven - Above a skylark’s wing. - - Youth is the time for joy, - I cried, it is not meet - To mount the heights of toil - With child-soft feet. - - When Summer walked the land - In Passion’s red arrayed, - Under green sweeping boughs - My couch I made. - - The noon-tide heat was sore, - I slept the Summer through; - An angel waked me--“Thou - Hast work to do.” - - I rose and saw the sheaves - Upstanding in a row; - The reapers sang Thy praise - While passing to and fro. - - My hands were soft with ease, - Long were the Autumn hours; - I left the ripened sheaves - For poppy-flowers. - - But lo! now Winter glooms, - And gray is in my hair, - Whither has flown the world - I found so fair? - - My patient God, forgive! - Praying Thy pardon sweet - I lay a lonely heart - Before Thy feet. - - - - -IN TIR-NA’N-OG - -BY ETHNA CARBERY - - - _In Tir-na’n-Og, - In Tir-na’n-Og,_ - Summer and spring go hand in hand, and in the radiant weather - Brown autumn leaves and winter snow come floating down together. - - _In Tir-na’n-Og, - In Tir-na’n-Og,_ - The sagans sway this way and that, the twisted fern uncloses, - The quicken-berry hides its red above the tender roses. - - _In Tir-na’n-Og, - In Tir-na’n-Og,_ - The blackbird lilts, the robin chirps, the linnet wearies never, - They pipe to dancing feet of _Sidhe_ and thus shall pipe forever. - - _In Tir-na’n-Og, - In Tir-na’n-Og,_ - All in a drift of apple blooms my true love there is roaming, - He will not come although I pray from dawning until gloaming. - - _In Tir-na’n-Og, - In Tir-na’n-Og,_ - The _Sidhe_ desired my Heart’s Delight, they lured him from my - keeping, - He stepped within a fairy ring while all the world was sleeping. - - _In Tir-na’n-Og, - In Tir-na’n-Og,_ - He hath forgotten hill and glen where misty shadows gather, - The bleating of the mountain sheep, the cabin of his father. - - _In Tir-na’n-Og, - In Tir-na’n-Og,_ - He wanders in a happy dream thro’ scented golden hours, - He flutes, to woo a fairy love, knee deep in fairy flowers. - - _In Tir-na’n-Og, - In Tir-na’n-Og,_ - No memory hath he of my face, no sorrow for my sorrow, - My flax is spun, my wheel is hushed, and so I wait the morrow. - - - - -LADY DAY IN IRELAND - -BY P. J. CARROLL, C.S.C. - - - Through the long August day, mantled blue with a sky of Our Lady, - They are there at the well from the dawn till the sea birds go - home; - And the trees bending down with broad leaves offer spots that are - shady, - Where the heart is at rest, sighing prayers till the shadows are - come. - - The brown beads and the crucifix pass in procession through fingers - That are pale as the snow or are hardened from labor and pain. - In each _Ave_ they whisper the deep Celtic tenderness lingers, - Like a sweet phrase in song that is echoed and echoed again. - - Marching down the white road with the sun in the noon of his - splendor - Are the children, with joy in the blue of their innocent eyes; - In their hearts is a song, breaking forth into words that are - tender, - Unto her with the gold of the stars and the blue of the skies. - - In the still summer air there’s a chorus of minstrelsy breaking, - There are flashes of gold with a flutter and waving of wings: - Mary’s birds are they, come with the dawn, all the green woods - forsaking, - Every heart in them breaking for love with the message it brings. - - Through the calm August day, with Our Lady’s blue sky far above - them, - And beyond the grey mountains where slumbers the Irish green sea, - There they speak to her, weep while they pray to her, beg her to - love them, - Till beyond the bright stars where their home and their treasure - shall be. - - - - -ST. PATRICK’S TREASURE - -BY P. J. CARROLL, C.S.C. - - - Called son by many lands, - Thou art a father unto one. - Of all these mothers claiming thee, - By honored titles naming thee, - We ask: Where is thy priceless birthright gone? - - That blessed faith of thine, - They mothering thee have sold. - But she, thy daughter dutiful, - Has kept thy treasure beautiful - Through many sorrows in her heart of gold. - - - - -THE SPOUSE OF CHRIST - -BY D. A. CASEY - - - He came to her from out eternal years, - A smile upon His lips, a tender smile - That, somehow, spoke of partings and of tears. - - ’Twas eventide, and silence brooded low - On earth and sky--the hour when haunting fears - Of mystery pursue us as we go. - - Strange, mystic shadows filled the temple dim, - But on the Golden Door the ruby glow - Spoke orisons more sweet than vesper hymn. - - No human accents voiced His gentle call, - No crashing thunderbolts did wait on Him, - As when of old He deigned to summon Saul. - - But heart did speak to heart, an unseen chord - In Love’s own scale did sweetly rise and fall; - Nor questioned she, but meekly answered “Lord!” - - To-night some household counts a vacant chair, - But far on high Christ portions the reward, - A hundred-fold for each poor human care. - - - - -CHRIST THE COMRADE - -BY PADRAIC COLUM - - - Christ, by Thine own darkened hour - Live within my heart and brain! - Let my hands not slip the rein. - - Ah, how long ago it is - Since a comrade rode with me! - Now a moment let me see - - Thyself, lonely in the dark, - Perfect, without wound or mark. - - - - -AN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS - -BY PADRAIC COLUM - - - Oh, to have a little house, - To own the hearth and stool and all-- - The heaped-up sods upon the fire, - The pile of turf against the wall! - - To have a clock with weights and chains, - And pendulum swinging up and down! - A dresser filled with shining delph, - Speckled and white and blue and brown! - - I could be busy all the day - Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor, - And fixing on their shelf again - My white and blue speckled store. - - I could be quiet there at night - Beside the fire and by myself, - Sure of a bed, and loth to leave - The ticking clock and shining delph. - - Och! but I’m weary of mist and dark, - And roads where there’s never a house or bush, - And tired I am of bog and road, - And the crying wind and the lonesome hush. - - And I am praying to God on high, - And I am praying Him night and day, - For a little house--a house of my own-- - Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way. - - - - -THE HEAVIEST CROSS OF ALL - -BY KATHERINE ELEANOR CONWAY - - - I’ve borne full many a sorrow, I’ve suffered many a loss-- - But now, with a strange, new anguish, I carry this last dread cross; - For of this be sure, my dearest, whatever thy life befall, - The cross that our own hands fashion is the heaviest cross of all. - - Heavy and hard I made it in the days of my fair strong youth, - Veiling mine eyes from the blessed light, and closing my heart to - truth. - Pity me, Lord, whose mercy passeth my wildest thought, - For I never dreamed of the bitter end of the work my hands had - wrought! - - In the sweet morn’s flush and fragrance I wandered o’er dewy - meadows, - And I hid from the fervid noontide glow in the cool green woodland - shadows; - And I never recked, as I sang aloud in my wilful, selfish glee, - Of the mighty woe that was drawing nigh to darken the world for me. - - But it came at last, my dearest--what need to tell thee how? - Mayst never know of the wild, wild woe that my heart is bearing now! - Over my summer’s glory crept a damp and chilling shade, - And I staggered under the heavy cross that my sinful hands had made. - - I go where the shadows deepen, and the end seems far off yet-- - God keep thee safe from the sharing of this woeful late regret! - For of this be sure, my dearest, whatever thy life befall, - The crosses we make for ourselves, alas! are the heaviest ones of - all. - - - - -SATURNINUS - -BY KATHERINE ELEANOR CONWAY - - - He might have won the highest guerdon that heaven to earth can give, - For whoso falleth for justice--dying, he yet shall live. - - He might have left us his memory to flame as a beacon light, - When clouds of the false world’s raising shut the stars of heaven - from sight. - - He might have left us his name to ring in our triumph song - When we stand, as we’ll stand at to-morrow’s dawn, by the grave of a - world-old wrong. - - For he gave thee, O mother of valiant sons, thou fair, and sore - oppressed, - The love of his youth and his manhood’s choice--first-fruits of his - life, and best. - - Thine were throb of his heart and thought of his brain and toil of - his strong right hand; - For thee he braved scorn and reviling, and loss of gold and land, - - Threat and lure and false-hearted friend, and blight of a broken - word-- - Terrors of night and delay of light--prison and rack and sword. - - For thee he bade death defiance--till the heavens opened wide, - And his face grew bright with reflex of light from the face of the - Crucified. - - And his crown was in sight and his palm in reach and his glory all - but won, - And then--he failed--God help us! with the worst of dying done. - - Only to die on the treacherous down by the hands of the tempters - spread-- - Nay, nay--make way for the strangers! we have no right in the dead. - - But oh, for the beacon quenched, that we dreamed would kindle and - flame! - And oh, for the standard smirched and shamed, and the name we dare - not name! - - Over the lonesome grave the shadows gather fast; - Only the mother, like God, forgives, and comforts her heart with the - past. - - - - -DREAMING OF CITIES DEAD - -BY ELEANOR ROGERS COX - - - Dreaming of cities dead, - Of bright Queens vanished, - Of kings whose names were but as seed wind-blown - E’en when white Patrick’s voice shook Tara’s throne, - My way along the great world-street I tread, - And keep the rites of Beauty lost, alone. - - Cairns level with the dust-- - Names dim with Time’s dull rust-- - Afar they sleep on many a wind-swept hill, - The beautiful, the strong of heart and will-- - On whose pale dreams no sunrise joy shall burst, - No harper’s song shall pierce with battle-thrill. - - Long from their purpled heights, - Their reign of high delights, - The Queens have wended down Death’s mildewed stair, - Leaving a scent of lilies on the air, - To gladden Earth through all her days and nights, - That once she cherished anything so fair. - - - - -DEATH OF CUCHULAIN - -BY ELEANOR ROGERS COX - - - Silent are the singers in the purple halls of Emain, - Silent all the harp-strings untouched of any hand, - Wan as twilight roses the radiant, royal women, - Black unto the hearthstone the erstwhile flaming brand. - - Inward far from ocean the storm’s white birds are flying, - Darting, like dim wraith flames across the falling night. - Winds like a _caoine_ through the quicken groves are sighing, - On no lip is laughter, in no heart delight. - - For thitherwards witch-wafted athwart the sundering spaces, - Lo, a word doom-freighted unto Conchubar has come, - Whispering of one who in far-off, hostile places - Strikes a last defending blow for king and home. - - And the King pacing lone in his place of High Decision, - Gazing with rapt eyes on that far-flung battle-plain, - Through the red rains rising beholds with startled vision - Sight such as man’s eye shall not see again. - - For one there is dying, of his foes at last outnumbered, - One whose soul a sword was, shaped by God’s own hand, - One who guarded Ulaidh when all her knighthood slumbered, - Prone beneath the curse laid of old upon the land. - - And dying so, alone, of all mortal aid forsaken, - Dead his peerless war steeds, dead his charioteer, - Yet the high splendor of his spirit all unshaken, - Shines morning-bright through the Death-mists drawing near. - - And radiant round his brow yet the hero-flame is gleaming, - And firm yet his footstep upon the reddened sod, - As with sword uplifted towards the day’s last beaming, - Forth goes the spirit of Cuchulain unto God. - - Leaving to his land and the Celtic race forever - That which shall not fail them throughout the fading years, - Heritage of faith unchanged, of fear-undimmed endeavor, - And a quenchless laughter ringing down the edge of hostile spears. - - - - -GODS AND HEROES OF THE GAEL - -BY ELEANOR ROGERS COX - - - Forth in shining phalanx marching from the shrouding mists of time, - Bright the sunlight on their foreheads, bright upon their golden - mail, - Lords of beauty, lords of valor, lords of Earth’s unconquered prime, - Come the gods, the kings, the heroes of the Gael. - - Lugh, the splendor of whose shining lit the forest and the fen, - He whose smile at first illuming all the shadow-haunted space - Of the vast, primeval ranges, death-engirdled, shunned of men, - Over virgin seas to Erin led our race. - - Mananaan, great lord of Ocean--he whose fair domain outspread - Wheresoever tides foam-flowered to the moon’s high mandate move, - Aengus, clothed in youth immortal, on immortal ardors fed, - Who of old in golden Brugh reigned lord of Love. - - And his name a knightly pennon on the ramparts of the world, - And his fame a fire unfailing on Time’s utmost purple height, - Erin’s peerless gage of courage to the vaunting ages hurled-- - Sunward evermore Cuchulain holds his flight. - - They are coming with the silver speech of Erin on their lips; - The speech that once of all the mighty Celtic race made kin, - They are coming with the laughter that has known no age-eclipse, - They are coming with the songs beloved of Finn. - - Yea, with gifts regenerating to all men of women born-- - Flame of courage that shall fade not, flame of truth that shall - not fail, - To the music of a thousand harps they’re marching through the Morn, - Deathless gods and kings and heroes of the Gael! - - - - -AT BENEDICTION - -BY ELEANOR ROGERS COX - - - Joy, beauty, awe, supremest worship blending - In one long breath of perfect ecstasy, - Song from our hearts to God’s own Heart ascending, - The mortal merged in immortality. - There, veiled beneath that sacramental whiteness, - The wonder that all wonders doth transcend, - The Word that kindled chaos into brightness, - Our Lord, our God, our origin, our end. - - Light, light, a sea of light, unshored, supernal, - Is all about our finite being spread, - Deep, soundless waves of harmonies eternal - Their balm celestial on our spirits shed. - O Source of Life! O Fount of waters living! - O Love, to whom all powers of mind and soul, - We give, and find again within the giving, - Of Thee renewed, made consecrate and whole. - - - - -PRIMROSE HILL - -BY OLIVE CUSTANCE - - - Wild heart in me that frets and grieves, - Imprisoned here against your will ... - Sad heart that dreams of rainbow wings ... - See! I have found some golden things! - The poplar trees on Primrose Hill - With all their shining play of leaves ... - And London like a silver bride, - That will not put her veil aside! - - Proud London like a painted Queen, - Whose crown is heavy on her head ... - City of sorrow and desire, - Under a sky of opal fire, - Amber and amethyst and red ... - And how divine the day has been! - For every dawn God builds again - This world of beauty and of pain.... - - Wild heart that hungers for delight, - Imprisoned here against your will; - Sad heart, so eager to be gay! - Loving earth’s lovely things ... the play - Of wind and leaves on Primrose Hill ... - Or London dreaming of the night ... - Adventurous heart, on beauty bent, - That only Heaven could quite content! - - - - -TWILIGHT - -BY OLIVE CUSTANCE - - - Spirit of Twilight, through your folded wings - I catch a glimpse of your averted face, - And rapturous on a sudden, my soul sings - “Is not this common earth a holy place?” - - Spirit of Twilight, you are like a song - That sleeps, and waits a singer,--like a hymn - That God finds lovely and keeps near Him long, - Till it is choired by aureoled cherubim. - - Spirit of Twilight, in the golden gloom - Of dreamland dim I sought you, and I found - A woman sitting in a silent room - Full of white flowers that moved and made no sound. - - These white flowers were the thoughts you bring to all, - And the room’s name is Mystery where you sit, - Woman whom we call Twilight, when night’s pall - You lift across our Earth to cover it. - - - - -TO A THRUSH - -BY T. A. DALY - - - Sing clear, O! throstle, - Thou golden-tongued apostle - And little brown-frocked brother - Of the loved Assisian! - Sing courage to the mother, - Sing strength into the man, - For they, who in another May - Trod Hope’s scant wine from grapes of pain, - Have tasted in thy song to-day - The bitter-sweet red lees again. - To them in whose sad May-time thou - Sang’st comfort from thy maple bough, - To tinge the presaged dole with sweet, - O! prophet then, be prophet now - And paraclete! - - That fateful May! The pregnant vernal night - Was throbbing with the first faint pangs of day, - The while with ordered urge toward life and light, - Earth-atoms countless groped their destined way; - And one full-winged to fret - Its tender oubliette, - The warding mother-heart above it woke, - Darkling she lay in doubt, then, sudden wise, - Whispered her husband’s drowsy ear and broke - The estranging seal of slumber from his eyes: - “My hour is nigh: arise!” - - Already, when, with arms for comfort linked, - The lovers at an eastward window stood, - The rosy day, in cloudy swaddlings, blinked - Through misty green new-fledged in Wister Wood. - Breathless upon this birth - The still-entranced earth - Seemed brooding, motionless in windless space. - Then rose thy priestly chant, O! holy bird! - And heaven and earth were quickened with its grace; - To tears two wedded souls were moved who heard, - And one, unborn, was stirred! - - O! Comforter, enough that from thy green - Hid tabernacle in the wood’s recess - To those care-haunted lovers thou, unseen, - Should’st send thy flame-tipped song to cheer and bless. - Enough for them to hear - And feel thy presence near; - And yet when he, regardful of her ease, - Had led her back by brightening hall and stair - To her own chamber’s quietude and peace, - One maple-bowered window shook with rare, - Sweet song--and thou wert there! - - Hunter of souls! the loving chase so nigh - Those spirits twain had never come before. - They saw the sacred flame within thine eye; - To them the maple’s depths quick glory wore, - As though God’s hand had lit - His altar-fire in it, - And made a fane, of virgin verdure pleached, - Wherefrom thou might’st in numbers musical - Expound the age-sweet words thy Francis preached - To thee and thine, of God’s benignant thrall - That broodeth over all. - - And they, athirst for comfort, sipped thy song, - But drank not yet thy deeper homily. - Not yet, but when parturient pangs grew strong, - And from its cell the young soul struggled free-- - A new joy, trailing grief, - A little crumpled leaf, - Blighted before it burgeoned from the stem-- - Thou, as the fabled robin to the rood, - Wert minister of charity to them; - And from the shadows of sad parenthood - They heard and understood. - - Makes God one soul a lure for snaring three? - Ah! surely; so this nursling of the nest, - This teen-touched joy, ere birth anoint of thee, - Yet bears thy chrismal music in her breast. - Five Mays have come and sped - Above her sunny head, - And still the happy song abides in her. - For though on maimed limbs the body creeps, - It doth a spirit house whose pinions stir - Familiarly the far cerulean steeps - Where God His mansion keeps. - - So come, O! throstle, - Thou golden-tongued apostle - And little brown-frocked brother - Of the loved Assisian! - Sing courage to the mother, - Sing strength into the man, - That she who in another May - Came out of heaven, trailing care, - May never know that sometimes gray - Earth’s roof is and its cupboards bare. - To them in whose sad May-time thou - Sang’st comfort and thy maple bough, - To tinge the presaged dole with sweet, - O! prophet then, be prophet now - And paraclete! - - - - -TO A PLAIN SWEETHEART - -BY T. A. DALY - - - I love thee, dear, for what thou art, - Nor would I wish thee otherwise, - For when thy lashes lift apart - I read, deep-mirrored in thine eyes, - The glory of a modest heart. - - Wert thou as fair as thou art good, - It were not given to any man, - With daring eyes of flesh and blood, - To look thee in the face and scan - The splendor of thy womanhood. - - - - -TO A ROBIN - -BY T. A. DALY - - - I heard thee, joyous votary, - Pour forth thy heart in one - Sweet simple strain of melody - To greet the rising sun, - When he across the morning’s verge his first faint flare had flung - And found the crimson of thy breast the whisp’ring leaves among, - In thine own tree - Which sheltered thee, - Thy mate, thy nest, thy young. - - I marked thee, sorrow’s votary, - When in the noon of day - Young vandals stormed thy sacred tree - And bore thine all away; - The notes of grief that rent thy breast touched kindred chords in - mine, - For memories of other days, though slumbering still confine - In mine own heart - The bitter smart - Of sorrow such as thine. - - I hear thee now, sweet votary, - Beside thy ruined nest, - Lift up thy flood of melody - Against the crimsoned west, - Forgetful of all else in this, thy one sweet joyous strain. - I thank thee for this ecstasy of my remembered pain; - Thou liftest up - My sorrow’s cup - To sweeten it again. - - - - -THE POET - -BY T. A. DALY - - - The truest poet is not one - Whose golden fancies fuse and run - To moulded phrases, crusted o’er - With flashing gems of metaphor; - Whose art, responsive to his will, - Makes voluble the thoughts that fill - The cultured windings of his brain, - Yet takes no soundings of the pain, - The joy, the yearnings of the heart - Untrammeled by the bonds of art, - O! poet truer far than he - Is such a one as you may be, - When in the quiet night you keep - Mute vigil on the marge of sleep. - - If then, with beating heart, you mark - God’s nearer presence in the dark, - And musing on the wondrous ways - Of Him who numbers all your days, - Pay tribute to Him with your tears - For joys, for sorrows, hopes and fears - Which he has blessed and given to you, - You are the poet, great and true. - For there are songs within the heart - Whose perfect melody no art - Can teach the tongue of man to phrase. - These are the songs His poets raise, - When in the night they keep - Mute vigil on the marge of sleep. - - - - -OCTOBER - -BY T. A. DALY - - - Come, forsake your city street! - Come to God’s own fields and meet October. - Not the lean, unkempt and brown - Counterfeit that haunts the town, - Pointing, like a thing of gloom, - At dead summer in her tomb; - Reading in each fallen leaf - Nothing but regret and grief. - Come out, where, beneath the blue, - You may frolic with the true October. - - Call his name and mark the sound, - Opulent and full and round: “October.” - Come, and gather from his hand - Lavish largesse of the land; - Read in his prophetic eyes, - Clear as skies of paradise, - Not of summer days that died, - But of summer fructified! - Hear, O soul, his message sweet. - Come to God’s own fields and meet October. - - - - -SORROW - -BY AUBREY DE VERE - - - Count each affliction, whether light or grave, - God’s messenger sent down to thee; do thou - With courtesy receive him; rise and bow; - And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave - Permission first His heavenly feet to lave; - Then lay before Him all thou hast; allow - No cloud or passion to usurp thy brow, - Or mar thy hospitality; no wave - Of mortal tumult to obliterate - Thy soul’s marmoreal calmness. Grief should be - Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate; - Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free; - Strong to consume small troubles; to commend - Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. - - - - -HUMAN LIFE - -BY AUBREY DE VERE - - - Sad is our youth, for it is ever going, - Crumbling away beneath our very feet; - Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing, - In current unperceived because so fleet; - Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing, - But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat; - Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing; - And still, O still, their dying breath is sweet; - And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us - Of that which made our childhood sweeter still; - And sweeter our life’s decline, for it hath left us - A nearer Good to cure an older Ill; - And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them - Not for their sake, but His who grants them or denies them. - - - - -CARDINAL MANNING - -BY AUBREY DE VERE - - - I learn’d his greatness first at Lavington: - The moon had early sought her bed of brine, - But we discours’d till now each starry sign - Had sunk: our theme was one and one alone: - “Two minds supreme,” he said, “our earth has known; - One sang in science; one served God in song; - Aquinas--Dante.” Slowly in me grew strong - A thought, “These two great minds in him are one; - ‘Lord, what shall this man do?’” Later at Rome - Beside the dust of Peter and of Paul - Eight hundred mitred sires of Christendom - In Council sat. I mark’d him ’mid them all; - I thought of that long night in years gone by - And cried, “At last my question meets reply.” - - - - -SONG - -BY AUBREY DE VERE - - - Seek not the tree of silkiest bark - And balmiest bud, - To carve her name while yet ’tis dark - Upon the wood! - The world is full of noble tasks - And wreaths hard won: - Each work demands strong hearts, strong hands, - Till day is done. - - Sing not that violet-veined skin, - That cheek’s pale roses, - The lily of that form wherein - Her soul reposes! - Forth to the fight, true man! true knight! - The clash of arms - Shall more prevail than whisper’d tale, - To win her charms. - - The Warrior for the True, the Right, - Fights in Love’s name; - The love that lures thee from that flight - Lures thee to shame: - That love which lifts the heart, yet leaves - The spirit free,-- - That love, or none, is fit for one - Man-shap’d like thee. - - - - -THE SONS OF PATRICK - -BY JAMES B. DOLLARD - - - Into the mists of the Pagan island - Bearing God’s message great Patrick came; - The Druid altars on plain and highland - Fell at the sound of his mighty name! - - Swift was the conquest--with hearts upswelling - The Faith they took, and to God they swore: - That precious spark from their bosoms’ dwelling, - Man’s guile or torture should snatch no more. - - And ever since, while the wide world wonders - This steadfast people their strength reveal, - As Time Earth’s kingdoms and empires sunders, - They stand by Patrick in ranks of steel! - - The nations mock them, like Christ’s tormentors; - “Descend,” they cry, “from your cross of shame; - Abjure the Faith--see the road that enters - The groves of pleasure and wealth and fame!” - - Like those that passed where the Cross rose dimly - Their wise beards wagging--“What fools!” they say; - But the Sons of Patrick make answer grimly: - “Our God we’ve chosen--the price we’ll pay. - - “Ever about us the foes’ commotion, - The anguish sweat on our brows ne’er dry; - Our martyr’s bones strew the land and ocean, - Lone deserts echo our exiles’ cry. - - “Unto our hearts is earth’s pride forbidden, - Unto our hands is its gold denied; - We do not question the Purpose hidden-- - Let Him who fashioned our souls decide! - - “Yet though once more to us choice were given, - And the long aeons were backward rolled, - We’d walk again before Earth and Heaven - The blood-stained pathway we walked of old!” - - - - -SONG OF THE LITTLE VILLAGES - -BY JAMES B. DOLLARD - - - The pleasant little villages that grace the Irish glynns - Down among the wheatfields--up amid the whins, - The little white-walled villages crowding close together, - Clinging to the Old Sod in spite of wind and weather: - Ballytarsney, Ballymore, Ballyboden, Boyle, - Ballingarry, Ballymagorry by the Banks of Foyle, - Ballylaneen, Ballyporeen, Bansha, Ballysadare, - Ballybrack, Ballinalack, Barna, Ballyclare. - - The cozy little villages that shelter from the mist, - Where the great West Walls by ocean spray are kissed; - The happy little villages that cuddle in the sun - When blackberries ripen and the harvest work is done. - Corrymeela, Croaghnakeela, Clogher, Cahirciveen, - Cappaharoe, Carrigaloe, Cashel and Coosheen, - Castlefinn, Carrigtohill, Crumlin, Clara, Clane, - Carrigaholt, Carrigaline, Cloghjordan and Coolrain. - - The dreamy little villages, where by the fires at night, - Old Sanachies with ghostly tale the boldest hearts affright; - The crooning of the wind-blast is the wailing Banshee’s cry, - And when the silver hazels stir they say the fairies sigh, - Kilfenora, Kilfinnane, Kinnity, Killylea, - Kilmoganny, Kiltamagh, Kilronan and Kilrea, - Killashandra, Kilmacow, Killiney, Killashee, - Killenaule, Killmyshall, Killorglin and Killeagh. - - Leave the little villages, o’er the black sea go, - Learn the stranger’s welcome, learn the exile’s woe, - Leave the little villages, but think not to forget, - Afar they’ll rise before your eyes to rack your bosoms yet. - Moneymore, Moneygall, Monivea and Moyne, - Mullinahone, Mullinavatt, Mullagh and Mooncoin, - Shanagolden, Shanballymore, Stranorlar and Slane, - Toberaheena, Toomyvara, Tempo and Strabane. - - On the Southern Llanos,--north where strange light gleams, - Many a yearning exile sees them in his dreams; - Dying voices murmur (passed all pain and care), - “Lo, the little villages, God has heard our prayer.” - Lisdoonvarna, Lissadil, Lisdargan, Lisnaskea, - Portglenone, Portarlington, Portumna, Portmagee, - Clondalkin and Clongowan, Cloondara and Clonae, - God bless the little villages and guard them night and day! - - - - -THE SOUL OF KARNAGHAN BUIDHE - -BY JAMES B. DOLLARD - - - It was the soul of Karnaghan Buidhe - Left his lips with a groan. - Like arrowy lightning bolt released - It sprang to the Judgment throne. - - Spoke the Judge: “For as many years - As the numbered drops of the sea - I grant you heaven--but thenceforth hell, - Your bitter lot shall be.” - - Prayed the soul of Karnaghan Buidhe - (_The trembling soul of Karnaghan Buidhe_) - “Dear Lord, who died on Calvary, - Too brief that span of heaven for me.” - - Then spoke the Lord: “For as many years - As numbered sands on the shore, - The joys of heaven I give--but thence - You’ll see my face no more.” - - Pleaded the soul of Karnaghan Buidhe - (_The shuddering soul of Karnaghan Buidhe_) - “Blessed Lord who died on the shameful tree, - Too brief that span of heaven for me.” - - Once more the Judge: “The blades of grass - That earth-winds ever blew - A year of heaven I’ll count for each - Till hell shall yawn for you.” - - Prayed the soul of Karnaghan Buidhe - (_The anguished soul of Karnaghan Buidhe_) - “Kind Lord, who died in agony, - Too brief that spell of heaven for me. - - But this I ask, O Christ--a year - Of hell for each of these: - The blades of grass, the grains of sand, - The drops that make the seas! - And after this, sweet Lord, with Thee - In heaven for all eternity!” - - Spoke the Judge, and His smile of love - Gladdened the waiting choir above: - “Sin and sorrow forever past, - Heaven I grant you, first and last!” - - - - -THE ANGELIC CHORUS - -BY D. J. DONAHOE - - - At midnight from the zenith burst a light - More radiant and more beautiful than dawn, - And the meek shepherds on the shadowy lawn - Gazed upward in mute wonder on the sight; - The stars sank back in pallor, and the skies - Trembled responsive to rich harmonies. - - And lo! an angel spake, “Be not afraid! - I bear glad tidings; for this happy morn - A Saviour and a King to man is born; - He sleepeth in a manger lowly laid.” - Then rolled along the heavens the glad refrain; - “Glory to God on high and peace to men!” - - Soon from the skies the streaming light was gone, - And Night and Silence rested on the hill; - But the mute shepherds, looking upward still, - Could hear the heavenly echoes rolling on. - So evermore the listening world can hear - The Angelic Chorus ringing sweet and clear. - - - - -LADYE CHAPEL AT EDEN HALL - -BY ELEANOR C. DONNELLY - - - Close to the Sacred Heart, it nestles fair-- - A marble poem; an aesthetic dream - Of sculptured beauty, fit to be the theme - Of angel fancies; a Madonna-prayer - Uttered in stone. Round columns light as air, - And fretted cornice, Sharon’s Rose is wreathed-- - The passion-flower, the thorn-girt lily rare, - The palm, the wheat, the grapes in vine-leaves sheathed. - Tenderly bright, from mullioned windows glow - Our Lady’s chaplet-mysteries. Behold, - Her maiden statue in that shrine of snow, - Looks upward to the skies of blue and gold; - Content that in the crypt, beneath her shining feet, - The holy ones repose in dreamless slumber sweet. - - - - -MARY IMMACULATE - -BY ELEANOR C. DONNELLY - - - “Pure as the snow,” we say. Ah! never flake - Fell through the air - One-tenth as fair - As Mary’s soul was made for Christ’s dear sake. - Virgin Immaculate, - The whitest whiteness of the Alpine snows, - Beside thy stainless spirit, dusky grows. - - “Pure as the stars.” Ah! never lovely night - Wore in its diadem - So pure a gem - As that which fills the ages with its light. - Virgin Immaculate, - The peerless splendors of thy soul by far - Outshine the glow of heaven’s serenest star. - - - - -THE PILGRIM - -BY ELEANOR DOWNING - - - Behind me lies the mistress of the East, - Golden in evening, fairy dome on dome - Poised and irised like the far-flung foam - Lashed on the ribs of some forsaken coast. - Wicked and lovely temptress, fruitless boast - Of all that man may build and little be, - Mart of the world’s base passions, where thy feast - Of shame was spread, thy sin encompassed me, - Where all desires and all dreams were rife - With lust of flesh and eye and pride of life, - Lo! I have reft thy carnal mastery-- - I have gone forth and shut the gates of thee. - - Before me lies the desert and the night, - White star and gold above a pathless waste, - Blue shade and gray to where the world effaced - Flings loose its shadows on the lap of God. - Briars and dust upon my brow, unshod, - In pilgrim weeds athwart a vineless land, - My feet shall pass and mark the path aright, - For lo! Thy staff and rod are in my hand; - And with the light Thy city shall unfurl - Its golden oriflames and tents of pearl-- - Dead Babylon, thy gilden clasp I flee; - Jerusalem, lift up thy gates to me! - - - - -ON THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION - -BY ELEANOR DOWNING - - - “Mary, uplifted to our sight - In cloudy vesture stainless-white, - Why are thine eyes like stars alight, - Twin flames of charity?” - “Mine eyes are on His glorious face - That shone not on earth’s darkened place, - But clothed and crowned me with grace-- - The God who fathered me!” - - “Mary, against the sinless glow - Of angel pinions white as snow, - Why are thy fair lips parted so - In ecstasy of love?” - “My lips are parted to His breath - Who breathed on me in Nazareth - And gave me life to live in death-- - My Spouse, the spotless Dove!” - - “Mary, whose eager feet would spurn - The very clouds, whose pale hands yearn - Toward rifted Heaven that fires burn - Where once was fixed the sword?” - “The fires I felt when His child head - Lay on this mother’s heart that bled, - And when it lay there stark and dead-- - My little Child, my Lord!” - - - - -MARY - -BY ELEANOR DOWNING - - - A garden like a chalice-cup, - With bloom of almond white and pink, - And starred hibiscus to the brink, - From which sweet waters bubble up. - A garden walled with ilex-trees - And topped with blue, white clouds between - Save where the glossed leaves’ twinkling green - Is stirred by some soft-footed breeze - A place apart, a watered glade, - Where sin and sorrow have not been, - And earth’s complaint grows hushed within - Its greening aisles of sacred shade. - - The circling arms, the flower face, - Such were they to the Child soft-pressed, - Who drew all sweetness from the breast - Of her whom angels crowned with grace. - - A night of storm and wailing stress, - A coast that cradles to the shock - Of waves that lap the pitted rock, - And winds that shriek their wrathfulness; - A night of all wild things unpent, - Strange voices and strange shapes that beat - To chill the heart and snare the feet. - And through the tempest, beacon-bent - To shelter from the driving damp - Bespeaking warmth and sweet repose - Within its sanctuary close, - The welcome of a red shrine-lamp. - - So unto Him Who, weary, pressed - Through the fierce storm of wrath and hate, - Shone Mary’s love, a chapel-gate - Where He might enter Him and rest. - - A desert filled with shining sand, - And still as death the skies that bend - Where to horizon without end - The rounding distances expand. - A desert white with burning heat - And parched silence without stir, - And at its heart a voyager, - Where Death and daggered noonday meet; - And Thirst that grips him by the throat; - When from the distance wreathing blue, - No mirage, but a dream come true, - Crowned palm-tree and pale waters float. - - To Christ upon the rood, when dim - Fell on His brow the Shade accurst, - So Mary slaked His burning thirst - With her white soul held up to Him. - - - - -EXTREME UNCTION - -BY ERNEST DOWSON - - - Upon the eyes, the lips, the feet, - On all the passages of sense, - The atoning oil is spread with sweet - Renewal of lost innocence. - - The feet, that lately ran so fast - To meet desire, are soothly sealed; - The eyes, that were so often cast - On vanity, are touched and healed. - - From troublous sights and sounds set free - In such a twilight hour of breath, - Shall one retrace his life, or see, - Through shadows, the true face of death? - - Vials of mercy! Sacring oils! - I know not where nor when I come, - Nor through what wanderings and toils, - To crave of you Viaticum. - - Yet, when the walls of flesh grow weak, - In such an hour, it well may be, - Through mist and darkness, light will break, - And each anointed sense will see. - - - - -BENEDICTIO DOMINI - -BY ERNEST DOWSON - - - Without, the sullen noises of the street! - The voice of London, inarticulate, - Hoarse and blaspheming, surges in to meet - The silent blessing of the Immaculate. - - Dark is the church, and dim the worshippers, - Hushed with bowed heads as though by some old spell, - While through the incense-laden air there stirs - The admonition of a silver bell. - - Dark is the church, save where the altar stands, - Dressed like a bride, illustrious with light, - Where one old priest exalts with tremulous hands - The one true solace of man’s fallen plight. - - Strange silence here: without, the sounding street - Heralds the world’s swift passage to the fire; - O Benediction, perfect and complete! - When shall men cease to suffer and desire? - - - - -CARTHUSIANS - -BY ERNEST DOWSON - - - Through what long heaviness, assayed in what strange fire, - Have these white monks been brought into the way of peace, - Despising the world’s wisdom and the world’s desire, - Which from the body of this death bring no release? - - Within their austere walls no voices penetrate; - A sacred silence only, as of death, obtains; - Nothing finds entry here of loud or passionate; - This quiet is the exceeding profit of their pain. - - From many lands they came, in divers fiery ways; - Each knew at last the vanity of earthly joys; - And one was crowned with thorns, and one was crowned with bays, - And each was tired at last of the world’s foolish noise. - - It was not theirs with Dominic to preach God’s holy wrath, - They were too stern to bear sweet Francis’ gentle sway; - Theirs was a higher calling and a steeper path, - To dwell alone with Christ, to meditate and pray. - - A cloistered company, they are companionless, - None knoweth here the secret of his brother’s heart: - They are but come together for more loneliness, - Whose bond is solitude and silence all their part. - - O beatific life! Who is there shall gainsay, - Your great refusal’s victory, your little loss, - Deserting vanity for the more perfect way, - The sweetest service of the most dolorous Cross. - - Ye shall prevail at last! Surely ye shall prevail! - Your silence and your austerity shall win at last: - Desire and Mirth, the world’s ephemeral lights shall fail, - The sweet star of your queen is never overcast. - - We fling up flowers and laugh, we laugh across the wine; - With wine we dull our souls and careful strains of art; - Our cups are polished skulls round which the roses twine: - None dares to look at Death who leers and lurks apart. - - Move on, white company, whom that has not sufficed! - Our viols cease, our wine is death, our roses fail: - Pray for our heedlessness, O dwellers with the Christ! - Though the world fall apart, surely ye shall prevail. - - - - -MARIS STELLA - -BY AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE - - - Mary, beautiful and bright - “Velut Maris Stella,” - Brighter than the morning light, - “Parens et Puella,” - I cry to thee, look down on me; - Ladye, pray thy Son for me, - “Tam pia,” - That thy child may come to thee, - “Maria.” - - Sad the earth was and forlorn, - “Eva peccatrice,” - Until Christ our Lord was born - “De te Genitrice”; - Gabriel’s “Ave” chased away - Darksome night, and brought the day - “Salutis”; - Thou the Fount whence waters play - “Virtutis.” - - Ladye, Flower of living thing, - “Rosa sine spina”; - Mother of Jesus, heaven’s King, - “Gratia divinia”; - ’Tis thou in all dost bear the prize, - Ladye, Queen of Paradise, - “Electa,” - - Maiden meek and Mother wise, - “Effecta.” - In care thou counsellest the best, - “Felix fecundata”; - To the weary thou are rest, - “Mater honorata”; - Plead in thy love to Him who gave - His precious Blood the world to save - “In cruce,” - That we our home with Him may have - “In luce.” - - Well knows he, that he is thy Son, - “Ventre quem portasti”; - All thou dost ask Him, then, is won, - “Partum quem lactasti”; - So pitiful He is and kind, - By Him the road to bliss we find - “Superni”; - He doth the gates of darkness bind - “Inferni.” - - - - -AN AUTUMN ROSE-TREE - -BY MICHAEL EARLS, S.J. - - - It seemed too late for roses - When I walked abroad to-day, - October stood in silence, - By the hedges all the way: - Yet did I hear a singing, - And I saw a red rose-tree:-- - In fields so gray with autumn - How could song or roses be? - - Oh, it was never maple - Nor the dogwood’s coat afire, - No sage with scarlet banners, - Nor the poppy’s vested choir: - The breeze that may be music - When the summer lawns are fair - Will have no heart for singing - In the autumn’s mournful air. - - As I went up the roadway, - Under cold and lonely skies, - A song I heard, a rose-tree - Waved to me in glad surprise:-- - A red cloak and a ribbon, - (Round the braided hair of jet) - And redder cheeks than roses - Of a little Margaret. - - Now God is good in autumn, - He can name the birds that sing, - He loves the hearts of children - More than flowery fields of spring: - And when the years of winter - Gray with Margaret will be, - God will find her love still blossom - Like a red rose-tree. - - - - -TO A CARMELITE POSTULANT - -(San Francisco, May, 1910) - -BY MICHAEL EARLS, S.J. - - - Oh, the banks of May are fair, - Charm of sound and sight, - Breath of heaven fills the air, - To the world’s delight. - - Far more wondrous is a bower, - Fairer than the May, - Love-of-God it wears in flower, - Blooming night and day. - - Love-of-God within the heart - Multicolored grows, - Now a lily’s counterpart, - Now the blood-red rose. - - Come the sun or chilling rain, - Come the drought or dew, - Crocus health or violet pain, - Love-of-God is true. - - Hard may be the mountain-side, - Soft the valley sod, - Yet will fragrance sure abide - With the Love-of-God. - - Where the grace of Heaven leads, - There it makes a home, - Hills a hundred and the meads - Will its pathway roam. - - Carmel by the western sea - Holds your blessed bower: - Love-of-God eternally - Keep your heart a-flower. - - - - -A PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT - -BY HELEN PARRY EDEN - - - He who mangold-patch doth hoe, - Sweating beneath a sturdy sun, - Clearing each weed-disguised row - Till day-light and the task be done, - - Standeth to view his labour’s scene-- - Where now, within the hedge-row’s girth, - The little plants untrammeled green - Stripes the brown fabric of the earth. - - So when the absolution’s said - Behind the grille, and I may go, - And all the flowers of sin are dead, - And all the stems of sin laid low, - - And I am come to Mary’s shrine - To lay my hopes within her hand-- - Ah, in how fair and green a line - The seedling resolutions stand. - - - - -THE CONFESSIONAL - -BY HELEN PARRY EDEN - - - My Sorrow diligent would sweep - That dingy room infest - With dust (thereby I mean my soul) - Because she hath a Guest - Who doth require that self-same room - Be garnished for His rest. - - And Sorrow (who had washed His feet - Where He before had been) - Took the long broom of Memory - And swept the corners clean, - Till in the midst of the fair floor - The sum of dust was seen. - - It lay there, settled by her tears, - That fell the while she swept-- - Light fluffs of grey and earthly dregs; - And over these she wept, - For all were come since last her Guest - Within the room had slept. - - And, for nor broom nor tears had power - To lift the clods of ill, - She called one servant of her Guest - Who came with right good will, - For, by his sweet Lord’s bidding, he - Waiteth on Sorrow still; - - So, seeing she had done her part - As far as in her lay - And had intent to keep the place - More cleanly from that day, - Did with his Master’s dust-pan come - And take the dust away. - - She thanked him, and Him who sent - Such succor, and she spread - Fair sheets of Thankfulness and Love - Upon her Master’s bed, - Then on the new-scoured threshold stood - And listened for His tread. - - - - -AN ELEGY, FOR FATHER ANSELM, OF THE ORDER OF REFORMED CISTERCIANS, -GUEST-MASTER AND PARISH PRIEST - -“Et pastores erant in regione eadem vigilantes” - -BY HELEN PARRY EDEN - - - You to whose soul a death propitious brings - Its Heaven, who attain a windless bourne - Of sanctity beyond all sufferings, - It is not ours to mourn; - - For you, to whom the earth could nothing give, - Who knew no hint of our inspired pride, - You could not very well be said to live - Until the day you died. - - ’Tis upon us--father and kindly friend, - Holy and cheerful host--the unbidden guest - You welcomed and the souls you would amend, - The weight of sorrow rests. - - From Sarum in the mesh of her five streams, - Her idle belfries and her glittering vanes, - We are clomb to where the cloud-race dusks and gleams - On turf of upland plains. - - Southward the road through juniper and briar - Clambers the down, untrodden and unworn - Save where some flock pitted the chalky mire - With little feet at dawn. - - Twice in a week the hooded carrier’s lamp, - Flashing on wayside flints and grasses, spills - Its misty radiance where the dews lie damp - Among the untended hills; - - Here lies the hamlet ringed with grassy mound - And brambled barrow where, superbly dead, - The dust of pagans turned to holy ground - Beneath your humble tread. - - Here we descend at drooping dusk the side - Of the stony down beneath the planted ring - Of beeches where you showed with pastoral pride - The folded lambs in spring; - - Here pull at eve the self-same bell that hastened - Your rough-shod feet behind the hollow door-- - Yet never see you stand, the chain unfastened, - Your lantern on the floor. - - Others will spread the board now you are gone - Here where you smiled and gave your guests to eat, - Learning your menial kingliness from One - Who washed His servant’s feet; - - Along the slumbering corridors betimes - Others will knock and other footsteps pass - Down the wet lane e’er the thin shivering chimes - Toll for the early mass. - - Yet in the chapel’s self no sorrows sing - In the strange priest’s voice, nor any dolour grips - The heart because it is not you who bring - Your Master to its lips. - - Here let us leave the things you would not have-- - Vain grief and sorrow useless to be shown-- - “God’s gift and the Community’s I gave - And nothing of my own,” - - You would have said, self-deemed of no more worth - That then green hands that guard a poppy’s grace-- - Blows the eternal flower and back to earth - Tumbles the withered case. - - Nay, but Our Lord hath made renouncement vain, - Himself into those humble hands let fall, - Guerdon of willing poverty and pain, - The greatest gift of all; - - To you and all who in that life austere - Mid fields remote your harsher labours ply - Singing His praise, girt round from year to year - With sheep-bells and the sky-- - - This, that to you is larger audience given - Where prayer and praise with sighing pinions shod - Piercing the starry ante-rooms of Heaven - Sway the designs of God: - - And now yourself, standing where late hath stood - The echo of your voice, are prayer and praise-- - O sweet reward and unsurpassing good - For that small gift of days. - - Yourself, who now have heard such summoning - And seen such burning clarities alight - As broke the vigilant shepherds’ drowsy ring - On the predestined night, - - Who made such haste as theirs who rose and trod - To Bethlehem the dew-encumbered grass, - Trustful to see the showing forth of God - And the Word come to pass; - - With how much more than home-spun Israelites’ - Poor hungry glimpse of Godhead are you blest - Whom Mary shows for more than mortal nights - The Jewel on her breast. - - Yet, as one kneeling churl might chance to think - Of the wan herd behind their wattled bars, - Moving unshepherded with bells that clink - And stir beneath the stars, - - And, for the thought’s space wishing he were back, - Pray, to that Sum of Sweetness for his sheep-- - “Take them, O Thou that dost supply our lack, - Into Thy hands to keep.” - - So you who in His presence move and live - Recall amid your glad celestial cares, - Your chosen office, to your children give - The charity of prayers. - - - - -SORROW - -BY HELEN PARRY EDEN - - - Of Sorrow, ’tis as Saints have said-- - That his ill-savoured lamp shall shed - A light to Heaven, when, blown about - By the world’s vain and windy rout, - The candles of delight burn out. - - Then usher Sorrow to thy board, - Give him such fare as may afford - Thy single habitation--best - To meet him half-way in his quest, - The importunate and sad-eyed guest. - - Yet somewhat should he give who took - My hospitality, for look, - His is no random vagrancy; - Beneath his rags what hints there be - Of a celestial livery. - - Sweet Sorrow, play a grateful part, - Break me the marble of my heart - And of its fragments pave a street - Where, to my bliss, myself may meet - One hastening with piercèd feet. - - - - -OUR LADY’S DEATH - -BY FATHER EDMUND, C.P. - - - And didst thou die, dear Mother of our Life? - Sin had no part in thee; then how should death? - Methinks, if aught the great tradition saith - Could wake in loving hearts a moment’s strife - (I said--my own with her new image rife), - - ’Twere this. And yet ’tis certain, next to faith - Thou didst lie down to render up thy breath: - Though after the seventh sword, no meaner knife - - Could pierce that bosom. No, nor did: no sting - Of pain was there; but only joy. The love, - So long thy life ecstatic, and restrained - From setting free thy soul, now gave it wing; - Thy body, soon to reign with it above, - Radiant and fragrant, as in trance, remained. - - - - -VIGIL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION - -BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN - - - A sword of silver cuts the fields asunder-- - A silver sword to-night, a lake in June-- - And plains of snow reflect, the maples under, - The silver arrows of a wintry noon. - - The trees are white with moonlight and with ice-pearls; - The trees are white, like ghosts we see in dreams; - The air is still: there are no moaning wind-whirls; - And one sees silence in the quivering beams. - - December night, December night, how warming - Is all thy coldness to the Christian soul: - Thy very peace at each true heart is storming - In potent waves of love that surging roll. - - December night, December night, how glowing - Thy frozen rains upon our warm hearts lie: - Our God upon this vigil is bestowing - A thousand graces from the silver sky. - - O moon, O symbol of our Lady’s whiteness; - O snow, O symbol of our Lady’s heart; - O night, chaste night, bejewelled with argent brightness, - How sweet, how bright, how loving, kind thou art. - - O miracle: to-morrow and to-morrow, - In tender reverence shall no praise abate; - For from all seasons shall we new jewels borrow - To deck the Mother born Immaculate. - - - - -THE OLD VIOLIN - -BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN - - - Though tuneless, stringless, it lies there in dust, - Like some great thought on a forgotten page; - The soul of music cannot fade or rust,-- - The voice within it stronger grows with age; - Its strings and bow are only triffling things-- - A master-touch!--its sweet soul wakes and sings. - - - - -MAURICE DE GUERIN - -BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN - - - The old wine filled him, and he saw, with eyes - Anoint of Nature, fauns and dryads fair - Unseen by others; to him maidenhair - And waxen lilacs, and those birds that rise - A-sudden from tall reeds at slight surprise, - Brought charmed thoughts; and in earth everywhere - He, like sad Jaques, found a music rare - As that of Syrinx to old Grecians wise. - A pagan heart, a Christian soul had he, - He followed Christ, yet for dead Pan he sighed, - Till earth and heaven met within his breast; - As if Theocritus in Sicily - Had come upon the Figure crucified - And lost his gods in deep, Christ-given rest. - - - - -HE MADE US FREE - -BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN - - - As flame streams upward, so my longing thought - Flies up with Thee, - Thou God and Saviour who hast truly wrought - Life out of death, and to us, loving, brought - A fresh, new world; and in Thy sweet chains caught, - And made us free! - - As hyacinths make way from out the dark, - My soul awakes, - At thought of Thee, like sap beneath the bark; - As little violets in field and park - Rise to the trilling thrush and meadow-lark, - New hope it takes. - - As thou goest upward through the nameless space - We call the sky, - Like jonquil perfume softly falls Thy grace; - It seems to touch and brighten every place; - Fresh flowers crown our wan and weary race, - O Thou on high. - - Hadst Thou not risen, there would be no more joy - Upon earth’s sod; - Life would still be with us a wound or toy, - A cloud without the sun,--O Babe, O Boy, - A Man of Mother pure, with no alloy, - O risen God! - - Thou, God and King, didst “mingle in the game,” - (Cease, all fears; cease!) - For love of us,--not to give Virgil’s fame - Or Croesus’ wealth, not to make well the lame, - Or save the sinner from deserved shame, - But for sweet Peace! - - For peace, for joy,--not that the slave might lie - In luxury, - Not that all woe from us should always fly, - Or golden crops with Syrian roses vie - In every field; but in Thy peace to die - And rise,--be free! - - - - -THE GRANDEURS OF MARY - -BY FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D.D. - - - What is this grandeur I see up in heaven, - A splendour that looks like a splendour divine? - What creature so near the Creator is throned? - O Mary, those marvellous glories are thine. - - But who would have thought that a creature could live - With the fires of the Godhead so awfully nigh? - Oh, who could have dreamed, mighty Mother of God, - That ever God’s power could have raised thee so high? - - What name can we give to a queenship so grand? - What thought can we think of a glory like this? - Saints and angels lie far in the distance, remote - From the golden excess of thine unmated bliss. - - Thy person, thy soul, thy most beautiful form, - Thine office, thy name, thy most singular grace-- - God hath made for them, Mother, a world by itself, - A shrine all alone, a most worshipful place. - - Mid the blaze of those fires, eternal, unmade, - Thy Maker unspeakably makes thee his own; - The arms of the Three Uncreated, outstretched, - Round the Word’s mortal Mother in rapture are thrown. - - Thy sinless conception, thy jubilant birth, - Thy crib and thy cross, thine assumption and crown, - They have raised thee on high to the right hand of Him - Whom the spells of thy love to thy bosom drew down. - - I am blind with thy glory; in all God’s wide world - I find nothing like thee for glory and power: - I can hardly believe that thou grewest on earth, - In the green fields of Juda, a scarce-noticed flower. - - And is it not really eternal, divine? - Is it human, created, a glorified heart, - So like God, and not God? Ah, Maker of men, - We bless thee for being the God that thou art. - - O Mary, what ravishing pageants I see, - What wonders and works centre round thee in heaven, - What creations of grace fall like light from thy hands, - What creator-like powers to thy prudence are given. - - What vast jurisdiction, what numberless realms, - What profusion of dread and unlimited power, - What holy supremacies, awful domains, - The Word’s mighty Mother enjoys for her dower. - - What grand ministrations of pity and strength, - What endless processions of beautiful light, - What incredible marvels of motherly love, - What queenly resplendence of empire and right. - - What sounds as of seas flowing all round thy throne, - What flashings of fire from thy burning abode, - What thunders of glory, what tempests of power, - What calms, like the calms in the Bosom of God. - - Inexhaustible wonder; the treasures of God - Seem to multiply under thy marvellous hand; - And the power of thy Son seems to gain and to grow, - When He deigns to obey thy maternal command. - - Ten thousand magnificent greatnesses blend - Their vast oceans of light, at the foot of thy throne; - Ten thousand unspeakable majesties grace - The royalty vested in Mary alone. - - But look, what a wonder there is up in God: - One love, like a special perfection, we see; - And the chief of thy grandeurs, great Mother, is there-- - In the love the Eternal Himself has for thee. - - - - -THE RIGHT MUST WIN - -BY FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D.D. - - - Oh, it is hard to work for God, - To rise and take His part - Upon this battlefield of earth, - And not sometimes lose heart. - - He hides Himself so wondrously, - As though there were no God; - He is least seen when all the powers - Of ill are most abroad. - - Or He deserts us at the hour - The fight is all but lost; - And seems to leave us to ourselves - Just when we need Him most. - - Ill masters good; good seems to change - To ill with greatest ease; - And, worst of all, the good with good - Is at cross-purposes. - - Ah! God is other than we think; - His ways are far above, - Far beyond reason’s height, and reached - Only by child-like love. - - Workman of God! Oh, lose not heart, - But learn what God is like; - And in the darkest battle-field - Thou shalt know where to strike. - - Thrice blessed is he to whom is given - The instinct that can tell - That God is on the field when He - Is most invisible. - - Blessed too, is he who can divine - Where real right doth lie, - And dares to take the side that seems - Wrong to man’s blindfold eye. - - For right is right, since God is God; - And right the day must win; - To doubt would be disloyalty, - To falter would be sin. - - - - -MATER DOLOROSA - -BY JOHN FITZPATRICK, O.M.I. - - - She stands, within the shadow, at the foot - Of the high tree she planted: thirty-three - Full years have sped, and such has grown to be - The stem that burgeoned forth from Jesse’s root. - Spring swiftly passed and panted in pursuit - The eager summer; now she stands to see - The only fruit-time of her only tree: - And all the world is waiting for the Fruit. - - Now is faith’s sad fruition: this one hour - Of gathered expectation wears the crown - Of the long grief with which the years were rife; - As in her lap--a sudden autumn shower-- - The earthquake with his trembling hand shakes down - The red, ripe Fruitage of the Tree of Life. - - - - -YULETIDE - -BY ALICE FURLONG - - - In a stable bare, - Lo, the great Ones are. - Strew the Ivy and the Myrtle - Round about the Virgin’s kirtle! - - Ass and oxen mild - Breathe soft upon the Child! - Blow the scent of bygone summer - On your breath to the New-comer! - - Be ye well content - To be straitly pent - Backwards in the rocky chamber - From the angel’s wings of amber! - - Rapt the seraphs sit, - With godly faces lit - In a radiance shining solely - From the Christ-child, meek and holy. - - High they chant and clear - Of the lovely cheer - Ring down the new evangels - Of the mystic, midnight angels. - - Faring with good will - From the misty hill, - Every shepherd sacrificeth - To the prophet that ariseth. - - Joseph, Mary’s spouse, - Prince of David’s House, - Bendeth low in adorations - To the Ruler of the Nations. - - Who doth sweetly rest - On his Mother’s breast, - Lord of the lightnings and the thunders! - Mary’s heart keeps all these wonders. - - - - -OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY - -BY FRANCIS A. GAFFNEY, O.P. - - - Lepanto marks the spot of victory, - O’er crescent cruel and strong, by forces weak, - Of hallowed cross; of which, “if sign you seek,” - ’Tis not of man but a Divinity. - The white-robed Pius Fifth the Rosary - Uplifted like the rod of Moses, meek; - Whilst Ottomans on Christians wrath would wreak - And, as of old, engulfed them in the sea. - - O Lady of the Rosary to-day, - Thy clients all beseech thee, hear their prayer, - And beg the Christ Who raging storms did quell, - Bid warring nations cease their bloody fray; - His power and thine honor, we declare, - O Thou All-Fair, thou joy of Israel. - - - - -AT THE LEAP OF THE WATERS - -BY EDWARD F. GARESCHÉ, S.J. - - - How the swift river runs bright to its doom, - Placid and shining and smooth-flowing by, - Blue with the gleam of the heavenly room, - Smiling and calm with the smile of the sky! - Ah, but the plunge! and the shock and the roar, - The spray of vast waters that hurl to the deep, - The churn of its foam, as the measureless pour - Of that wide-brimming torrent leaps sheer from the steep! - Look ye; it reaches small fingers of spray - To clutch at the brink, as unwilling to go - Through the perilous air, and be fretted away - In the tumult of vapor that boileth below. - List ye! the voice of the huge undertone - That murmurs in pain from the cataract’s breast, - Where the bruised, shattered waters perpetual moan - And wander and toss in a weary unrest. - Feel ye the breath of the cool-spraying mist, - Cloudy and gray from the depths of its pain; - Not as when sunbeams the waters have kissed, - Rising in vapor to gather in rain, - But fiercely and madly flung forth on the air, - A shroud for this river that leaps to its death, - A veil o’er the throes of the cataract there, - And rolling and rent with its agonized breath! - Wild torrent! God put thee to thunder His name! - With the roar of thy waters to call to the sky - Of His might, Who hath set thee forever the same, - To topple in foam to the gulfs from on high. - Loud hymn of the lake-lands! from shore unto shore, - Still clamor His praises Who called thee to be, - Till the ears of the nations are tuned to thy roar, - And they hear the vast message He trusted to thee. - - - - -NIAGARA - -BY EDWARD F. GARESCHÉ, S.J. - - - God, in His ages past the dawn of days, - Writ one white line of praise, - Which now, in this great stress and hour of need, - I bend my soul to read. - I break the sullen bonds of wearying time, - And with one leap sublime, - Force my astounded soul go back and stand - In the primaeval land! - - The tresses of the ancient flood are kissed - With virginal, white mist. - The same soft, thunderous sound - Thrills the wild woods around, - But oh the vast and mighty peace that broods - On these green solitudes, - Where the great land, with one tremendous tone, - Litanies to God, alone! - - Tongue of the continent! Thou whose hymning shakes - The bosom of the lakes! - O sacrificial torrent, keen and bright, - Hurled from thy glorious height! - Thou sacerdotal presence, clothed in power, - At once the victim and the white-robed priest, - Whose praise throughout these ages hath not ceased, - Whose altar steams with incense every hour! - Lo, in all days, from thy white waters, rise - The savors of perpetual sacrifice! - I see pale prophecy of Christ’s dear blood!-- - The transubstantiation of thy flood! - - Oh the wild wonder of the vast emotion - Of the perturbed wave, - That cries and wanders like the fearful ocean, - Seeking, with none to save! - In their wide agony the rapids roam, - A world of waves, an universe of pain! - The vexed, tumultous clamor of their foam - Crying to God with agonized refrain, - Where the sad rocks their quivering summits hide - In the loud anguish of the refluent tide. - - Yet, with a willingness that leaps to sorrow - Swift run the ragged surges to the height, - And from their pain is born a pure delight-- - The fear to-day, the snowy peace to-morrow!-- - Cleaving like darts their swift and silvery way - With sudden gleams, and barbs of glittering spray, - They hurry to the brink, and swift are lost - In that stupendous leap, that infinite holocaust! - - Oh Christ-like glory of the praying water - That leaps forever to its mystic death! - And from the anguish of that sobbing slaughter - Lifts the clear glory of the torrent’s breath, - Where like a paean of rapturous victory calls - The solemn jubilation of the falls! - - O alabastrine priest--thy splendor spraying - More lasting than the immemorial hills! - O monument of waves, O undecaying - While God’s right hand thy flowing chalice fills! - Under the transient world’s astonished eyes - Thou offerest abiding sacrifice! - - In the pale morning, when the rising sun - Flatters thy pouring flood with slanting beams, - Most reverent thy duteous waters run, - And hymn to God with all their thousand streams. - And in the blazing majesty of noon, - Still lifts thy wave its sacrificial tune, - And spills, like jewels of some eastern story, - Its bright, impetuous avalanche of glory! - - And in the stilly spaces of the night, - While heaven wonders with its wakeful stars, - Thou prayest still, beneath the solemn light, - In booming tones that reach to heaven’s bars, - Keeping thy vigils, while the angelic moon - Walks on thy perilous verge with glorious shoon, - Chanting from foam and spray without encease - Thy yearning immemorial prayer for peace! - - - - -COMMUNION - -BY CAROLINE GILTINAN - - - Mother Mary, thee I see - Bringing Him, thy Babe, to me, - Thou dost say, with trusting smile: - “Hold Him, dear, a little while.” - Mother Mary, pity me, - For He struggles to be free! - My heart, my arms--He finds defiled: - I am unworthy of thy Child. - Mary, Mother, charity! - Bring thy Baby back to me! - - - - -THE NIGHTINGALE - -BY GERALD GRIFFIN - - - As the mute nightingale in closest groves - Lies hid at noon, but when day’s piercing eye - Is locked in night, with full heart beating high - Poureth her plain-song o’er the light she loves; - So, Virgin Ever-pure and Ever-blest, - Moon of religion, from whose radiant face - Reflected streams the light of heavenly grace - On broken hearts, by contrite thoughts oppressed: - So, Mary, they who justly feel the weight - Of Heaven’s offended Majesty, implore - Thy reconciling aid with suppliant knee: - Of sinful man, O sinless Advocate, - To thee they turn, nor Him they less adore; - ’Tis still His light they love, less dreadful seen in thee. - - - - -TRYSTE NOEL - -BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY - - - The Ox he openeth wide the doore, - And from the Snowe he calls her inne, - And he hath seen her smile therefore, - Our Ladye without Sinne. - Now soone from Sleep - A Starre shall leap, - And sonne arrive both King and Hinde: - _Amen, Amen_: - But O the place co’d I but finde! - - The Ox hath hushed his voyce and bent - Trewe eyes of Pitty ore the Mow, - And on his lovelie Neck, forspent, - The Blessed layes her Browe. - Around her feet, - Full Warme and Sweete, - His bowerie Breath doth meeklie dwell: - _Amen, Amen_: - But sore am I with Vaine Travel! - - The Ox is Host in Judah stall - And Host of more than onlie one, - For close she gathereth withal - Our Lorde her littel Sonne. - Glad Hinde and King - Their Gyfte may bring, - But wo’d to-night my Teares were there, - _Amen, Amen_: - Between her Bosom and His hayre! - - - - -THE WILD RIDE - -BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY - - - _I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses - All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses, - All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing._ - - Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle, - Weatherworn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion, - With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him. - - The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses; - There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice - us: - What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding. - - Thought’s self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb, - And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam: - Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing. - - A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle, - A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty: - We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers. - - _I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses - All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses, - All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing._ - - We spur to a land of no name, outracing the stormwind; - We leap to the infinite dark like the sparks from the anvil. - Thou leadest, O God! All’s well with Thy troopers that follow. - - - - -ODE FOR A MASTER MARINER ASHORE - -BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY - - - There in his room, whene’er the moon looks in, - And silvers now a shell, and now a fin, - And o’er his chart glides like an argosy, - Quiet and old sits he. - Danger! he hath grown homesick for thy smile. - Where hidest thou the while, heart’s boast, - Strange face of beauty sought and lost, - Star-face that lured him out from boyhood’s isle? - Blown clear from dull indoors, his dreams behold - Night-water smoke and sparkle as of old, - The taffrail lurch, the sheets triumphant toss - Their phosphor-flowers across. - Towards ocean’s either rim the long-exiled - Wears on, till stunted cedars throw - A lace-like shadow over snow, - Or tropic fountains wash their agates wild. - - Awhile, play up and down the briny spar - Odors of Surinam and Zanzibar, - Till blithely thence he ploughs, in visions new, - The Labradorian blue; - All homeless hurricanes about him break; - The purples of spent day he sees - From Samos to the Hebrides, - And drowned men dancing darkly in his wake. - - Where the small deadly foam-caps, well descried, - Top, tier on tier, the hundred-mountained tide, - Away, and far away, his pride is borne, - Riding the noisy morn, - Plunges, and preens her wings, and laughs to know - The helm and tightening halyards still - Follow the urging of his will, - And scoff at sullen earth a league below. - - Mischance hath barred him from his heirdom high, - And shackled him with many an inland tie, - And of his only wisdom made a jibe - Amid an alien tribe: - No wave abroad but moans his fallen state, - The trade-wind ranges now, the trade-wind roars! - Why is it on a yellowing page he pores? - Ah, why this hawser fast to a garden gate? - - Thou friend so long withdrawn, so deaf, so dim, - Familiar Danger, O forget not him! - Repeat of thine evangel yet the whole - Unto his subject soul, - Who suffers no such palsy of her drouth, - Nor hath so tamely worn her chain, - But she may know that voice again, - And shake the reefs with answer of her mouth. - - O give him back, before his passion fail, - The singing cordage and the hollow sail, - And level with those aged eyes let be - The bright unsteady sea; - And move like any film from off his brain - The pasture wall, the boughs that run - Their evening arches to the sun, - The hamlet spire across the sown champaign; - And on the shut space and the trivial hour, - Turn the great floods! and to thy spousal bower, - With rapt arrest and solemn loitering, - Him whom thou lovedst bring: - That he, thy faithful one, with praising lip, - Not having, at the last, less grace - Of thee than had his roving race, - Sum up his strength to perish with a ship. - - - - -IN LEINSTER - -BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY - - - I try to knead and spin, but my life is low the while. - Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile; - Yet if I walk alone, and think of naught at all, - Why from me that’s young should the wild tears fall? - - The shower-stricken earth, the earth-colored streams, - They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams; - And yonder ivy fondling the broke castle-wall, - It pulls upon my heart till the wild tears fall. - - The cabin-door looks down, a furze-lighted hill, - And far as Leighlin Cross the fields are green and still; - But once I hear the blackbird in Leighlin hedges call, - The foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall! - - - - -AUNT MARY - -A Christmas Chant - -BY ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER - - - Now, of all the trees by the king’s highway, - Which do you love the best? - O! the one that is green upon Christmas Day, - The bush with the bleeding breast. - Now the holly with her drops of blood for me: - For that is our dear Aunt Mary’s tree. - - Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour’s Name, - ’Tis a plant that loves the poor: - Summer and winter it shines the same - Beside the cottage door. - O! the holly with her drops of blood for me: - For that is our kind Aunt Mary’s tree. - - ’Tis a bush that the birds will never leave: - They sing in it all day long; - But sweetest of all upon Christmas Eve - Is to hear the robin’s song. - ’Tis the merriest sound upon earth or sea: - For it comes from our own Aunt Mary’s tree. - - So, of all that grows by the king’s highway, - I love that tree the best; - ’Tis a bower for the birds upon Christmas Day, - The bush of the bleeding breast. - O! the holly with her drops of blood for me: - For that is our sweet Aunt Mary’s tree. - - - - -KING ARTHUR’S WAES-HAEL - -BY ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER - - - Waes-hael for knight and dame; - O merry be their dole; - Drink-hael! In Jesu’s name - We fill the tawny bowl; - But cover down the curving crest, - Mould of the Orient Lady’s breast. - - Waes-hael! yet lift no lid: - Drain ye the reeds for wine. - Drink-hael! the milk was hid - That soothed that Babe divine; - Hush’d, as this hollow channel flows, - He drew the balsam from the rose. - - Waes-hael! thus glowed the breast - Where a God yearned to cling; - Drink-hael! so Jesu pressed - Life from its mystic spring; - Then hush and bend in reverend sign - And breathe the thrilling reeds for wine. - - Waes-hael! in shadowy scene - Lo! Christmas children we: - Drink-hael! behold we lean - At a far Mother’s knee; - To dream that thus her bosom smiled, - And learn the lip of Bethlehem’s Child. - - - - -OLD NUNS - -BY JAMES M. HAYES - - - Our Lady smiles on youthful nuns, - She loves them well. - Our Lady’s smile like sunshine floods - Each convent cell, - But fondest falls Our Lady’s smile - Where old nuns dwell; - - Old nuns whose hearts are young with love - For Mary’s Son, - Old nuns whose prayers for faltering souls - Have victory won, - Old nuns whose lives are beautiful - With service done. - - Their love a loveless world has saved - From God’s dread rod, - The paths where Sorrow walks with Sin - Their feet have trod, - Their knees have worn the flags that pave - The house of God. - - Our Lady smiles on youthful nuns, - She loves them well; - Our Lady’s smile like sunshine floods - Each convent cell; - But fondest falls Our Lady’s smile - Where old nuns dwell. - - - - -THE MOTHER OF THE ROSE - -BY JAMES M. HAYES - - - I kneel on Holy Thursday with the faithful worshipping - Where Christ is throned in splendor as the sacramental King. - - I ever will remember it, that wondrous full-blown rose - Among the burning tapers on the altar of repose. - - O blessed among roses all, to bloom in beauty there, - To give your heart unto your God and in His glory share. - - * * * * * - - In quiet fields beyond the town, near where the river flows - There is a humble garden where a gentle rose-tree grows. - - To-night Our Lord remembers on the altar of repose - This rose-tree in the fields afar, the mother of the rose. - - - - -THE TRANSFIGURATION - -BY JAMES M. HAYES - - - He seeks the mountains where the olives grow, - The Lord of Glory, veiled in humble guise; - His soul is shadowed with a coming woe, - The grief of all the world is in His eyes: - His spirit struggles in the dark caress - Of anguish, pain and utter loneliness. - - He always loved the mountain tops, for there - Away from earth, He treads the mystic ways, - And sees the vision of the Fairest Fair, - As Heaven dawns upon His raptured gaze; - The loneliness, the pain, the grief depart; - Surpassing gladness fills His Sacred Heart. - - That day He stood upon the olive hill, - And Peter, James and John in wonder saw - The burning glories of the God-head fill - His soul with grandeur, and in holy awe - They fell upon the ground and cried for grace, - Lest they should die beholding God’s own Face. - - As minor chords that sob from strings of gold - The Master speaks in accents sweet and sad: - The vision past, the chosen three behold - No one but Jesus and their souls are glad. - The awe, the splendor and the glory gone, - How sweet the face of Christ to look upon! - - - - -BELOVED, IT IS MORN - -BY EMILY H. HICKEY - - - Beloved, it is morn! - A redder berry on the thorn, - A deeper yellow on the corn, - For this good day new-born. - Pray, Sweet, for me - That I may be - Faithful to God and thee. - - Beloved, it is day! - And lovers work, as children play, - With heart and brain untired alway: - Dear love, look up and pray. - Pray, Sweet, for me - That I may be - Faithful to God and thee. - - Beloved, it is night! - Thy heart and mine are full of light, - Thy spirit shineth clear and white, - God keep thee in His sight! - Pray, Sweet, for me - That I may be - Faithful to God and thee. - - - - -A SEA STORY - -BY EMILY H. HICKEY - - - Silence. A while ago - Shrieks went up piercingly; - But now is the ship gone down; - Good ship, well manned, was she. - There’s a raft that’s a chance of life for one, - This day upon the sea. - - A chance for one of two; - Young, strong, are he and he, - Just in the manhood prime, - The comelier, verily, - For the wrestle with wind and weather and wave, - In the life upon the sea. - - One of them has a wife - And little children three; - Two that can toddle and lisp, - And a suckling on the knee: - Naked they’ll go, and hunger sore, - If he be lost at sea. - - One has a dream of home, - A dream that well may be: - He never has breathed it yet; - She never has known it, she. - But some one will be sick at heart - If he be lost at sea. - - “Wife and kids at home!-- - Wife, kids, nor home has he!-- - Give us a chance, Bill!” Then, - “All right, Jem!” Quietly - A man gives up his life for a man, - This day upon the sea. - - - - -THE STARLIGHT NIGHT - -BY GERARD HOPKINS, S.J. - - - Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies! - O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! - The bright boroughs, the quivering citadels there! - The dim woods quick with diamond wells; the elf-eyes! - The grey lawns cold where quaking gold-dew lies! - Wind-beat white-beam; airy abeles all on flare! - Flake-doves sent floating out at a farmyard scare!-- - Ah well! it is a purchase and a prize. - - Buy then! Bid then!--What?--Prayer, patience, alms, vows,-- - Look, look! a May-mess, like on orchard boughs; - Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows.-- - These are indeed the barn: within-doors house - The shocks. This piece-bright paling hides the Spouse - Christ, and the mother of Christ and all his hallows. - - - - -THE HABIT OF PERFECTION - -BY GERARD HOPKINS, S.J. - - - Elected Silence, sing to me - And beat upon my whorled ear, - Pipe me to pastures still and be - The music that I care to hear. - - Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb: - It is the shut, the curfew sent - From there where all surrenders come - Which only make you eloquent. - - Be shelled, eyes, with double dark - And find the uncreated light; - This ruck and reel which you remark - Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight. - - Palate, the hutch of tasty lust, - Desire not to be rinsed with wine: - The can must be so sweet, the crust - So fresh that come in fasts divine! - - Nostrils, your careless breath that spend - Upon the stir and keep of pride, - What relish shall the censers send - Along the sanctuary side! - - O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet - That want the yield of plushy sward, - But you shall walk the golden street, - And you unhouse and house the Lord. - - And, Poverty, be thou the bride - And now the marriage feast begun, - And lily-colored clothes provide - Your spouse not labored-at, nor spun. - - - - -SPRING - -BY GERARD HOPKINS, S.J. - - - Nothing is so beautiful as spring-- - When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush: - Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush - Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring - The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; - The glassy pear-tree leaves and blooms, they brush - The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush - With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling. - - What is all this juice and all this joy? - A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning - In Eden garden. Have, get, before it cloy, - Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with shining, - Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy, - Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning. - - - - -THE FRIAR OF GENOA - -BY SCHARMEL IRIS - - - In Genoa a friar walked; - Of every sacred tale he talked; - Alone he dwelt, in prayer he knelt; - “Ave Maria, Ave Maria!” - From dawn till dusk he sang. - - His bruised and blistered feet were bare; - His head burned in the sunlight’s glare. - On stones he slept, and worked and wept, - “Ave Maria, Ave Maria!” - In every blow or pang. - - Out of his dole he clothed the poor, - And every hardship did endure; - He blessed the meek and nursed the weak - “Ave Maria, Ave Maria!” - With each succeeding day. - - And begged for alms for those in need, - A kind word spoke with every deed, - With sinners dined and led the blind-- - “Ave Maria, Ave Maria!” - Until he passed away. - - And is his work done? Ah, surprise! - Out of the tomb where low he lies - A perfume blows, as of a rose: - “Ave Maria, Ave Maria!” - It sings in shade or sun. - - And he who breathes it, him it feeds, - And stirs his heart to noble deeds; - And one has said, “He is not dead-- - “Ave Maria, Ave Maria!” - His life has just begun!” - - - - -THE DARK ANGEL - -BY LIONEL JOHNSON - - - Dark Angel, with thine aching lust - To rid the world of penitence: - Malicious Angel, who still dost - My soul such subtile violence! - - Because of thee, no thought, no thing, - Abides for me undesecrate: - Dark Angel, ever on the wing, - Who never reachest me too late! - - When music sounds, then changest thou - Its silvery to a sultry fire: - Nor will thine envious heart allow - Delight untortured by desire. - - Through thee, the gracious Muses turn - To Furies, O mine Enemy! - And all the things of beauty burn - With flames of evil ecstasy. - - Because of thee, the land of dreams - Becomes a gathering place of fears: - Until tormented slumber seems - One vehemence of useless tears. - - When sunlight glows upon the flowers, - Or ripples down the dancing sea: - Thou, with thy troop of passionate powers, - Beleaguerest, bewilderest, me. - - Within the breath of autumn woods, - Within the winter silences: - Thy venomous spirit stirs and broods, - O Master of impieties! - - The ardour of red flame is thine, - And thine the steely soul of ice: - Thou poisonest the fair design - Of nature, with unfair device. - - Apples of ashes, golden bright; - Waters of bitterness, how sweet! - O banquet of a foul delight, - Prepared by thee, dark Paraclete! - - Thou art the whisper in the gloom, - The hinting tone, the haunting laugh: - Thou art the adorner of my tomb, - The minstrel of mine epitaph. - - I fight thee, in the Holy Name! - Yet, what thou dost, is what God saith: - Tempter! should I escape thy flame, - Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death: - - The second Death, that never dies, - That cannot die, when time is dead: - Live Death, wherein the lost soul cries, - Eternally uncomforted. - - Dark Angel, with thine aching lust! - Of two defeats, of two despairs: - Less dread, a change to drifting dust, - Than thine eternity of cares. - - Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not so, - Dark Angel! triumph over me: - _Lonely, unto the Lone I go; - Divine, to the Divinity._ - - - - -TE MARTYRUM CANDIDATUS - -BY LIONEL JOHNSON - - - Ah, see the fair chivalry come, the companions of Christ! - White Horsemen, who ride on white horses, the Knights of God! - They, for their Lord and their Lover who sacrificed - All, save the sweetness of treading, where He first trod! - - These through the darkness of death, the dominion of night, - Swept, and they woke in white places at morning tide: - They saw with their eyes, and sang for joy of the sight, - They saw with their eyes the Eyes of the Crucified. - - Now, whithersoever He goeth, with Him they go: - White Horsemen, who ride on white horses, oh fair to see! - They ride, where the Rivers of Paradise flash and flow, - White Horsemen, with Christ their Captain: forever He! - - - - -CHRISTMAS AND IRELAND - -BY LIONEL JOHNSON - - - The golden stars give warmthless fire, - As weary Mary goes through night: - Her feet are torn by stone and briar; - She hath no rest, no strength, no light: - O Mary, weary in the snow, - Remember Ireland’s woe! - - O Joseph, sad for Mary’s sake! - Look on our earthly Mother too: - Let not the heart of Ireland break - With agony the ages through: - For Mary’s love, love also thou - Ireland, and save her now! - - Harsh were the folk, and bitter stern, - At Bethlehem, that night of nights. - _For you no cheering hearth shall burn: - We have no room here, you no rights._ - O Mary and Joseph; hath not she, - Ireland, been even as ye? - - The ancient David’s royal house - Was thine, Saint Joseph! wherefore she, - Mary, thine Ever Virgin Spouse, - To thine own city went with thee. - Behold! thy citizens disown - The heir of David’s throne! - - Nay, more! The very King of Kings - Was with you, coming to His own: - They thrust Him forth to lowliest things; - The poor, meek beasts of toil alone - Stood by, when came to piteous birth - The God of all the earth. - - And she, our Mother Ireland, knows - Insult, and infamies of wrong: - Her innocent children clad with woes, - Her weakness trampled by the strong: - And still upon her Holy Land - Her pitiless foemen stand. - - From Manger unto Cross and Crown - Went Christ: and Mother Mary passed - Through Seven Sorrows, and sat down - Upon the Angel Throne at last. - Thence, Mary! to thine own Child pray, - For Ireland’s hope this day! - - She wanders amid winter still, - The dew of tears is on her face: - Her wounded heart takes yet its fill - Of desolation and disgrace. - God still is God! And through God she - Foreknows her joy to be. - - The snows shall perish at the spring, - The flowers pour fragrance round her feet: - Ah, Jesus! Mary! Joseph! bring - This mercy from the Mercy Seat! - Send it, sweet King of Glory, born - Humbly on Christmas Morn! - - - - -TO MY PATRONS - -BY LIONEL JOHNSON - - - Thy spear rent Christ, when dead for me He lay: - My sin rends Christ, though never one save He - Perfectly loves me, comforts me. Then pray, - Longinus Saint! the Crucified, for me. - - Hard is the holy war, and hard the way: - At rest with ancient victors would I be. - O faith’s first glory from our England! pray, - St. Alban! to the Lord of Hosts, for me. - - Fain would I watch with thee, till morning gray, - Beneath the stars austere: so might I see - Sunrise, and light, and joy, at last. Then pray, - John Baptist Saint! unto the Christ, for me. - - Remembering God’s coronation day; - Thorns for His crown; His throne, a Cross: to thee - Heaven’s kingdom dearer was than earth’s. Then pray - Saint Louis! to the King of kings, for me. - - Thy love loved all things: thy love knew no stay, - But drew the very wild beasts round thy knee. - O lover of the least and lowest! pray, - Saint Francis! to the Son of Man, for me. - - Bishop of souls in servitude astray, - Who didst for holy service set them free: - Use still thy discipline of love, and pray. - Saint Charles! unto the world’s High Priest, for me. - - - - -OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS - -(Upon reading the poem of that name in the Underwoods of Mr. Stevenson) - -BY LIONEL JOHNSON - - - Far from the world, far from delight, - Distinguishing not day from night; - Vowed to one sacrifice of all - The happy things, that men befall; - Pleading one sacrifice, before - Whom sun and sea and wind adore; - Far from earth’s comfort, far away, - We cry to God, we cry and pray - For men, who have the common day. - Dance, merry world! and sing: but we, - Hearing, remember Calvary: - Get gold, and thrive you! but the sun - Once paled; and the centurion - Said: _This dead man was God’s own Son_. - Think you, we shrink from common toil, - Works of the mart, works of the soil; - That, prisoners of strong despair, - We breathe this melancholy air; - Forgetting the dear calls of race, - And bonds of house, and ties of place; - That, cowards, from the field we turn, - And heavenward, in our weakness, yearn? - Unjust! unjust! while you despise - Our lonely years, our mournful cries: - You are the happier for our prayer; - The guerdon of our souls, you share. - Not in such feebleness of heart, - We play our solitary part; - Not fugitives of battle, we - Hide from the world, and let things be: - But rather, looking over earth, - Between the bounds of death and birth; - And sad at heart, for sorrow and sin, - We wondered, where might help begin. - And on our wonder came God’s choice, - A sudden light, a clarion voice, - Clearing the dark, and sounding clear: - And we obeyed: behold us, here! - In prison bound, but with your chains: - Sufferers, but of alien pains. - Merry the world, and thrives apace, - Each in his customary place: - Sailors upon the carrying sea, - Shepherds upon the pasture lea, - And merchants of the town; and they, - Who march to death, the fighting way; - And there are lovers in the spring, - With those, who dance, and those, who sing: - The commonwealth of every day, - Eastward and westward, far away, - Once the sun paled; once cried aloud - The Roman, from beneath the cloud: - _This day the Son of God is dead_! - Yet heed men, what the Roman said? - They heed not: we then heed for them, - The mindless of Jerusalem; - Careless, they live and die: but we - Care, in their stead, for Calvary. - O joyous men and women! strong, - To urge the wheel of life along, - With strenuous arm, and cheerful strain, - And wisdom of laborous brain: - We give our life, our heart, our breath, - That you may live to conquer death; - That, past your tomb, with souls in health, - Joy may be yours, and blessed wealth; - Through vigils of the painful night, - Our spirits with your tempters fight: - For you, for you, we live alone, - Where no joy comes, where cold winds moan: - Nor friends have we, nor have we foes; - Our Queen is of the lonely Snows. - Ah! and sometimes, our prayers between, - Come sudden thoughts of what hath been: - Dreams! And from dreams, once more we fall - To prayer: _God save, Christ keep, them all_. - And thou, who knowest not these things, - Hearken, what news our message brings! - Our toils, thy joy of life forgot: - Our lives of prayer forget thee not. - - - - -CADGWITH - -BY LIONEL JOHNSON - - - My windows open to the autumn night, - In vain I watched for sleep to visit me: - How should sleep dull mine ears, and dim my sight, - Who saw the stars, and listened to the sea? - - Ah, how the City of our God is fair! - If, without sea and starless though it be, - For joy of the majestic beauty there, - Men shall not miss the stars, nor mourn the sea. - - - - -A FRIEND - -BY LIONEL JOHNSON - - - All, that he came to give, - He gave, and went again: - I have seen one man live, - I have seen one man reign, - With all the graces in his train. - - As one of us, he wrought - Things of the common hour: - Whence was the charmed soul brought, - That gave each act such power; - The natural beauty of a flower? - - Magnificence and grace, - Excellent courtesy: - A brightness on the face, - Airs of high memory: - Whence came all these, to such as he? - - Like young Shakespearian kings, - He won the adoring throng: - And, as Apollo sings, - He triumphed with a song: - Triumphed, and sang, and passed along. - - With a light word he took - The hearts of men in thrall: - And, with a golden look, - Welcomed them, at his call - Giving their love, their strength, their all. - - No man less proud than he, - Nor cared for homage less; - Only, he could not be - Far off from happiness: - Nature was bound to his success. - - Weary, the cares, the jars - The lets, of every day: - But the heavens filled with stars, - Chanced he upon the way: - And where he stayed, all joy would stay. - - Now, when sad night draws down, - When the austere stars burn: - Roaming the vast stars burn: - My thoughts and memories yearn - Toward him, who never will return. - - Yet I have seen him live, - And owned my friend, a king: - And that he came to give, - He gave, and I, who sing - His praise, bring all I have to bring. - - - - -BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS - -BY LIONEL JOHNSON - - - Sombre and rich, the skies; - Great glooms and starry plains. - Gently the night wind sighs; - Else a vast silence reigns. - - The splendid silence clings - Around me: and around - The saddest of all kings - Crowned, and again discrowned. - - Comely and calm, he rides - Hard by his own Whitehall: - Only the night wind glides: - No crowds, nor rebels, brawl. - - Gone, too, his Court: and yet, - The stars his courtiers are; - Stars in their stations set; - And every wandering star. - - Alone he rides, alone, - The fair and fatal king: - Dark night is all his own, - That strange and solemn thing. - - Which are more full of fate: - The stars; or those sad eyes? - Which are more still and great: - Those brows; or the dark skies? - - Although his whole heart yearn - In passionate tragedy: - Never was face so stern - With sweet austerity. - - Vanquished in life, his death - By beauty made amends: - The passing of his breath - Won his defeated ends. - - Brief life, and hapless? Nay: - Through death, life grew sublime. - _Speak after sentence?_ Yea: - And to the end of time. - - Armoured he rides, his head - Bare to the stars of doom: - He triumphs now, the dead, - Beholding London’s gloom. - - Our wearier spirit faints, - Vexed in the world’s employ: - His soul was of the saints; - And art to him was joy. - - King, tried in fires of woe! - Men hunger for thy grace: - And through the night I go, - Loving thy mournful face. - - Yet, when the city sleeps; - When all the cries are still: - The stars and heavenly deeps - Work out a perfect will. - - - - -THE HOUSEWIFE’S PRAYER - -BY BLANCHE MARY KELLY - - - Lady, who with tender word - Didst keep the house of Christ the Lord, - Who didst set forth the bread and wine - Before the Living Wheat and Vine, - Reverently didst make the bed - Whereon was laid the holy Head - That such a cruel pillow prest - For our behoof, on Calvary’s crest; - Be beside me while I go - About my labors to and fro. - Speed the wheel and speed the loom, - Guide the needle and the broom, - Make my bread rise sweet and light, - Make my cheese come foamy white, - Yellow may my butter be - As cowslips blowing on the lea. - Homely though my tasks and small, - Be beside me at them all. - Then when I shall stand to face - Jesu in the judgment place, - To me thy gracious help afford, - Who art the Handmaid of the Lord. - - - - -BROTHER JUNIPER - -BY BLANCHE MARY KELLY - - - As unto Francis Poverty, - So Folly was a bride to thee. - Not the jade that fashions quips - For the smiles of mocking lips, - And in the face of stony Death - Capers till she’s out of breath, - But the maid that moves and sings - About divinely foolish things, - She that gives her substance all - For love, and laughs to find it small, - She that drew God’s Son to be - A butt, a jest on Calvary, - And ’neath the leper’s guise doth know - The King in his incognito. - - The world is grown too wise, and we - Go our sad ways sensibly. - O, would that our lean souls might win - Some grace of thine, God’s harlequin, - Whose days were lavished like fool’s gold - Upon His pleasures manifold. - “Would God,” cried Francis, on his knees, - “I had a forest of such trees!” - - - - -THE THRONE OF THE KING - -BY FRANCIS CLEMENT KELLEY - - - The sun was setting, and its golden glow - Deepened the shadows on the village street, - And reverent touched the beauty of the head - Of Him who sat, in thought, beside the well - Of Nazareth. Two women came to fill - Their earthen jars; and sent their burdens down - To where the water lay; then drew them up. - But still the Boy, unmoved, gazed steadily - Upon the distant hills, that girded round - Jerusalem, the City of the Soul. - - His eyes were deep as some unfathomed sea, - That tosses wreckage on its billowed crest; - But hides its treasures ever in the caves, - That men shall never touch, or touching die. - “How strange the Boy,” one woman softly said - As back they went, their burdens on their heads. - “Yet He is Joseph’s Son,” the other spoke, - “And Joseph is my neighbor, a just man; - But not more lettered than the other men, - Your own and mine. He is not priest nor scribe - That he could teach such wisdom to his Son. - And it doth sometimes seem the Boy is wise - Beyond His years, with knowledge overmuch.” - “His mother, whom I know,” her friend replied, - “As Mary, sweeps the shavings from the floor, - Cooks the poor fare for Joseph and her Son, - Cares for the water, and her jar brings here - As we do every day, who know not much - Beyond the things we hear from holy men. - Yet strange is Mary too; I know not where - To match the peace that’s on her tranquil brow; - Though, through it all, I’ve seen the Shadow there - The dread of days to come, though all resigned. - So like His mother is this only Son - In beauty, in the peace that’s on His face; - But sometimes, deeper still, the Shadow falls - Across His features. Look! behold it now. - For it doth speak the dread of awful things, - More awful than the ruin of a world!” - - A-down the street there rang a clatter loud - Of horses dashing in a maddened run, - And sounds of wheels swift rolling on the pave. - The women shrank affrighted to the wall, - And cowered there in trembling, mortal fear. - In view the charging horses passed along - Straight to the well, no driver grasped the reins, - For he had fallen to the stony street. - Yet never moved the Boy, nor turned His eyes - From off the hills that held them so intent. - But from a doorway rushed a stranger lad - Who grasped the bit of one, and held him fast. - The others, panting, stopped so near the Boy - That, on His face He must have felt the heat - Which steaming rose from their perspiring flanks, - As now they stood, foam-flecked and trembling by. - The driver came and meekly murmured thanks, - Before he led his charges back again - To where his master waited for the steeds. - “He gave me naught but words, and I did save - The steeds. The chariot, too, would have been dashed - All broken on the stones, had I not come.” - The lad was angered, but the Boy moved not, - Though from the distant hills His gaze was drawn. - “Dost thou not know,” the lad said, wonderingly, - “How near was Death to thee a moment since?” - - The Boy, now fully aroused, smiled at the lad - All kindly, as a loving father smiles - Upon his child that waked him unaware, - Whose sleep nor storm nor clatter could affect, - Yet at the touch of little baby hands - Opens wide his eyes, that twinkle joyfully. - “No nearer to grim Death,” the Boy replied, - “Was I than thou, my friend, art near it now. - Thou seekest Joseph and hast wandered far - From distant Jaffa, where thy father died. - Thou’rt Fidus named. From Joseph thou wouldst learn - The craftsman’s art, and how to handle tools - To work with wood, that thou thyself may’st be - Like him, a craftsman skilled in his own trade.” - “A prophet Thou!” the lad in wonder cried. - “Come with me,” made He answer. “I am known - As Joseph’s Son; so I will speak for thee.” - - As evening fell on Nazareth’s burning street - Each day these two would wander out alone; - And by the well, or in a quiet glade - Seated, would hold their talk, with none to hear. - Yet converse scarce it was; with ears intent, - Fidus did always listen, while the Boy - Poured out a tale of Kings and Prophets old; - Of marvels that they worked to testify - Unto a King whom yet the earth would see, - A King of all Judea and the world; - Whose glory, mounting even to the stars - Would dim with rich effulgence, their great light. - The Sun of Justice He, the Moon of night - That had for ages settled o’er the earth. - He told of wonders that the King would do - Before He mounted to His mighty throne. - He told of love surpassing every love - That earth had seen, and of His Kingdom wide; - Till all on fire Fidus hung’red to see - The King Himself, and worship at His throne. - “A Roman though I am,” he oft would cry, - “Thy King I’d welcome and for Him I’d serve.” - “Yet thou art craftsman and no soldier thou.” - “A craftsman too can serve his loyal due.” - “How wouldst thou serve?” the Boy inquiring spoke. - “When Joseph bids me go, that I can learn no more, - This I can do--to build for Him His throne.” - The Shadow swept across the boyish face-- - The Shadow Fidus once had seen before; - And he was silent, for in awe he stood - When that mysterious shade shut off the light - That shone out from the radiant brow. - The Shadow was not fear, nor dread of death; - But dread of something worse than death could bring. - It was as if a lily, broken, bent, - But yet unsullied, now was stained with filth - By impious hand; more cruel far than death - The marring of the whiteness death had spared: - Or like a stream, that through its mountain bed - Had raced unfettered, toward the amber sea, - And o’er the rapids and the pebbles dashed - Clear, cold and placid when the mouth is reached; - Then, death unfeared before it, ready now - To give back to the ocean all it gave, - Into its pureness poured a stream so dark - That tainted all its life, when life was lost. - ’Twas thus the Shadow seemed; but soon it passed, - And smiling boyhood turned a happy face - The while he said: “So thou wouldst build His throne? - But dost thou know the form that throne will take?” - - “’T will be a throne,” Fidus replied, “so high - That all may see Him, while from it He reigns, - And know that He has come unto His own.” - - “Aye,” quick the Boy made answer, “it shall be - Uplifted high that every man may see; - Not Jews alone but even ye of Rome; - And men from Britain too, on farthest shore - Of Rome’s great Empire: they shall see and know - The King who reigns upon that living throne; - And in the Islands of unchartered seas - The King shall lifted be, that all may know; - And worlds still undiscovered shall bow down - To do Him homage, yet shall hate His name. - For homage goes with hate, and hate will be - The measure of the homage that shall swell - In pæans great around the royal throne.” - - Fidus looked wond’ring at the Boy Who spoke, - As if the right to build the throne were His - And He could give it to the friend who asked - This only boon, as pledge of love untold. - - “And I would build it strong so it could go - O’er sea and land, and last for aye and aye.” - - “So thou wouldst build the throne?” again the Boy - Half musing spoke. Across His face once more - The Shadow fell; and, as he stood, His hands - He lifted up and out, as if in prayer. - Another Shadow fell upon the ground, - The arms and body strangely like a Cross. - Fidus was silent till the prayer was done. - The sun now set, and all the shadows passed. - They, arm in arm, ran fast to Joseph’s house. - But, at the door they paused and, said the Boy: - “Thou must remember ever this thy day - When I the promise gave that I can keep, - For thou shalt build His throne!” - - The years passed on, - And Fidus to the Roman hosts returned - Where, welcomed as a soldier’s clever son, - He wrought in wood for all the legions there - In Jaffa, where his father had been killed. - For eighteen years he stayed beside the sea - And, working at the trade that Joseph taught, - He never once forgot the precious pledge - The Boy had made. But never saw nor heard - Aught of his friend. Then he was sent away - By Pilate’s call, unto Jerusalem. - - The evening of the day when he arrived - Great turmoil swept along the Jaffa road, - And near the Gate of Gardens, where the hill - Called Calvary lifted up its rocky head. - He heard the crowds discuss a Wonder-Man - The priests had taken, and was on His way - To judgment. “Out on such a King,” cried one, - “Himself He can not save from shameful death. - To-morrow’s sun will see Him lifted up - Above the hill, and throw the Shadow of - A Cross upon you fools who thought Him King.” - - And on the faces dark of all around, - Fidus saw Hate he could not understand. - Then up a vision rose of Nazareth - When evening fell; a Boy of beauty rare, - With a strange Shadow on His lovely face, - Standing with arms outstretched in prayer, - The glory of the setting sun upon His head. - But long and grim the shadow of a Cross - Before Him as He stood. Then to his mind - Came swift the stories of the mighty King, - And then the promise: “Thou shalt build His throne.” - Alas! the long and wav’ring years had swept - The dreams of youth away; but still remained - The love, that hungered now to feel the hand - Within his own of Mary’s Son. The day - Rose brightly in the East. At Pilate’s door - He met by chance a captain he had known - In Jaffa, who bade him attentive wait - Within the hall, amongst the soldiers there. - But soon a tumult rose without the doors; - The Wonder-Man was coming to be judged. - Then, as the cries increased, his friend came in. - “Make thou a Cross,” he said, “We have but two - And, if I judge aright, three shall be sent - Beyond the wall this day to Calvary.” - - No more of shouting Fidus heard, for he - Alone made ready a great Cross of wood; - And, that his craftsman skill should be confessed, - He made it well, both strong and workmanlike. - “’Tis fit,” he said, “to serve a King,” and smiled - At his grim jest; then went he on his way. - - Out in the streets the crowd was surging on - Along the way that leads to Calvary’s hill. - And o’er it Fidus saw his Cross; and then, - Sometimes, a thorn-crowned head with waving hair - Blood-clotted now, and stained a deeper hue; - And Hate seemed in the air vibrating round. - When sudden, like a bell that sweetly rings - Above a storm, and seems a messenger - Of Peace and Love, there woke upon his soul - From out the sleeping past, some prophet words: - “For homage goes with hate, and hate shall be - The measure of the homage that shall swell - In pæans great around the royal throne.” - - The surging crowd hid from his eyes the things - He did not care to see, but faint he heard - The hammer strokes, that seemed to drive the nails - Deep in his heart. Then turned he to a man - Who silent stood beside him, and he said: - “A stranger I, from Jaffa, yesternight - I came. This man? What evil hath He done?” - “I know not any wrong that He hath done,” - - Came answer fast. “I only know the good - That He had wrought. Behold my eyes that see! - Once they were dark. He passed me by one day - And loud I cried: ‘O Son of David, mercy show - That I may see.’ He touched me and I saw.” - Another silent man near Fidus stood, - To him he spoke, “And friend, what knowest thou?” - “I know that now I live though I was dead; - For I had gone into the ending tomb - All spiced for rest and bound with linen bands; - And He did come, and He did call me forth. - I heard His voice that sounded far away, - As if I stood within a valley deep, - And some one, from the mountain crest, - Kept calling me. Then clearer was the Voice; - As if on wings, I soared aloft to Him, - Who had the Power to bid me come or stay. - Again my heart did beat and vital blood - Surged through my wid’ning veins. I lived again.” - - Then Fidus quick recalled a wondrous thing: - He saw the Boy in Joseph’s little shop, - A sick lamb refuged in His tender arms. - He gently stroked the lamb and then the pain - Was gone from out its piteous pleading eyes. - And, lo, the man felt hot tears on his cheeks. - - The Cross was raised, and faint the outline stood - ’Twixt Fidus and the lurid, murky sky - That threatened from afar a terror dark. - Then swift it came, for all of darkness dread - That air could hold, fell down upon the earth. - The stumbling crowd in panic slunk away; - But Fidus groped through darkness to the Cross. - - He heard a moan of sorrow. Well he knew - The voice of Mary, she of Joseph’s house. - His heart stood still; the Vision came again: - That evening fair--the Boy--the distant hills-- - The Shadow of the Cross upon the earth - As He stood silent all absorbed in prayer-- - The promise that himself should build a throne. - “Aye,” so the Boy had said, “for it shall be - Raised up on high that every man may see, - Not Jews alone, but even ye of Rome; - And men from Britain too, on farthest shore - Of Rome’s great Empire: they shall see and know - The King Who reigns upon that living throne; - And, in the Islands of uncharted seas - The King shall lifted be that all may know; - And worlds still undiscovered shall bow down - To do Him homage, yet shall hate His name. - For homage goes with hate, and hate will be - The measure of the homage that shall swell - In pæans great around His royal throne.” - A lightning flash! The rocks asunder rent, - The tombs burst open and the dead arose. - One moment Fidus saw the Crucified - Ere darkness fell again around the Cross. - But in that moment a new vision rose; - He saw the hill rise high, and higher still, - Till over all the mountains of the world - It towering stood; and nations, worshipping - Gazed on a mighty throne that bore a King! - Blood red the jewels in His crown of thorns, - With ermined pain that wrapped Him all about, - Deep in His hands the orb and sceptre nails, - Quite gone the Shadow of the primal sin - And, on His brow, fulfilled the ancient pledge - Of Earth’s Redemption. - - - - -THE CHILD’S WISH GRANTED - -BY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP - - - Do you remember, my sweet, absent son, - How in the soft June days forever done - You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high; - And, when I lifted you, soft came your cry,-- - “Put me ’way up,--’way up in blue sky”? - - I laughed and said I could not,--set you down - Your gray eyes wonder-filled beneath that crown - Of bright hair gladdening me as your raced by, - Another Father now, more strong than I, - Has borne you voiceless to your dear blue sky. - - - - -CHARITY - -BY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP - - - Unarmed she goeth, yet her hands - Strike deeper awe than steel-caparisoned bands, - No fatal hurt of foe she fears,-- - Veiled, as with mail, in mist of gentle tears. - - ’Gainst her thou canst not bar the door; - Like air she enters; where none dared before. - Even to the rich she can forgive - Their regal selfishness,--and let them live! - - - - -A SONG BEFORE GRIEF - -BY ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP - - - Sorrow, my friend, - When shall you come again? - The wind is slow, and the bent willows send - Their silvery motions wearily down the plain. - The bird is dead - That sang this morning through the summer rain! - - Sorrow, my friend, - I owe my soul to you. - And if my life with any glory end - Of tenderness for others, and the words are true, - Said, honoring, when I’m dead,-- - Sorrow, to you, the mellow praise, the funeral wreath, are due. - - And yet, my friend, - When love and joy are strong, - Your terrible visage from my sight I rend - With glances to blue heaven. Hovering along, - By mine your shadow led, - “Away!” I shriek, “nor dare to work my new-sprung mercies wrong!” - - Still, you are near: - Who can your care withstand? - When deep eternity shall look most clear, - Sending bright waves to kiss the trembling land, - My joy shall disappear,-- - A flaming torch thrown to the golden sea by your pale hand. - - - - -THE CLOCK’S SONG - -BY ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP - - - Eileen of four, - Eileen of smiles; - Eileen of five, - Eileen of tears; - Eileen of ten, of fifteen years, - Eileen of youth - And woman’s wiles; - Eileen of twenty, - In love’s land, - Eileen all tender - In her bliss, - Untouched by sorrow’s treacherous kiss, - And the sly weapons in life’s hand,-- - Eileen aroused to share all fate, - Eileen a wife, - Pale, beautiful, - Eileen most grave and dutiful, - Mourning her dreams in queenly state. - Eileen! Eileen!... - - - - -IRELAND - -BY EDMUND LEAMY (Senior) - - - I loved a love--a royal love-- - In the golden long ago; - And she was fair as fair could be. - The foam upon the broken sea, - The sheen of sun, or moon, or star, - The sparkle from the diamond spar, - Not half so rare and radiant are - As my own love--my royal love-- - In the golden long ago. - - And she had stately palace halls-- - In the golden long ago; - And warriors, men of stainless swords, - Were seated at her festive boards, - Fierce champions of her lightest words, - While hymned the bard the chieftain’s praise, - And sang their deed of battle days, - To cheer my love, my royal love, - In the golden long ago. - - She wore a stately diadem-- - In the golden long ago; - Wrought by a cunning craftsman’s hand, - And fashioned from a battle brand, - Full fit for the queen of a soldier land; - Her sceptre was a sabre keen, - Her robe a robe of radiant green, - My queenly love, my royal love, - In the golden long ago. - - Alas for my love, my royal love, - Of the golden long ago! - For gone are all her warrior bands, - And rusted are her battle brands, - And broken her sabre bright and keen, - And torn her robe of radiant green, - A slave where she was a stainless queen, - My own love, my royal love, - Of the golden long ago. - - But there is hope for my royal love - Of the golden long ago; - Beyond the broad and shining sea - Gathers a stubborn chivalry, - That yet will come to make her free, - And hedge her round with gleaming spears, - And crown her queen of all the years, - My own love, my royal love, - Of the golden long ago. - - - - -MUSIC MAGIC - -BY EDMUND LEAMY - - - _Perhaps there is no magic in this dull old world of ours; - Perhaps there are no Fairy Tales to gladden heart-break hours; - Perhaps there is no beauty, and perhaps all things are wrong; - But still there is the wonder of a little, old-time song!_ - - A squeaking and battered old organ, rattling a moss-covered tune, - Stood in the street of the city, there, in the heat of the noon; - Banging of roses and sunshine, thrilling of lands far away, - Whispering songs of my childhood,--sorrowful, simple and gay; - I was a child for a moment, filled with a child’s petty fears, - Dreaming, and dreaming, and dreaming, never a thought of the tears. - Then as the music softened, singing of love and of life, - Brought it back thought of the old days, far from the toil and the - strife, - Glimmer of gold in the star-light, shimmer of silk by the sea; - Words that were whispered, half-spoken, dreams that were never to - be. - - Sweet intermingled with sadness, what is as dear as the past? - Is there a day in the future that is as fair as the last? - Music, oh, music the master, there in the heat of the noon, - A squeaking and battered old organ, rattling a moss-covered tune, - Carried me back in my dreaming, far, to the long, long ago; - Feeling, ’way down in my heart-chords, hope I thought never could - glow; - Brought to me, who was a failure, beaten and crossed in the fight, - Help in the hour of the darkness--pointed the way to the light. - - _Perhaps there is no magic in this dull, old world of ours; - Perhaps there are no Fairy Tales to gladden heart-break hours; - Perhaps there is no beauty and perhaps all things are wrong; - But still there is the wonder of a little, old-time song!_ - - - - -GETHSEMANE - -BY EDMUND LEAMY - - - Breathes there a man who claimeth not - One lonely spot, - His own Gethsemane, - Whither with his inmost pain - He fain - Would weary plod, - Find the surcease that is known - In wind a-moan - And sobbing sea, - Cry his sorrow hid of men, - And then-- - Touch hands with God. - - - - -MY LIPS WOULD SING---- - -BY EDMUND LEAMY - - - My lips would sing a song for you, a soulful little song for you, - A plaintive little song for you, upon a summer’s day; - But for the very life of me, the merry, merry life of me, - The laughter-loving life of me, I cannot but be gay. - - For oh, the sun is shining, Dear, and who could be repining, Dear, - And who would be unhappy, Dear, when all the world is young? - So I will hum a melody, a mirthful little melody, - A joyous little melody that never yet was sung. - - And you shall hear of Fairyland, of Kings and Queens of Fairyland, - Of men and maids of Fairyland, and Love shall be the theme, - And straight before your brimming eyes, a golden glint of Paradise - Shall steal, My Dear, to still your sighs, and give you back your - dream. - - And you will taste of happiness, a tiny bit of happiness, - A wistful bit of happiness, upon a summer’s day; - And just a little smile from you, a sunny little smile from you, - A trembly little smile from you shall be a poet’s pay! - - - - -MY SHIP - -BY EDMUND LEAMY - - - My ship is an old ship and her sails are grey and torn, - And in the dim and misty night she seems a thing forlorn; - Her battered sides are beetle black, her decks are scarred and old, - And heavy rise the musty scents from out her crumbling hold. - - The young ships in the tide-way with a sneering smile sail by, - And fair they flash their white sails against a sun-drenched sky, - And fleet they run before the clouds that usher in a blow, - But could a storm coerce my ship whene’er she wished to go! - - My ship is an old ship and her sails are torn and grey, - And she’s not white and beautiful, nor fragile such as they, - But she has sailed o’er every sea to every land a-gleam, - And on her decks make merry now the wraiths of youthful dream! - - - - -VISIONS - -BY EDMUND LEAMY - - - _I never watch the sun set a-down the Western skies - But that within its wonderness I see my mother’s eyes; - I never hear the West wind sob softly in the trees - But that there comes her broken call far o’er the distant seas; - And never shine the dim stars but that my heart would go - Away and back to olden lands and dreams of long ago._ - - A rover of the wide world, when yet my heart was young - The sea came whispering to me in well-beloved tongue, - And oh! the promises she held of golden lands a-gleam - That clung about my boy-heart and filled mine eyes with dream, - And Wanderlust came luring me till ’neath the stars I swore - That I would be a wanderer for ever, ever more. - - A-rover of the wide world, I’ve seen the Northern lights - A-flashing countless colours in the knife-cold wintry nights; - I’ve watched the Southern Cross ablaze o’er smiling, sunny lands, - And seen the lazy sea caress palm-sheltered, silvery sands; - Still wild unrest is scouring me, the Wanderlust of yore, - And I must be a wanderer for ever, ever more. - - _And yet, I see the sun set a-down the Western skies - And glimpse within the wonderness my mother’s pleading eyes; - And yet I hear the West wind sob softly in the trees, - That vainly cloaks her broken call far o’er the distant seas; - And still when shine the dim stars my wander heart would go - Away and back to her side, and dreams of long ago._ - - - - -IRELAND, MOTHER OF PRIESTS - -BY SHANE LESLIE - - - The fishwife sits by the side - Of her childing bed, - Her fire is deserted and sad, - Her beads are long said; - Her tears ebb and flow with the sea, - Her grief on the years, - But little she looks to the tide, - And little she hears: - For children in springtime play round - Her sorrowing heart, - To win them their feeding she loves - To hunger apart; - Her children in summer she counts - Awhile for her own; - But winter is ever the same, - The loved ones are flown. - Far over the sea they are gone, - Far out of her ken - They travel the furthest of seas - As fishers of men. - Yet never a word to her sons - To keep them at home, - And never a motherly cry - Goes over the foam; - She sits with her head in her hands, - Her eyes on the flame, - And thinks of the others that played, - Yet left her the same, - With vesture she wove on the loom - Four-coloured to be, - And lanterns she trimmed with her hair - To light them to sea. - Oh, far have the living ones gone, - And further the dead, - For spirits come never to watch - The fisherwife’s bed; - And sonless she sits at the hearth, - And peers in the flame, - She knows that their fishing must come - As ever it came-- - A fishing that never set home, - But seaways it led, - For God who has taken her sons - Has buried her dead. - - - - -THE HUNTERS - -BY RUTH TEMPLE LINDSAY - - - “The Devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may - devour.” - - The Lion, he prowleth far and near. - Nor swerves for pain or rue; - He heedeth nought of sloth nor fear, - He prowleth--prowleth through - The silent glade and the weary street, - In the empty dark and the full noon heat; - And a little Lamb with aching feet-- - He prowleth too. - - The Lion croucheth alert, apart-- - With patience doth he woo; - He waiteth long by this shuttered heart, - And the Lamb--He waiteth too. - Up the lurid passes of dreams that kill, - Through the twisting maze of the great Untrue, - The Lion followeth the fainting will-- - And the Lamb--He followeth too. - - From the tickets dim of the hidden way - Where the debts of Hell accrue, - The Lion leapeth upon his prey: - But the Lamb--He leapeth too. - Ah! loose the leash of the sins that damn, - Mark Devil and God as goals, - In the panting love of a famished Lamb, - Gone mad with the need of souls. - - The Lion, he strayeth near and far; - What heights hath he left untrod? - He crawleth nigh to the purest star, - On the trail of the saints of God. - And throughout the darkness of things unclean, - In the depths where the sin-ghouls brood, - There prowleth ever with yearning mien-- - A lamb as white as Blood! - - - - -IN CHERRY LANE - -BY REV. WILLIAM LIVINGSTON - - - In Cherry Lane the blossoms blow - In wreaths of white around the trees, - And spread their petals wide, as though - They longed for nectar-seeking bees. - - O’erhead, the arching boughs that spring - From pillar trunks look down and smile - On lowly currant shrubs that cling - Around their feet along the aisle. - - In Cherry Lane the sunbeams steal - Through many a leaf and branch above, - And tender shoots come forth to feel - The touches of a wondrous love. - - And life grows warmer with the hours, - Unmoved, unchilled by human pang, - Till from the stems now robed in flowers - The great red drops in clusters hang. - - Ah, Mother mine! white blossoms came - And filled my soul with thoughts of thee, - Who art to those that love thy name - What honeyed buds are to the bee. - - Thou art the floweret white and fair, - A virgin from thy stainless birth, - The fruitful stem designed to bear - A Saviour to our sinful earth. - - And when the cherries, ripe and red, - Come forth upon the breast of June, - They’ll tell me of a heart that bled, - By men forgotten all too soon. - - Ah, precious drops! through future days - Preserve my soul from spot or stain, - With tender thoughts of love and praise - That once were mine in Cherry Lane. - - - - -SURRENDER - -BY S. M. M. - - - If thou art merely conscious clay--ah, well, - Tire not such stuff with futile, tread-mill climb - Which lifts to leave thee level with the slime; - Nor think that death can break thy earth-born spell; - Clay hath no heel Achillean, vulnerable. - Be animate till some deliberate time - Shall choke and crunch thee to potential grime, - For thou art fit for neither heaven nor hell. - - But He Who made thee cousin to the clod - First plunged thee in the Spirit Which is He, - Whence thou hast risen, divinely armed and shod - To scale the ramparts of eternity. - Already stricken with the shafts of God, - Thou fallest prisoner to the Deity. - - - - -HYMN FOR PENTECOST - -BY JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN - - - Pure Spirit of the always-faithful God, - Kindler of Heaven’s true light within the soul! - From the lorn land our sainted fathers trod, - Ascends to Thee our cry of hope and dole. - Thee, Thee we praise; - To Thee we raise - Our choral hymn in these awakening days: - O send us down anew that fire - Which of old lived in David’s and Isaiah’s lyre. - - Centuries had rolled, and earth lay tombed in sleep, - The nightmare-sleep of nations beneath kings; - And far abroad o’er liberty’s great deep - Death’s angel waved his black and stilling wings. - Then struck Thine hour! - Thou, in Thy power, - But breathedst, and the free stood up, a tower; - And tyranny’s thrones and strongholds fell, - And men made jubilee for an abolished hell. - - And she, our mother-home, the famed, the fair, - The golden house of light and intellect, - Must she still groan in her intense despair? - Shall she lie prone while Europe stands erect? - Forfend this, Thou - To whom we vow - Souls even our giant wrongs shall never bow: - Thou wilt not leave our green flag furled, - Nor bear that we abide the byword of the world. - - Like the last lamp that burned in Tullia’s tomb - Through ages, vainly, with unwaning ray; - Our star of hope lights but a path of gloom - Whose false track leads us round and round alway. - But Thou canst open - A gate from hope - To victory! Thou canst nerve our arms to cope - With looming storm and danger still, - And lend a thunder-voice to the land’s lightning will. - - Descend, then, Spirit of the Eternal King! - To Thee, to Him, to His avenging Son, - The Triune of God, in boundless trust we cling; - His help once ours, our nationhood is won. - We watch the time - Till that sublime - Event shall thrill the free of every clime. - Speed, mighty Spirit! speed its march, - And thus complete for earth mankind’s triumphal arch. - - - - -DARK ROSALEEN - -BY JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN - - - O my dark Rosaleen, - Do not sigh, do not weep! - The priests are on the ocean green, - They march along the deep. - There’s wine from the royal Pope - Upon the ocean green, - And Spanish ale shall give you hope, - My dark Rosaleen! - My own Rosaleen! - Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope, - Shall give you health, and help, and hope, - My dark Rosaleen! - - Over hills and through dales - Have I roamed for your sake; - All yesterday I sailed the sails - On river and on lake. - The Erne, at its highest flood, - I dashed across unseen, - For there was lightning in my blood, - My dark Rosaleen! - My own Rosaleen! - Oh! there was lightning in my blood, - Red lightning through my blood, - My dark Rosaleen! - - All day long, in unrest, - To and fro do I move, - The very soul within my breast - Is wasted for you, love! - The heart in my bosom faints - To think of you, my Queen, - My life of life, my saint of saints, - My dark Rosaleen! - My own Rosaleen! - To hear your sweet and sad complaints, - My life, my love, my saint of saints, - My dark Rosaleen! - - Woe and pain, pain and woe, - Are my lot, night and noon, - To see your bright face clouded so, - Like to the mournful moon. - But yet will I rear your throne - Again in golden sheen; - ’Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone, - My dark Rosaleen! - My own Rosaleen! - ’Tis you shall have the golden throne, - ’Tis you shall reign, and reign alone, - My dark Rosaleen! - - Over dews, over sands, - Will I fly for your weal: - Your holy, delicate white hands - Shall girdle me with steel. - At home in your emerald bowers, - From morning’s dawn till e’en, - You’ll pray for me, my flower of flowers, - My dark Rosaleen! - My own Rosaleen! - You’ll think of me through daylight’s hours, - My virgin flower, my flower of flowers, - My dark Rosaleen! - - I could scale the blue air, - I could plough the high hills, - Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer, - To heal your many ills! - And one beamy smile from you - Would float like light between - My toils and me, my own, my true, - My dark Rosaleen! - My own Rosaleen! - Would give me life and soul anew, - A second life, a soul anew, - My dark Rosaleen! - - Oh! the Erne shall run red - With redundance of blood, - The earth shall rock beneath our tread, - And flames wrap hill and wood, - And gun-peal and slogan-cry - Wake many a glen serene, - Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die, - My dark Rosaleen! - My own Rosaleen! - The Judgment Hour must first be nigh, - Ere you shall fade, ere you can die, - My dark Rosaleen! - - - - -WHAT IS WHITE? - -BY THOMAS MACDONAGH - - - What is white? - The soul of the sage, faith-lit, - The trust of Age, - The infant’s untaught wit. - What more white? - The face of Truth made known, - The Voice of Youth - Singing before her throne. - - - - -WISHES FOR MY SON - -Born on St. Cecilia’s Day, 1912 - -BY THOMAS MACDONAGH - - - Now, my son, is life for you-- - And I wish you joy of it,-- - Joy of power in all you do, - Deeper passion, better wit - Than I had who had enough, - Quicker life and length thereof, - More of every gift but love. - - Love I have beyond all men, - Love that now you share with me-- - What have I to wish you then - But that you be good and free, - And that God to you may give - Grace in stronger days to live? - - For I wish you more than I - Ever knew of glorious deed, - Though no rapture passed me by - That an eager heart could heed, - Though I followed heights and sought - Things the sequel never brought. - - Wild and perilous holy things - Flaming with a martyr’s blood, - And the joy that laughs and sings - Where a foe must be withstood, - Joy of headlong happy chance - Leading on the battle dance. - - But I found no enemy, - No man in a world of wrong, - That Christ’s word of Charity - Did not render clean and strong-- - Who was I to judge my kind, - Blindest groper of the blind? - - God to you may give the sight - And the clear undoubting strength - Wars to knit for single right, - Freedom’s war to knit at length, - And to win, through wrath and strife, - To the sequel of my life. - - But for you, so small and young, - Born on Saint Cecilia’s Day, - I in more harmonious song - Now for nearer joys should pray-- - Simple joys: the natural growth - Of your childhood and your youth, - Courage, innocence and truth: - - These for you, so small and young, - In your hand and heart and tongue. - - - - -RESIGNATION - -BY SEUMAS MACMANUS - - - Be still, sad soul, be still, - Bend you to Heaven’s high will. - When the toilsome race is run, - And the summit strove for won-- - When secrets are unsealed, - All hidden things revealed, - All mysteries made known, - The good we doubted shown, - Vexed questionings at rest, - I’ll say, “Well, God knew best.” - - * * * * * - - Me thought you went full soon, - In the rapture of the noon, - In the glory of the sun, - Your noble work begun-- - In your grasp the magic wand - That would raise a stricken land-- - A while you fain would stay; - But the call brooked no delay: - You sighed, and bowed your head, - And they put you with the dead. - - Our God is kind, and He - Will blunt the shaft to me; - Will stay the dripping woe - Ere the chalice overflow; - May let me end the race - With the high sun on my face, - And the hot blood bounding free, - Through the beating veins of me. - At most but some sad hours - And He’ll call me when Night lowers. - - Oh, at the Trysting Gate, - With radiant face you’ll wait! - With arms in love outspread - To take a weary head, - And clasp it to your breast - Where always it found rest. - You’ll speak no word for joy, - But, crooning o’er your boy, - Draw him into the Light, - Where nevermore comes Night. - - - - -IN DARK HOUR - -BY SEUMAS MACMANUS - - - I Turn my steps where the Lonely Road - Winds far as the eye can see, - And I bend my back for the burden sore - That God has reached down to me. - - I have said farewell to the sun-kissed plains, - To joy I gave good-bye; - Now the bleak wide wastes of the world are mine, - And the winds that wail in the sky. - - No bright flower blooms, no sweet bird calls, - Nor hermit ever abode, - Not a green thing lifts one lowly leaf, - O God, on the Lonely Road! - - The thick dank mists come stealing down, - And press me on every side. - With never a voice to cheer me on, - And never a hand to guide. - - I shall cry in my need for a Voice and Hand, - And the solace of love-wet eyes-- - And an icy clutch will close on my heart, - When Echo, the mocker, replies. - - I know my good soul will fail me not, - When Forms from the Dark round me creep, - And whisper ’twere sweet to journey no more, - But lay down the burden and sleep. - - (_Look onward and up, O Heart of my Heart, - Where the road strikes the skies afar! - To cheer you, and guide, thro’ your darkest hour, - Behold yon beckoning Star!_) - - I set my face to the grey wild wastes, - I bend my back to the load-- - Dear God be kind with the heart-sick child - Who steps on the Lonely Road. - - - - -A SONG OF COLOURS - -BY THEODORE MAYNARD - - - Gold for the crown of Mary, - Blue for the sea and sky, - Green for the woods and the meadows - Where small white daisies lie, - And red for the colour of Christ’s blood - When He came to the cross to die. - - These things the high God gave us - And left in the world He made-- - Gold for the hilt’s enrichment, - And blue for the sword’s good blade, - And red for the roses a youth may set - On the white brows of a maid. - - Green for the cool, sweet gardens - Which stretch about the house, - And the delicate new frondage - The winds of spring arouse, - And red for the wine which a man may drink - With his fellows in carouse. - - Blue and green for the comfort - Of tired hearts and eyes, - And red for that sudden hour which comes - With danger and great surprise, - And white for the honour of God’s throne - When the dead shall all arise. - - Gold for the cope and chalice, - For kingly pomp and pride, - And red for the feathers men wear in their caps - When they win a war or a bride, - And red for the robe which they dressed God in - On the bitter day He died. - - - - -THE WORLD’S MISER - -BY THEODORE MAYNARD - - -I - - A miser with an eager face - Sees that each roseleaf is in place. - - He keeps beneath strong bolts and bars - The piercing beauty of the stars. - - The colours of the dying day - He hoards as treasure--well He may!-- - - And saves with care (lest they be lost) - The dainty diagrams of frost. - - He counts the hairs of every head, - And grieves to see a sparrow dead. - - -II - - Among the yellow primroses - He holds His Summer palaces, - - And sets the grass about them all - To guard them as His spearmen small. - - He fixes on each wayside stone - A mark to show it as His own, - - And knows when raindrops fall through air - Whether each single one be there, - - That gathered into ponds and brooks. - They may become His picture books, - - To show in every spot and place - The living glory of His face. - - - - -CECIDIT, CECIDIT BABYLON MAGNA! - -BY THEODORE MAYNARD - - - The aimless business of your feet, - Your swinging wheels and piston rods, - The smoke of every sullen street - Have passed away with all your Gods. - - For in a meadow far from these - A hodman treads across the loam, - Bearing his solid sanctities - To that strange altar called his home. - - I watch the tall, sagacious trees - Turn as the monks do, every one; - The saplings, ardent novices, - Turning with them towards the sun, - - That Monstrance held in God’s strong hands, - Burnished in amber and in red; - God, His Own priest, in blessing stands; - The earth, adoring, bows her head. - - The idols of your market place, - Your high debates, where are they now? - Your lawyers’ clamour fades apace-- - A bird is singing on the bough! - - Three fragile, sacramental things - Endure, though all your pomps shall pass-- - A butterfly’s immortal wings, - A daisy and a blade of grass. - - - - -A SONG OF LAUGHTER - -BY THEODORE MAYNARD - - - The stars with their laughter are shaken; - The long waves laugh at sea; - And the little Imp of Laughter - Laughs in the soul of me. - - I know the guffaw of a tempest, - The mirth of a blossom and bud-- - But I laugh when I think of how Cuchulain laughed - At the crows with their bills in his blood. - - The mother laughs low at her baby, - The bridegroom with joy in his bride-- - And I think that Christ laughed when they Took Him - with staves - On the night before He died. - - - - -APOCALYPSE - -“_And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the -first earth are passed away._”--Apoc. xxi. I. - -BY THEODORE MAYNARD - - - Shall summer wood where we have laughed our fill; - Shall all your grass so good to walk upon; - Each field that we have loved, each little hill, - Be burnt like paper--as hath said Saint John? - - Then not alone they die! For God hath told - How all His plains of mingled fire and glass, - His walls of hyacinth, His streets of gold, - His aureoles of jewelled light shall pass, - - That He may make us nobler things that these, - And in her royal robes of blazing red - Adorn His bride. Yea, with what mysteries - And might and mirth shall she be diamonded. - - And what new secrets shall our God disclose; - Or set what suns of burnished brass to flare; - Or what empurpled bloom to oust the rose; - Or what strange grass to glow like angels’ hair! - - What pinnacles of silvery tracery, - What dizzy, rampired towers shall God devise - Of topaz, beryl and chalcedony - To make Heaven pleasant to His children’s eyes! - - And in what cataclysms of flame and foam - Shall the first Heaven sink--as red as sin-- - When God hath cast aside His ancient home - As far too mean to house His children in. - - - - -ST. BRIGID - -BY DENIS A. MCCARTHY - - - Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, she wasn’t like other young things, - Dreaming of lads for her lovers, and twirling her bracelets and - rings; - Combing and coiling and curling her hair that was black as the - sloes, - Painting her lips and her cheeks that were ruddy and fresh as the - rose. - Ah, ’twasn’t Brigid would waste all her days in such follies as - these-- - Christ was the Lover she worshipped for hour after hour on her - knees; - Christ and His Church and His poor,--and ’twas many a mile that she - trod - Serving the loathsomest lepers that ever were stricken by God. - - Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, she sold all her jewels and gems, - Sold all her finely-spun robes that were braided with gold to the - hems; - Kept to her back but one garment, one dress that was faded and old, - Gave all her goods to the poor who were famished with hunger and - cold. - Ah, ’twasn’t Brigid would fling at the poor the hard word like a - stone-- - Christ the Redeemer she saw in each wretch that was ragged and lone; - Every wandering beggar who asked for a bite or a bed - Knocked at her heart like the Man who had nowhere to shelter His - head. - - Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, she angered her father at last. - “Where are your dresses, my daughter? Crom Cruach! You wear them out - fast! - Where are the chains that I bought you all wrought in red gold from - the mine? - Where the bright brooches of silver that once on your bosom would - shine?” - Ah, but ’twas he was the man that was proud of his name and his - race, - Proud of their prowess in battle and proud of their deeds in the - chase! - Knew not the Christ, the pale God Whom the priests from afar had - brought in, - Held to the old Gaelic gods that were known to Cuchullin and Finn. - - Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, made answer, “O father,” said she, - “What is the richest of raiment, and what are bright jewels to me? - Lepers of Christ must I care for, the hungry of Christ must I feed; - How can I walk in rich robes when His people and mine are in need?” - Ah, but ’twas she didn’t fear for herself when he blustered and - swore, - Meekly she bowed when he ordered his chariot brought to the door; - Meekly obeyed when he bade her get in at the point of his sword, - Knowing whatever her fate she’d be safe with her Lover and Lord. - - Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, was brought to the court of the King, - (Monarch of Leinster, MacEnda, whose praises the poets would sing). - “Hither, O monarch,” said Duffy, “I’ve come with a maiden to sell; - Buy her and bind her to bondage--she’s needing such discipline - well!” - Ah, but ’twas wise was the King. From the maid to the chieftain he - turned; - Mildness he saw in her face, in the other ’twas anger that burned; - “This is no bondmaid, I’ll swear it, O chief, but a girl of your - own. - Why sells the father the flesh of his flesh and the bone of his - bone?” - - Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, was mute while her father replied-- - “Monarch, this maid has no place as the child of a chieftain of - pride. - Beggars and wretches whose wounds would the soul of a soldier - affright, - Sure, ’tis on these she is wasting my substance from morning till - night!” - Ah, but ’twas bitter was Duffy; he spoke like a man that was vext. - Musing, the monarch was silent; he pondered the question perplexed. - “Maiden,” said he, “if ’tis true, as I’ve just from your father - heard tell, - Might it not be, as my bondmaid, you’d waste all my substance as - well?” - - Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, made answer. “O monarch,” she said, - “Had I the wealth from your coffers, and had I the crown from your - head-- - Yea, if the plentiful yield of the broad breasts of Erin were mine, - All would I give to the people of Christ who in poverty pine.” - Ah, but ’twas then that the King felt the heart in his bosom upleap, - “I am not worthy,” he cried, “such a maiden in bondage to keep! - Here’s a king’s sword for her ransom, and here’s a king’s word to - decree - Never to other than Christ and His poor let her servitude be!” - - - - -ROSA MYSTICA - -BY DENIS A. MCCARTHY - - - O Mystic Rose, in God’s fair garden growing, - O Mystic Rose, in Heaven’s high courtyard blowing-- - Make sweet, make sweet the pathway I am going, - O Mystic Rose! - The darkling, deathward way that I am going, - O Mystic Rose! - - O Rose, more white than snow-wreath in December! - O Rose, more red than sunset’s dying ember, - My sins forget, my penitence remember, - O Mystic Rose! - Though all should fail, I pray that thou remember, - O Mystic Rose! - - O Mystic Rose, the moments fly with fleetness; - To judgment I, with all my incompleteness-- - But thou, make intercession by thy sweetness, - O Mystic Rose! - Be near to soothe and save me by the sweetness, - O Mystic Rose! - - - - -THE POOR MAN’S DAILY BREAD - -BY DENIS A. MCCARTHY - - - Not only there where jewelled vestments blaze, - And princely prelates bow before Thy shrine, - Where myriads line the swept and garnished ways - Through which is borne Thy Majesty Divine-- - O Jesus of the ever loving heart, - Not only there Thou art! - - But where the lowliest church its cross uplifts - Above the city’s sordidness and sin; - Where all unheeded human wreckage drifts - And drowns amid the foulness and the din-- - There, too, anear the very gates of hell, - O Saviour, dost Thou dwell! - - Oh, meet it is that round Thy altar thrones, - Thy highest priests should ministering throng - With silken robe, with gold and precious stones, - With solemn chant and loud triumphant song: - What beauty that the world could give would be - Too beautiful for Thee? - - And yet to those that work with grimy hands - And sweaty brows in ditches and in drains, - Thou comest with a love that understands - Their labor ill-requitted, and their pains. - Who knows so well as Thou what they endure, - O Father of the poor? - - And so, deep-hid in many a city street, - Or far where lonely workers break the soil, - Are shrines where Thou, the Merciful, dost meet, - In love’s embrace, the weary ones that toil. - For them Thy hospitable board is spread, - With Thee, Thy very Self, their Daily Bread! - - - - -TO ASK OUR LADY’S PATRONAGE FOR A BOOK ON COLUMBUS: A FRAGMENT - -BY THOMAS D’ARCY MCGEE - - - Star of the Sea, to whom, age after age, - The maiden kneels whose lover sails the sea; - Star, that the drowning death-pang can assuage, - And shape the soul’s course to eternity; - Mother of God, to Egypt’s realm exiled, - Mother of God, in Bethlehem’s crib confined, - Thee do I ask to aid my anxious mind, - And make this book find favour with thy Child. - - Of one who lived and laboured in thy ray, - I would rehearse the striving and success; - Through the dense past I ne’er shall find my way, - Unless thou helpest, hold Comfortress; - A world of doubt and darkness to evade; - An ocean all unknown to Christian kind; - Another world by nature’s self arrayed, - O’er the wide waste of waves, I seek to find. - - - - -A GENERAL COMMUNION - -BY ALICE MEYNELL - - - I saw the throng, so deeply separate, - Fed at one only board-- - The devout people, moved, intent, elate, - And the devoted Lord. - - Oh struck apart! not side from human side, - But soul from human soul, - As each asunder absorbed the multiplied, - The ever unparted whole. - - I saw this people as a field of flowers, - Each grown at such a price - The sum of unimaginable powers - Did no more than suffice. - - A thousand single central daisies they, - A thousand of the one; - For each the entire monopoly of day; - For each, the whole of the devoted sun. - - - - -THE SHEPHERDESS - -BY ALICE MEYNELL - - - She walks--the lady of my delight-- - A shepherdess of sheep. - Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white; - She guards them from the steep; - She feeds them on the fragrant height, - And folds them in for sleep. - - She roams maternal hills and bright, - Dark valleys safe and deep. - Into that tender breast at night - The chastest stars may peep. - She walks--the lady of my delight-- - A shepherdess of sheep. - - She holds her little thoughts in sight, - Though gay they run and leap. - She is so circumspect and right; - She has her soul to keep. - She walks--the lady of my delight-- - A shepherdess of sheep. - - - - -CHRIST IN THE UNIVERSE - -BY ALICE MEYNELL - - - With this ambiguous earth - His dealings have been told us. These abide: - The signal to a maid, the human birth, - The lesson, and the young Man crucified. - - But not a star of all - The innumberable host of stars has heard - How He administered this terrestrial ball. - Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word. - - Of His earth-visiting feet - None knows the secret, cherished, perilous, - The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet, - Heart-shattering secret of His way with us. - - No planet knows that this - Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave, - Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, - Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave, - - Nor, in our little day, - May his devices with the heavens be guessed, - His pilgrimage to tread the Milky Way - Or His bestowals there be manifest. - - But in the eternities, - Doubtless we shall compare together, hear - A million alien Gospels, in what guise - He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear. - - O, be prepared, my soul! - To read the inconceivable, to scan - The million forms of God those stars enroll - When, in our turn, we show to them a Man. - - - - -“I AM THE WAY” - -BY ALICE MEYNELL - - - Thou art the Way. - Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal, - I cannot say - If Thou hadst ever met my soul. - - I cannot see-- - I, child of process--if there lies - An end for me, - Full of repose, full of replies. - - I’ll not reproach - The road that winds, my feet that err. - Access, approach - Art Thou, Time, Way, and Wayfarer. - - - - -VIA, ET VERITAS, ET VITA - -BY ALICE MEYNELL - - - “You never attained to Him.” “If to attain - Be to abide, then that may be.” - “Endless the way, followed with how much pain!” - “The way was He.” - - - - -UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN - -BY ALICE MEYNELL - - - Given, not lent, - And not withdrawn--once sent, - This Infant of mankind, this One, - Is still the little welcome Son. - - New every year, - New born and newly dear, - He comes with tidings and a song, - The ages long, the ages long; - - Even as the cold - Keen winter grows not old, - As childhood is so fresh, foreseen, - And spring in the familiar green. - - Sudden as sweet - Come the expected feet. - All joy is young, and new all art, - And He, too, Whom we have by heart. - - - - -TO A DAISY - -BY ALICE MEYNELL - - - Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide - Like all created things, secrets from me, - And stand a barrier to eternity. - And I, how can I praise thee well and wide - - From where I dwell--upon the hither side? - Thou little veil for so great mystery, - When shall I penetrate all things and thee, - And then look back? For this I must abide. - - Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled - Literally between me and the world. - Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring. - - And from a poet’s side shall read his book. - O daisy mine, what will it be to look - From God’s side even of such a simple thing? - - - - -THE NEWER VAINGLORY - -BY ALICE MEYNELL - - - Two men went up to pray; and one gave thanks, - Not with himself aloud, - With proclamation, calling on the ranks - Of an attentive crowd. - - “Thank God, I clap not my own humble breast, - But other ruffians’ backs, - Imputing crime--such is my tolerant haste-- - To any man that lacks. - - “For I am tolerant, generous, keep no rules, - And the age honors me. - Thank God, I am not as these rigid fools, - Even as this Pharisee.” - - - - -THE FOLDED FLOCK - -BY WILFRID MEYNELL - - - I saw the shepherd fold the sheep, - With all the little lambs that leap. - - O Shepherd Lord, so I would be - Folded with all my family. - - Or go they early, come they late, - Their mother and I must count them eight. - - And how, for us, were any heaven - If we, sore-stricken, saw but seven? - - Kind Shepherd, as of old Thou’lt run - And fold at need a straggling one. - - - - -CONVENT ECHOES - -BY HELEN LOUISE MORIARTY - - - Clear on the air, their pulsing cadence pealing, - I hear a sweet refrain, - While o’er my thoughts a gentle mist is stealing, - And mem’ries come again, - - Of quiet halls where dusk is slow descending, - Where peace has spread her wings. - Soft music in the distance only lending - More charms where twilight clings. - - Anon appear the black robed nuns, their faces - Serene in sweet repose; - Across their brows the world has left no traces - Of earthly dreams or woes. - - Now loud on air the organ music swelling, - They reach the chapel door-- - The sweet faint incense stealing upward, telling - ’Tis Benediction’s hour. - - Now low-bowed heads, and hearts to Him ascending - On incense laden air. - Ah surely Heaven must smile with ear attending - The nun’s low whispered prayer. - - Fond memory lingers on those dim old hallways-- - Lingers and drops a tear, - And kind affection drapes the picture always - Through each succeeding year. - - - - -ENGLAND - -BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN - - - Tyre of the West, and glorying in the name - More than in Faith’s pure fame! - O trust not crafty fort nor rock renown’d - Earn’d upon hostile ground; - Wielding Trade’s master-keys, at thy proud will - To lock or loose its waters, England! trust not still. - - Dread thine own power! Since haughty Babel’s prime, - High towers have been man’s crime. - Since her hoar age, when the huge moat lay bare, - Strongholds have been man’s snare. - Thy nest is in the crags; ah, refuge frail! - Mad counsels in its hour, or traitors, will prevail. - - He who scann’d Sodom for His righteous men - Still spares thee for thy ten; - But, should vain tongues the Bride of Heaven defy, - He will not pass thee by; - For, as earth’s kings welcome their spotless guests, - So gives He them by turn, to suffer or be blest. - - - - -THE PILLAR OF THE CLOUD - -BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN - - - Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, - Lead Thou me on! - The night is dark, and I am far from home-- - Lead Thou me on! - Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see - The distant scene,--one step enough for me. - - I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that Thou - Shouldst lead me on. - I lov’d to choose and see my path; but now - Lead Thou me on! - I lov’d the garish day, and, spite of fears, - Pride rul’d my will: remember not past years. - - So long Thy power hath bless’d me, sure it still - Will lead me on, - O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till - The night is gone; - And with the morn those angel faces smile - Which I have lov’d long since, and lost awhile. - - - - -THE GREEK FATHERS - -BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN - - - Let heathen sing thy heathen praise, - Fall’n Greece! the thought of holier days - In my sad heart abides; - For sons of thine in Truth’s first hour - Were tongues and weapons of His power, - Born of the Spirit’s fiery shower, - Our fathers and our guides. - - All thine is Clement’s varied page; - And Dionysius, ruler sage, - In days of doubt and pain; - And Origen with eagle eye; - And saintly Basil’s purpose high - To smite imperial heresy, - And cleanse the Altar’s stain. - - From thee the glorious preacher came, - With soul of zeal and lips of flame, - A court’s stern martyr-guest; - And thine, O inexhaustive race! - Was Nazianzen’s heaven-taught grace; - And royal-hearted Athanase, - With Paul’s own mantel blessed. - - - - -RELICS OF SAINTS - -BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN - - “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto - Him.” - - - “The Fathers are in dust, yet live to God:” - So says the Truth; as if the motionless clay - Still held the seeds of life beneath the sod, - Smouldering and straggling till the judgment day. - - And hence we learn with reverence to esteem - Of these frail houses, though the grave confines; - Sophist may urge his cunning tests, and deem - That they are earth;--but they are heavenly shrines. - - - - -THE SIGN OF THE CROSS - -BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN - - - Whene’er across this sinful flesh of mine - I draw the Holy Sign, - All good thoughts stir within me, and renew - Their slumbering strength divine; - Till there springs up a courage high and true - To suffer and to do. - - And who shall say, but hateful spirits around, - For their brief hour unbound, - Shudder to see, and wail their overthrow? - While on far heathen ground - Some lonely Saint hails the fresh odour, though - Its source he cannot know? - - - - -THE SON OF GOD - -BY CHARLES L. O’DONNELL, C.S.C. - - - The fount of Mary’s joy - Revealed now lies, - For, lo, has not the Boy - His Father’s eyes? - - - - -TO ST. JOSEPH - -BY CHARLES L. O’DONNELL, C.S.C. - - - St. Joseph, when the day was done - And all your work put by, - You saw the stars come one by one - Out in the violet sky. - - You did not know the stars by name, - But there sat at your knee - One who had made the light and flame - And all things bright that be. - - You heard with Him birds in the tree - Twitter “Good-night” o’erhead,-- - The Maker of the world must see - His little ones to bed. - - Then when the darkness settled round, - To Him your prayers were said; - No wonder that your sleep was ground - The angels loved to tread. - - - - -THE DEAD MUSICIAN - - In memory of Brother Basil, - Organist for half a century at Notre Dame - -BY CHARLES L. O’DONNELL, C.S.C. - - - He was the player and the played upon, - He was the actor and the acted on, - Artist, and yet himself a substance wrought; - God played on him as he upon the keys, - Moving his soul to mightiest melodies - Of lowly serving, hid austerities, - And holy thought that our high dream out-tops,-- - He was an organ where God kept the stops. - Naught, naught - Of all he gave us came so wondrous clear - As that he sounded to the Master’s ear. - - Wedded he was to the immortal Three, - Poverty, Obedience and Chastity, - And in a fourth he found them all expressed, - For him all gathered were in Music’s breast, - And in God’s house - He took her for his spouse,-- - High union that the world’s eye never scans - Nor world’s way knows. - Not any penny of applauding hands - He caught, nor would have caught, - Not any thought - Save to obey - Obedience that bade him play, - And for his bride - To have none else beside, - That both might keep unflecked their virgin snows. - - Yet by our God’s great law - Such marriage issue saw, - As they who cast away may keep, - Who sow not reap. - In Chastity entombed - His manhood bloomed, - And children not of earth - Had spotless birth. - With might unmortal was he strong - That he begot - Of what was not, - Within the barren womb of silence, song. - Yea, many sons he had - To make his sole heart glad-- - Romping the boundless meadows of the air, - Skipping the cloudy hills, and climbing bold - The heavens’ nightly stairs of starry gold. - Nay, winning heaven’s door - To mingle evermore - With deathless troops of angel harmony. - He filled the house of God - With servants at his nod, - A music-host of moving pagentry. - Lo, this priest, and that an acolyte: - Ah, such we name aright - Creative art, - To body forth love slumbering at the heart ... - Fools, they who pity him, - Imagine dim - Days that the world’s glare brightens not. - Until the seraphim - Shake from their flashing hair - Lightnings, and weave serpents there, - His days we reckon fair.... - - Yet more he had than this; - Lord of the liberative kiss, - To own and yet refrain, - To hold his hand in reign. - High continence of his high power, - That turns from virtue’s very flower, - In loss of that elected pain - A greater prize to gain. - As one who long had put wine by - Would now himself deny - Water, and thirsting die. - So, sometimes he was idle at the keys, - Pale fingers on the aged ivories; - Then, like a prisoned bird, - Music was seen, not heard, - Then were his quivering hands most strong - With blood of the repressed song,-- - A fruitful barrenness. Oh, where - Out of angelic air, - This side the heavens’ spheres - Such sight to start and hinder tears. - Who knows, perhaps while silence throbbed - He heard the De Profundis sobbed - By his own organ at his bier to-day,-- - It is the saints’ anticipative way, - He knew both hand and ear were clay. - That was one thought - Never is music wrought, - For silence only could that truth convey. - Widowed of him, his organ now is still, - His music-children fled, their echoing feet yet fill - The blue, far reaches of the vaulted nave, - The heart that sired them, pulseless in the grave. - Only the song he made is hushed, his soul, - Responsive to God’s touch, in His control - Elsewhere shall tune the termless ecstasy - Of one who all his life kept here - An alien ear, - Homesick for harpings of eternity. - - - - -GIOTTO’S CAMPANILE - -BY THOMAS O’HAGAN - - - O pulsing heart with voice attuned - To all the soul builds high, - Framing in notes of love divine - A drama of the sky, - Across the Arno’s flowing tide - The notes chime on the air, - Deep as the mysteries of God - And tender as a prayer. - - Here, where the Poet of Sorrows dwelt, - Whose altar Love had built, - And framed his morn in dreams so pure - That knew not stain nor guilt: - O _Vita Nuova_! Earthly Love - Then changed to love Divine; - Transfigured at the wedding-feast, - Earth’s grapes are heavenly wine. - - Where cowled monk with soul of fire - Struck vice athwart the face, - With God’s anointed sword of truth - That flashed with beams of grace. - O bitter days of war and strife! - Heaven’s ardor was too great; - The Empire of the earth held sway - And sealed with saddest fate. - - Methinks I hear from thy strong lips, - O century-dowered bell! - The story of the Whites and Blacks, - As banners rose or fell; - Methinks I hear an epic voice, - Full of God’s love and power, - With accent of an Exile sad - Speaking from out thy tower! - - - - -NAME OF MARY - -BY JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY - - - Dear, honored name, beloved for human ties, - But loved and honored first that One was given - In living proof, to erring mortal eyes, - That our poor flesh is near akin to heaven. - - Sweet word of dual meaning: one of grace, - And born of our kind Advocate above; - And one, by mercy linked to that dear face - That blessed my childhood with its mother-love, - - And taught me first the simple prayer: “To thee, - Poor banished sons of Eve, we send our cries.” - Through mist of years, those words recall to me - A childish face upturned to loving eyes. - - And yet, to some the name of Mary bears - No special meaning and no gracious power; - In that dear word they seek for hidden snares, - As wasps find poison in the sweetest flower. - - But faithful hearts can see, o’er doubts and fears, - The Virgin-link that binds the Lord to earth; - Which, to the upturned trusting face, appears - Greater than angel, though of human birth. - - The sweet-faced moon reflects, on cheerless night, - The rays of hidden sun that rise to-morrow; - So, unseen God still lets his promised light, - Through holy Mary, shine upon our sorrow. - - - - -A CHRISTMAS CAROL - -BY MARY A. O’REILLY - - - Night in the far Judean land, - The pregnant air is still, - The sky one blue unclouded band, - Seems drooping o’er each hill. - The hills then toward each other bend, - Some mighty secret to portend. - Gloria in excelsis Deo. - - The sheep in near-by pastures browse, - Some bleat as if in pain; - The youthful shepherds watch and drowse, - Then drowse and watch again; - When lo! a light from Heaven appears - Which makes them huddle in their fears. - Gloria in excelsis Deo. - - God’s glory shone around them there, - And then an angel cried-- - “Fear not, for I good tidings bear - To you, and all beside. - For unto you is born this day - A Savior, Christ the Lord.” We pray-- - Gloria in excelsis Deo. - - Then swinging from the skies there came - Groups of the heavenly host, - Praising the Lord in sweet acclaim-- - The burden of their toast-- - “Glory to God on High,” again-- - His “Peace on earth, good will to men.” - Gloria in excelsis Deo. - - Within a stable sweet with hay, - And warm with breath of kine, - The Baby and His Mother lay, - O, mystery divine! - The bed of straw a cloud appears, - We hear the music of the spheres. - Gloria in excelsis Deo. - - Dear maiden mother, let us now, - While to your breast He clings, - In humble adoration bow - With shepherds and with kings, - And at His feet our off’ring be - Praise, love, faith, hope and charity. - Gloria in excelsis Deo. - - - - -ROMA MATER SEMPAETERNA - -BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL - - - The blue skies bend and are about her furled, - A maiden mantle; and with lilies bright - The sun daywhiles doth crown her, and at night - With stars her garment’s border is empearled. - Not a king’s favorite, perfumed and curled, - Is half so fair; no queen of martial might - So potent as the Mother of the Light, - The Mary of the Cities of the World! - - Eternal Mother, at whose breasts of white - The infant Church was suckled and made strong - With the sweet milk of heavenly Truth and Love, - O thou that art all nations set above, - Strengthen us still because the way is long, - Mary of Cities, Mother of the Light! - - - - -MARY’S BABY - -BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL - - - Joseph, mild and noble, bent above the straw: - A pale girl, a frail girl, suffering, he saw; - “O my Love, my Mary, my bride, I pity thee!” - “Nay, Dear,” said Mary, “All is well with me!” - “Baby, my Baby, O my Babe,” she sang. - Suddenly the golden night all with music rang. - - Angels leading shepherds, shepherds leading sheep: - The silence of worship broke the mother’s sleep. - All the meek and lowly of the world were there; - Smiling she showed them that her Child was fair. - “Baby, my Baby,” kissing Him she said. - Suddenly a flaming star through the heavens sped. - - Three old men and weary knelt them side by side, - The world’s wealth forswearing, majesty and pride; - Worldly might and wisdom before the Babe bent low: - Weeping, maid Mary said “I love Him so!” - “Baby, my Baby,” and the Baby slept. - Suddenly on Calvary all the olives wept. - - - - -THEY WENT FORTH TO BATTLE - -BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL - - - They went forth to battle, but they always fell; - Their eyes were fixed above the sullen shields; - Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well, - And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell. - They knew not fear that to the foeman yields, - They were not weak, as one who vainly wields - A futile weapon, yet the sad scrolls tell - How on the hard-fought field they always fell. - - It was a secret music that they heard, - A sad sweet plea for pity and for peace; - And that which pierced the heart was but a word, - Though the white breast was red-lipped where the sword - Pressed a fierce cruel kiss, to put surcease - On its hot thirst, but drank a hot increase. - Ah, then by some strange troubling doubt were stirred, - And died for hearing what no foeman heard. - - They went forth to battle but they always fell; - Their might was not the might of lifted spears; - Over the battle-clamor came a spell - Of troubling music, and they fought not well. - Their wreaths are willows and their tribute, tears; - Their names are old sad stories in men’s ears; - Yet they will scatter the red hordes of Hell, - Who went to battle forth and always fell. - - - - -HE WHOM A DREAM HATH POSSESSED - -BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL - - - He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of doubting, - For mist and the blowing of winds and the mouthing of words he - scorns; - Not the sinuous speech of schools he hears, but a knightly shouting, - And never comes darkness down, yet he greeteth a million morns. - - He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of roaming; - All roads and the flowing of waves and the speediest flight he - knows, - But wherever his feet are set, his soul is forever homing, - And going he comes, and coming he heareth a call and goes. - - He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of sorrow, - At death and the dropping of leaves and the fading of suns he - smiles, - For a dream remembers no past and scorns the desire of a morrow, - And a dream in a sea of doom sets surely the ultimate isles. - - He whom a dream hath possessed treads the impalpable marches, - From the dust of the day’s long road he leaps to a laughing star, - And the ruin of worlds that fall he views from eternal arches, - And rides God’s battle-field in a flashing and golden car. - - - - -MARIA IMMACULATA - -BY CONDÉ BENOIST PALLEN - - -I - - How may I sing, unworthy I, - Our Lady’s glorious sanctity? - She whose celestial shoon - Rest on the horned moon - In Heaven’s highest galaxy; - She whom the poet sang of old - In that rare vision told - In soft Tuscan speech of gold, - The spotless spouse and mother-maid - The goodliest sapphire in Heaven’s floor inlaid, - Around whom wheels the circling flame - Of the rapt seraph breathing Mary’s name, - While choir to choir replies - In growing harmonies - Through all the glowing spheres of Paradise, - Till universal Heaven’s glad estate - Rings jubilation to their queen immaculate. - - -II - - Ah me! Unworthy I to sing - The stainless mother of my King, - My King and Lord, - The Incarnate Word, - Heaven itself comprest - Within her virgin breast! - How may my faltering rhyme - Sing of Eternity in time, - Omnipotence in human frailty exprest, - Our earthly garden fragrant with celestial thyme. - What Muse, though great Urania guide her flight, - May dare the sacrosanct and awful height - Of that mysterious sublime - Within the secret counsels of the Infinite! - Omniscence there supreme and sole - Clasps the beginning and the whole - Of Love beyond created sight, - Uncreate and quintessential light! - Before the splendor of that ray - Cherub and seraph fall away - Dazzled and broken by excess - Of everpowering blessedness, - Yet panting for the fulness of the bliss - That breathes consuming fire from Love’s unkenned abyss. - Not through that fiery sphere my way, - But here where shines the veiléd day, - The flames of mystery insteeped - In this our mortal clay; - For in her maiden breast asleep - Lies all the Love of Heaven’s deep, - The holy circle of her zone - Incarnate Love’s terrestrial throne. - - -III - - The great archangel veils his face - Before her: “Hail, full of grace!” - And Heaven is clasped of earth; - While all the wheeling spheres with all their choirs - Around her wheel seraphic fires. - Eden rises to its second birth; - Again the prime estate - Of man is renovate, - And all the elder worth renewed in her immaculate; - Virgin and spouse of Him - Who breathes the virtue of the Seraphim, - Virgin and mother of the Eternal Son, - Daughter, Virgin, Spouse in one! - The spotless mate of spotless Dove, - The one great miracle of God’s love, - From all eternity the chosen bride, - Save only her none, none - Exempt from sin’s dominion; - Save only her of Adam’s race - Or heavenly line, none full of grace; - On her alone, on her alone - The torrent of His love poured down - The deep abundance of its flood - Into the pure channels of her maidenhood, - The fleckless mirror of her grace - Reflecting all the beauty of His Face. - - -IV - - She looks with human eyes - Into the eyes of Paradise; - Upon her virgin breast the Babe Divine - Gazes again into her eyne; - O vanity of words to tell - The wonder of that spell, - The ravishment of bliss - Upwelling from the deep abyss - Of Love incarnate gazing in the eyes - Of his terrestrial paradise! - See Heaven within her arms, - Gathered against all harms, - Innocence by innocence addrest, - Virgin love by virgin love carest, - The sinless mother and the sinless Son - For Heaven and earth to gaze upon! - Her living image on her knee, - O the depths of her maternity! - Her God, her Infant at her breast, - O Love beyond all utterance exprest, - The Eternal Word in virgin flesh made manifest! - - -V - - Ye sons of Adam rejoice - With exultant voice! - Shake off your chains! Arise! - The ancient dragon has no power - O’er Jesse’s virgin flower, - And stricken ’neath a maiden’s sandal lies. - Nor may his venomed breath so much - As her garment’s outer margin touch; - And sin’s torrential flood, - That whelmed all Adam’s flesh and blood, - Its loathsome stream turns back - Before her footsteps’ radiant track. - - -VI - - Rejoice, children of men! - Behold again - Your flesh rejuvenate - In her immaculate! - Rejoice with exceeding joy, - For in her free from sin’s alloy - Your renovated race - In plentitude of grace - Dare look again unshamed upon its Maker’s Face! - Chosen to bear the Eternal Word, - In her your more than dignity restored; - In her the more than golden worth - Of Eden’s prime when Heaven was linked with earth; - Unstained by Adam’s guilty forfeiture, - In her your long corrupted flesh made pure; - For of her, flesh of flesh and bone of bone, - Eternal Love builds up His stainless throne! - - -VII - - Rejoice and be glad this day! - In jubilation lay - Your tribute at her feet, - Spotless and most meet, - The mystic rose of Jesse’s root, - To bear the heavenly fruit; - Wisdom’s seat and Heaven’s gate, - Our surest advocate, - Mother of God immaculate! - Be glad, O Adam’s clay, - Be glad this happy day. - And with accordant voice acclaim - Our spotless Lady’s stainless fame; - Be ye exceeding glad and sing - The mother of our King. - And though unworthy be my strain, - She is too tender not to deign - To lend a gracious ear - To this her children’s humble prayer: - _Mother of Mercy, hear! - Mother whose face is likest His, - Who our Redeemer is, - Grant us one day to share - Thy happiness in gazing on His Face, - Who found thee without spot and full of grace!_ - - - - -THE RAISING OF THE FLAG - -BY CONDÉ BENOIST PALLEN - - - Lift up the banner of our love - To the kiss of the winds above, - The banner of the world’s fair hope, - Set with stars from the azure cope, - When liberty was young, - And yet unsung - Clarioned her voice among - The trodden peoples, and stirred - The pulses with her word, - Till the swift flood red - From the quick heart sped, - Flushing valour’s cheek with flame - At sounding of her august sacred name! - - Lift up the banner of the stars, - The standard of the double bars, - Red with the holy tide - Of heroes’ blood, who died - At the feet of liberty, - Shouting her battle-cry - Triumphantly - As they fell like sickled corn - In that first resplendent morn - Of freedom, glad to die - In the dawn of her clear eye! - - Lift up the flag of starry blue - Caught from the crystal hue - Of central heaven’s glowing dome, - Where the great winds largely roam - In unrestrainéd liberty; - Caught from the cerulean sea - Of midmost ocean tossing free, - Flecked with the racing foam - Of rushing waters, as they leap - Unbridled from the laughing deep - In the gulfs of liberty! - - Lift up the banner red - With the blood of heroes shed - In victory! - Lift up the banner blue - As heaven, and as true - In constancy! - Lift up the banner white - As sea foam in the light - Of liberty; - The banner of the triple hue, - The banner of the red and white and blue, - Bright ensign of the free! - - Lift up the banner of the days to come, - When cease the trumpet and the rolling drum; - When peace in the nest of love - Unfolds the wings of the dove, - Brooding o’er the days to-be, - Peace born of freedom’s might, - Peace sprung from the power of right, - The peace of liberty! - - Lift up the flag of high surprise - To greet the gladdened eyes - Of peoples far and near, - The glorious harbinger - Of earth’s wide liberties, - Streaming pure and clear - In freedom’s lofty atmosphere! - - Lift up our hearts to Him who made to shine - In Heaven’s arch the glorious sign - Of mercy’s heavenly birth - To all the peoples of the earth, - The pledge of peace divine! - And let our glorious banner, too, - The banner of the rainbow’s hue, - In heaven’s wide expanse unfurled, - Be for a promise to the world - Of peace to all mankind; - Banner of peace and light, - Banner of red and blue and white, - Red as the crimson blood - Of Christ’s wide brotherhood, - Blue with the unchanging hope - Of heaven’s steadfast sun, - White as the radiant sun - The whole earth shining on! - - - - -THE BABE OF BETHLEHEM - -BY CONDÉ BENOIST PALLEN - - - O cruel manger, how bleak, how bleak! - For the limbs of the Babe, my God; - Soft little limbs on the cold, cold straw; - Weep, O eyes, for thy God! - - Bitter ye winds in the frosty night - Upon the Babe, my God, - Piercing the torn and broken thatch; - Lament, O heart, for thy God! - - Bare is the floor, how bare, how bare - For the Babe’s sweet mother, my God; - Only a stable for mother and Babe; - How cruel thy world, my God! - - Cast out, cast out, by his brother men - Unknown the Babe, my God; - The ox and the ass alone are there; - Soften, O heart, for thy God! - - Dear little arms and sweet little hands, - That stretch for thy mother, my God; - Soft baby eyes to the mother’s eyes; - Melt, O heart, for thy God! - - Waxen touches on mother’s heart, - Fingers of the Babe, my God; - Dear baby lips to her virgin breast, - The virgin mother of God. - - The shepherds have come from the hills to adore - The Babe in the manger, my God; - Mary and Joseph welcome them there; - Worship, O soul, thy God! - - But I alone may not come near - The Babe in the manger, my God; - Weep for thy sins, O heart, and plead - With Mary the mother of God. - - May I not come, oh, just to the door, - To see the Babe, my God; - There will I stop and kneel and adore, - And weep for my sins, O God! - - But Mary smiles, and rising up, - In her arms the Babe, my God, - She comes to the door and bends her down, - With the Babe in her arms, my God! - - Her sinless arms in my sinful arms - Place the Babe, my God; - “He has come to take thy sins away;” - Break, O heart, for thy God! - - - - -THE TOYS - -BY COVENTRY PATMORE - - - My little son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes - And mov’d and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, - Having my law the seventh time disobey’d, - I struck him, and dismiss’d - With hard words and unkiss’d, - His Mother, who was patient, being dead. - Then fearing lest his grief should hinder him sleep - I visited his bed, - But found him slumbering deep, - With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet - From his late sobbing wet. - And I, with moan, - Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; - For, on a table drawn beside his head, - Fie had put, within his reach, - A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone, - A piece of glass abraded by the beach, - And six or seven shells, - A bottle with bluebells - And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, - To comfort his sad heart. - So when that night I pray’d - To God, I wept, and said: - Ah, when at last we lie with trancéd breath, - Not vexing Thee in death, - And Thou rememberest of what toys - We made our joys, - How weakly understood - Thy great commanded good, - Then, fatherly not less - Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, - Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say, - “I will be sorry for their childishness.” - - - - -“IF I WERE DEAD” - -BY COVENTRY PATMORE - - - “If I were dead, you’d some time say, Poor Child!” - The dear lips quiver’d as they spake, - And the tears break - From eyes, which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. - Poor Child, poor Child! - I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. - It is not true that Love will do no wrong. - Poor Child! - And did you think, when you so cried and smiled, - How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake, - And of those words your full avengers make? - Poor Child, poor Child! - And now, unless it be - That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee, - O God, have Thou no mercy upon me! - Poor Child! - - - - -DEPARTURE - -BY COVENTRY PATMORE - - - It was not like your great and gracious ways! - Do you, that have nought other to lament, - Never, my Love, repent - Of how, that July afternoon, - You went, - With sudden, unintelligible phrase, - And frightened eye, - Upon your journey of so many days - Without a single kiss, or a good-bye? - I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon; - And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays, - You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, - Your harrowing praise. - Well, it was well - To hear you such things speak, - And I could tell - What made your eyes a growing gloom of love, - As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove. - And it was like your great and gracious ways - To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear, - Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash - To let the laughter flash, - Whilst I drew near, - Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear. - But all at once to leave me at the last, - More at the wonder than the loss aghast, - With huddled, unintelligible phrase, - And frighten’d eye, - And go your journey of all days - With not one kiss, or a good-bye, - And the only loveless look the look with which you passed; - ’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways. - - - - -REGINA CŒLI - -BY COVENTRY PATMORE - - - Say, did his sisters wonder what could Joseph see - In a mild, silent little Maid like thee? - And was it awful, in that narrow house, - With God for Babe and Spouse? - Nay, like thy simple, female sort, each one - Apt to find Him in Husband and in Son, - Nothing to thee came strange in this. - Thy wonder was but wondrous bliss: - Wondrous, for, though - True Virgin lives not but does know, - (Howbeit none ever yet confess’d,) - That God lies really in her breast, - Of thine He made His special nest! - And so - All mothers worship little feet, - And kiss the very ground they’ve trod; - But, ah, thy little Baby sweet - Who was indeed thy God! - - - - -IDEAL - -BY P. H. PEARSE - -(Translated from the Irish by Thomas MacDonagh) - - - Naked I saw thee, - O beauty of beauty! - And I blinded my eyes - For fear I should flinch. - - I heard thy music, - O sweetness of sweetness! - And I shut my ears - For fear I should fail. - - I kissed thy lips, - O sweetness of sweetness! - And I hardened my heart - For fear of my ruin. - - I blinded my eyes, - And my ears I shut, - I hardened my heart - And my love I quenched. - - I turned my back - On the dream I had shaped, - And to this road before me - My face I turned. - - I set my face - To the road here before me, - To the work that I see, - To the death that I shall meet. - - - - -MUSIC - -BY CHARLES PHILLIPS - - - There is a hunger in my heart to-night, - A longing in my soul, to hear - The voice of heaven o’er the noise of earth - That doth assail mine ear. - - For we are exiled children of the skies, - Lone and lost wanderers from home ... - The stars come out like lamps in windows lit - Far, far from where we roam; - - Like candles lit to show the long late way, - Dear kindly beacons sure and bright; - But O, the heavy journeying, and O - The silence of the night!-- - - The dark and vasty silences that lie - Between the going and the goal! - Will not God reach a friendly hand to lift - And land my weary soul? - - Will not God speak a friendly word to me - Above the tumult and the din - Of earthly things--one little word to hush - The voice of care and sin?... - - He speaks! He answers my poor faltering prayer! - He opens heaven’s lattice wide; - He bids me bathe my brow in heavenly airs - Like to a flowing tide! - - He calls; He gives unto my famished soul, - Unto my eager heart, its meed: - He breathes upon me with the breath of song, - And O, my soul is freed, - - And I am lifted up and up, and held - A little while--a child, to see - The beauties of my Father’s house, which shall - No more be shut from me! - - - - -I SEE HIS BLOOD UPON THE ROSE - -BY JOSEPH MARY PLUNKETT - - - I see His blood upon the rose - And in the stars the glory of His eyes, - His Body gleams amid eternal snows, - His tears fall from the skies. - - I see His face in every flower; - The thunder and the singing of the birds - Are but His voice--and carven by His power - Rocks are His written words. - - All pathways by His feet are worn, - His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea, - His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn, - His cross is every tree. - - - - -THE STARS SANG IN GOD’S GARDEN - -BY JOSEPH MARY PLUNKETT - - - The stars sang in God’s garden; - The stars are the birds of God; - The night-time is God’s harvest, - Its fruits are the words of God. - - God ploughed His fields at morning, - God sowed His seed at noon, - God reaped and gathered in His corn - With the rising of the moon. - - The sun rose up at midnight, - The sun rose red as blood, - It showed the Reaper, the dead Christ, - Upon His cross of wood. - - For many live that one may die, - And one must die that many live-- - The stars are silent in the sky - Lest my poor songs be fugitive. - - - - -“IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?” - -BY MAY PROBYN - - - We were playing on the green together, - My sweetheart and I-- - Oh, so heedless in the gay June weather, - When the word went forth that we must die. - Oh, so merrily the balls of amber - And of ivory tossed we to the sky, - While the word went forth in the King’s chamber, - That we both must die. - - Oh, so idly, straying through the pleasaunce, - Plucked we here and there - Fruit and bud, while in the royal presence - The King’s son was casting from his hair - Glory of the wreathen gold that crowned it, - And, ungirding all his garment fair, - Flinging by the jewelled clasp that bound it, - With his feet made bare, - - Down the myrtled stairway of the palace, - Ashes on his head, - Came he, through the rose and citron alleys, - In the rough sark of sackcloth habited, - And in a hempen halter--oh! we jested, - Lightly, and we laughed as he was led - To the torture, while the bloom we breasted - Where the grapes grew red. - - Oh, so sweet the birds, when he was dying, - Piped to her and me-- - Is no room this glad June day for sighing-- - He is dead, and she and I go free! - When the sun shall set on all our pleasure - We will mourn him--What, so you decree - We are heartless?--Nay, but in what measure - Do you more than we? - - - - -THE BEES OF MYDDLETON MANOR - -17th Century - -BY MAY PROBYN - - - Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my golden-belted bees: - My little son was seven years old--the mint-flower touched his - knees; - Yellow were his curly locks; - Yellow were his stocking-clocks; - His plaything of a sword had a diamond in its hilt; - Where the garden beds lay sunny, - And the bees were making honey, - “For God and the king--to arms! to arms!” the day long would he - lilt. - Smock’d in lace and flowered brocade, my pretty son of seven - Wept sore because the kitten died, and left the charge uneven. - “I head one battalion, mother-- - Kitty,” sobbed he, “led the other! - And when we reach’d the bee-hive bench - We used to halt and storm the trench: - If we could plant our standard here, - With all the bees a-buzzing near, - And fly the colors safe from sting, - The town was taken for the king!” - Flirting flitting over the thyme, by bees with yellow band-- - My little son of seven came close, and clipp’d me by the hand; - A wreath of mourning cloth was wound - His small left arm and sword-hilt round, - And on the thatch of every hive a whisp of black was bound. - “Sweet mother, we must tell the bees, or they will swarm away: - Ye little bees!” he called, “draw nigh, and hark to what I say, - And make us golden honey still for our white wheaten bread, - Though never more - We rush on war - With Kitty at our head: - Who’ll give the toast - When swords are cross’d, - Now Kitty lieth dead?” - Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my bees of yellow girth: - My son of seven changed his mood, and clasp’d me in his mirth. - “Sweet mother, when I grow a man and fall on battlefield,” - He cried, and down in the daisied grass upon one knee he kneel’d, - “I charge thee, come and tell the bees how I for the king lie dead; - And thou shalt never lack fine honey for thy wheaten bread!” - - * * * * * - - Flitting, flitting, flitting, my busy bees, alas! - No footsteps of my soldier son came clinking through the grass. - Thrice he kiss’d me for farewell; - And far on the stone his shadow fell; - He buckled spurs and sword-belt on, as the sun began to stoop, - Set foot in stirrup, and sprang to horse, and rode to join his - troop. - To the west he rode, where the winds were at play, - And Monmouth’s army mustering lay; - Where Bridgewater flew her banner high, - And gave up her keys, when the Duke came by; - And the maids of Taunton paid him court - With colors their own white hands had wrought; - And red as a field, where blood doth run, - Sedgemoor blazed in the setting sun. - - Broider’d sash and clasp of gold, my soldier son, alas! - The mint was all in flower, and the clover in the grass: - “With every bed - In bloom,” I said, - “What further lack the bees, - That they buzz so loud, - Like a restless cloud, - Among the orchard trees?” - No voice in the air, from Sedgemoor field, - Moan’d out how Grey and the horse had reel’d; - Met me no ghost, with haunting eyes, - That westward pointed ’mid its sighs, - And pull’d apart a bloody vest, - And show’d the sword-gash in his breast. - - Empty hives, and flitting bees, and sunny morning hours; - I snipp’d the blossom’d lavender, and the pinks, and the - gillyflowers; - No petal trembled in my hold-- - I saw not the dead stretched stark and cold - On the trampled turf at the shepherd’s door, - In the cloak and the doublet Monmouth wore, - With Monmouth’s scarf and headgear on, - And the eyes, not clos’d, of my soldier son; - I knew not how, ere the cocks did crow, the fight was fought in the - dark, - With naught for guide but the enemy’s guns, when the flint flash’d - out a spark, - Till, routed at first sound of fire, the cavalry broke and fled, - And the hoofs struck dumb, where they spurn’d the slain, and the - meadow stream ran red; - I saw not the handful of horsemen spur through the dusk, and out of - sight, - My soldier son at the Duke’s left hand, and Grey that rode on his - right. - Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my honey-making bees, - They left the musk, and the marigolds and the scented faint sweet - peas; - They gather’d in a darkening cloud, and sway’d, and rose to fly; - A blackness on the summer blue, they swept across the sky. - Gaunt and ghastly with gaping wounds--(my soldier son, alas!) - Footsore and faint, the messenger came halting through the grass. - The wind went by and shook the leaves--the mint-stalk shed its - flower-- - And I miss’d the murmuring round the hives, and my boding heart beat - slower. - His soul we cheer’d with meat and wine; - With woman’s craft and balsam fine - We bathed his hurts, and bound them soft, - While west the wind played through the croft, - And the low sun dyed the pinks blood red, - And, straying near the mint-flower shed, - A wild bee wantoned o’er the bed. - - He told how my son, at the shepherd’s door, kept watch in Monmouth’s - clothes, - While Monmouth donned the shepherd’s frock, in hope to cheat his - foes. - A couple of troopers spied him stand, - And bade him yield to the king’s command: - “Surrender, thou rebel as good as dead, - A price is set on thy traitor head!” - My soldier son, with secret smile, - Held both at bay for a little while, - Dealt them such death blow as he fell, - Neither was left the tale to tell; - With dying eyes that asked no grace, - They stared on him for a minute’s space, - And felt that it was not Monmouth’s face. - Crimsoned through was Monmouth’s cloak, when the soldier dropped at - their side-- - “Those knaves will carry no word,” he said, and he smiled in his - pain, and died. - “Two days,” told the messenger, “did we lie - Hid in the fields of peas and rye, - Hid in the ditch of brake and sedge, - With the enemy’s scouts down every hedge, - Till Grey was seized, and Monmouth seized, that under the fern did - crouch, - Starved and haggard, and all unshaved, with a few raw peas in his - pouch.” - - * * * * * - - No music soundeth in my ears, but a passing bell that tolls - For gallant lords with head on block--sweet Heaven receive their - souls! - And a mound, unnamed, in Sedgemoor grass, - That laps my soldier son, alas! - The bloom is shed-- - The bees are fled-- - Middleton luck it’s done and dead. - - - - -A LEGEND - -BY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER - - -I - - The Monk was preaching: strong his earnest word, - From the abundance of his heart he spoke, - And the flame spread,--in every soul that heard - Sorrow and love and good resolve awoke:-- - The poor lay Brother, ignorant and old, - Thanked God that he had heard such words of gold. - - -II - - “Still let the glory, Lord, be thine alone,”-- - So prayed the Monk, his heart absorbed in praise: - “Thine be the glory: if my hands have sown - The harvest ripened in Thy mercy’s rays, - It was Thy blessing, Lord, that made my word - Bring light and love to every soul that heard.” - - -III - - “O Lord, I thank Thee that my feeble strength - Has been so blest; that sinful hearts and cold - Were melted at my pleading,--knew at length - How sweet Thy service and how safe Thy fold: - While souls that loved Thee saw before them rise - Still holier heights of loving sacrifice.” - - -IV - - So prayed the Monk: when suddenly he heard - An Angel speaking thus: “Know, O my Son, - The words had all been vain, but hearts were stirred, - And saints were edified, and sinners won, - By his, the poor lay Brother’s humble aid - Who sat upon the pulpit stair and prayed.” - - - - -THE SACRED HEART - -BY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER - - - What wouldst thou have, O soul, - Thou weary soul? - Lo! I have sought for rest - On the Earth’s heaving breast, - From pole to pole. - Sleep--I have been with her, - But she gave dreams; - Death--nay, the rest he gives - Rest only seems. - Fair nature knows it not-- - The grass is growing; - The blue air knows it not-- - The winds are blowing: - Not in the changing sky, - The stormy sea, - Yet somewhere in God’s wide world - Rest there must be. - Within thy Saviour’s Heart - Place all thy care, - And learn, O weary soul, - Thy Rest is there. - - What wouldst thou, trembling soul? - Strength for the strife,-- - Strength for this fiery war - That we call Life. - Fears gather thickly round; - Shadowy foes, - Like unto armed men, - Around me close. - What am I, frail and poor, - When griefs arise? - No help from the weak earth, - Or the cold skies. - Lo! I can find no guards, - No weapons borrow; - Shrinking, alone I stand, - With mighty sorrow. - Courage, thou trembling soul, - Grief thou must bear, - Yet thou canst find a strength - Will match despair; - Within thy Saviour’s Heart-- - Seek for it there. - - What wouldst thou have, sad soul, - Oppressed with grief?-- - Comfort: I seek in vain, - Nor find relief. - Nature, all pitiless, - Smiles on my pain; - I ask my fellow-men, - They give disdain. - I asked the babbling streams, - But they flowed on; - I asked the wise and good, - But they gave none. - Though I have asked the stars, - Coldly they shine. - They are too bright to know - Grief such as mine. - I asked for comfort still, - And I found tears, - And I have sought in vain - Long, weary years. - Listen, thou mournful soul, - Thy pain shall cease; - Deep in His sacred Heart - Dwells joy and peace. - - Yes, in that Heart divine - The Angels bright - Find, through eternal years, - Still new delight. - From thence his constancy - The martyr drew, - And there the virgin band - Their refuge knew. - There, racked by pain without, - And dread within, - How many souls have found - Heaven’s bliss begin. - Then leave thy vain attempts - To seek for peace; - The world can never give - One soul release; - But in thy Saviour’s Heart - Securely dwell, - No pain can harm thee, hid - In that sweet cell. - Then fly, O coward soul, - Delay no more: - What words can speak the joy - For thee in store? - What smiles of earth can tell - Of peace like thine? - Silence and tears are best - For things divine. - - - - -THE ANNUNCIATION - -BY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER - - - How pure, and frail, and white, - The snowdrops shine! - Gather a garland bright - For Mary’s shrine. - - For, born of winter snows, - These fragile flowers - Are gifts to our fair Queen - From Spring’s first hours. - - For on this blessèd day - She knelt at prayer; - When, lo! before her shone - An Angel fair. - - “Hail, Mary!” thus he cried, - With reverent fear: - She, with sweet wondering eyes, - Marvelled to hear. - - Be still, ye clouds of Heaven! - Be silent, Earth! - And hear an Angel tell - Of Jesus’ birth, - - While she, whom Gabriel hails - As full of grace, - Listens with humble faith - In her sweet face. - - Be still,--Pride, War, and Pomp, - Vain Hopes, vain Fears, - For now an Angel speaks, - And Mary hears. - - “Hail, Mary!” lo, it rings - Through ages on; - “Hail Mary!” it shall sound, - Till Time is done - - “Hail, Mary!” infant lips - Lisp it to-day; - “Hail, Mary!” with faint smile - The dying say. - - “Hail, Mary!” many a heart - Broken with grief, - In that angelic prayer - Has found relief. - - And many a half-lost soul, - When turned at bay, - With those triumphant words - Has won the day. - - “Hail, Mary, Queen of Heaven!” - Let us repeat, - And place our snowdrop wreath - Here at her feet. - - - - -OUR DAILY BREAD - -BY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER - - - Give us our daily Bread, - O God, the bread of strength! - For we have learnt to know - How weak we are at length. - As children we are weak, - As children must be fed;-- - Give us Thy Grace, O Lord, - To be our daily Bread. - - Give us our daily Bread:-- - The bitter bread of grief. - We sought earth’s poisoned feasts - For pleasure and relief; - We sought her deadly fruits, - But now, O God, instead, - We ask thy healing grief - To be our daily Bread. - - Give us our daily Bread - To cheer our fainting soul; - The feast of comfort, Lord, - And peace, to make us whole: - For we are sick of tears, - The useless tears we shed;-- - Now give us comfort, Lord, - To be our daily Bread. - - Give us our daily Bread, - The Bread of Angels, Lord, - For us, so many times, - Broken, betrayed, adored: - His Body and His Blood;-- - The feast that Jesus spread: - Give Him--our life, our all-- - To be our daily Bread! - - - - -MY MARYLAND - -BY JAMES RYDER RANDALL - - - The despot’s heel is on thy shore, - Maryland! - His torch is at thy temple door, - Maryland! - Avenge the patriotic gore - That flecked the streets of Baltimore, - And be the battle-queen of yore, - Maryland, my Maryland! - - Hark to an exiled son’s appeal, - Maryland! - My Mother State, to thee I kneel, - Maryland! - For life and death, for woe and weal, - Thy peerless chivalry reveal, - And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, - Maryland, my Maryland! - - Thou wilt not cower in the dust, - Maryland! - Thy beaming sword shall never rust, - Maryland! - Remember Carroll’s sacred trust, - Remember Howard’s warlike thrust, - And all thy slumberers with the just, - Maryland, my Maryland! - - Come! ’tis the red dawn of the day, - Maryland! - Come with thy panoplied array, - Maryland! - With Ringgold’s spirit for the fray, - With Watson’s blood at Monterey, - With fearless Lowe and dashing May, - Maryland, my Maryland! - - Dear Mother, burst the tyrant’s chain, - Maryland! - Virginia should not call in vain, - Maryland! - She meets her sisters on the plain,-- - “_Sic semper!_” ’tis the proud refrain - That baffles minions back amain, - Maryland! - Arise in majesty again, - Maryland, my Maryland! - - Come! for thy shield is bright and strong, - Maryland! - Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, - Maryland! - Come to thine own heroic throng - Stalking with Liberty along, - And chant thy dauntless slogan-song, - Maryland, my Maryland! - - I see the blush upon thy cheek, - Maryland! - For thou wast ever bravely meek, - Maryland! - But lo! there surges forth a shriek, - From hill to hill, from creek to creek, - Potomac calls to Chesapeake, - Maryland, my Maryland! - - Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll, - Maryland! - Thou wilt not crook to his control, - Maryland! - Better the fire upon thee roll, - Better the shot, the blade, the bowl, - Than crucifixion of the soul, - Maryland, my Maryland! - - I hear the distant thunder hum, - Maryland! - The Old Line’s bugle, fife and drum, - Maryland! - She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb; - Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum! - She breathes! She burns! She’ll come! She’ll come! - Maryland, my Maryland! - - - - -MAGDALEN - -BY JAMES RYDER RANDALL - - - The Hebrew girl, with flaming brow, - The banner-blush of shame, - Sinks at the sinless Saviour’s Knees - And dares to breathe His name. - From the full fountain of her eyes - The lava-globes are roll’d-- - They wash His feet; she spurns them off - With her ringlet-scarf of gold. - - The Meek One feels the eloquence - Of agonizing prayer, - The burning tears, the suppliant face, - The penitential hair; - And when, to crown her brimming woe, - The ointment box is riven-- - “Rise, daughter, rise! Much hast thou loved, - Be all thy sins forgiven!” - - Dear God! The prayer of good and pure, - The canticles of light, - Enrobe Thy throne with gorgeous skies, - As incense in Thy sight; - May the shivered vase of Magdalen - Soothe many an outcast’s smart, - Teaching what fragrant pleas may spring - From out a _broken heart_! - - - - -WHY THE ROBIN’S BREAST WAS RED - -BY JAMES RYDER RANDALL - - - The Saviour, bowed beneath His Cross, climbed up the dreary hill, - And from the agonizing wreath ran many a crimson rill; - The cruel Roman thrust Him on with unrelenting hand, - Till, staggering slowly ’mid the crowd, He fell upon the sand. - - A little bird that warbled near, that memorable day, - Flitted around and strove to wrench one single thorn away; - The cruel spike impaled his breast,--and thus ’tis sweetly said, - The robin has his silver vest incarnadined with red. - - Ah, Jesu! Jesu! Son of man! my dolor and my sighs - Reveal the lesson taught by this winged Ishmael of the skies. - I, in the palace of delight or cavern of despair, - Have plucked no thorns from Thy dear brow, but planted thousands - there! - - - - -LE REPOS IN EGYPTE: THE SPHINX - -BY AGNES REPPLIER - - - All day I watch the stretch of burning sand; - All night I brood beneath the golden stars; - Amid the silence of a desolate land, - No touch of bitterness my reverie mars. - Built by the proudest of a kingly line, - Over my head the centuries fly fast; - The secrets of the mighty dead are mine; - I hold the key of a forgotten past. - Yet, ever hushed into a rapturous dream, - I see again that night. A halo mild - Shone from the liquid moon. Beneath her beam - Traveled a tired young Mother and the Child. - Within mine arms she slumbered, and alone - I watched the Infant. At my feet her guide - Lay stretched o’er-wearied. On my breast of stone - Rested the Crucified. - - - - -ANDROMEDA - -BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE - - - They chained her fair young body to the cold and cruel stone; - The beast begot of sea and slime had marked her for his own; - The callous world beheld the wrong, and left her there alone. - Base caitiffs who belied her, false kinsmen who denied her, - Ye left her there alone! - My Beautiful, they left thee in thy peril and thy pain; - The night that hath no morrow was brooding on the main: - But, lo! a light is breaking of hope for thee again; - ’T is Perseus’s sword a-flaming, thy dawn of day proclaiming - Across the western main. - O Ireland! O my country! he comes to break thy chain! - - - - -NATURE THE FALSE GODDESS - -BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE - - - The vilest work of vilest man, - The cup that drugs, the sword that slays, - The purchased kiss of courtesan, - The lying tongue of blame of praise, - - The cobra’s fang, the tiger’s tongue, - The python’s murderous embrace-- - The wrath of any living thing - A man may fear but bravely face. - - But thou, cold Mother, knowest naught - Of love, of hate, or joy, or woe; - Thy bounties come to man unsought, - Thy curses fall on friend and foe. - - Thou bearest balm upon thy breath, - Or sowest poison in the air; - And if man reapeth life or death, - Thou dost not know, thou dost not care. - - Thou art God’s instrument of fate, - Obedient, mighty, soulless, blind, - No demon to propitiate, - No deity in love enshrined. - - Let him who turns from God away - To Bel or Moloch bend the knee; - Defile his soul to wood or clay, - Or thrill with Voodoo’s ecstasy. - - Seek any fetich undivine, - Be any superstition’s thrall, - From Heaven or Hell will come a sign; - But thou alone art deaf to all. - - - - -THREE DOVES - -BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE - - - Seaward, at morn, my doves flew free; - At eve they circled back to me. - The first was Faith; the second, Hope; - The third, the whitest, Charity. - - Above the plunging surges play - Dream-like they hovered, day by day. - At last they turned, and bore to me - Green signs of peace thro’ nightfall gray, - - No shore forlorn, no loveliest land - Their gentle eye had left unscanned, - ’Mid hues of twilight-heliotrope - Or daybreak fires by heaven-breath fanned - - Quick visions of celestial grace,-- - Hither they waft, from earth’s broad space, - Kind thoughts for all humanity, - They shine with radiance from God’s face. - - Ah, since my heart they choose for home, - Why loose them,--forth again to roam? - Yet look; they rise with loftier scope - They wheel in flight toward Heaven’s pure dome. - - Fly, messengers that find no rest - Save in such toil as makes man blest! - Your home is God’s immensity; - We hold you but at His behest. - - - - -THE WAY OF THE WORLD - -BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE - - - The hands of the King are soft and fair - They never knew labor’s strain - The hands of the Robber redly wear - The bloody brand of Cain. - But the hands of the Man are hard and scarred - With the scars of toil and pain. - - The slaves of Pilate have washed his hands - As white as a kings might be. - Barrabas with wrists unfettered stands - For the world has made him free. - But Thy palms toil-worn by nails are torn, - O Christ, on Calvary. - - - - -AVE MARIA - -BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY - - - Lady, thy soldier I would be, - This day I choose thy shield, - And go, thrice-armored for the fight, - Forth to the world’s wide field. - - There I shall meet the dark allies, - The Flesh, the Fiend, the World, - And fiercely shall their darts of fire - Upon my heart be hurled. - - But I will raise my buckler strong - Betwixt me and the foe, - And, with the spirit’s flaming sword, - Shall give them blow for blow. - - Lady, thy sailor I would be, - This day I sign my name - To sail the high seas of the earth - For glory of thy fame. - - The tempest may besiege my bark, - The pirate lie in wait: - The perils of the monstrous deep - May tempt o’erwhelming fate: - - Yet, wheresoe’er my ship may steer - Upon the waters wide, - Thy name shall be my compass sure, - Thy star my midnight guide. - - Thy poet, Lady, I would be - To sing thy peerless praise; - Thy loyal bard, I’d bring to thee - Heart-music from all lays. - - Soft melody, outpoured in June - By God’s dear feathered throng, - Would mingle with the organ’s roll - To glorify my song; - - And Dante’s voice and Petrarch’s strain - And Milton’s matchless line - Would lend to my poor minstrel note - A harmony divine. - - Lady, I choose to be thy son; - For Mother thee I choose; - O, for thy sweet and holy Child, - Do not my claim refuse! - - Alone and motherless am I: - Tho’ strong, I long for rest-- - The thunder of the world’s applause - Is not a mother’s breast. - - Ave Maria! Shield us all. - Thy sons we choose to be. - Mother of grace, we raise our hearts, - Our hearts, our love to thee! - - - - -REVELATION - -“_And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the -first earth were passed away_.”--Revelation XXI:1 - -BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY - - - The Lord God said to His angel: “Let the old things pass away. - They have heaped the earth with slaughter their sin obscures the - day. - Roll up the night on a curtain: let the stars fade one by one: - Out of the face of the heavens my anger shall blot the sun. - For the man I made and breathed on, filled with my breath of breath, - Hath sown the seas with hatred, his skies are dark with death. - The babe is slain at the bosom, the babe who beholds my face; - A welter of woe he leaves it,--the dream of my love and grace. - - “Love was the dower I gave him, love the light of his days, - Love the core of his being, love, and the upward gaze. - Hate is the meat he feeds on, hate is his daily bread: - His drink is the blood of his brother, whom Cain hath stricken dead. - I said to the man in the Garden: ‘Where is thy brother, Cain?’ - ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ now comes the answer again.” - The Lord God said to His angel: “This Thing is accursed and a lie: - It hath sinned from the Law I gave it, and surely it shall die.” - - “The Beasts of the field are patient, the birds rejoice in song,-- - But what is this Thing of blood-lust, and where does it belong? - Lo, I shall establish a judgment: Let the old things pass away: - They have heaped the fields with slaughter: their sin defiles the - day. - They have laid on the weak sore burdens, on the just, their whips - and ban: - For a handful of crimsoned silver they have kissed the Son of Man. - Roll back the scroll of the heavens; from out of the womb of birth - Come forth new heavens untainted; come forth, renewed, the Earth!” - - - - -MARQUETTE ON THE SHORES OF THE MISSISSIPPI - -On seeing the original manuscript map of the Mississippi River by its -discoverer, Father Marquette - -BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY - - - Here, in the midnight of the solemn wood, - He heard a roar as of a mighty wind,-- - The onward rush of waters unconfined - Trampling in legions thro’ the solitude. - Then lo! before him swept the conquering flood, - Free as the freedom of the truth-strong mind - Which hills of Doubt could neither hide nor bind, - Which, all in vain, the valley mounds withstood! - - With glowing eye he saw the prancing tide - With yellow mane rush onward thro’ the night - Into the vastness he had never trod: - Nor dreamt of conquest of that kingdom wide - As down the flood his spirit took its flight - Seeking the long-lost children of his God! - - - - -THE EMPIRE BUILDER - -(On the death of a Catholic gentleman) - -BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY - - -I - - This is the song of the Empire Builder, - Who out of the ends of the earth, - Thro’ travail of war and of carnage - Brings strange, new realms to birth. - - This is the boast of the Empire Builder: - Give heed to the deeds of his hands - And scorn thou not the glory he hath - In his gold and his wasted lands. - - He hath counted his neighbors’ cattle - With the cold, gray eye of greed: - He hath marked for his own the fields of wheat - Where he never had sown the seed: - - The vine-clad cot by the hillside, - Where the farmer’s children play,-- - “This shall fit in my plan,” he said; - “What use for such as they?” - - And so, in the dusk of evening, - He brought his arméd men, - And where had shone the clustering grapes - There stretched a waste again. - - Homeless, the children wandered - Thro’ the fields their father won: - No more shall they feel his clasp and kiss-- - Aye, never beneath the sun. - - Vex, vex not the Empire Builder, - Nor babble of Mercy’s shield; - Hath he not his vaster issue-- - The linking of field to field? - - Hath he not noted the boundary - That lies ’twixt “mine and thine”? - Hath he not said, “’Twere better for thee - If thine henceforth be mine”? - - And so doth the Empire Builder, - From out of the ends of the earth, - Thro’ travail of war and of carnage - Bring strange, new realms to birth-- - - Realms builded on broken hearthstones, - The triumph of Rapine’s hour-- - That one may boast in the halls of Fame - And sit in the seats of Power! - - -II - - This is the song of the Empire Builder, - Who built not of wasted lands, - But who builded a kingdom of golden deeds - And of things not made by hands! - - The fields of the spirit were his to roam, - The paths where the love-flowers grew: - He felt the breath of the spirits’ spring - In every wind that blew: - - It came not laden with dying groans - And homeless orphans’ cries: - It blew from the mountains of the Lord - And the fields of Paradise. - - This is the boast of the Empire Builder - Who built not of mouldering clay: - That the kingdom He built, not made by hands, - Shall never pass away! - - The mind cannot measure its boundaries, - All Space is its outer gate: - It is broader than ever a man conceived - And more durable than Fate. - - This is the Empire our brother built, - In His little hour of Earth, - Thro’ the spirit’s travail of righteous deeds - And the spirit’s glad rebirth. - - He had silenced the boast of the Empire Builder, - With his gold and wasted lands, - By his deathless kingdom of golden deeds - And of things not made by hands. - - This is the kingdom our brother built: - It is good: it hath sufficed;-- - For who can measure the glory he keeps - With our Elder Brother, Christ? - - - - -THE MEN BEHIND THE GUNS - -BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY - - - A cheer and salute for the Admiral, and here’s to the Captain bold, - And never forget the Commodore’s debt when the deeds of might are - told! - They stand to the deck through the battle’s wreck when the great - shells roar and screech-- - And never they fear when the foe is near to practice what they - preach: - But off with your hat and three times three for Columbia’s true-blue - sons, - The men below who batter the foe--the men behind the guns! - - Oh, light and merry of heart are they when they swing into port once - more, - When, with more than enough of the “green-backed stuff,” they start - for their leave-o’-shore; - And you’d think, perhaps, that the blue-bloused chaps who loll along - the street - Are a tender bit, with salt on it, for some fierce “mustache” to - eat-- - Some warrior bold, with straps of gold, who dazzles and fairly stuns - The modest worth of the sailor boys--the lads who serve the guns. - - But say not a word till the shot is heard that tells the fight is - on, - Till the long, deep roar grows more and more from the ships of - “Yank” and “Don,” - Till over the deep the tempests sweep of fire and bursting shell, - And the very air is a mad Despair in the throes of a living hell; - Then down, deep down, in the mighty ship, unseen by the midday suns, - You’ll find the chaps who are giving the raps--the men behind the - guns! - - Oh, well they know the cyclones blow that they loose from their - cloud of death, - And they know is heard the thunder-word their fierce ten-incher - saith! - The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the - great recoil, - And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his - spoil-- - But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs - Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the - guns! - - - - -A THOUGHT FROM CARDINAL NEWMAN[A] - -BY MATTHEW RUSSELL, S. J. - - - The world shines bright for inexperienced eyes, - And death seems distant to the gay and strong, - And in the youthful heart proud fancies throng, - And only present good can nature prize. - How then shall youth o’er these low vapours rise, - And climb the upward path so steep and long? - And how, amid earth’s sights and sounds of wrong, - Walk with pure heart and face raised to the skies? - - By gazing on the Infinitely Good, - Whose love must quell, or hallow every other-- - By living in the shadow of the Rood, - For He that hangs there is our Elder Brother, - Who dying gave to us Himself as food, - And His own Mother as our nursing Mother. - -[A] In the last of his “Discourses to Mixed Congregations,” Dr. Newman -calls the Blessed Virgin the Mother of Emanuel, and says: “It is the -boast of the Catholic religion that it has the gift of making the young -heart chaste; and why is this, but that it gives us Jesus for our food -and Mary for our nursing Mother?” - - - - -THE CONQUERED BANNER - -BY ABRAM J. RYAN - - - Furl that Banner, for ’tis weary; - Round its staff ’tis drooping dreary: - Furl it, fold it,--it is best; - For there’s not a man to wave it, - And there’s not a sword to save it, - And there’s not one left to lave it - In the blood which heroes gave it, - And its foes now scorn and brave it: - Furl it, hide it,--let it rest! - - Take that Banner down! ’tis tattered; - Broken is its staff and shattered; - And the valiant hosts are scattered, - Over whom it floated high. - Oh, ’tis hard for us to fold it, - Hard to think there’s none to hold it, - Now must furl it with a sigh! - - Furl that Banner!--furl it sadly! - Once ten thousands hailed it gladly, - And ten thousands wildly, madly, - Swore it should forever wave; - Swore that foeman’s sword should never - Hearts like theirs entwined dissever - Till that flag should float forever - O’er their freedom or their grave! - - Furl it! for the hands that grasped it, - And the hearts that fondly clasped it, - Cold and dead are lying low; - And that Banner--it is trailing - While around it sounds the wailing - Of its people in their woe. - - For, though conquered, they adore it,-- - Love the cold, dead hands that bore it, - Weep for those who fell before it, - Pardon those who trailed and tore it; - And oh, wildly they deplore it. - Now to furl and fold it so! - - Furl that Banner! True, ’tis gory, - Yet ’tis wreathed around with glory, - And ’twill live in song and story - Though its folds are in the dust! - For its fame on brightest pages, - Penned by poets and by sages, - Shall go sounding down the ages-- - Furl its folds though now we must. - - Furl that Banner, softly, slowly! - Treat it gently--it is holy, - For it droops above the dead. - Touch it not--unfold it never; - Let it droop there, furled forever,-- - For its people’s hopes are fled! - - - - -A CHILD’S WISH - -BY ABRAM J. RYAN - - - I wish I were the little key - That locks Love’s Captive in, - And lets Him out to go and free - A sinful heart from sin. - - I wish I were the little bell - That tinkles for the Host, - When God comes down each day to dwell - With hearts He loves the most. - - I wish I were the chalice fair, - That holds the Blood of Love, - When every gleam lights holy prayer - Upon its way above. - - I wish I were the little flower - So near the Host’s sweet face, - Or like the light that half an hour - Burns on the shrine of grace. - - I wish I were the altar where, - As on His mother’s breast, - Christ nestles, like a child, fore’er - In Eucharistic rest. - - But, oh, my God, I wish the most - That my poor heart may be - A home all holy for each Host - That comes in love to me. - - - - -THE SWORD OF ROBERT LEE - -BY ABRAM J. RYAN - - - Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright - Flashed the sword of Lee! - Far in the front of the deadly fight, - High o’er the brave in the cause of Right, - Its stainless sheen, like a beacon bright, - Led us to Victory. - - Out of its scabbard, where, full long, - It slumbered peacefully, - Roused from its rest by the battle’s song, - Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong, - Guarding the right, avenging the wrong, - Gleamed the sword of Lee. - - Forth from its scabbard, high in air - Beneath Virginia’s sky-- - And they who saw it gleaming there, - And knew who bore it, knelt to swear - That where that sword led they would dare - To follow--and to die. - - Out of its scabbard! Never hand - Waved sword from stain as free, - Nor purer sword led braver band, - Nor braver bled for a brighter land, - Nor brighter land had a cause so grand, - Nor cause a chief like Lee! - - Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed - That sword might victor be; - And when our triumph was delayed, - And many a heart grew sore afraid, - We still hoped on while gleamed the blade - Of noble Robert Lee. - - Forth from its scabbard all in vain - Bright flashed the sword of Lee; - ’Tis shrouded now in its sheath again, - It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain, - Defeated, yet without a stain, - Proudly and peacefully. - - - - -SONG OF THE MYSTIC - -BY ABRAM J. RYAN - - - I walk down the Valley of Silence-- - Down the dim voiceless Valley--alone! - And I hear not the fall of a footstep - Around me, save God’s and my own; - And the hush of my heart is as holy - As hovers where angels have flown! - - Long ago was I weary of voices - Whose magic my heart could not win; - Long ago was I weary of noises - That fretted my soul with their din; - Long ago was I weary of places - Where I met but the human--and sin. - - I walked through the world with the worldly; - I craved what the world never gave; - And I said: “In the world, each Ideal - That shines like a star on life’s wave, - Is wrecked on the shores of the Real, - And sleeps like a dream in a grave.” - - And still did I pine for the Perfect, - And still found the false with the true; - I sought ’mid the human for heaven, - And caught a mere glimpse of its blue; - And I wept when the clouds of the mortal - Veiled even that glimpse from my view. - - And I toiled on, heart-tired of the Human; - And I moaned ’mid the mazes of men; - Till I knelt, long ago, at an altar - And heard a voice call me. Since then - I walk down the Valley of Silence - That lies far beyond human ken. - - Do you ask what I found in the Valley? - ’Tis my trysting-place with the Divine; - And I fell at the feet of the Holy, - And above me a voice said: “Be mine!” - And there rose from the depths of my spirit - An echo--“My heart shall be thine.” - - Do you ask how I live in the Valley? - I weep--and I dream--and I pray. - But my tears are as sweet as the dewdrops - That fall on the roses in May; - And my prayers, like a perfume from censers, - Ascendeth to God, night and day. - - In the hush of the Valley of Silence, - I dream all the songs that I sing; - And the music floats down the dim Valley, - Till each finds a word for a wing, - That to men, like the Dove of the Deluge, - A message of Peace they may bring. - - But far on the deep there are billows - That never shall break on the beach; - And I have heard songs in the Silence - That never shall float into speech; - And I have had dreams in the Valley - Too lofty for language to reach. - - And I have seen Thoughts in the Valley-- - Ah, me! how my spirit was stirred! - And they wear holy veils on their faces, - Their footsteps can scarcely be heard; - They pass through the Valley, like virgins - Too pure for the touch of a word! - - Do you ask me the place of the Valley, - Ye hearts that are harrowed by Care? - It lieth afar, between mountains, - And God and His angels are there; - And one is the dark mount of Sorrow, - And one the bright mountain of Prayer. - - - - -MARY, VIRGIN AND MOTHER - -BY E. SETON - - - Oh, Virgin Joy of all the world art thou, - In whose white, fragrant steps the countless throng - On souls elect doth follow God with song: - Creation’s Queen, whose bright and holy brow - The multitude of Saints, like stars, endow - With changeful splendors, flashing far and strong: - The Maid unshadow’d by the primal wrong: - God’s Lily, chosen in His shrine to bow. - - All these thy glories are, and still a grace - More high, more dread, and yet more sweet and fair, - Doth bind thy royal brows, O Mary blest. - God called thee Mother; yea, His sacred face - The tender likeness of thine own doth wear. - And thou art ours--we trust Him for the rest. - - - - -THE WIND ON THE HILLS - -BY DORA SIGERSON - - - Go not to the hills of Erin - When the night winds are about; - Put up your bar and shutter, - And so keep the danger out. - - For the good-folk whirl within it, - And they pull by the hand, - And they push you by the shoulder, - Till you move to their command. - - And lo! you have forgotten - What you have known of tears, - And you will not remember - That the world goes full of years; - - A year there is a lifetime, - And a second but a day; - And an older world will greet you - Each morn you come away. - - Your wife grows old with weeping, - And your children one by one - Grow grey with nights of watching, - Before your dance is done. - - And it will chance some morning - You will come home no more; - Your wife sees but a withered leaf - In the wind about the door. - - And your children will inherit - The unrest of the wind; - They shall seek some face elusive, - And some land they never find. - - When the wind is loud, they sighing - Go with hearts unsatisfied, - For some joy beyond remembrance, - For some memory denied. - - And all your children’s children, - They cannot sleep or rest, - When the wind is out in Erin - And the sun is in the West. - - - - -BELIEVE AND TAKE HEART - -BY JOHN LANCASTER SPALDING - - - What can console for a dead world? - We tread on dust which once was life; - To nothingness all things are hurled: - What meaning in a hopeless strife? - Time’s awful storm - Breaks but the form. - - Whatever comes, whatever goes, - Still throbs the heart whereby we live; - The primal joys still lighten woes, - And time which steals doth also give. - Fear not, be brave: - God can thee save. - - The essential truth of life remains, - Its goodness and its beauty too, - Pure love’s unutterable gains, - And hope which trills us through and through: - God has not fled, - Souls are not dead. - - Not in most ancient Palestine, - Nor in the lightsome air of Greece, - Were human struggles more divine, - More blessed with guerdon of increase: - Take thou thy stand - In the workers’ band. - - Hast then no faith? Thine is the fault:-- - What prophets, heroes, sages, saints, - Have loved, on thee still makes assault, - Thee with immortal things acquaints. - On life then seize: - Doubt is disease. - - - - -AVE MARIA BELLS - -BY CHARLES WARREN STODDARD - - - At dawn, the joyful choir of bells, - In consecrated citadels, - Flings on the sweet and drowsy air - A brief, melodious call to prayer; - For Mary, Virgin meek and lowly, - Conceived of the Spirit Holy, - As the Lord’s angel did declare. - - At noon, above the fretful street, - Our souls are lifted to repeat - The prayer, with low and wistful voice: - “According to thy word and choice, - Though sorrowful and heavy laden, - So be it done to thy Handmaiden”; - Then all the sacred bells rejoice. - - At eve with roses in the west, - The daylight’s withering bequest, - Ring, prayerful bells, while blossom bright - The stars, the lilies of the night: - Of all the songs the years have sung us, - “The Word made Flesh had dwelt among us,” - Is still our ever-new delight. - - - - -STIGMATA - -BY CHARLES WARREN STODDARD - - - In the wrath of the lips that assail us, - In the scorn of the lips that are dumb, - The symbols of sorrow avail us, - The joy of the people is come. - They parted Thy garments for barter, - They follow Thy steps with complaint; - Let them know that the pyre of the martyr - But purges the blood of the saint! - - They have crucified Thee for a token, - For a token Thy flesh crucified - Shall bleed in a heart that is broken - For love of the wound in Thy side; - In pity for palms that were pleading, - For feet that were grievously used, - There is blood on the brow that is bleeding - And torn, as Thy brow that was bruised! - - By Thee have we life, breath, and being; - Thou hast knowledge of us and our kind; - Thou hast pleasure of eyes that are seeing, - And sorrow of eyes that are blind; - By the seal of the mystery shown us-- - The wound that with Thy wounds accord-- - O Lord, have mercy upon us! - Have mercy upon us, O Lord! - - - - -THE BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL - -BY CHARLES WARREN STODDARD - -(The Mission of San Gabriel Archangel, near Los Angeles, founded in -1771, was, for a time, the most flourishing mission in California) - - - Thine was the corn and the wine, - The blood of the grape that nourished; - The blossom and fruit of the vine - That was heralded far away. - When the wine and fig-tree flourished, - The promise of peace and of glad increase - Forever and ever and aye. - What then wert thou, and what art now? - Answer me, O, I pray! - - And every note of every bell - Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel! - In the tower that is left the tale to tell - Of Gabriel, the Archangel. - - Oil of the olive was thine; - Flood of the wine-press flowing, - Blood of the Christ was the wine-- - Blood of the Lamb that was slain. - Thy gifts were fat of the kine - Forever coming and going - Far over the hills, the thousand hills-- - Their lowing a soft refrain. - What then wert thou, and what art now? - Answer me once again! - - And every note of every bell - Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel! - In the tower that is left the tale to tell - Of Gabriel, the Archangel. - - Seed of the corn was thine-- - Body of Him thus broken - And mingled with blood of the vine-- - The bread and the wine of life. - Out of the good sunshine - They were given to thee as a token-- - The body of Him, and the blood of Him, - When the gifts of God were rife. - What then wert thou, and what art now? - After the weary strife? - - And every note of every bell - Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel! - In the tower that is left the tale to tell - Of Gabriel the Archangel. - - Where are they now, O bells? - Where are the fruits of the Mission? - Garnered, where no one dwells, - Shepherd and flock are fled. - O’er the Lord’s vineyard swells - The tide that with fell perdition - Sounded their doom and fashioned their tomb - And buried them with the dead. - What then wert thou, and what art now? - The answer is still unsaid. - - And every note of every bell - Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel! - In the tower that is left the tale to tell - Of Gabriel, the Archangel. - - Where are they now, O tower! - The locusts and wild honey? - Where is the sacred dower - That the bride of Christ was given? - Gone to the wielders of power, - The misers and minters of money; - Gone for the greed that is their creed-- - And these in the land have thriven. - What then wert thou, and what art now, - And wherefore hast thou striven? - - And every note of every bell - Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel! - In the tower that is left the tale to tell - Of Gabriel, the Archangel. - - - - -THE POOR - -BY SPEER STRAHAN, C.S.C. - - - The poor I saw at the cloister gate - Mutely beg with their patient eyes - An alms, for the love of Him who sate - And supped with the poor in human guise. - - And there were monks saw the nails’ deep scars - In the shrunken hands that reached for bread, - Who heard a Voice from beyond the stars - In the broken thanks of them they fed. - - I, too, at the gates of God each day - Seek for an alms of strength and grace, - Beggar am I that wait and pray - To feast my soul on His beauteous Face. - - - - -THE PROMISED COUNTRY - -BY SPEER STRAHAN, C.S.C. - - - Fair must that promised country be - Whose streams rise from eternity - And One doth lead upon that way - Whose footfalls are the paths of day. - - Nor lurking fear pursues them there, - As forward in the morning air - With Him the blessed ransomed go, - Their garments washen white as snow. - - Alas! my days are very dim - That look up to the Seraphim. - Ah, Lord, some dawning may I be - One of that shining company! - - - - -HOLY COMMUNION - -BY SPEER STRAHAN, C.S.C. - - - Disguised He stands without in the street; - Far come is He on heavy feet. - O heart of mine, open thy gate; - For darkness falls, and it is late! - - Lord of the heaven’s fairest height, - Homeless in the traveler’s night, - Begging my hearth, my board, my cup, - That I, not He, may richly sup. - - O soul of mine, the board begin, - And let this wondrous Beggar in! - - - - -STARS OF CHEER - -BY CAROLINE D. SWAN - - - The silent Christmas stars shine cool and clear - Above a world of mingled joy and woe; - On peaceful cottage homes, with thanks aglow - For royal bounty of the grape-crowned year; - And on red fields of blood, where many a tear - Is wiped away by Death, a gentle foe, - More merciful than they who bade it flow. - Shine, silver stars, rain down your blessed cheer! - - Comfort the mourner with your Angel song! - The Christ-Child reigns. Behold His tiny hand - Upraised in benediction warm and sweet! - O’er every joy and every bitter wrong - The Babe of Bethlehem hath supreme command; - Come, worship, kings and peoples, at His feet! - - - - -CHRIST AND THE PAGAN - -BY JOHN B. TABB - - - I had no God but these, - The sacerdotal Trees, - And they uplifted me. - “_I hung upon a tree._” - - The sun and moon I saw, - And reverential awe - Subdued me day and night. - “_I am the perfect light._” - - Within a lifeless Stone-- - All other gods unknown-- - I sought Divinity. - “_The Corner-Stone am I._” - - For sacrificial feast - I slaughtered man and beast, - Red recompense to gain. - “_So I, a Lamb, was slain._ - - _Yea; such My hungering Grace - That where ev’r My face - Is hidden, none may grope - Beyond eternal Hope._” - - - - -OUT OF BOUNDS - -BY JOHN B. TABB - - - A little Boy of heavenly birth, - But far from home to-day, - Comes down to find His ball, the Earth, - That Sin has cast away. - O comrades, let us one and all - Join in to get Him back His ball! - - - - -FATHER DAMIEN - -BY JOHN B. TABB - - - O God, the cleanest offering - Of tainted earth below, - Unblushing to Thy feet we bring-- - “_A leper white as snow_!” - - - - -RECOGNITION - -BY JOHN B. TABB - - - When Christ went up to Calvary, - His crown upon His head, - Each tree unto its fellow-tree - In awful silence said: - “Behold the Gardener is He - Of Eden and Gethsemane!” - - - - -“IS THY SERVANT A DOG?” - -BY JOHN B. TABB - - - So _must_ he be, who in the crowded street, - Where shameless Sin and flaunting Pleasure meet, - Amid the noisome footprints finds the sweet - Faint vestige of Thy feet. - - - - -LILIUM REGIS - -BY FRANCIS THOMPSON - - - O Lily of the King, low lies thy silver wing, - And long has been the hour of thine unqueening; - And thy scent of Paradise on the night-wind spends its sighs, - Nor any take the secrets of its meaning. - O Lily of the King, I speak a heavy thing, - O patience, most sorrowful of daughters! - Lo, the hour is at hand for the troubling of the land, - And red shall be the breaking of the waters. - - Sit fast upon thy stalk, when the blast shall with thee talk, - With the mercies of the King for thine awning, - And the Just understand that thine hour is at hand, - Thine hour at hand with power in the dawning. - When the nations lie in blood, and their kings a broken brood, - Look up, O most sorrowful of daughters! - Lift up thy head and hark what sounds are in the dark, - For His feet are coming to thee on the waters. - - O Lily of the King, I shall not see that sing, - I shall not see the hour of thy queening! - But my Song shall see, and wake like a flower that dawn-winds shake, - And sigh with joy the odours of its meaning. - O Lily of the King, remember then the thing - That this dead mouth sang; and thy daughters, - As they dance before His way; sing there on the Day - What I sang when night was on the waters! - - - - -TO THE ENGLISH MARTYRS - -BY FRANCIS THOMPSON - - - Rain, rain on Tyburn tree, - Red rain a-falling; - Dew, dew on Tyburn tree, - Red dew on Tyburn tree, - And the swart bird a-calling. - The shadow lies on England now - Of the deathly-fruited bough: - Cold and black with malison - Lies between the land and sun; - Putting out the sun, the bough - Shades England now! - - The troubled heavens so wan with care, - And burdened with the earth’s despair - Shiver a-cold; the starved heaven - Has want, with wanting men bereaven. - Blest fruit of the unblest bough, - Aid the land that smote you, now! - That feels the sentence and the curse - Ye died if so ye might reverse. - When God was stolen from out man’s mouth, - - Stolen was the bread; then hunger and drouth - Went to and fro; began the wail, - Struck root the poor-house and the jail, - Ere cut the dykes, let through that flood, - Ye writ the protest with your blood; - Against this night--wherein our breath - Withers, and the toiled heart perisheth,-- - Entered the _caveat_ of your death. - Christ in the form of His true Bride, - Again hung pierced and crucified, - And groaned, “I thirst!” Not still ye stood,-- - Ye had your hearts, ye had your blood; - And pouring out the eager cup,-- - “The wine is weak, yet, Lord Christ, sup.” - Ah, blest! who bathed the parched Vine - With richer than His Cana-wine, - And heard, your most sharp supper past: - “Ye kept the best wine to the last!” - - Ah, happy who - That sequestered secret knew, - How sweeter than bee-haunted dells - The blosmy blood of martyrs smells! - Who did upon the scaffold’s bed, - The ceremonial steel between you, wed - With God’s grave proxy, high and reverend Death; - Or felt about your neck, sweetly, - (While the dull horde - Saw but the unrelenting cord) - The Bridegroom’s arm, and that long kiss - That kissed away your breath, and claimed you His. - You did, with thrift of holy gain, - Unvenoming the sting of pain, - Hive its sharp heather-honey. Ye - Had sentience of the mystery - To make Abaddon’s hooked wings - Buoy you up to starry things; - Pain of heart, and pain of sense, - Pain the scourge, ye taught to cleanse; - Pain the loss became possessing; - Pain the curse was pain the blessing. - - Chains, rack, hunger, solitude,--these, - Which did your soul from earth release, - Left it free to rush upon - And merge in its compulsive Sun. - Desolated, bruised, forsaken, - Nothing taking, all things taken, - Lacerated and tormented, - The stifled soul, in naught contented, - On all hands straitened, cribbed, denied, - Can but fetch breath o’ the Godward side. - Oh, to me, give but to me - That flower of felicity, - Which on your topmost spirit ware - The difficult and snowy air - Of high refusal! and the heat - Of central love which fed with sweet - And holy fire i’ the frozen sod - Roots that ta’en hold on God. - - Unwithering youth in you renewed - Those rosy waters of your blood,-- - The true _Fons Juventutis_; ye - Pass with conquest that Red Sea, - And stretch out your victorious hand - Over the Fair and Holy Land. - O by the Church’s pondering art - Late set and named upon the chart - Of her divine astronomy, - Through your influence from on high - Long shed unnoted! Bright - New cluster in our Northern night, - Cleanse from its pain and undelight - An impotent and tarnished hymn, - Whose marish exhalations dim - Splendours they would transfuse! And thou - Kindle the words which blot thee now, - Over whose sacred corse unhearsed - Europe veiled her face, and cursed - The regal mantle grained in gore - Of genius, freedom, faith, and More! - - Ah, happy Fool of Christ, unawed - By familiar sanctities, - You served your Lord at holy ease! - Dear Jester in the Courts of God---- - In whose spirit, enchanting yet, - Wisdom and love together met, - Laughed on each other for content! - That an inward merriment, - An inviolate soul of pleasure, - To your motions taught a measure - All your days; which tyrant king, - Nor bonds, nor any bitter thing, - Could embitter or perturb; - No daughter’s tears, nor, more acerb, - A daughter’s frail declension from - Thy serene example, come - Between thee and thy much content. - Nor could the last sharp argument - Turn thee from thy sweetest folly; - To the keen _accolade_ and holy - Thou didst bend low a sprightly knee, - And jest Death out of gravity - As a too sad-visaged friend; - So, jocund passing to the end - Of thy laughing martyrdom; - And now from travel art gone home - Where, since gain of thee was given, - Surely there is more mirth in heaven! - - Thus, in Fisher and in thee, - Arose the purple dynasty, - The anointed Kings of Tyburn tree; - High in act and word each one: - He that spake--and to the sun - Pointed--“I shall shortly be - Above yon fellow,” He too, he - No less high of speech and brave, - Whose word was: “Though I shall have - Sharp dinner, yet I trust in Christ - To have a most sweet supper.” Priced - Much by men that utterance was - Of the doomed Leonidas,-- - Not more exalt than these, which note - Men who thought as Shakespeare wrote. - But more lofty eloquence - Than is writ by poet’s pens - Lives in your great deaths: O these - Have more fire than poesies! - And more ardent than all ode, - The pomps and raptures of your blood! - By that blood ye hold in fee - This earth of England; Kings are ye: - And ye have armies--Want, and Cold, - And heavy Judgments manifold - Hung in the unhappy air, and Sins - That the sick gorge to heave begins, - Agonies and Martyrdoms, - Love, Hope, Desire, and all that comes - From the unwatered soul of man - Gaping on God. These are the van - Of conquest, these obey you; these, - And all the strengths of weaknesses, - That brazen walls disbed. Your hand, - Princes, put forth to the command, - And levy upon the guilty land - Your saving wars; on it go down, - Black beneath God’s and heaven’s frown; - Your prevalent approaches make - With unsustainable grace, and take - Captive the land that captived you; - To Christ enslave ye and subdue - Her so bragged freedom: for the crime - She wrought on you in antique time, - Parcel the land among you; reign, - Viceroys to your sweet Suzerain! - Till she shall know - This lesson in her overthrow: - Hardest servitude has he - That’s jailed in arrogant liberty; - And freedom, spacious and unflawed, - Who is walled about with God. - - - - -THE HOUND OF HEAVEN - -BY FRANCIS THOMPSON - - - I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; - I fled Him down the arches of the years; - I fled Him down the labrinthine ways - Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears - I hid from Him, and under running laughter. - Up vistaed hopes I sped; - And shot, precipitated, - Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, - From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. - But with unhurrying chase, - And unperturbed pace, - Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, - They beat--and a Voice beat - More instant than the Feet-- - “All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.” - - I pleaded, outlaw-wise, - By many a hearted casement, curtained red, - Trellised with intertwining charities; - (For, though I knew His love Who followed, - Yet was I sore adread - Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside); - But, if one little casement parted wide. - The gust of His approach would clash it to. - Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue. - Across the margent of the world I fled, - And troubled the gold gateway of the stars, - Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars; - Fretted to dulcet jars - And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon. - I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon; - With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over - From his tremendous Lover! - Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see! - I tempted all His servitors, but to find - My own betrayal in their constancy, - In faith to Him their fickleness to me, - Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. - To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; - Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. - But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, - The long savannahs of the blue; - Or whether, Thunder-driven, - They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven - Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet:-- - Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. - Still with unhurrying chase, - And unperturbed pace, - Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, - Came on the following Feet, - And a Voice above their beat-- - “Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.” - - I sought no more that after which I strayed - In face of man or maid; - But still within the little children’s eyes - Seems something, something that replies; - _They_ at least are for me, surely for me! - I turned me to them very wistfully; - But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair - With dawning answers there, - Their angel plucked them from me by the hair. - “Come then, ye other children, Nature’s--share - With me” (said I) “your delicate fellowship; - Let me greet you lip to lip, - Let me twine with you caresses, - Wantoning - With our Lady-Mother’s vagrant tresses, - Banqueting - With her in her wind-walled palace, - Underneath her azured dais, - Quaffing, as your taintless way is, - From a chalice - Lucent-weeping out of the day spring.” - So it was done: - _I_ in their delicate fellowship was one-- - Drew the bolt of Nature’s secrecies. - _I_ knew all the swift importings - On the wilful face of skies; - I knew how the clouds arise - Spumed of the wild sea-snortings; - All that’s born or dies - Rose and drooped with--made them shapers - Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine-- - With them joyed and was bereaven. - I was heavy with the even, - When she lit her glimmering tapers - Round the day’s dead sanctities. - I laughed in the morning’s eyes. - I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, - Heaven and I wept together, - And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; - Against the red throb of its sunset-heart - I laid my own to beat, - And share commingling heat; - But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. - In vain my tears were wet on Heaven’s grey cheek. - For ah, we know not what each other says - These things and I; in sound _I_ speak-- - _Their_ sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. - Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drought; - Let her, if she would owe me, - Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me - The breasts of her tenderness: - Never did any milk of hers once bless - My thirsting mouth. - Nigh and nigh draws the chase, - With unperturbed pace, - Deliberate speed, majestic instancy; - And past those noised fleet-- - A Voice comes yet more fleet-- - “Lo! naught contents thee who content’st not Me.” - - Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke! - My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, - I am defenceless utterly. - I slept, methinks, and woke, - And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. - In the rash lustihead of my young powers, - I shook the pillaring hours - And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, - I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years-- - My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. - My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, - Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream. - Yea, faileth now even dream - The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; - Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist - I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, - Are yielding; cords of all too weak account - For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed. - Ah! is Thy love indeed - A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed, - Suffering no flowers except its own to mount? - Ah! must-- - Designer infinite!-- - Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it? - My freshness spent its wavering shower i’ the dust; - And now my heart is as a broken fount, - Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever - From the dank thoughts that shiver - Upon the sighful branches of my mind. - Such is; what is to be? - The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind? - I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; - Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds - From the hid battlements of Eternity; - Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then - Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again. - But not ere him who summoneth - I first have seen enwound - With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned; - His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. - Whether man’s heart or life it be which yields - Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields - Be dunged with rotten death? - - Now of that long pursuit - Comes on at hand the bruit; - That Voice is round me like a bursting sea: - “And is thy earth so marred, - Shattered in shard on shard? - Lo! all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me! - Strange, piteous, futile thing, - Wherefore should any set thee love apart? - Seeing none but I makes much of naught” (He said) - “And human love needs human meriting: - How hast thou merited-- - Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot? - Alack, thou knowest not - How little worthy of any love thou art! - Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee - Save Me, save only Me? - All which I took from thee I did but take, - Not for thy harms, - But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms. - All which thy child’s mistake - Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: - Rise, clasp My hand, and come!” - - Halts by me that footfall: - Is my gloom, after all, - Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? - “Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, - I am He Whom thou seekest! - Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.” - - - - -THE DREAD OF HEIGHT - -BY FRANCIS THOMPSON - - “_If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say; - We see: your sin remaineth._”--John ix. 41 - - - Not the Circean wine - Most perilous is for pain: - Grapes of the heaven’s star-loaden vine, - Whereto the lofty-placed - Thoughts of fair souls attain, - Tempt with a more retributive delight, - And do disrelish all life’s sober taste. - - ’Tis to have drunk too well - The drink that is divine, - Maketh the kind earth waste, - And breath intolerable. - - Ah, me! - How shall my mouth content it with mortality? - Lo, secret music, sweetest music, - From distances of distance drifting its lone flight, - Down the arcane where Night would perish in night, - Like a god’s loosened locks slips undulously: - Music that is too grievous of the height - For safe and low delight, - Too infinite - For bounded hearts which yet would girth the sea! - So let it be, - Though sweet be great, and though my heart be small: - So let it be, - O music, music, though you wake in me - No joy, no joy at all; - Although you only wake - Uttermost sadness, measure of delight, - Which else I could not credit to the height, - Did I not know, - Did I not know, - That ill is statured to its opposite; - And even of sadness so, - Of utter sadness, make - Of extreme sad a rod to mete - The incredible excess of unsensed sweet, - And mystic wall of strange felicity. - So let it be, - Though sweet be great, and though my heart be small, - And bitter meat - The food of Gods for men to eat; - Yea, John ate daintier, and did tread - Less ways of heat, - Than whom to their wind-carpeted - High banquet hall, - And golden love-feasts, the fair stars entreat. - - But ah! withal, - Some hold, some stay, - O difficult joy, I pray, - Some arms of thine, - Not only, only arms of mine! - Lest like a weary girl I fall - From clasping love so high, - And lacking thus thine arms, then may - Most hapless I - Turn utterly to love of basest rate; - For low they fall whose fall is from the sky. - - Yea, who me shall secure - But I, of height grown desperate, - Surcease my wing, and my lost fate - Be dashed from pure - To broken writhings in the shameful slime: - Lower than man, for I dreamed higher, - Thrust down, by how much I aspire, - And damned with drink of immortality? - For such things be, - Yea, and the lowest reach of reeky Hell - Is but made possible - By foreta’en breath of Heaven’s austerest clime. - - These tidings from the vast to bring - Needeth not doctor nor divine, - Too well, too well - My flesh doth know the heart-perturbing thing; - That dread theology alone - Is mine, - Most native and my own; - And ever with victorious toil - When I have made - Of the delfic peaks dim escalade, - My soul with anguish and recoil - Doth like a city in an earthquake rock, - As at my feet the abyss is cloven then, - With deeper menace than for other men, - Of my potential cousinship with mire; - That all my conquered skies do grow a hollow mock, - My fearful powers retire, - No longer strong, - Reversing the shook banners of their song. - - Ah, for a heart less native to high Heaven, - A hooded eye, for jesses and restraint, - Or for a will accipitrine to pursue!-- - The veil of tutelar flesh to simple livers given, - Or those brave-fledging fervours of the Saint, - Whose heavenly falcon-craft doth never taint, - Nor they in sickest time their ample virtue mew. - - - - -TO MY GODCHILD--FRANCIS M. W. M. - -BY FRANCIS THOMPSON - - - This labouring, vast, Tellurian galleon, - Riding at anchor off the orient sun, - Had broken its cable, and stood out to space - Down some froze Arctic of the aerial ways: - And now, back warping from the inclement main, - Its vapourous shroudage drenched with icy rain, - It swung into its azure roads again; - When, floated on the prosperous sun-gale, you - Lit, a white halcyon auspice, ’mid our frozen crew. - - To the Sun, stranger, surely you belong, - Giver of golden days and golden song; - Nor is it by an all-unhappy plan - You bear the name of me, his constant Magian. - Yet, ah! from any other that it came, - Lest fated to my fate you be, as to my name. - When at the first those tidings did they bring, - My heart turned troubled at the ominous thing: - Though well may such a title him endower, - For when a poet’s prayer implores a poet’s power. - The Assisian, who kept plighted faith to three, - To Song, to Sanctitude, and Poverty, - (In two alone of whom most singers prove - A fatal faithfulness of during love!); - He the sweet Sales, of whom we scarcely ken - How God he could love more, he so loved men; - The crown and crowned of Laura and Italy; - And Fletcher’s fellow--from these, and not from me, - Take you your name, and take your legacy! - - Or, if a right successive you declare - When worms, for ivies, intertwine my hair, - Take but this Poesy that now followeth - My clayey best with sullen servile breath, - Made then your happy freedman by testating death. - My song I do but hold for you in trust, - I ask you but to blossom from my dust. - When you have compassed all weak I began, - Diviner poet, and ah! diviner man-- - The man at feud with the perduring child - In you before song’s altar nobly reconciled-- - From the wise heavens I half shall smile to see - How little a world, which owned you, needed me. - If, while you keep the vigils of the night, - For your wild tears make darkness all too bright, - Some lone orb through your lonely window peeps, - As it played lover over your sweet sleeps, - Think it a golden crevice in the sky, - Which I have pierced but to behold you by! - - And when, immortal mortal, droops your head, - And you, the child of deathless song, are dead; - Then, as you search with unaccustomed glance - The ranks of Paradise for my countenance, - Turn not your tread along the Uranian sod - Among the bearded counsellors of God; - For, if in Eden as on earth are we, - I sure shall keep a younger company: - Pass where beneath their ranged gonfalons - The starry cohorts shake their shielded suns, - The dreadful mass of their enridged spears: - Pass where majestical the eternal peers, - The stately choice of the great Saintdom, meet-- - A silvern segregation, globed complete - In sandalled shadow of the Triune feet; - Pass by where wait, young poet-wayfarer, - Your cousined clusters, emulous to share - With you the roseal lightnings burning ’mid their hair; - Pass the crystalline sea, the Lampads seven:-- - Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven. - - - - -MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL - -BY KATHERINE TYNAN - - - Not woman-faced and sweet, as look - The angels in the picture-book; - But terrible in majesty, - More than an army passing by. - - His hair floats not upon the wind - Like theirs, but curled and closely twined; - Wrought with his aureole, so that none - Shall know the gold curls from the crown. - - His wings he hath put away in steel, - He goes mail-clad from head to heel; - Never moon-silver hath outshone - His breastplate and his morion. - - His brows are like a battlement, - Beautiful, brave and innocent; - His eyes with fires of battle burn-- - On his strong mouth the smile is stern. - - His horse, the horse of Heaven, goes forth, - Bearing him off to South and North, - Neighing far off, as one that sees - The battle over distances. - - His fiery sword is never at rest, - His foot is in the stirrup prest; - Through all the world where wrong is done - Michael the Soldier rideth on. - - Michael, Commander! Angels are - That sound the trumpet and that bear - The banners by the Throne, where is - The King one nameth on his knees. - - Angels there are of peace and prayers, - And they that go with wayfarers, - And they that watch the house of birth, - And they that bring the dead from earth. - - And mine own Angel. Yet I see, - Heading God’s army gloriously, - Michael Archangel, like a sun, - Splendid beyond comparison! - - - - -PLANTING BULBS - -BY KATHERINE TYNAN - - - Setting my bulbs a-row - In cold earth under the grasses, - Till the frost and the snow - Are gone and the Winter passes-- - - Sudden a footfall light, - Sudden a bird-call ringing; - And these in gold and in white - Shall rise with a sound of winging. - - Airy and delicate all, - All go trooping and dancing - At Spring’s call and footfall, - Airily dancing, advancing. - - In the dark of the year, - Turning the earth so chilly, - I look to the day of cheer, - Primrose and daffodilly. - - Turning the sods and the clay - I think on the poor sad people - Hiding their dead away - In the churchyard, under the steeple. - - All poor women and men, - Broken-hearted and weeping, - Their dead they call on in vain, - Quietly smiling and sleeping. - - Friends, now listen and hear, - Give over crying and grieving, - There shall come a day and a year - When the dead shall be as the living. - - There shall come a call, a footfall, - And the golden trumpeters blowing - Shall stir the dead with their call, - Bid them be rising and going. - - Then in the daffodil weather - Lover shall run to lover; - Friends all trooping together; - Death and Winter be over. - - Laying my bulbs in the dark, - Visions have I of hereafter. - Lip to lip, breast to breast, hark! - No more weeping, but laughter! - - - - -SHEEP AND LAMBS - -BY KATHERINE TYNAN - - - All in the April evening, - April airs were abroad; - The sheep with their little lambs - Passed me by on the road. - - The sheep with their little lambs - Passed me by on the road; - All in the April evening - I thought on the Lamb of God. - - The lambs were weary, and crying - With a weak, human cry. - I thought on the Lamb of God - Going meekly to die. - - Up in the blue, blue mountains - Dewy pastures are sweet; - Rest for the little bodies, - Rest for the little feet. - - But for the Lamb of God - Up on a hilltop green - Only a cross of shame - Two stark crosses between. - - All in the April evening, - April airs were abroad; - I saw the sheep with their lambs, - And thought on the Lamb of God. - - - - -THE MAKING OF BIRDS - -BY KATHERINE TYNAN - - - God made Him birds in a pleasant humour; - Tired of planets and suns was He. - He said: “I will add a glory to summer, - Gifts for my creatures banished from Me!” - - He had a thought and it set Him smiling - Of the shape of a bird and its glancing head, - Its dainty air and its grace beguiling: - “I will make feathers,” the Lord God said. - - He made the robin; He made the swallow; - His deft hands moulding the shape to His mood, - The thrush and the lark and the finch to follow, - And laughed to see that His work was good. - - He Who has given men gift of laughter, - Made in His image; He fashioned fit - The blink of the owl and the stork thereafter, - The little wren and the long-tailed tit. - - He spent in the making His wit and fancies; - The wing-feathers He fashioned them strong; - Deft and dear as daisies and pansies, - He crowned His work with the gift of song. - - “Dearlings,” He said, “make songs for my praises!” - He tossed them loose to the sun and the wind, - Airily sweet as pansies and daisies; - He taught them to build a nest to their mind. - - The dear Lord God of His glories weary-- - Christ our Lord had the heart of a boy-- - Made Him birds in a moment merry, - Bade them soar and sing for His joy. - - - - -THE MAN OF THE HOUSE - -BY KATHERINE TYNAN - - - Joseph, honoured from sea to sea, - This is your name that pleases me, - “Man of the House.” - - I see you rise at the dawn and light - The fire and blow till the flame is bright. - - I see you take the pitcher and carry - The deep well-water for Jesus and Mary. - - You knead the corn for the bread so fine, - Gather them grapes from the hanging vine. - - There are little feet that are soft and slow, - Follow you whithersoever you go. - - There’s a little face at your workshop door, - A little one sits down on your floor: - - Holds His hands for the shavings curled, - The soft little hands that have made the world. - - Mary calls you: the meal is ready: - You swing the Child to your shoulder steady. - - I see your quiet smile as you sit - And watch the little Son thrive and eat. - - The vine curls by the window space, - The wings of angels cover the face. - - Up in the rafters, polished and olden, - There’s a Dove that broods and his wings are golden. - - You who kept Them through shine and storm, - A staff, a shelter kindly and warm, - - Father of Jesus, husband of Mary, - Hold us your lilies for sanctuary! - - Joseph, honoured from sea to sea, - Guard me mine and my own roof-tree, - “Man of the House”! - - - - -COELO ET IN TERRA - -BY THOMAS WALSH - - - Earth is a jealous mother; from her breast - She will endure no separation long - From aught she bore; - So one by one - She claimeth evermore - The parent and the friend-- - The loveliest and the best, - The meek, the faithful, and the strong,-- - Till, link by golden link undone, - The very tomb that seems - To youth the dismal gulf of all that’s fair, - Becomes the chosen hearthstone of our dreams, - The wonder-house of all most rare, - Most deathless, and most dear; - Where the bereaved heart, - Life’s exile held apart, - Would turn for love-warmth and abiding cheer. - Yea,--earth can be so kind,-- - Then ye that rule the wind, - Are ye of less appeal? - Ye spirits of the stars - And regions where the suns - Themselves as atoms wheel - Beneath your thundering cars? - Cerulean ones!-- - Or goddesses, or saints, - Or demiurge, or Trinities, - Wherewith heaven highest faints! - Are ye less kind than these - Dim vaults of clay, - Ye boasts and fathers of the ancient day? - Thou god Avernian, Dis!--behold - What timid form and old - Adown thy purple gulf descends - Unto the arch of Death--(Grim friend of friends! - Be thou placated!) ’Tis a mother, see, - Takes her first step--a child--into eternity! - Leave her not fearful there - Who was of love entire, - So gentle and so fair!-- - Thy majesty and dread withhold - For the high head and bold,-- - Imperial Death, mock not thyself with ire! - Nay,--then it was not fear - That stayed her foot the while; - For now her lovely eyes, - Unclouded, brown, - Are lighted with their greeting smile-- - The Hand awaited through the gloom - Is seen!--her whitened forehead lies - Upon the Shepherd’s shoulder down-- - Yea,--her own Jesus comes,--to lead - Unto the meadows where is Peace indeed! - - - - -EGIDIO OF COIMBRA--1597 A.D. - -BY THOMAS WALSH - - - The rumor came to Frei Egidio - In cloistered Santa Cruz, that out of Spain - King Philips secret courier had fared - With orders under seal suspending all - The statutes of Coimbra that controlled - The contests for the prefessorial chairs, - And ordering the Faculty to grant - Padre Francisco Suarez primacy - Among the masters theological. - And Frei Egidio, whose ancient name - Fonseca was relinquished when at court - It shone its brightest, who had ceaseless toiled - His score of years in cloister and in schools, - Unravelling knotty texts, disputing long - With monk and doctor of the Carmelites, - Dominicans and Trinitarians, - Consulting with the students, visiting, - Fawning and banqueting--himself and all - His faction in the University-- - Now in the iron mandate from Madrid - Saw failure blight his hopes, and Santa Cruz - Eclipsed, through imposition unforeseen - Of Suarez de Toledo--only half - A monk!--a fledgling doctor in the Schools!-- - And Frei Egidio unsleeping schemed - To check the rising of this Spanish star - Within Coimbra,--and his henchmen went - Stealthy and sure to sow malignant seed - To choke the Hapsburg’s new autocracy. - Stately was Frei Egidio, robust, - Swarthy and smooth his cheek; his raven locks - Piling about his tonsure in a crown. - Dark flashed his eye whene’er he rose to cast - His syllogistic spear across the lists, - Where many a mighty crest Minerva-crowned - Was forced to yield, or learnt the rapier thrust - Of his _distinguo_ and _non-sequiter_. - Still more he shone when in procession moved - The doctors, masters, and licentiates, - With tufted caps, and rainbow gowns, and stoles, - And ring, and book across the steeps and squares, - While gallant youths pressed round on horse or foot - Holding his robe or stirrup through the town-- - The _Catedratico da Vespera_. - But now this little shrivelled man sent out - From Salamanca,--Philip’s paragon!-- - To rule Coimbra in theology!-- - One of Loyola’s strange and restless band - In the Collegio de Jesus,--reproach - To every gorgeous doctor in the halls. - ’Twas true he hid away within his house, - Came seldom to the festival or Acts, - Nor oft asserted his high presidence - O’er Frei Egidio--in craft or scorn, - It mattered not--for Frei Egidio - Would pluck him forth; no signet of the King - Could serve him here; the doctors of the Schools - Should learn how he, Fonseca, had been wronged. - With formal placards soon they smeared the walls - Of shrine and college, telling day and hour - And place, where Doutor Frei Egidio - Da Presentacao, of the Eremites - Of Sao Agostinho, titular - _Da Vespera_, would his conclusions hold - “_De Voluntario et Involuntario_” - Against all-comers, and imprimis there, - The Doutor Padre Suarez, titular - _Da Prima_ of Coimbra, theologue - Of the _Collegia_ and _Compania - De Jesus_. From near and far they came, - And took their stated rank, and filed - Into the Hall of Acts; the Chancellor - And Rector in their robes of silk, and fur, - And velvet, and great chains and seals of state; - The Bishop, and Inquisitor, and Dean, - And Chapter, in their purple; Canonists - In green; and Jurists in their scarlet gowns; - Frei Luiz of the Chair of Holy Writ, - In black and white of the Dominicans; - Frei Manoel of the Chair of Scotus, garbed - In white and brown of Carmel; titulars - In Peter Lombard and Durandus,--sons - Of Bernard, Francis and Saint Benedict. - When each in order of his ancientry - Was seated in the tribune, and below - Ranged the licentiates, and bachelors, - And, out beyond, the thousand students,--gay - In plumes and ruffs, or rags and disrepair,-- - There entered Bacharel Frei Constantino - Citing the _obligations_; whereupon - Egidio began his argument - With exposition and arrangement clear, - And summary abrupt and crushing, as - His old experience in the courts had taught,-- - So free in tone and doctrine that the throng - Swayed on their benches, beating noisily - Great tomes together like the roll of drums. - Then silence for Suarez’s _quodlibet_; - As half-reluctant, without emphasis, - His cold unwavering voice proposed the plan - Of his objection,--When uproarious - Upon the instant, Frei Egidio - In tones of thunder shouted o’er the hall,-- - “_Nego majorem!_”--the scholastic world’s - Unmitigated insult! How would he, - Spain’s boasted theologian, reply - To Portugal’s? The Jesuits around - Suarez’s rostrum marvelled, whispered, turned, - And hid their faces, when they saw him bowed - Silent a moment, ere descending, calm, - He led them home across the jeering town. - Then the mad acclamations; bells of shrine - And monastery on the hills; the sweep - Of robes prelatical, the cavalcade - Of gorgeous nobles into Santa Cruz; - The blare of trumpets, and the lanterns strung - Yellow beneath the moon; the beggar throngs; - The maskers down the lanes; the nightingales - And river-songs of students wafted far - Across Mondego’s Hills of Loneliness - And Meditation where Coimbra slept. - Thus triumphed Frei Egidio. But high - In the Collegio de Jesus the blow - Was red on every cheek; the Rector rose - In the community and said: “Padre - Francisco, not in fifty years have we - In our Coimbra known such sore defeat; - Tell me, I pray, had you no thought to save - Your honor and the honor of our schools-- - You, boast of Rome and Salamanca’s halls.-- - You, to whom all the dialectic arts - Have been as play--could you not parry, feint, - Or bait Egidio until some chance - Or newer turn might save your argument?” - Suarez bowed and answered: “Better far - That we be humbled than a great man fall - To utter shame and ruin! Had I told - Egidio there that in denying thus - My proposition he was challenging - A solemn canon, word for word, prescribed - At Constance by the Universal Church-- - Fetch me the Book of Councils--he was lost.” - Scarce was the secret spoken, ere it stole - In rumor through the novice-court, and thence - Below to Santa Cruz,--stole, like a cloud, - Black, ominous, across the starlit dome - Above the black _mosteiro_, where the moon - Revelled amid the sculptured lattices,-- - The marble ropes and palms memorial - Of old Da Gama and his caravels,-- - Upon the rose-paths and the trickling pools - Along the Cloister do Silencio. - There paced Fonseca, solitary guest - To catch the final crumbs, the laughter, far - Adown the stream, of lutes that mourned his feast, - When lo! a billet in his path!--“_Awake_,--” - He read,--“_at Constance ’twas decreed. Thy voice - Hath mocked the very words of Holy Church._”-- - No more,--yet in foreboding he made haste - To find his taper,--fumbled through the stacks - In dust and chill,--unclasped the folio - _Liber Conciliorum_,--saw his doom-- - Perchance the rack and Secret Prisons--writ - Upon the parchment!--Silence, mocking lutes! - Come, rain! come, whirlwind, blot the lanterns out: - Now knew he their insidious subterfuge-- - The slippery Pharisees--to undermine - Coimbra’s last bright paragon,--they claimed - Another victim!--But his rage gave way - To grief; his scorn was all to blame; no scheme - Was theirs; Suarez spoke the Council’s words - As duty bound him,--With the break of day - Came self-renouncement to Egidio; - And in amaze to greet his ashen face - The sacristan laid out for him the alb - And chasuble of Requiem; resigned, - Like some bowed reed the storm has swept by night, - He took the chalice, veiled it ’gainst his breast, - And ’mid the first faint glimmer down the nave - Crept forth unto his mystic Calvary. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE - - -This eBook makes the following corrections to the printed text: - - Acknowledgment - Small, Maynard Company - Small, Maynard & Company - Acknowledgment - Houghton, Mifflin Company - Houghton Mifflin Company - Pg x - The Soul of Kernaghan - The Soul of Karnaghan - Pg xi - Garesche, S.J., Edward F. - Garesché, S.J., Edward F. - Pg xiii - MacDonough, Thomas - MacDonagh, Thomas - Pg 4 - Moved “The men that live in West England” to following stanza - Pg 6 - My brother, good morniing - My brother, good morning - Pg 7 - Stands about my wraith - Stand about my wraith - Pg 13 - with eyes like stars?? - with eyes like stars? - Pg 14 - Started new stanza after “this is the moment of love.” - Pg 26 - The tickling clock - The ticking clock - Pg 41 - vandals stormed, thy sacred tree - vandals stormed thy sacred tree - Pg 51 - “... peace to men!’ - “... peace to men!” - Pg 54 - His glorous face - His glorious face - Pg 66 - Started new stanza after “Waiteth on Sorrow still;” - Pg 118 - And Joseph is my neighbor - “And Joseph is my neighbor - Pg 120 - ‘A prophet Thou!” - “A prophet Thou!” - Pg 120 - ‘Come with me,” - “Come with me,” - Pg 120 - ‘Yet ... and no soldier thou.” - “Yet ... and no soldier thou.” - Pg 120 - ‘How wouldst thou serve?” - “How wouldst thou serve?” - Pg 123 - Himself He can not - “Himself He can not - Pg 135 - Within it’s wonderness - Within its wonderness - Pg 143 - Started new stanza after “lightning will” - Pg 152 - the bitter day He died - the bitter day He died. - Pg 166 - “Endless ... with how much pain! - “Endless ... with how much pain!” - Pg 167 - praise thee well and wide - praise thee well and wide. - Pg 172 - ‘The Fathers ... live to God:” - “The Fathers ... live to God:” - Pg 181 - Praising the Iord - Praising the Lord - Pg 210 - every soul that heard. - every soul that heard.” - Pg 215 - Be stilll,--Pride - Be still,--Pride - Pg 234 (footnote) - Newman calls the Blesed Virgin - Newman calls the Blessed Virgin - Pg 246 - Started new stanza after “that was bruised!” - Pg 262 - Naught shelters thee ...” - “Naught shelters thee ...” - Pg 266 - ‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest - “Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest - Pg 268 - Of utter sadnes - Of utter sadness - Pg 270 - their ample virtue mew - their ample virtue mew. - Pg 271 - ivies, interwine my hair - ivies, intertwine my hair - Pg 278 - Follow you withersoever you go. - Follow you whithersoever you go. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DREAMS AND IMAGES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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