{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_66094/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_66094","id":"gutenberg_66094","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66094","summary":null,"tags":["American poetry -- Catholic authors","Category: Poetry","Category: Religion/Spirituality","English poetry -- Catholic authors"],"text":"DREAMS AND IMAGES\n\nAN ANTHOLOGY OF CATHOLIC POETS\n\n\n\n\nDREAMS AND IMAGES\n\nAN ANTHOLOGY\n\n_of_\n\nCATHOLIC POETS\n\n_Edited by_\n\nJOYCE KILMER\n\nTORONTO\n\nTHE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY\n\nLIMITED\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1917,\n\nBoni & Liveright, Inc.\n\n\nPrinted in the U. S. of America\n\n\n\n\nACKNOWLEDGMENT\n\n\nFor advice and assistance in collecting and arranging these poems,\nI am grateful to many friends, especially to Mr. T. R. Smith, Miss\nCaroline Giltinan and Mr. John Bunker. The publishers, editors and\nauthors who have kindly consented to let me use copyright material\nare numerous and I assure them of my deep sense of obligation. In\nparticular I desire to thank the following publishers for their\ngenerous permission to use all that I required from their lists:\nCharles Scribner\u2019s Sons, John Lane Company, Small, Maynard & Company,\nP. J. Kennedy Sons, Frederick A. Stokes Company, _The Catholic\nWorld_, Houghton Mifflin Company, The Encyclopaedia Press, Henry\nHolt & Company, The Devin-Adair Company, Little, Brown & Company, The\nMacmillan Company, Elkin Mathews, _The Ave Maria_, Laurence Gomme, and\nWilfrid Meynell.\n\n J. K.\n\n\n\n\n To\n\n REV. JAMES J. DALY, S.J.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThis is not a collection of devotional poems. It is not an attempt\nto rival Orby Shipley\u2019s admirable \u201cCarmina Mariana\u201d or any other\nsimilar anthology. What I have tried to do is to bring together the\npoems in English that I like best that were written by Catholics since\nthe middle of the Nineteenth Century. There are in this book poems\nreligious in theme; there are also love-songs and war songs. But I\nthink that it may be called a book of Catholic poems. For a Catholic is\nnot a Catholic only when he prays; he is a Catholic in all the thoughts\nand actions of his life. And when a Catholic attempts to reflect in\nwords some of the Beauty of which as a poet he is conscious, he cannot\nbe far from prayer and adoration.\n\nThe Church has never been without her great poets. And in the\nNineteenth Century there was a splendid renascence of Catholic poetry\nwritten in English. It had already begun when Francis Thompson\nwrote his Essay on Shelley, in which he longed for the by-gone days\nwhen poetry was \u201cthe lesser sister and helpmate of the Church; the\nminister to the mind, as the Church to the soul.\u201d The members of the\nPre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were not Catholics, but their movement was\nrelated to the renascence of Catholic poetry--it was an attempt to\nrestore to art and letters some of the glory of the days before what\nis called the Reformation. Coventry Patmore carried the theories of the\nPre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to their logical conclusion, as Newman did\nthose of the Tractarians. Coventry Patmore became a Catholic, and found\nin his Faith his inspiration and his theme. And his disciple Francis\nThompson, born to the Faith which Patmore reached by way of the divine\nadventure of conversion, with art even greater than that of his master,\nmade of the language of Protestant England an instrument of Catholic\nadoration.\n\nA few of the poets represented in this book were not yet Catholics when\nthey wrote the poems I have quoted. But I do not think that anyone will\nfind fault with me for including Newman and Hawker among the Catholic\npoets. I am very sorry that the limitations of space have made me\nexclude many poems dear to me, many poems that are part of the world\u2019s\nliterary heritage. There should be many Catholic anthologies.\n\nThe poet sees things hidden from other men, but he sees them only in\ndreams. A poet is (by the very origin of the word) a maker, but a\nmaker of images, not a creator of life. This is a book of reflections\nof the Beauty which mortal eyes can see only in reflection, a book of\ndreams of that Truth which one day we shall waking understand. A book\nof images it is, too, containing representations carved by those who\nworked by the aid of memory, the strange memory of men living in Faith.\n\n JOYCE KILMER.\n\n August, 1917.\n 165th Regiment, Camp Mills, Mineola, New York.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n PAGE\n\n BELLOC, HILAIRE\n Our Lord and Lady 1\n To the Balliol Men Still in Africa 2\n The South Country 3\n The Early Morning 6\n The Prophet Lost in the Hills at Evening 6\n The Birds 7\n Courtesy 8\n Noel 9\n\n BENSON, ROBERT HUGH\n After a Retreat 10\n The Teresian Contemplation 11\n\n BLUNT, WILFRED SCAWEN\n How Shall I Build 12\n Song 13\n The Desolate City 13\n\n BRAYTON, TERESA\n A Christmas Song 16\n\n CAMPBELL, NANCY\n Like One I Know 18\n\n CARBERY, ETHNA\n Mea Culpa 19\n In Tir-na\u2019n-Og 20\n\n CARROLL, P. J.\n Lady Day in Ireland 22\n St. Patrick\u2019s Treasure 23\n\n CASEY, D. A.\n The Spouse of Christ 24\n\n COLUM, PADRAIC\n Christ the Comrade 25\n An Old Woman of the Roads 25\n\n CONWAY, KATHERINE ELEANOR\n The Heaviest Cross of All 26\n Saturninus 28\n\n COX, ELEANOR ROGERS\n Dreaming of Cities Dead 29\n Death of Cuchulain 30\n Gods and Heroes of the Gael 32\n At Benediction 34\n\n CUSTANCE, OLIVE\n Primrose Hill 34\n Twilight 35\n\n DALY, THOMAS A.\n To a Thrush 36\n To a Plain Sweetheart 40\n To a Robin 40\n The Poet 41\n October 42\n\n DE VERE, AUBREY\n Sorrow 43\n Human Life 44\n Cardinal Manning 45\n Song 45\n\n DOLLARD, JAMES B.\n The Sons of Patrick 46\n Song of the Little Villages 48\n The Soul of Karnaghan Buidhe 49\n\n DONAHUE, D. J.\n The Angelic Chorus 51\n\n DONNELLY, ELEANOR\n Ladye Chapel at Eden Hall 52\n Mary Immaculate 52\n\n DOWNING, ELEANOR\n The Pilgrim 53\n On the Feast of the Assumption 54\n Mary 55\n\n DOWSON, ERNEST\n Extreme Unction 58\n Benedictio Domini 58\n Carthusians 58\n\n DRANE, AUGUSTA T.\n Maris Stella 60\n\n EARLS, S.J., MICHAEL\n An Autumn Rose Tree 62\n To a Carmelite Postulant 63\n\n EDEN, HELEN PARRY\n A Purpose of Amendment 64\n The Confessional 65\n An Elegy 66\n Sorrow 70\n\n EDMUND, C.P., FATHER\n Our Lady\u2019s Death 71\n\n EGAN, MAURICE FRANCIS\n Vigil of the Immaculate Conception 71\n The Old Violin 72\n Maurice de Guerin 73\n He Made Us Free 73\n\n FABER, FATHER\n Grandeur of Mary 75\n Right Must Win 77\n\n FITZPATRICK, JOHN\n Mater Dolorosa 79\n\n FURLONG, ALICE\n Yuletide 79\n\n GAFFNEY, O.P., FRANCIS A.\n Our Lady of the Rosary 81\n\n GARESCH\u00c9, S.J., EDWARD F.\n At the Leap of the Waters 81\n Niagara 83\n\n GILTINAN, CAROLINE\n Communion 85\n\n GRIFFIN, GERALD\n The Nightingale 86\n\n GUINEY, LOUISE IMOGEN\n Tryste Noel 86\n The Wild Ride 87\n Ode for a Master Mariner Ashore 89\n In Leinster 91\n\n HAWKER, ROBERT STEPHEN\n Aunt Mary 92\n King Arthur\u2019s Wassail 93\n\n HAYES, JAMES M.\n Old Nuns 94\n The Mother of the Rose 95\n Transfiguration 96\n\n HICKEY, EMILY M.\n Beloved, It Is Morn 97\n A Sea Story 98\n\n HOPKINS, S.J., GERARD\n The Starlight Night 99\n The Habit of Perfection 100\n Spring 101\n\n IRIS, SCHARMEL\n The Friar of Genoa 102\n\n JOHNSON, LIONEL\n The Dark Angel 103\n Te Martyrum Candidatus 105\n Christmas and Ireland 106\n To My Patrons 108\n Our Lady of the Snows 109\n Cadgwith 111\n A Friend 112\n The Statue of King Charles at Charing Cross 113\n\n KELLY, BLANCHE MARY\n The Housewife\u2019s Prayer 115\n Brother Juniper 116\n\n KELLEY, MGR., F. C.\n The Throne of the King 117\n\n LATHROP, GEORGE PARSONS\n The Child\u2019s Wish Granted 127\n Charity 128\n\n LATHROP, ROSE HAWTHORNE\n A Song Before Grief 128\n The Clock\u2019s Song 129\n\n LEAMY, SIR EDMUND\n Ireland 130\n\n LEAMY, EDMUND (Senior)\n Music Magic 132\n Gethsemane 133\n My Lips Would Sing---- 134\n My Ship 135\n Visions 135\n\n LESLIE, SHANE\n Ireland, Mother of Priests 137\n\n LINDSAY, RUTH TEMPLE\n The Hunters 138\n\n LIVINGSTON, FATHER\n In Cherry Land 140\n\n M. S. M.\n Surrender 141\n\n MANGAN, JAMES CLARENCE\n Pentecost 142\n Dark Rosaleen 143\n\n MACDONAGH, THOMAS\n What is White? 146\n Wishes for My Son 147\n\n MACMANUS, SEUMAS\n Resignation 148\n In Dark Hour 150\n\n MAYNARD, THEODORE\n A Song of Colours 151\n The World\u2019s Miser 152\n Cecidit, Cecidit, Babylon Magna 153\n A Song of Laughter 154\n Apocalypse 155\n\n MCCARTHY, DENIS A.\n St. Brigid 156\n Rosa Mystica 160\n The Poor Man\u2019s Daily Bread 161\n\n MCGEE, THOMAS D\u2019ARCY\n To Ask Our Lady\u2019s Patronage 162\n\n MEYNELL, ALICE\n A General Communion 163\n The Shepherdess 163\n Christ in the Universe 164\n \u201cI Am the Way\u201d 165\n Via, et Veritas, et Vita 166\n Unto Us a Son is Given 166\n To a Daisy 167\n The Newer Vainglory 168\n\n MEYNELL, WILFRID\n The Folded Flock 168\n\n MORIARTY, HELEN L.\n Convent Echoes 169\n\n NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY\n England 170\n The Pillar of the Cloud 171\n The Greek Fathers 171\n Relics of Saints 172\n The Sign of the Cross 173\n\n O\u2019DONNELL, C.S.C., CHARLES L.\n The Son of God 173\n To St. Joseph 174\n The Dead Musician 175\n\n O\u2019HAGAN, THOMAS\n Giotto\u2019s Campanile 178\n\n O\u2019REILLY, JOHN BOYLE\n Name of Mary 179\n\n O\u2019REILLY, MARY A.\n A Christmas Carol 180\n\n O. SHEEL, SHAEMAS\n Roma Mater Sempaeterna 182\n Mary\u2019s Baby 183\n They Went Forth to Battle 183\n He Whom A Dream Hath Possessed 184\n\n PALLEN, COND\u00c9 BENOIST\n Maria Immaculata 186\n The Raising of the Flag 191\n The Babe of Bethlehem 194\n\n PATMORE, COVENTRY\n The Toys 195\n \u201cIf I Were Dead\u201d 197\n Departure 197\n Regina C\u0153li 199\n\n PEARSE, P. H.\n Ideal 199\n\n PHILLIPS, CHARLES\n Music 200\n\n PLUNKETT, JOSEPH M.\n I See His Blood Upon the Rose 202\n The Stars Sang in God\u2019s Garden 202\n\n PROBYN, MAY\n Is It Nothing to You? 203\n The Bees of Myddleton Manor 204\n\n PROCTOR, ADELAIDE ANNE\n A Legend 210\n The Sacred Heart 211\n The Annunciation 214\n Our Daily Bread 216\n\n RANDALL, JAMES RYDER\n My Maryland 217\n Magdalen 220\n Why the Robin\u2019s Breast Was Red 221\n\n REPPLIER, AGNES\n Le Repos in Egypte--The Sphinx 221\n\n ROCHE, JAMES JEFFREY\n Andromeda 222\n Nature the False Goddess 223\n Three Doves 224\n The Way of the World 225\n\n ROONEY, JOHN JEROME\n Ave Maria 225\n Revelation 227\n Marquette on the Shores of the Mississippi 229\n The Empire Builder 230\n The Men Behind the Guns 233\n\n RUSSELL, S.J., MATTHEW\n A Thought From Cardinal Newman 234\n\n RYAN, ABRAM J.\n The Conquered Banner 235\n A Child\u2019s Wish 237\n Sword of Robert E. Lee 238\n Song of the Mystic 239\n\n SETON, E.\n Mary, Virgin and Mother 242\n\n SIGERSON DORA\n The Wind on the Hills 242\n\n SPALDING, JOHN LANCASTER\n Believe and Take Heart 244\n\n STODDARD, CHARLES WARREN\n Ave Maria Bells 245\n Stigmata 246\n The Bells of San Gabriel 247\n\n STRAHAN, G.S.C., SPEER\n The Poor 249\n The Promised Country 250\n Holy Communion 250\n\n SWAN, CAROLINE D.\n Stars of Cheer 251\n\n TABB, JOHN BANNISTER\n Christ and the Pagan 252\n Out of Bounds 253\n Father Damien 253\n Recognition 253\n \u201cIs Thy Servant a Dog?\u201d 254\n\n THOMPSON, FRANCIS\n Lilium Regis 254\n To the English Martyrs 255\n The Hound of Heaven 261\n The Dread of Height 267\n To My Godchild 270\n\n TYNAN, KATHERINE\n Michael the Archangel 272\n Planting Bulbs 274\n Sheep and Lambs 275\n The Making of Birds 276\n The Man of the House 278\n\n WALSH, THOMAS\n C\u0153lo et in Terra 279\n Egidio of Coimbra 281\n\n\n\n\nDreams and Images\n\n\n\n\nOUR LORD AND OUR LADY\n\nBY HILAIRE BELLOC\n\n\n They warned Our Lady for the Child\n That was Our Blessed Lord,\n And She took Him into the desert wild,\n Over the camel\u2019s ford.\n\n And a long song She sang to Him\n And a short story told:\n And She wrapped Him in a woolen cloak\n To keep Him from the cold.\n\n But when Our Lord was grown a man\n The Rich they dragged Him down,\n And they crucified Him in Golgotha,\n Out and beyond the Town.\n\n They crucified Him on Calvary,\n Upon an April day;\n And because He had been her little Son\n She followed Him all the way.\n\n Our Lady stood beside the Cross,\n A little space apart,\n And when She heard Our Lord cry out\n A sword went through Her Heart.\n\n They laid Our Lord in a marble tomb,\n Dead, in a winding sheet.\n But Our Lady stands above the world\n With the white Moon at Her feet.\n\n\n\n\nTO THE BALLIOL MEN STILL IN AFRICA\n\nBY HILAIRE BELLOC\n\n\n Years ago when I was at Balliol,\n Balliol men--and I was one--\n Swam together in winter rivers,\n Wrestled together under the sun.\n And still in the heart of us, Balliol, Balliol,\n Loved already, but hardly known,\n Welded us each of us into the others:\n Called a levy and chose her own.\n\n Here is a House that armours a man\n With the eyes of a boy and the heart of a ranger,\n And a laughing way in the teeth of the world\n And a holy hunger and thirst for danger:\n Balliol made me, Balliol fed me,\n Whatever I had she gave me again:\n And the best of Balliol loved and led me,\n God be with you, Balliol men.\n\n I have said it before, and I say it again,\n There was treason done, and a false word spoken,\n And England under the dregs of men,\n And bribes about, and a treaty broken:\n But angry, lonely, hating it still,\n I wished to be there in spite of the wrong.\n My heart was heavy for Cumnor Hill\n And the hammer of galloping all day long.\n\n Galloping outward into the weather,\n Hands a-ready and battle in all:\n Words together and wine together\n And song together in Balliol Hall.\n Rare and single! Noble and few!...\n Oh! they have wasted you over the sea!\n The only brothers ever I knew,\n The men that laughed and quarrelled with me.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Balliol made me, Balliol fed me,\n Whatever I had she gave me again;\n And the best of Balliol loved and led me,\n God be with you, Balliol men.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SOUTH COUNTRY\n\nBY HILAIRE BELLOC\n\n\n When I am living in the Midlands\n That are sodden and unkind,\n I light my lamp in the evening:\n My work is left behind;\n And the great hills of the South Country\n Come back into my mind.\n\n The great hills of the South Country\n They stand along the sea;\n And it\u2019s there walking in the high woods\n That I could wish to be,\n And the men that were boys when I was a boy\n Walking along with me.\n\n The men that live in North England\n I saw them for a day:\n Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,\n Their skies are fast and grey;\n From their castle-walls a man may see;\n The mountains far away.\n\n The men that live in West England\n They see the Severn strong,\n A-rolling on rough water brown,\n Light aspen leaves along.\n They have the secret of the Rocks,\n And the oldest kind of song.\n\n But the men that live in the South Country\n Are the kindest and most wise,\n They get their laughter from the loud surf,\n And the faith in their happy eyes\n Comes surely from our Sister the Spring\n When over the sea she flies;\n The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,\n She blesses us with surprise.\n\n I never get between the pines\n But I smell the Sussex air;\n Nor I never come on a belt of sand\n But my home is there.\n And along the sky the line of Downs\n So noble and so bare.\n\n A lost thing could I never find,\n Nor a broken thing mend:\n And I fear I shall be all alone\n When I get towards the end.\n Who will there be to comfort me\n Or who will be my friend?\n\n I will gather and carefully make my friends\n Of the men of the Sussex Weald,\n They watch the stars from silent folds,\n They stiffly plough the field.\n By them and the God of the South Country\n My poor soul shall be healed.\n\n If I ever become a rich man,\n Or if ever I grow to be old,\n I will build a house with deep thatch\n To shelter me from the cold,\n And there shall the Sussex songs be sung\n And the story of Sussex told.\n\n I will hold my house in the high wood\n Within a walk of the sea,\n And the men that were boys when I was a boy\n Shall sit and drink with me.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EARLY MORNING\n\nBY HILAIRE BELLOC\n\n\n The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:\n The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother,\n The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.\n My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS AT EVENING\n\nBY HILAIRE BELLOC\n\n\n Strong God which made the topmost stars\n To circulate and keep their course,\n Remember me; whom all the bars\n Of sense and dreadful fate enforce.\n\n Above me in your heights and tall,\n Impassable the summits freeze,\n Below the haunted waters call\n Impassable beyond the trees.\n\n I hunger and I have no bread.\n My gourd is empty of the wine.\n Surely the footsteps of the dead\n Are shuffling softly close to mine!\n\n It darkens. I have lost the ford.\n There is a change on all things made.\n The rocks have evil faces, Lord,\n And I am awfully afraid.\n\n Remember me! the Voids of Hell\n Expand enormous all around.\n Strong friend of souls, Emmanuel,\n Redeem me from accursed ground.\n\n The long descent of wasted days,\n To these at last have led me down;\n Remember that I filled with praise\n The meaningless and doubtful ways\n That lead to an eternal town.\n\n I challenged and I kept the Faith,\n The bleeding path alone I trod;\n It darkens. Stand about my wraith,\n And harbour me--almighty God!\n\n\n\n\nTHE BIRDS\n\nBY HILAIRE BELLOC\n\n\n When Jesus Christ was four years old,\n The angels brought Him toys of gold,\n Which no man ever had bought or sold.\n\n And yet with these He would not play.\n He made Him small fowl out of clay,\n And blessed them till they flew away:\n _Tu creasti Domine_.\n\n Jesus Christ, Thou child so wise,\n Bless mine hands and fill mine eyes,\n And bring my soul to Paradise.\n\n\n\n\nCOURTESY\n\nBY HILAIRE BELLOC\n\n\n Of Courtesy, it is much less\n Than Courage of Heart or Holiness,\n Yet in my Walks it seems to me\n That the Grace of God is in Courtesy.\n\n On Monks I did in Storrington fall,\n They took me straight into their Hall;\n I saw Three Pictures on a wall,\n And Courtesy was in them all.\n\n The first Annunciation;\n The second the Visitation;\n The third the Consolation,\n Of God that was Our Lady\u2019s Son.\n\n The first was of Saint Gabriel;\n On Wings a-flame from Heaven he fell;\n And as he went upon one knee\n He shone with Heavenly Courtesy.\n\n Our Lady out of Nazareth rode----\n It was her month of heavy load;\n Yet was Her face both great and kind,\n For Courtesy was in Her Mind.\n\n The third it was our Little Lord,\n Whom all the Kings in arms adored;\n He was so small you could not see\n His large intent of Courtesy.\n\n Our Lord, that was Our Lady\u2019s Son,\n Go bless you, People, one by one;\n My Rhyme is written, my work is done.\n\n\n\n\nNOEL\n\nBY HILAIRE BELLOC\n\n\nI\n\n On a winter\u2019s night long time ago\n (_The bells ring loud and the bells ring low_),\n When high howled wind, and down fell snow\n (Carillon, Carilla).\n Saint Joseph he and Notre Dame,\n Riding on an ass, full weary came\n From Nazareth into Bethlehem,\n And the small child Jesus smile on you.\n\n\nII\n\n And Bethlehem inn they stood before\n (_The bells ring less and the bells ring more_),\n The landlord bade them begone from his door\n (Carillon, Carilla).\n \u201cPoor folk\u201d (says he), \u201cmust lie where they may,\n For the Duke of Jewry comes this way,\n With all his train on a Christmas Day.\u201d\n And the small child Jesus smile on you.\n\n\nIII\n\n Poor folk that may my carol hear\n (_The bells ring single and the bells ring clear_),\n See! God\u2019s one child had hardest cheer!\n (Carillon, Carilla).\n Men grown hard on a Christmas morn;\n The dumb beast by and a babe forlorn.\n It was very, very cold when our Lord was born.\n And the small child Jesus smile on you.\n\n\nIV\n\n Now these were Jews as Jews may be\n (_The bells ring merry and the bells ring free_).\n But Christian men in a band are we\n (Carillon, Carilla).\n Empty we go, and ill be-dight,\n Singing Noel on a Winter\u2019s night.\n Give us to sup by the warm firelight,\n And the small child Jesus smile on you.\n\n\n\n\nAFTER A RETREAT\n\nBY ROBERT HUGH BENSON\n\n\n What hast thou learnt to-day?\n Hast thou sounded awful mysteries,\n Hast pierced the veil\u00e9d skies,\n Climbed to the feet of God,\n Trodden where saints have trod,\n Fathomed the heights above?\n _Nay,\n This only have I learnt, that God is love._\n\n What hast thou heard to-day?\n Hast heard the Angel-trumpets cry,\n And rippling harps reply;\n Heard from the Throne of flame\n Whence God incarnate came\n Some thund\u2019rous message roll?\n _Nay,\n This have I heard, His voice within my soul._\n\n What hast thou felt to-day?\n The pinions of the Angel-guide\n That standeth at thy side\n In rapturous ardours beat,\n Glowing, from head to feet,\n In ecstasy divine?\n _Nay,\n This only have I felt, Christ\u2019s hand in mine._\n\n\n\n\nTHE TERESIAN CONTEMPLATIVE\n\nBY ROBERT HUGH BENSON\n\n\n She moves in tumult; round her lies\n The silence of the world of grace;\n The twilight of our mysteries\n Shines like high noonday on her face;\n Our piteous guesses, dim with fears,\n She touches, handles, sees, and hears.\n\n In her all longings mix and meet;\n Dumb souls through her are eloquent;\n She feels the world beneath her feet\n Thrill in a passionate intent;\n Through her our tides of feeling roll\n And find their God within her soul.\n\n Her faith and awful Face of God\n Brightens and blinds with utter light;\n Her footsteps fall where late He trod;\n She sinks in roaring voids of night;\n Cries to her Lord in black despair,\n And knows, yet knows not, He is there.\n\n A willing sacrifice she takes\n The burden of our fall within;\n Holy she stands; while on her breaks\n The lightning of the wrath of sin;\n She drinks her Saviour\u2019s cup of pain,\n And, one with Jesus, thirsts again.\n\n\n\n\nHOW SHALL I BUILD\n\nBY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT\n\n\n How shall I build my temple to the Lord,\n Unworthy I, who am thus foul of heart?\n How shall I worship who no traitor word\n Know but of love to play a suppliant\u2019s part?\n How shall I pray, whose soul is as a mart,\n For thoughts unclean, whose tongue is as a sword\n Even for those it loves, to wound and smart?\n Behold how little I can help Thee, Lord.\n\n The Temple I would build should be all white,\n Each stone the record of a blameless day;\n The souls that entered there should walk in light,\n Clothed in high chastity and wisely gay.\n Lord, here is darkness. Yet this heart unwise,\n Bruised in Thy service, take in sacrifice.\n\n\n\n\nSONG\n\nBY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT\n\n\n O fly not, Pleasure, pleasant-hearted Pleasure;\n Fold me thy wings, I prithee, yet and stay:\n For my heart no measure\n Knows, or other treasure\n To buy a garland for my love to-day.\n\n And thou, too, Sorrow, tender-hearted Sorrow,\n Thou gray-eyed mourner, fly not yet away:\n For I fain would borrow\n Thy sad weeds to-morrow,\n To make a mourning for love\u2019s yesterday.\n\n The voice of Pity, Time\u2019s divine dear Pity,\n Moved me to tears: I dared not say them nay,\n But passed forth from the city,\n Making thus my ditty\n Of fair love lost forever and a day.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DESOLATE CITY\n\nBY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT\n\n\n Dark to me is the earth. Dark to me are the heavens.\n Where is she that I loved, the woman with eyes like stars?\n Desolate are the streets. Desolate is the city.\n A city taken by storm, where none are left but the slain.\n\n Sadly I rose at dawn, undid the latch of my shutters,\n Thinking to let in light, but I only let in love.\n Birds in the boughs were awake; I listen\u2019d to their chaunting;\n Each one sang to his love; only I was alone.\n\n This, I said in my heart, is the hour of life and pleasure.\n Now each creature on earth has his joy, and lives in the sun,\n Each in another\u2019s eyes finds light, the light of compassion,\n This is the moment of pity, this is the moment of love.\n\n Speak, O desolate city! Speak, O silence in sadness!\n Where is she that loved in my strength, that spoke to my soul?\n Where are those passionate eyes that appealed to my eyes in passion?\n Where is the mouth that kiss\u2019d me, the breast that I laid to my\n own?\n\n Speak, thou soul of my soul, for rage in my heart is kindled.\n Tell me, where didst thou flee in the day of destruction and fear?\n See, my arms enfold thee, enfolding thus all heaven,\n See, my desire is fulfilled in thee, for it fills the earth.\n\n Thus in my grief I lamented. Then turned I from the window,\n Turn\u2019d to the stair, and the open door, and the empty street,\n Crying aloud in my grief, for there was none to chide me,\n None to mock my weakness, none to behold my tears.\n\n Groping I went, as blind. I sought her house, my beloved\u2019s.\n There I stopp\u2019d at the silent door, and listen\u2019d and tried the\n latch.\n Love, I cried, dost thou slumber? This is no hour for slumber,\n This is the hour of love, and love I bring in my hand.\n\n I knew the house with its windows barr\u2019d, and its leafless fig-tree,\n Climbing round by the doorstep, the only one in the street;\n I knew where my hope had climbed to its goal and there encircled,\n All those desolate walls once held, my beloved\u2019s heart.\n\n There in my grief she consoled me. She loved when I loved not.\n She put her hand in my hand, and set her lips to my lips.\n She told me all her pain and show\u2019d me all her trouble.\n I, like a fool, scarce heard, hardly return\u2019d her kiss.\n\n Love, thy eyes were like torches. They changed as I beheld them.\n Love, thy lips were like gems, the seal thou settest on my life.\n Love, if I loved not then, behold this hour thy vengeance;\n This is the fruit of thy love and thee, the unwise grown wise.\n\n Weeping strangled my voice. I call\u2019d out, but none answered;\n Blindly the windows gazed back at me, dumbly the door;\n She whom I love, who loved me, look\u2019d not on my yearning,\n Gave me no more her hands to kiss, show\u2019d me no more her soul.\n\n Therefore the earth is dark to me, the sunlight blackness,\n Therefore I go in tears and alone, by night and day;\n Therefore I find my love in heaven, no light, no beauty,\n A heaven taken by storm, where none are left but the slain!\n\n\n\n\nA CHRISTMAS SONG\n\nBY TERESA BRAYTON\n\n\n O Lord, as You lay so soft and white,\n A Babe in a manger stall,\n With the big star flashing across the night,\n Did you know and pity us all?\n Did the wee hands, close as a rosebud curled,\n With the call of their mission ache,\n To be out and saving a weary world\n For Your merciful Father\u2019s sake?\n\n Did You hear the cries of the groping blind,\n The woe of the leper\u2019s prayer,\n The surging sorrow of all mankind,\n As You lay by Your Mother there?\n Beyond the shepherds, low bending down,\n The long, long road did You see\n That led from peaceful Bethlehem town\n To the summit of Calvary?\n\n The world grown weary of wasting strife,\n Had called for the Christ to rise;\n For sin had poisoned the springs of life\n And only the dead were wise.\n But, wrapped in a dream of scornful pride,\n Too high were its eyes to see\n A Child, foredoomed to be crucified,\n On a peasant Mother\u2019s knee.\n\n But, while the heavens with glad acclaim\n Sang out the tale of Your birth,\n A mystic echo of comfort came\n To the desolate souls of earth.\n For the thrill of a slowly turning tide\n Was felt in that grey daybreak,\n As if God, the Father, had sanctified\n All sorrow for One Man\u2019s sake.\n\n O Child of the Promise! Lord of Love!\n O Master of all the earth!\n While the angels are singing their songs above,\n We bring our gifts to Your birth.\n Just the blind man\u2019s cry, and the lame man\u2019s pace,\n And the leper\u2019s pitiful call;\n On these, over infinite fields of space,\n Look down, for You know them all.\n\n\n\n\nLIKE ONE I KNOW\n\nBY NANCY CAMPBELL\n\n\n Little Christ was good, and lay\n Sleeping, smiling in the hay;\n Never made the cows round eyes\n Open wider at His cries;\n Never when the night was dim,\n Startled guardian Seraphim,\n Who above Him in the beams\n Kept their watch round His white dreams;\n Let the rustling brown mice creep\n Undisturbed about His sleep.\n Yet if it had not been so--\n Had He been like one I know,\n Fought with little fumbling hands,\n Kicked inside His swaddling bands,\n Puckered wilful crimsoning face--\n Mary Mother, full of grace,\n At that little naughty thing,\n Still had been a-worshipping.\n\n\n\n\nMEA CULPA\n\nBY ETHNA CARBERY\n\n\n Be pitiful, my God!\n No hard-won gifts I bring--\n But empty, pleading hands\n To Thee at evening.\n\n Spring came, white-browed and young,\n I, too, was young with Spring.\n There was a blue, blue heaven\n Above a skylark\u2019s wing.\n\n Youth is the time for joy,\n I cried, it is not meet\n To mount the heights of toil\n With child-soft feet.\n\n When Summer walked the land\n In Passion\u2019s red arrayed,\n Under green sweeping boughs\n My couch I made.\n\n The noon-tide heat was sore,\n I slept the Summer through;\n An angel waked me--\u201cThou\n Hast work to do.\u201d\n\n I rose and saw the sheaves\n Upstanding in a row;\n The reapers sang Thy praise\n While passing to and fro.\n\n My hands were soft with ease,\n Long were the Autumn hours;\n I left the ripened sheaves\n For poppy-flowers.\n\n But lo! now Winter glooms,\n And gray is in my hair,\n Whither has flown the world\n I found so fair?\n\n My patient God, forgive!\n Praying Thy pardon sweet\n I lay a lonely heart\n Before Thy feet.\n\n\n\n\nIN TIR-NA\u2019N-OG\n\nBY ETHNA CARBERY\n\n\n _In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,\n In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,_\n Summer and spring go hand in hand, and in the radiant weather\n Brown autumn leaves and winter snow come floating down together.\n\n _In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,\n In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,_\n The sagans sway this way and that, the twisted fern uncloses,\n The quicken-berry hides its red above the tender roses.\n\n _In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,\n In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,_\n The blackbird lilts, the robin chirps, the linnet wearies never,\n They pipe to dancing feet of _Sidhe_ and thus shall pipe forever.\n\n _In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,\n In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,_\n All in a drift of apple blooms my true love there is roaming,\n He will not come although I pray from dawning until gloaming.\n\n _In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,\n In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,_\n The _Sidhe_ desired my Heart\u2019s Delight, they lured him from my\n keeping,\n He stepped within a fairy ring while all the world was sleeping.\n\n _In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,\n In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,_\n He hath forgotten hill and glen where misty shadows gather,\n The bleating of the mountain sheep, the cabin of his father.\n\n _In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,\n In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,_\n He wanders in a happy dream thro\u2019 scented golden hours,\n He flutes, to woo a fairy love, knee deep in fairy flowers.\n\n _In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,\n In Tir-na\u2019n-Og,_\n No memory hath he of my face, no sorrow for my sorrow,\n My flax is spun, my wheel is hushed, and so I wait the morrow.\n\n\n\n\nLADY DAY IN IRELAND\n\nBY P. J. CARROLL, C.S.C.\n\n\n Through the long August day, mantled blue with a sky of Our Lady,\n They are there at the well from the dawn till the sea birds go\n home;\n And the trees bending down with broad leaves offer spots that are\n shady,\n Where the heart is at rest, sighing prayers till the shadows are\n come.\n\n The brown beads and the crucifix pass in procession through fingers\n That are pale as the snow or are hardened from labor and pain.\n In each _Ave_ they whisper the deep Celtic tenderness lingers,\n Like a sweet phrase in song that is echoed and echoed again.\n\n Marching down the white road with the sun in the noon of his\n splendor\n Are the children, with joy in the blue of their innocent eyes;\n In their hearts is a song, breaking forth into words that are\n tender,\n Unto her with the gold of the stars and the blue of the skies.\n\n In the still summer air there\u2019s a chorus of minstrelsy breaking,\n There are flashes of gold with a flutter and waving of wings:\n Mary\u2019s birds are they, come with the dawn, all the green woods\n forsaking,\n Every heart in them breaking for love with the message it brings.\n\n Through the calm August day, with Our Lady\u2019s blue sky far above\n them,\n And beyond the grey mountains where slumbers the Irish green sea,\n There they speak to her, weep while they pray to her, beg her to\n love them,\n Till beyond the bright stars where their home and their treasure\n shall be.\n\n\n\n\nST. PATRICK\u2019S TREASURE\n\nBY P. J. CARROLL, C.S.C.\n\n\n Called son by many lands,\n Thou art a father unto one.\n Of all these mothers claiming thee,\n By honored titles naming thee,\n We ask: Where is thy priceless birthright gone?\n\n That blessed faith of thine,\n They mothering thee have sold.\n But she, thy daughter dutiful,\n Has kept thy treasure beautiful\n Through many sorrows in her heart of gold.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPOUSE OF CHRIST\n\nBY D. A. CASEY\n\n\n He came to her from out eternal years,\n A smile upon His lips, a tender smile\n That, somehow, spoke of partings and of tears.\n\n \u2019Twas eventide, and silence brooded low\n On earth and sky--the hour when haunting fears\n Of mystery pursue us as we go.\n\n Strange, mystic shadows filled the temple dim,\n But on the Golden Door the ruby glow\n Spoke orisons more sweet than vesper hymn.\n\n No human accents voiced His gentle call,\n No crashing thunderbolts did wait on Him,\n As when of old He deigned to summon Saul.\n\n But heart did speak to heart, an unseen chord\n In Love\u2019s own scale did sweetly rise and fall;\n Nor questioned she, but meekly answered \u201cLord!\u201d\n\n To-night some household counts a vacant chair,\n But far on high Christ portions the reward,\n A hundred-fold for each poor human care.\n\n\n\n\nCHRIST THE COMRADE\n\nBY PADRAIC COLUM\n\n\n Christ, by Thine own darkened hour\n Live within my heart and brain!\n Let my hands not slip the rein.\n\n Ah, how long ago it is\n Since a comrade rode with me!\n Now a moment let me see\n\n Thyself, lonely in the dark,\n Perfect, without wound or mark.\n\n\n\n\nAN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS\n\nBY PADRAIC COLUM\n\n\n Oh, to have a little house,\n To own the hearth and stool and all--\n The heaped-up sods upon the fire,\n The pile of turf against the wall!\n\n To have a clock with weights and chains,\n And pendulum swinging up and down!\n A dresser filled with shining delph,\n Speckled and white and blue and brown!\n\n I could be busy all the day\n Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,\n And fixing on their shelf again\n My white and blue speckled store.\n\n I could be quiet there at night\n Beside the fire and by myself,\n Sure of a bed, and loth to leave\n The ticking clock and shining delph.\n\n Och! but I\u2019m weary of mist and dark,\n And roads where there\u2019s never a house or bush,\n And tired I am of bog and road,\n And the crying wind and the lonesome hush.\n\n And I am praying to God on high,\n And I am praying Him night and day,\n For a little house--a house of my own--\n Out of the wind\u2019s and the rain\u2019s way.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HEAVIEST CROSS OF ALL\n\nBY KATHERINE ELEANOR CONWAY\n\n\n I\u2019ve borne full many a sorrow, I\u2019ve suffered many a loss--\n But now, with a strange, new anguish, I carry this last dread cross;\n For of this be sure, my dearest, whatever thy life befall,\n The cross that our own hands fashion is the heaviest cross of all.\n\n Heavy and hard I made it in the days of my fair strong youth,\n Veiling mine eyes from the blessed light, and closing my heart to\n truth.\n Pity me, Lord, whose mercy passeth my wildest thought,\n For I never dreamed of the bitter end of the work my hands had\n wrought!\n\n In the sweet morn\u2019s flush and fragrance I wandered o\u2019er dewy\n meadows,\n And I hid from the fervid noontide glow in the cool green woodland\n shadows;\n And I never recked, as I sang aloud in my wilful, selfish glee,\n Of the mighty woe that was drawing nigh to darken the world for me.\n\n But it came at last, my dearest--what need to tell thee how?\n Mayst never know of the wild, wild woe that my heart is bearing now!\n Over my summer\u2019s glory crept a damp and chilling shade,\n And I staggered under the heavy cross that my sinful hands had made.\n\n I go where the shadows deepen, and the end seems far off yet--\n God keep thee safe from the sharing of this woeful late regret!\n For of this be sure, my dearest, whatever thy life befall,\n The crosses we make for ourselves, alas! are the heaviest ones of\n all.\n\n\n\n\nSATURNINUS\n\nBY KATHERINE ELEANOR CONWAY\n\n\n He might have won the highest guerdon that heaven to earth can give,\n For whoso falleth for justice--dying, he yet shall live.\n\n He might have left us his memory to flame as a beacon light,\n When clouds of the false world\u2019s raising shut the stars of heaven\n from sight.\n\n He might have left us his name to ring in our triumph song\n When we stand, as we\u2019ll stand at to-morrow\u2019s dawn, by the grave of a\n world-old wrong.\n\n For he gave thee, O mother of valiant sons, thou fair, and sore\n oppressed,\n The love of his youth and his manhood\u2019s choice--first-fruits of his\n life, and best.\n\n Thine were throb of his heart and thought of his brain and toil of\n his strong right hand;\n For thee he braved scorn and reviling, and loss of gold and land,\n\n Threat and lure and false-hearted friend, and blight of a broken\n word--\n Terrors of night and delay of light--prison and rack and sword.\n\n For thee he bade death defiance--till the heavens opened wide,\n And his face grew bright with reflex of light from the face of the\n Crucified.\n\n And his crown was in sight and his palm in reach and his glory all\n but won,\n And then--he failed--God help us! with the worst of dying done.\n\n Only to die on the treacherous down by the hands of the tempters\n spread--\n Nay, nay--make way for the strangers! we have no right in the dead.\n\n But oh, for the beacon quenched, that we dreamed would kindle and\n flame!\n And oh, for the standard smirched and shamed, and the name we dare\n not name!\n\n Over the lonesome grave the shadows gather fast;\n Only the mother, like God, forgives, and comforts her heart with the\n past.\n\n\n\n\nDREAMING OF CITIES DEAD\n\nBY ELEANOR ROGERS COX\n\n\n Dreaming of cities dead,\n Of bright Queens vanished,\n Of kings whose names were but as seed wind-blown\n E\u2019en when white Patrick\u2019s voice shook Tara\u2019s throne,\n My way along the great world-street I tread,\n And keep the rites of Beauty lost, alone.\n\n Cairns level with the dust--\n Names dim with Time\u2019s dull rust--\n Afar they sleep on many a wind-swept hill,\n The beautiful, the strong of heart and will--\n On whose pale dreams no sunrise joy shall burst,\n No harper\u2019s song shall pierce with battle-thrill.\n\n Long from their purpled heights,\n Their reign of high delights,\n The Queens have wended down Death\u2019s mildewed stair,\n Leaving a scent of lilies on the air,\n To gladden Earth through all her days and nights,\n That once she cherished anything so fair.\n\n\n\n\nDEATH OF CUCHULAIN\n\nBY ELEANOR ROGERS COX\n\n\n Silent are the singers in the purple halls of Emain,\n Silent all the harp-strings untouched of any hand,\n Wan as twilight roses the radiant, royal women,\n Black unto the hearthstone the erstwhile flaming brand.\n\n Inward far from ocean the storm\u2019s white birds are flying,\n Darting, like dim wraith flames across the falling night.\n Winds like a _caoine_ through the quicken groves are sighing,\n On no lip is laughter, in no heart delight.\n\n For thitherwards witch-wafted athwart the sundering spaces,\n Lo, a word doom-freighted unto Conchubar has come,\n Whispering of one who in far-off, hostile places\n Strikes a last defending blow for king and home.\n\n And the King pacing lone in his place of High Decision,\n Gazing with rapt eyes on that far-flung battle-plain,\n Through the red rains rising beholds with startled vision\n Sight such as man\u2019s eye shall not see again.\n\n For one there is dying, of his foes at last outnumbered,\n One whose soul a sword was, shaped by God\u2019s own hand,\n One who guarded Ulaidh when all her knighthood slumbered,\n Prone beneath the curse laid of old upon the land.\n\n And dying so, alone, of all mortal aid forsaken,\n Dead his peerless war steeds, dead his charioteer,\n Yet the high splendor of his spirit all unshaken,\n Shines morning-bright through the Death-mists drawing near.\n\n And radiant round his brow yet the hero-flame is gleaming,\n And firm yet his footstep upon the reddened sod,\n As with sword uplifted towards the day\u2019s last beaming,\n Forth goes the spirit of Cuchulain unto God.\n\n Leaving to his land and the Celtic race forever\n That which shall not fail them throughout the fading years,\n Heritage of faith unchanged, of fear-undimmed endeavor,\n And a quenchless laughter ringing down the edge of hostile spears.\n\n\n\n\nGODS AND HEROES OF THE GAEL\n\nBY ELEANOR ROGERS COX\n\n\n Forth in shining phalanx marching from the shrouding mists of time,\n Bright the sunlight on their foreheads, bright upon their golden\n mail,\n Lords of beauty, lords of valor, lords of Earth\u2019s unconquered prime,\n Come the gods, the kings, the heroes of the Gael.\n\n Lugh, the splendor of whose shining lit the forest and the fen,\n He whose smile at first illuming all the shadow-haunted space\n Of the vast, primeval ranges, death-engirdled, shunned of men,\n Over virgin seas to Erin led our race.\n\n Mananaan, great lord of Ocean--he whose fair domain outspread\n Wheresoever tides foam-flowered to the moon\u2019s high mandate move,\n Aengus, clothed in youth immortal, on immortal ardors fed,\n Who of old in golden Brugh reigned lord of Love.\n\n And his name a knightly pennon on the ramparts of the world,\n And his fame a fire unfailing on Time\u2019s utmost purple height,\n Erin\u2019s peerless gage of courage to the vaunting ages hurled--\n Sunward evermore Cuchulain holds his flight.\n\n They are coming with the silver speech of Erin on their lips;\n The speech that once of all the mighty Celtic race made kin,\n They are coming with the laughter that has known no age-eclipse,\n They are coming with the songs beloved of Finn.\n\n Yea, with gifts regenerating to all men of women born--\n Flame of courage that shall fade not, flame of truth that shall\n not fail,\n To the music of a thousand harps they\u2019re marching through the Morn,\n Deathless gods and kings and heroes of the Gael!\n\n\n\n\nAT BENEDICTION\n\nBY ELEANOR ROGERS COX\n\n\n Joy, beauty, awe, supremest worship blending\n In one long breath of perfect ecstasy,\n Song from our hearts to God\u2019s own Heart ascending,\n The mortal merged in immortality.\n There, veiled beneath that sacramental whiteness,\n The wonder that all wonders doth transcend,\n The Word that kindled chaos into brightness,\n Our Lord, our God, our origin, our end.\n\n Light, light, a sea of light, unshored, supernal,\n Is all about our finite being spread,\n Deep, soundless waves of harmonies eternal\n Their balm celestial on our spirits shed.\n O Source of Life! O Fount of waters living!\n O Love, to whom all powers of mind and soul,\n We give, and find again within the giving,\n Of Thee renewed, made consecrate and whole.\n\n\n\n\nPRIMROSE HILL\n\nBY OLIVE CUSTANCE\n\n\n Wild heart in me that frets and grieves,\n Imprisoned here against your will ...\n Sad heart that dreams of rainbow wings ...\n See! I have found some golden things!\n The poplar trees on Primrose Hill\n With all their shining play of leaves ...\n And London like a silver bride,\n That will not put her veil aside!\n\n Proud London like a painted Queen,\n Whose crown is heavy on her head ...\n City of sorrow and desire,\n Under a sky of opal fire,\n Amber and amethyst and red ...\n And how divine the day has been!\n For every dawn God builds again\n This world of beauty and of pain....\n\n Wild heart that hungers for delight,\n Imprisoned here against your will;\n Sad heart, so eager to be gay!\n Loving earth\u2019s lovely things ... the play\n Of wind and leaves on Primrose Hill ...\n Or London dreaming of the night ...\n Adventurous heart, on beauty bent,\n That only Heaven could quite content!\n\n\n\n\nTWILIGHT\n\nBY OLIVE CUSTANCE\n\n\n Spirit of Twilight, through your folded wings\n I catch a glimpse of your averted face,\n And rapturous on a sudden, my soul sings\n \u201cIs not this common earth a holy place?\u201d\n\n Spirit of Twilight, you are like a song\n That sleeps, and waits a singer,--like a hymn\n That God finds lovely and keeps near Him long,\n Till it is choired by aureoled cherubim.\n\n Spirit of Twilight, in the golden gloom\n Of dreamland dim I sought you, and I found\n A woman sitting in a silent room\n Full of white flowers that moved and made no sound.\n\n These white flowers were the thoughts you bring to all,\n And the room\u2019s name is Mystery where you sit,\n Woman whom we call Twilight, when night\u2019s pall\n You lift across our Earth to cover it.\n\n\n\n\nTO A THRUSH\n\nBY T. A. DALY\n\n\n Sing clear, O! throstle,\n Thou golden-tongued apostle\n And little brown-frocked brother\n Of the loved Assisian!\n Sing courage to the mother,\n Sing strength into the man,\n For they, who in another May\n Trod Hope\u2019s scant wine from grapes of pain,\n Have tasted in thy song to-day\n The bitter-sweet red lees again.\n To them in whose sad May-time thou\n Sang\u2019st comfort from thy maple bough,\n To tinge the presaged dole with sweet,\n O! prophet then, be prophet now\n And paraclete!\n\n That fateful May! The pregnant vernal night\n Was throbbing with the first faint pangs of day,\n The while with ordered urge toward life and light,\n Earth-atoms countless groped their destined way;\n And one full-winged to fret\n Its tender oubliette,\n The warding mother-heart above it woke,\n Darkling she lay in doubt, then, sudden wise,\n Whispered her husband\u2019s drowsy ear and broke\n The estranging seal of slumber from his eyes:\n \u201cMy hour is nigh: arise!\u201d\n\n Already, when, with arms for comfort linked,\n The lovers at an eastward window stood,\n The rosy day, in cloudy swaddlings, blinked\n Through misty green new-fledged in Wister Wood.\n Breathless upon this birth\n The still-entranced earth\n Seemed brooding, motionless in windless space.\n Then rose thy priestly chant, O! holy bird!\n And heaven and earth were quickened with its grace;\n To tears two wedded souls were moved who heard,\n And one, unborn, was stirred!\n\n O! Comforter, enough that from thy green\n Hid tabernacle in the wood\u2019s recess\n To those care-haunted lovers thou, unseen,\n Should\u2019st send thy flame-tipped song to cheer and bless.\n Enough for them to hear\n And feel thy presence near;\n And yet when he, regardful of her ease,\n Had led her back by brightening hall and stair\n To her own chamber\u2019s quietude and peace,\n One maple-bowered window shook with rare,\n Sweet song--and thou wert there!\n\n Hunter of souls! the loving chase so nigh\n Those spirits twain had never come before.\n They saw the sacred flame within thine eye;\n To them the maple\u2019s depths quick glory wore,\n As though God\u2019s hand had lit\n His altar-fire in it,\n And made a fane, of virgin verdure pleached,\n Wherefrom thou might\u2019st in numbers musical\n Expound the age-sweet words thy Francis preached\n To thee and thine, of God\u2019s benignant thrall\n That broodeth over all.\n\n And they, athirst for comfort, sipped thy song,\n But drank not yet thy deeper homily.\n Not yet, but when parturient pangs grew strong,\n And from its cell the young soul struggled free--\n A new joy, trailing grief,\n A little crumpled leaf,\n Blighted before it burgeoned from the stem--\n Thou, as the fabled robin to the rood,\n Wert minister of charity to them;\n And from the shadows of sad parenthood\n They heard and understood.\n\n Makes God one soul a lure for snaring three?\n Ah! surely; so this nursling of the nest,\n This teen-touched joy, ere birth anoint of thee,\n Yet bears thy chrismal music in her breast.\n Five Mays have come and sped\n Above her sunny head,\n And still the happy song abides in her.\n For though on maimed limbs the body creeps,\n It doth a spirit house whose pinions stir\n Familiarly the far cerulean steeps\n Where God His mansion keeps.\n\n So come, O! throstle,\n Thou golden-tongued apostle\n And little brown-frocked brother\n Of the loved Assisian!\n Sing courage to the mother,\n Sing strength into the man,\n That she who in another May\n Came out of heaven, trailing care,\n May never know that sometimes gray\n Earth\u2019s roof is and its cupboards bare.\n To them in whose sad May-time thou\n Sang\u2019st comfort and thy maple bough,\n To tinge the presaged dole with sweet,\n O! prophet then, be prophet now\n And paraclete!\n\n\n\n\nTO A PLAIN SWEETHEART\n\nBY T. A. DALY\n\n\n I love thee, dear, for what thou art,\n Nor would I wish thee otherwise,\n For when thy lashes lift apart\n I read, deep-mirrored in thine eyes,\n The glory of a modest heart.\n\n Wert thou as fair as thou art good,\n It were not given to any man,\n With daring eyes of flesh and blood,\n To look thee in the face and scan\n The splendor of thy womanhood.\n\n\n\n\nTO A ROBIN\n\nBY T. A. DALY\n\n\n I heard thee, joyous votary,\n Pour forth thy heart in one\n Sweet simple strain of melody\n To greet the rising sun,\n When he across the morning\u2019s verge his first faint flare had flung\n And found the crimson of thy breast the whisp\u2019ring leaves among,\n In thine own tree\n Which sheltered thee,\n Thy mate, thy nest, thy young.\n\n I marked thee, sorrow\u2019s votary,\n When in the noon of day\n Young vandals stormed thy sacred tree\n And bore thine all away;\n The notes of grief that rent thy breast touched kindred chords in\n mine,\n For memories of other days, though slumbering still confine\n In mine own heart\n The bitter smart\n Of sorrow such as thine.\n\n I hear thee now, sweet votary,\n Beside thy ruined nest,\n Lift up thy flood of melody\n Against the crimsoned west,\n Forgetful of all else in this, thy one sweet joyous strain.\n I thank thee for this ecstasy of my remembered pain;\n Thou liftest up\n My sorrow\u2019s cup\n To sweeten it again.\n\n\n\n\nTHE POET\n\nBY T. A. DALY\n\n\n The truest poet is not one\n Whose golden fancies fuse and run\n To moulded phrases, crusted o\u2019er\n With flashing gems of metaphor;\n Whose art, responsive to his will,\n Makes voluble the thoughts that fill\n The cultured windings of his brain,\n Yet takes no soundings of the pain,\n The joy, the yearnings of the heart\n Untrammeled by the bonds of art,\n O! poet truer far than he\n Is such a one as you may be,\n When in the quiet night you keep\n Mute vigil on the marge of sleep.\n\n If then, with beating heart, you mark\n God\u2019s nearer presence in the dark,\n And musing on the wondrous ways\n Of Him who numbers all your days,\n Pay tribute to Him with your tears\n For joys, for sorrows, hopes and fears\n Which he has blessed and given to you,\n You are the poet, great and true.\n For there are songs within the heart\n Whose perfect melody no art\n Can teach the tongue of man to phrase.\n These are the songs His poets raise,\n When in the night they keep\n Mute vigil on the marge of sleep.\n\n\n\n\nOCTOBER\n\nBY T. A. DALY\n\n\n Come, forsake your city street!\n Come to God\u2019s own fields and meet October.\n Not the lean, unkempt and brown\n Counterfeit that haunts the town,\n Pointing, like a thing of gloom,\n At dead summer in her tomb;\n Reading in each fallen leaf\n Nothing but regret and grief.\n Come out, where, beneath the blue,\n You may frolic with the true October.\n\n Call his name and mark the sound,\n Opulent and full and round: \u201cOctober.\u201d\n Come, and gather from his hand\n Lavish largesse of the land;\n Read in his prophetic eyes,\n Clear as skies of paradise,\n Not of summer days that died,\n But of summer fructified!\n Hear, O soul, his message sweet.\n Come to God\u2019s own fields and meet October.\n\n\n\n\nSORROW\n\nBY AUBREY DE VERE\n\n\n Count each affliction, whether light or grave,\n God\u2019s messenger sent down to thee; do thou\n With courtesy receive him; rise and bow;\n And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave\n Permission first His heavenly feet to lave;\n Then lay before Him all thou hast; allow\n No cloud or passion to usurp thy brow,\n Or mar thy hospitality; no wave\n Of mortal tumult to obliterate\n Thy soul\u2019s marmoreal calmness. Grief should be\n Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate;\n Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;\n Strong to consume small troubles; to commend\n Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.\n\n\n\n\nHUMAN LIFE\n\nBY AUBREY DE VERE\n\n\n Sad is our youth, for it is ever going,\n Crumbling away beneath our very feet;\n Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing,\n In current unperceived because so fleet;\n Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing,\n But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat;\n Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing;\n And still, O still, their dying breath is sweet;\n And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us\n Of that which made our childhood sweeter still;\n And sweeter our life\u2019s decline, for it hath left us\n A nearer Good to cure an older Ill;\n And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them\n Not for their sake, but His who grants them or denies them.\n\n\n\n\nCARDINAL MANNING\n\nBY AUBREY DE VERE\n\n\n I learn\u2019d his greatness first at Lavington:\n The moon had early sought her bed of brine,\n But we discours\u2019d till now each starry sign\n Had sunk: our theme was one and one alone:\n \u201cTwo minds supreme,\u201d he said, \u201cour earth has known;\n One sang in science; one served God in song;\n Aquinas--Dante.\u201d Slowly in me grew strong\n A thought, \u201cThese two great minds in him are one;\n \u2018Lord, what shall this man do?\u2019\u201d Later at Rome\n Beside the dust of Peter and of Paul\n Eight hundred mitred sires of Christendom\n In Council sat. I mark\u2019d him \u2019mid them all;\n I thought of that long night in years gone by\n And cried, \u201cAt last my question meets reply.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSONG\n\nBY AUBREY DE VERE\n\n\n Seek not the tree of silkiest bark\n And balmiest bud,\n To carve her name while yet \u2019tis dark\n Upon the wood!\n The world is full of noble tasks\n And wreaths hard won:\n Each work demands strong hearts, strong hands,\n Till day is done.\n\n Sing not that violet-veined skin,\n That cheek\u2019s pale roses,\n The lily of that form wherein\n Her soul reposes!\n Forth to the fight, true man! true knight!\n The clash of arms\n Shall more prevail than whisper\u2019d tale,\n To win her charms.\n\n The Warrior for the True, the Right,\n Fights in Love\u2019s name;\n The love that lures thee from that flight\n Lures thee to shame:\n That love which lifts the heart, yet leaves\n The spirit free,--\n That love, or none, is fit for one\n Man-shap\u2019d like thee.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SONS OF PATRICK\n\nBY JAMES B. DOLLARD\n\n\n Into the mists of the Pagan island\n Bearing God\u2019s message great Patrick came;\n The Druid altars on plain and highland\n Fell at the sound of his mighty name!\n\n Swift was the conquest--with hearts upswelling\n The Faith they took, and to God they swore:\n That precious spark from their bosoms\u2019 dwelling,\n Man\u2019s guile or torture should snatch no more.\n\n And ever since, while the wide world wonders\n This steadfast people their strength reveal,\n As Time Earth\u2019s kingdoms and empires sunders,\n They stand by Patrick in ranks of steel!\n\n The nations mock them, like Christ\u2019s tormentors;\n \u201cDescend,\u201d they cry, \u201cfrom your cross of shame;\n Abjure the Faith--see the road that enters\n The groves of pleasure and wealth and fame!\u201d\n\n Like those that passed where the Cross rose dimly\n Their wise beards wagging--\u201cWhat fools!\u201d they say;\n But the Sons of Patrick make answer grimly:\n \u201cOur God we\u2019ve chosen--the price we\u2019ll pay.\n\n \u201cEver about us the foes\u2019 commotion,\n The anguish sweat on our brows ne\u2019er dry;\n Our martyr\u2019s bones strew the land and ocean,\n Lone deserts echo our exiles\u2019 cry.\n\n \u201cUnto our hearts is earth\u2019s pride forbidden,\n Unto our hands is its gold denied;\n We do not question the Purpose hidden--\n Let Him who fashioned our souls decide!\n\n \u201cYet though once more to us choice were given,\n And the long aeons were backward rolled,\n We\u2019d walk again before Earth and Heaven\n The blood-stained pathway we walked of old!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSONG OF THE LITTLE VILLAGES\n\nBY JAMES B. DOLLARD\n\n\n The pleasant little villages that grace the Irish glynns\n Down among the wheatfields--up amid the whins,\n The little white-walled villages crowding close together,\n Clinging to the Old Sod in spite of wind and weather:\n Ballytarsney, Ballymore, Ballyboden, Boyle,\n Ballingarry, Ballymagorry by the Banks of Foyle,\n Ballylaneen, Ballyporeen, Bansha, Ballysadare,\n Ballybrack, Ballinalack, Barna, Ballyclare.\n\n The cozy little villages that shelter from the mist,\n Where the great West Walls by ocean spray are kissed;\n The happy little villages that cuddle in the sun\n When blackberries ripen and the harvest work is done.\n Corrymeela, Croaghnakeela, Clogher, Cahirciveen,\n Cappaharoe, Carrigaloe, Cashel and Coosheen,\n Castlefinn, Carrigtohill, Crumlin, Clara, Clane,\n Carrigaholt, Carrigaline, Cloghjordan and Coolrain.\n\n The dreamy little villages, where by the fires at night,\n Old Sanachies with ghostly tale the boldest hearts affright;\n The crooning of the wind-blast is the wailing Banshee\u2019s cry,\n And when the silver hazels stir they say the fairies sigh,\n Kilfenora, Kilfinnane, Kinnity, Killylea,\n Kilmoganny, Kiltamagh, Kilronan and Kilrea,\n Killashandra, Kilmacow, Killiney, Killashee,\n Killenaule, Killmyshall, Killorglin and Killeagh.\n\n Leave the little villages, o\u2019er the black sea go,\n Learn the stranger\u2019s welcome, learn the exile\u2019s woe,\n Leave the little villages, but think not to forget,\n Afar they\u2019ll rise before your eyes to rack your bosoms yet.\n Moneymore, Moneygall, Monivea and Moyne,\n Mullinahone, Mullinavatt, Mullagh and Mooncoin,\n Shanagolden, Shanballymore, Stranorlar and Slane,\n Toberaheena, Toomyvara, Tempo and Strabane.\n\n On the Southern Llanos,--north where strange light gleams,\n Many a yearning exile sees them in his dreams;\n Dying voices murmur (passed all pain and care),\n \u201cLo, the little villages, God has heard our prayer.\u201d\n Lisdoonvarna, Lissadil, Lisdargan, Lisnaskea,\n Portglenone, Portarlington, Portumna, Portmagee,\n Clondalkin and Clongowan, Cloondara and Clonae,\n God bless the little villages and guard them night and day!\n\n\n\n\nTHE SOUL OF KARNAGHAN BUIDHE\n\nBY JAMES B. DOLLARD\n\n\n It was the soul of Karnaghan Buidhe\n Left his lips with a groan.\n Like arrowy lightning bolt released\n It sprang to the Judgment throne.\n\n Spoke the Judge: \u201cFor as many years\n As the numbered drops of the sea\n I grant you heaven--but thenceforth hell,\n Your bitter lot shall be.\u201d\n\n Prayed the soul of Karnaghan Buidhe\n (_The trembling soul of Karnaghan Buidhe_)\n \u201cDear Lord, who died on Calvary,\n Too brief that span of heaven for me.\u201d\n\n Then spoke the Lord: \u201cFor as many years\n As numbered sands on the shore,\n The joys of heaven I give--but thence\n You\u2019ll see my face no more.\u201d\n\n Pleaded the soul of Karnaghan Buidhe\n (_The shuddering soul of Karnaghan Buidhe_)\n \u201cBlessed Lord who died on the shameful tree,\n Too brief that span of heaven for me.\u201d\n\n Once more the Judge: \u201cThe blades of grass\n That earth-winds ever blew\n A year of heaven I\u2019ll count for each\n Till hell shall yawn for you.\u201d\n\n Prayed the soul of Karnaghan Buidhe\n (_The anguished soul of Karnaghan Buidhe_)\n \u201cKind Lord, who died in agony,\n Too brief that spell of heaven for me.\n\n But this I ask, O Christ--a year\n Of hell for each of these:\n The blades of grass, the grains of sand,\n The drops that make the seas!\n And after this, sweet Lord, with Thee\n In heaven for all eternity!\u201d\n\n Spoke the Judge, and His smile of love\n Gladdened the waiting choir above:\n \u201cSin and sorrow forever past,\n Heaven I grant you, first and last!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE ANGELIC CHORUS\n\nBY D. J. DONAHOE\n\n\n At midnight from the zenith burst a light\n More radiant and more beautiful than dawn,\n And the meek shepherds on the shadowy lawn\n Gazed upward in mute wonder on the sight;\n The stars sank back in pallor, and the skies\n Trembled responsive to rich harmonies.\n\n And lo! an angel spake, \u201cBe not afraid!\n I bear glad tidings; for this happy morn\n A Saviour and a King to man is born;\n He sleepeth in a manger lowly laid.\u201d\n Then rolled along the heavens the glad refrain;\n \u201cGlory to God on high and peace to men!\u201d\n\n Soon from the skies the streaming light was gone,\n And Night and Silence rested on the hill;\n But the mute shepherds, looking upward still,\n Could hear the heavenly echoes rolling on.\n So evermore the listening world can hear\n The Angelic Chorus ringing sweet and clear.\n\n\n\n\nLADYE CHAPEL AT EDEN HALL\n\nBY ELEANOR C. DONNELLY\n\n\n Close to the Sacred Heart, it nestles fair--\n A marble poem; an aesthetic dream\n Of sculptured beauty, fit to be the theme\n Of angel fancies; a Madonna-prayer\n Uttered in stone. Round columns light as air,\n And fretted cornice, Sharon\u2019s Rose is wreathed--\n The passion-flower, the thorn-girt lily rare,\n The palm, the wheat, the grapes in vine-leaves sheathed.\n Tenderly bright, from mullioned windows glow\n Our Lady\u2019s chaplet-mysteries. Behold,\n Her maiden statue in that shrine of snow,\n Looks upward to the skies of blue and gold;\n Content that in the crypt, beneath her shining feet,\n The holy ones repose in dreamless slumber sweet.\n\n\n\n\nMARY IMMACULATE\n\nBY ELEANOR C. DONNELLY\n\n\n \u201cPure as the snow,\u201d we say. Ah! never flake\n Fell through the air\n One-tenth as fair\n As Mary\u2019s soul was made for Christ\u2019s dear sake.\n Virgin Immaculate,\n The whitest whiteness of the Alpine snows,\n Beside thy stainless spirit, dusky grows.\n\n \u201cPure as the stars.\u201d Ah! never lovely night\n Wore in its diadem\n So pure a gem\n As that which fills the ages with its light.\n Virgin Immaculate,\n The peerless splendors of thy soul by far\n Outshine the glow of heaven\u2019s serenest star.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PILGRIM\n\nBY ELEANOR DOWNING\n\n\n Behind me lies the mistress of the East,\n Golden in evening, fairy dome on dome\n Poised and irised like the far-flung foam\n Lashed on the ribs of some forsaken coast.\n Wicked and lovely temptress, fruitless boast\n Of all that man may build and little be,\n Mart of the world\u2019s base passions, where thy feast\n Of shame was spread, thy sin encompassed me,\n Where all desires and all dreams were rife\n With lust of flesh and eye and pride of life,\n Lo! I have reft thy carnal mastery--\n I have gone forth and shut the gates of thee.\n\n Before me lies the desert and the night,\n White star and gold above a pathless waste,\n Blue shade and gray to where the world effaced\n Flings loose its shadows on the lap of God.\n Briars and dust upon my brow, unshod,\n In pilgrim weeds athwart a vineless land,\n My feet shall pass and mark the path aright,\n For lo! Thy staff and rod are in my hand;\n And with the light Thy city shall unfurl\n Its golden oriflames and tents of pearl--\n Dead Babylon, thy gilden clasp I flee;\n Jerusalem, lift up thy gates to me!\n\n\n\n\nON THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION\n\nBY ELEANOR DOWNING\n\n\n \u201cMary, uplifted to our sight\n In cloudy vesture stainless-white,\n Why are thine eyes like stars alight,\n Twin flames of charity?\u201d\n \u201cMine eyes are on His glorious face\n That shone not on earth\u2019s darkened place,\n But clothed and crowned me with grace--\n The God who fathered me!\u201d\n\n \u201cMary, against the sinless glow\n Of angel pinions white as snow,\n Why are thy fair lips parted so\n In ecstasy of love?\u201d\n \u201cMy lips are parted to His breath\n Who breathed on me in Nazareth\n And gave me life to live in death--\n My Spouse, the spotless Dove!\u201d\n\n \u201cMary, whose eager feet would spurn\n The very clouds, whose pale hands yearn\n Toward rifted Heaven that fires burn\n Where once was fixed the sword?\u201d\n \u201cThe fires I felt when His child head\n Lay on this mother\u2019s heart that bled,\n And when it lay there stark and dead--\n My little Child, my Lord!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nMARY\n\nBY ELEANOR DOWNING\n\n\n A garden like a chalice-cup,\n With bloom of almond white and pink,\n And starred hibiscus to the brink,\n From which sweet waters bubble up.\n A garden walled with ilex-trees\n And topped with blue, white clouds between\n Save where the glossed leaves\u2019 twinkling green\n Is stirred by some soft-footed breeze\n A place apart, a watered glade,\n Where sin and sorrow have not been,\n And earth\u2019s complaint grows hushed within\n Its greening aisles of sacred shade.\n\n The circling arms, the flower face,\n Such were they to the Child soft-pressed,\n Who drew all sweetness from the breast\n Of her whom angels crowned with grace.\n\n A night of storm and wailing stress,\n A coast that cradles to the shock\n Of waves that lap the pitted rock,\n And winds that shriek their wrathfulness;\n A night of all wild things unpent,\n Strange voices and strange shapes that beat\n To chill the heart and snare the feet.\n And through the tempest, beacon-bent\n To shelter from the driving damp\n Bespeaking warmth and sweet repose\n Within its sanctuary close,\n The welcome of a red shrine-lamp.\n\n So unto Him Who, weary, pressed\n Through the fierce storm of wrath and hate,\n Shone Mary\u2019s love, a chapel-gate\n Where He might enter Him and rest.\n\n A desert filled with shining sand,\n And still as death the skies that bend\n Where to horizon without end\n The rounding distances expand.\n A desert white with burning heat\n And parched silence without stir,\n And at its heart a voyager,\n Where Death and daggered noonday meet;\n And Thirst that grips him by the throat;\n When from the distance wreathing blue,\n No mirage, but a dream come true,\n Crowned palm-tree and pale waters float.\n\n To Christ upon the rood, when dim\n Fell on His brow the Shade accurst,\n So Mary slaked His burning thirst\n With her white soul held up to Him.\n\n\n\n\nEXTREME UNCTION\n\nBY ERNEST DOWSON\n\n\n Upon the eyes, the lips, the feet,\n On all the passages of sense,\n The atoning oil is spread with sweet\n Renewal of lost innocence.\n\n The feet, that lately ran so fast\n To meet desire, are soothly sealed;\n The eyes, that were so often cast\n On vanity, are touched and healed.\n\n From troublous sights and sounds set free\n In such a twilight hour of breath,\n Shall one retrace his life, or see,\n Through shadows, the true face of death?\n\n Vials of mercy! Sacring oils!\n I know not where nor when I come,\n Nor through what wanderings and toils,\n To crave of you Viaticum.\n\n Yet, when the walls of flesh grow weak,\n In such an hour, it well may be,\n Through mist and darkness, light will break,\n And each anointed sense will see.\n\n\n\n\nBENEDICTIO DOMINI\n\nBY ERNEST DOWSON\n\n\n Without, the sullen noises of the street!\n The voice of London, inarticulate,\n Hoarse and blaspheming, surges in to meet\n The silent blessing of the Immaculate.\n\n Dark is the church, and dim the worshippers,\n Hushed with bowed heads as though by some old spell,\n While through the incense-laden air there stirs\n The admonition of a silver bell.\n\n Dark is the church, save where the altar stands,\n Dressed like a bride, illustrious with light,\n Where one old priest exalts with tremulous hands\n The one true solace of man\u2019s fallen plight.\n\n Strange silence here: without, the sounding street\n Heralds the world\u2019s swift passage to the fire;\n O Benediction, perfect and complete!\n When shall men cease to suffer and desire?\n\n\n\n\nCARTHUSIANS\n\nBY ERNEST DOWSON\n\n\n Through what long heaviness, assayed in what strange fire,\n Have these white monks been brought into the way of peace,\n Despising the world\u2019s wisdom and the world\u2019s desire,\n Which from the body of this death bring no release?\n\n Within their austere walls no voices penetrate;\n A sacred silence only, as of death, obtains;\n Nothing finds entry here of loud or passionate;\n This quiet is the exceeding profit of their pain.\n\n From many lands they came, in divers fiery ways;\n Each knew at last the vanity of earthly joys;\n And one was crowned with thorns, and one was crowned with bays,\n And each was tired at last of the world\u2019s foolish noise.\n\n It was not theirs with Dominic to preach God\u2019s holy wrath,\n They were too stern to bear sweet Francis\u2019 gentle sway;\n Theirs was a higher calling and a steeper path,\n To dwell alone with Christ, to meditate and pray.\n\n A cloistered company, they are companionless,\n None knoweth here the secret of his brother\u2019s heart:\n They are but come together for more loneliness,\n Whose bond is solitude and silence all their part.\n\n O beatific life! Who is there shall gainsay,\n Your great refusal\u2019s victory, your little loss,\n Deserting vanity for the more perfect way,\n The sweetest service of the most dolorous Cross.\n\n Ye shall prevail at last! Surely ye shall prevail!\n Your silence and your austerity shall win at last:\n Desire and Mirth, the world\u2019s ephemeral lights shall fail,\n The sweet star of your queen is never overcast.\n\n We fling up flowers and laugh, we laugh across the wine;\n With wine we dull our souls and careful strains of art;\n Our cups are polished skulls round which the roses twine:\n None dares to look at Death who leers and lurks apart.\n\n Move on, white company, whom that has not sufficed!\n Our viols cease, our wine is death, our roses fail:\n Pray for our heedlessness, O dwellers with the Christ!\n Though the world fall apart, surely ye shall prevail.\n\n\n\n\nMARIS STELLA\n\nBY AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE\n\n\n Mary, beautiful and bright\n \u201cVelut Maris Stella,\u201d\n Brighter than the morning light,\n \u201cParens et Puella,\u201d\n I cry to thee, look down on me;\n Ladye, pray thy Son for me,\n \u201cTam pia,\u201d\n That thy child may come to thee,\n \u201cMaria.\u201d\n\n Sad the earth was and forlorn,\n \u201cEva peccatrice,\u201d\n Until Christ our Lord was born\n \u201cDe te Genitrice\u201d;\n Gabriel\u2019s \u201cAve\u201d chased away\n Darksome night, and brought the day\n \u201cSalutis\u201d;\n Thou the Fount whence waters play\n \u201cVirtutis.\u201d\n\n Ladye, Flower of living thing,\n \u201cRosa sine spina\u201d;\n Mother of Jesus, heaven\u2019s King,\n \u201cGratia divinia\u201d;\n \u2019Tis thou in all dost bear the prize,\n Ladye, Queen of Paradise,\n \u201cElecta,\u201d\n\n Maiden meek and Mother wise,\n \u201cEffecta.\u201d\n In care thou counsellest the best,\n \u201cFelix fecundata\u201d;\n To the weary thou are rest,\n \u201cMater honorata\u201d;\n Plead in thy love to Him who gave\n His precious Blood the world to save\n \u201cIn cruce,\u201d\n That we our home with Him may have\n \u201cIn luce.\u201d\n\n Well knows he, that he is thy Son,\n \u201cVentre quem portasti\u201d;\n All thou dost ask Him, then, is won,\n \u201cPartum quem lactasti\u201d;\n So pitiful He is and kind,\n By Him the road to bliss we find\n \u201cSuperni\u201d;\n He doth the gates of darkness bind\n \u201cInferni.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nAN AUTUMN ROSE-TREE\n\nBY MICHAEL EARLS, S.J.\n\n\n It seemed too late for roses\n When I walked abroad to-day,\n October stood in silence,\n By the hedges all the way:\n Yet did I hear a singing,\n And I saw a red rose-tree:--\n In fields so gray with autumn\n How could song or roses be?\n\n Oh, it was never maple\n Nor the dogwood\u2019s coat afire,\n No sage with scarlet banners,\n Nor the poppy\u2019s vested choir:\n The breeze that may be music\n When the summer lawns are fair\n Will have no heart for singing\n In the autumn\u2019s mournful air.\n\n As I went up the roadway,\n Under cold and lonely skies,\n A song I heard, a rose-tree\n Waved to me in glad surprise:--\n A red cloak and a ribbon,\n (Round the braided hair of jet)\n And redder cheeks than roses\n Of a little Margaret.\n\n Now God is good in autumn,\n He can name the birds that sing,\n He loves the hearts of children\n More than flowery fields of spring:\n And when the years of winter\n Gray with Margaret will be,\n God will find her love still blossom\n Like a red rose-tree.\n\n\n\n\nTO A CARMELITE POSTULANT\n\n(San Francisco, May, 1910)\n\nBY MICHAEL EARLS, S.J.\n\n\n Oh, the banks of May are fair,\n Charm of sound and sight,\n Breath of heaven fills the air,\n To the world\u2019s delight.\n\n Far more wondrous is a bower,\n Fairer than the May,\n Love-of-God it wears in flower,\n Blooming night and day.\n\n Love-of-God within the heart\n Multicolored grows,\n Now a lily\u2019s counterpart,\n Now the blood-red rose.\n\n Come the sun or chilling rain,\n Come the drought or dew,\n Crocus health or violet pain,\n Love-of-God is true.\n\n Hard may be the mountain-side,\n Soft the valley sod,\n Yet will fragrance sure abide\n With the Love-of-God.\n\n Where the grace of Heaven leads,\n There it makes a home,\n Hills a hundred and the meads\n Will its pathway roam.\n\n Carmel by the western sea\n Holds your blessed bower:\n Love-of-God eternally\n Keep your heart a-flower.\n\n\n\n\nA PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT\n\nBY HELEN PARRY EDEN\n\n\n He who mangold-patch doth hoe,\n Sweating beneath a sturdy sun,\n Clearing each weed-disguised row\n Till day-light and the task be done,\n\n Standeth to view his labour\u2019s scene--\n Where now, within the hedge-row\u2019s girth,\n The little plants untrammeled green\n Stripes the brown fabric of the earth.\n\n So when the absolution\u2019s said\n Behind the grille, and I may go,\n And all the flowers of sin are dead,\n And all the stems of sin laid low,\n\n And I am come to Mary\u2019s shrine\n To lay my hopes within her hand--\n Ah, in how fair and green a line\n The seedling resolutions stand.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONFESSIONAL\n\nBY HELEN PARRY EDEN\n\n\n My Sorrow diligent would sweep\n That dingy room infest\n With dust (thereby I mean my soul)\n Because she hath a Guest\n Who doth require that self-same room\n Be garnished for His rest.\n\n And Sorrow (who had washed His feet\n Where He before had been)\n Took the long broom of Memory\n And swept the corners clean,\n Till in the midst of the fair floor\n The sum of dust was seen.\n\n It lay there, settled by her tears,\n That fell the while she swept--\n Light fluffs of grey and earthly dregs;\n And over these she wept,\n For all were come since last her Guest\n Within the room had slept.\n\n And, for nor broom nor tears had power\n To lift the clods of ill,\n She called one servant of her Guest\n Who came with right good will,\n For, by his sweet Lord\u2019s bidding, he\n Waiteth on Sorrow still;\n\n So, seeing she had done her part\n As far as in her lay\n And had intent to keep the place\n More cleanly from that day,\n Did with his Master\u2019s dust-pan come\n And take the dust away.\n\n She thanked him, and Him who sent\n Such succor, and she spread\n Fair sheets of Thankfulness and Love\n Upon her Master\u2019s bed,\n Then on the new-scoured threshold stood\n And listened for His tread.\n\n\n\n\nAN ELEGY, FOR FATHER ANSELM, OF THE ORDER OF REFORMED CISTERCIANS,\nGUEST-MASTER AND PARISH PRIEST\n\n\u201cEt pastores erant in regione eadem vigilantes\u201d\n\nBY HELEN PARRY EDEN\n\n\n You to whose soul a death propitious brings\n Its Heaven, who attain a windless bourne\n Of sanctity beyond all sufferings,\n It is not ours to mourn;\n\n For you, to whom the earth could nothing give,\n Who knew no hint of our inspired pride,\n You could not very well be said to live\n Until the day you died.\n\n \u2019Tis upon us--father and kindly friend,\n Holy and cheerful host--the unbidden guest\n You welcomed and the souls you would amend,\n The weight of sorrow rests.\n\n From Sarum in the mesh of her five streams,\n Her idle belfries and her glittering vanes,\n We are clomb to where the cloud-race dusks and gleams\n On turf of upland plains.\n\n Southward the road through juniper and briar\n Clambers the down, untrodden and unworn\n Save where some flock pitted the chalky mire\n With little feet at dawn.\n\n Twice in a week the hooded carrier\u2019s lamp,\n Flashing on wayside flints and grasses, spills\n Its misty radiance where the dews lie damp\n Among the untended hills;\n\n Here lies the hamlet ringed with grassy mound\n And brambled barrow where, superbly dead,\n The dust of pagans turned to holy ground\n Beneath your humble tread.\n\n Here we descend at drooping dusk the side\n Of the stony down beneath the planted ring\n Of beeches where you showed with pastoral pride\n The folded lambs in spring;\n\n Here pull at eve the self-same bell that hastened\n Your rough-shod feet behind the hollow door--\n Yet never see you stand, the chain unfastened,\n Your lantern on the floor.\n\n Others will spread the board now you are gone\n Here where you smiled and gave your guests to eat,\n Learning your menial kingliness from One\n Who washed His servant\u2019s feet;\n\n Along the slumbering corridors betimes\n Others will knock and other footsteps pass\n Down the wet lane e\u2019er the thin shivering chimes\n Toll for the early mass.\n\n Yet in the chapel\u2019s self no sorrows sing\n In the strange priest\u2019s voice, nor any dolour grips\n The heart because it is not you who bring\n Your Master to its lips.\n\n Here let us leave the things you would not have--\n Vain grief and sorrow useless to be shown--\n \u201cGod\u2019s gift and the Community\u2019s I gave\n And nothing of my own,\u201d\n\n You would have said, self-deemed of no more worth\n That then green hands that guard a poppy\u2019s grace--\n Blows the eternal flower and back to earth\n Tumbles the withered case.\n\n Nay, but Our Lord hath made renouncement vain,\n Himself into those humble hands let fall,\n Guerdon of willing poverty and pain,\n The greatest gift of all;\n\n To you and all who in that life austere\n Mid fields remote your harsher labours ply\n Singing His praise, girt round from year to year\n With sheep-bells and the sky--\n\n This, that to you is larger audience given\n Where prayer and praise with sighing pinions shod\n Piercing the starry ante-rooms of Heaven\n Sway the designs of God:\n\n And now yourself, standing where late hath stood\n The echo of your voice, are prayer and praise--\n O sweet reward and unsurpassing good\n For that small gift of days.\n\n Yourself, who now have heard such summoning\n And seen such burning clarities alight\n As broke the vigilant shepherds\u2019 drowsy ring\n On the predestined night,\n\n Who made such haste as theirs who rose and trod\n To Bethlehem the dew-encumbered grass,\n Trustful to see the showing forth of God\n And the Word come to pass;\n\n With how much more than home-spun Israelites\u2019\n Poor hungry glimpse of Godhead are you blest\n Whom Mary shows for more than mortal nights\n The Jewel on her breast.\n\n Yet, as one kneeling churl might chance to think\n Of the wan herd behind their wattled bars,\n Moving unshepherded with bells that clink\n And stir beneath the stars,\n\n And, for the thought\u2019s space wishing he were back,\n Pray, to that Sum of Sweetness for his sheep--\n \u201cTake them, O Thou that dost supply our lack,\n Into Thy hands to keep.\u201d\n\n So you who in His presence move and live\n Recall amid your glad celestial cares,\n Your chosen office, to your children give\n The charity of prayers.\n\n\n\n\nSORROW\n\nBY HELEN PARRY EDEN\n\n\n Of Sorrow, \u2019tis as Saints have said--\n That his ill-savoured lamp shall shed\n A light to Heaven, when, blown about\n By the world\u2019s vain and windy rout,\n The candles of delight burn out.\n\n Then usher Sorrow to thy board,\n Give him such fare as may afford\n Thy single habitation--best\n To meet him half-way in his quest,\n The importunate and sad-eyed guest.\n\n Yet somewhat should he give who took\n My hospitality, for look,\n His is no random vagrancy;\n Beneath his rags what hints there be\n Of a celestial livery.\n\n Sweet Sorrow, play a grateful part,\n Break me the marble of my heart\n And of its fragments pave a street\n Where, to my bliss, myself may meet\n One hastening with pierc\u00e8d feet.\n\n\n\n\nOUR LADY\u2019S DEATH\n\nBY FATHER EDMUND, C.P.\n\n\n And didst thou die, dear Mother of our Life?\n Sin had no part in thee; then how should death?\n Methinks, if aught the great tradition saith\n Could wake in loving hearts a moment\u2019s strife\n (I said--my own with her new image rife),\n\n \u2019Twere this. And yet \u2019tis certain, next to faith\n Thou didst lie down to render up thy breath:\n Though after the seventh sword, no meaner knife\n\n Could pierce that bosom. No, nor did: no sting\n Of pain was there; but only joy. The love,\n So long thy life ecstatic, and restrained\n From setting free thy soul, now gave it wing;\n Thy body, soon to reign with it above,\n Radiant and fragrant, as in trance, remained.\n\n\n\n\nVIGIL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION\n\nBY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN\n\n\n A sword of silver cuts the fields asunder--\n A silver sword to-night, a lake in June--\n And plains of snow reflect, the maples under,\n The silver arrows of a wintry noon.\n\n The trees are white with moonlight and with ice-pearls;\n The trees are white, like ghosts we see in dreams;\n The air is still: there are no moaning wind-whirls;\n And one sees silence in the quivering beams.\n\n December night, December night, how warming\n Is all thy coldness to the Christian soul:\n Thy very peace at each true heart is storming\n In potent waves of love that surging roll.\n\n December night, December night, how glowing\n Thy frozen rains upon our warm hearts lie:\n Our God upon this vigil is bestowing\n A thousand graces from the silver sky.\n\n O moon, O symbol of our Lady\u2019s whiteness;\n O snow, O symbol of our Lady\u2019s heart;\n O night, chaste night, bejewelled with argent brightness,\n How sweet, how bright, how loving, kind thou art.\n\n O miracle: to-morrow and to-morrow,\n In tender reverence shall no praise abate;\n For from all seasons shall we new jewels borrow\n To deck the Mother born Immaculate.\n\n\n\n\nTHE OLD VIOLIN\n\nBY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN\n\n\n Though tuneless, stringless, it lies there in dust,\n Like some great thought on a forgotten page;\n The soul of music cannot fade or rust,--\n The voice within it stronger grows with age;\n Its strings and bow are only triffling things--\n A master-touch!--its sweet soul wakes and sings.\n\n\n\n\nMAURICE DE GUERIN\n\nBY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN\n\n\n The old wine filled him, and he saw, with eyes\n Anoint of Nature, fauns and dryads fair\n Unseen by others; to him maidenhair\n And waxen lilacs, and those birds that rise\n A-sudden from tall reeds at slight surprise,\n Brought charmed thoughts; and in earth everywhere\n He, like sad Jaques, found a music rare\n As that of Syrinx to old Grecians wise.\n A pagan heart, a Christian soul had he,\n He followed Christ, yet for dead Pan he sighed,\n Till earth and heaven met within his breast;\n As if Theocritus in Sicily\n Had come upon the Figure crucified\n And lost his gods in deep, Christ-given rest.\n\n\n\n\nHE MADE US FREE\n\nBY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN\n\n\n As flame streams upward, so my longing thought\n Flies up with Thee,\n Thou God and Saviour who hast truly wrought\n Life out of death, and to us, loving, brought\n A fresh, new world; and in Thy sweet chains caught,\n And made us free!\n\n As hyacinths make way from out the dark,\n My soul awakes,\n At thought of Thee, like sap beneath the bark;\n As little violets in field and park\n Rise to the trilling thrush and meadow-lark,\n New hope it takes.\n\n As thou goest upward through the nameless space\n We call the sky,\n Like jonquil perfume softly falls Thy grace;\n It seems to touch and brighten every place;\n Fresh flowers crown our wan and weary race,\n O Thou on high.\n\n Hadst Thou not risen, there would be no more joy\n Upon earth\u2019s sod;\n Life would still be with us a wound or toy,\n A cloud without the sun,--O Babe, O Boy,\n A Man of Mother pure, with no alloy,\n O risen God!\n\n Thou, God and King, didst \u201cmingle in the game,\u201d\n (Cease, all fears; cease!)\n For love of us,--not to give Virgil\u2019s fame\n Or Croesus\u2019 wealth, not to make well the lame,\n Or save the sinner from deserved shame,\n But for sweet Peace!\n\n For peace, for joy,--not that the slave might lie\n In luxury,\n Not that all woe from us should always fly,\n Or golden crops with Syrian roses vie\n In every field; but in Thy peace to die\n And rise,--be free!\n\n\n\n\nTHE GRANDEURS OF MARY\n\nBY FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D.D.\n\n\n What is this grandeur I see up in heaven,\n A splendour that looks like a splendour divine?\n What creature so near the Creator is throned?\n O Mary, those marvellous glories are thine.\n\n But who would have thought that a creature could live\n With the fires of the Godhead so awfully nigh?\n Oh, who could have dreamed, mighty Mother of God,\n That ever God\u2019s power could have raised thee so high?\n\n What name can we give to a queenship so grand?\n What thought can we think of a glory like this?\n Saints and angels lie far in the distance, remote\n From the golden excess of thine unmated bliss.\n\n Thy person, thy soul, thy most beautiful form,\n Thine office, thy name, thy most singular grace--\n God hath made for them, Mother, a world by itself,\n A shrine all alone, a most worshipful place.\n\n Mid the blaze of those fires, eternal, unmade,\n Thy Maker unspeakably makes thee his own;\n The arms of the Three Uncreated, outstretched,\n Round the Word\u2019s mortal Mother in rapture are thrown.\n\n Thy sinless conception, thy jubilant birth,\n Thy crib and thy cross, thine assumption and crown,\n They have raised thee on high to the right hand of Him\n Whom the spells of thy love to thy bosom drew down.\n\n I am blind with thy glory; in all God\u2019s wide world\n I find nothing like thee for glory and power:\n I can hardly believe that thou grewest on earth,\n In the green fields of Juda, a scarce-noticed flower.\n\n And is it not really eternal, divine?\n Is it human, created, a glorified heart,\n So like God, and not God? Ah, Maker of men,\n We bless thee for being the God that thou art.\n\n O Mary, what ravishing pageants I see,\n What wonders and works centre round thee in heaven,\n What creations of grace fall like light from thy hands,\n What creator-like powers to thy prudence are given.\n\n What vast jurisdiction, what numberless realms,\n What profusion of dread and unlimited power,\n What holy supremacies, awful domains,\n The Word\u2019s mighty Mother enjoys for her dower.\n\n What grand ministrations of pity and strength,\n What endless processions of beautiful light,\n What incredible marvels of motherly love,\n What queenly resplendence of empire and right.\n\n What sounds as of seas flowing all round thy throne,\n What flashings of fire from thy burning abode,\n What thunders of glory, what tempests of power,\n What calms, like the calms in the Bosom of God.\n\n Inexhaustible wonder; the treasures of God\n Seem to multiply under thy marvellous hand;\n And the power of thy Son seems to gain and to grow,\n When He deigns to obey thy maternal command.\n\n Ten thousand magnificent greatnesses blend\n Their vast oceans of light, at the foot of thy throne;\n Ten thousand unspeakable majesties grace\n The royalty vested in Mary alone.\n\n But look, what a wonder there is up in God:\n One love, like a special perfection, we see;\n And the chief of thy grandeurs, great Mother, is there--\n In the love the Eternal Himself has for thee.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RIGHT MUST WIN\n\nBY FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D.D.\n\n\n Oh, it is hard to work for God,\n To rise and take His part\n Upon this battlefield of earth,\n And not sometimes lose heart.\n\n He hides Himself so wondrously,\n As though there were no God;\n He is least seen when all the powers\n Of ill are most abroad.\n\n Or He deserts us at the hour\n The fight is all but lost;\n And seems to leave us to ourselves\n Just when we need Him most.\n\n Ill masters good; good seems to change\n To ill with greatest ease;\n And, worst of all, the good with good\n Is at cross-purposes.\n\n Ah! God is other than we think;\n His ways are far above,\n Far beyond reason\u2019s height, and reached\n Only by child-like love.\n\n Workman of God! Oh, lose not heart,\n But learn what God is like;\n And in the darkest battle-field\n Thou shalt know where to strike.\n\n Thrice blessed is he to whom is given\n The instinct that can tell\n That God is on the field when He\n Is most invisible.\n\n Blessed too, is he who can divine\n Where real right doth lie,\n And dares to take the side that seems\n Wrong to man\u2019s blindfold eye.\n\n For right is right, since God is God;\n And right the day must win;\n To doubt would be disloyalty,\n To falter would be sin.\n\n\n\n\nMATER DOLOROSA\n\nBY JOHN FITZPATRICK, O.M.I.\n\n\n She stands, within the shadow, at the foot\n Of the high tree she planted: thirty-three\n Full years have sped, and such has grown to be\n The stem that burgeoned forth from Jesse\u2019s root.\n Spring swiftly passed and panted in pursuit\n The eager summer; now she stands to see\n The only fruit-time of her only tree:\n And all the world is waiting for the Fruit.\n\n Now is faith\u2019s sad fruition: this one hour\n Of gathered expectation wears the crown\n Of the long grief with which the years were rife;\n As in her lap--a sudden autumn shower--\n The earthquake with his trembling hand shakes down\n The red, ripe Fruitage of the Tree of Life.\n\n\n\n\nYULETIDE\n\nBY ALICE FURLONG\n\n\n In a stable bare,\n Lo, the great Ones are.\n Strew the Ivy and the Myrtle\n Round about the Virgin\u2019s kirtle!\n\n Ass and oxen mild\n Breathe soft upon the Child!\n Blow the scent of bygone summer\n On your breath to the New-comer!\n\n Be ye well content\n To be straitly pent\n Backwards in the rocky chamber\n From the angel\u2019s wings of amber!\n\n Rapt the seraphs sit,\n With godly faces lit\n In a radiance shining solely\n From the Christ-child, meek and holy.\n\n High they chant and clear\n Of the lovely cheer\n Ring down the new evangels\n Of the mystic, midnight angels.\n\n Faring with good will\n From the misty hill,\n Every shepherd sacrificeth\n To the prophet that ariseth.\n\n Joseph, Mary\u2019s spouse,\n Prince of David\u2019s House,\n Bendeth low in adorations\n To the Ruler of the Nations.\n\n Who doth sweetly rest\n On his Mother\u2019s breast,\n Lord of the lightnings and the thunders!\n Mary\u2019s heart keeps all these wonders.\n\n\n\n\nOUR LADY OF THE ROSARY\n\nBY FRANCIS A. GAFFNEY, O.P.\n\n\n Lepanto marks the spot of victory,\n O\u2019er crescent cruel and strong, by forces weak,\n Of hallowed cross; of which, \u201cif sign you seek,\u201d\n \u2019Tis not of man but a Divinity.\n The white-robed Pius Fifth the Rosary\n Uplifted like the rod of Moses, meek;\n Whilst Ottomans on Christians wrath would wreak\n And, as of old, engulfed them in the sea.\n\n O Lady of the Rosary to-day,\n Thy clients all beseech thee, hear their prayer,\n And beg the Christ Who raging storms did quell,\n Bid warring nations cease their bloody fray;\n His power and thine honor, we declare,\n O Thou All-Fair, thou joy of Israel.\n\n\n\n\nAT THE LEAP OF THE WATERS\n\nBY EDWARD F. GARESCH\u00c9, S.J.\n\n\n How the swift river runs bright to its doom,\n Placid and shining and smooth-flowing by,\n Blue with the gleam of the heavenly room,\n Smiling and calm with the smile of the sky!\n Ah, but the plunge! and the shock and the roar,\n The spray of vast waters that hurl to the deep,\n The churn of its foam, as the measureless pour\n Of that wide-brimming torrent leaps sheer from the steep!\n Look ye; it reaches small fingers of spray\n To clutch at the brink, as unwilling to go\n Through the perilous air, and be fretted away\n In the tumult of vapor that boileth below.\n List ye! the voice of the huge undertone\n That murmurs in pain from the cataract\u2019s breast,\n Where the bruised, shattered waters perpetual moan\n And wander and toss in a weary unrest.\n Feel ye the breath of the cool-spraying mist,\n Cloudy and gray from the depths of its pain;\n Not as when sunbeams the waters have kissed,\n Rising in vapor to gather in rain,\n But fiercely and madly flung forth on the air,\n A shroud for this river that leaps to its death,\n A veil o\u2019er the throes of the cataract there,\n And rolling and rent with its agonized breath!\n Wild torrent! God put thee to thunder His name!\n With the roar of thy waters to call to the sky\n Of His might, Who hath set thee forever the same,\n To topple in foam to the gulfs from on high.\n Loud hymn of the lake-lands! from shore unto shore,\n Still clamor His praises Who called thee to be,\n Till the ears of the nations are tuned to thy roar,\n And they hear the vast message He trusted to thee.\n\n\n\n\nNIAGARA\n\nBY EDWARD F. GARESCH\u00c9, S.J.\n\n\n God, in His ages past the dawn of days,\n Writ one white line of praise,\n Which now, in this great stress and hour of need,\n I bend my soul to read.\n I break the sullen bonds of wearying time,\n And with one leap sublime,\n Force my astounded soul go back and stand\n In the primaeval land!\n\n The tresses of the ancient flood are kissed\n With virginal, white mist.\n The same soft, thunderous sound\n Thrills the wild woods around,\n But oh the vast and mighty peace that broods\n On these green solitudes,\n Where the great land, with one tremendous tone,\n Litanies to God, alone!\n\n Tongue of the continent! Thou whose hymning shakes\n The bosom of the lakes!\n O sacrificial torrent, keen and bright,\n Hurled from thy glorious height!\n Thou sacerdotal presence, clothed in power,\n At once the victim and the white-robed priest,\n Whose praise throughout these ages hath not ceased,\n Whose altar steams with incense every hour!\n Lo, in all days, from thy white waters, rise\n The savors of perpetual sacrifice!\n I see pale prophecy of Christ\u2019s dear blood!--\n The transubstantiation of thy flood!\n\n Oh the wild wonder of the vast emotion\n Of the perturbed wave,\n That cries and wanders like the fearful ocean,\n Seeking, with none to save!\n In their wide agony the rapids roam,\n A world of waves, an universe of pain!\n The vexed, tumultous clamor of their foam\n Crying to God with agonized refrain,\n Where the sad rocks their quivering summits hide\n In the loud anguish of the refluent tide.\n\n Yet, with a willingness that leaps to sorrow\n Swift run the ragged surges to the height,\n And from their pain is born a pure delight--\n The fear to-day, the snowy peace to-morrow!--\n Cleaving like darts their swift and silvery way\n With sudden gleams, and barbs of glittering spray,\n They hurry to the brink, and swift are lost\n In that stupendous leap, that infinite holocaust!\n\n Oh Christ-like glory of the praying water\n That leaps forever to its mystic death!\n And from the anguish of that sobbing slaughter\n Lifts the clear glory of the torrent\u2019s breath,\n Where like a paean of rapturous victory calls\n The solemn jubilation of the falls!\n\n O alabastrine priest--thy splendor spraying\n More lasting than the immemorial hills!\n O monument of waves, O undecaying\n While God\u2019s right hand thy flowing chalice fills!\n Under the transient world\u2019s astonished eyes\n Thou offerest abiding sacrifice!\n\n In the pale morning, when the rising sun\n Flatters thy pouring flood with slanting beams,\n Most reverent thy duteous waters run,\n And hymn to God with all their thousand streams.\n And in the blazing majesty of noon,\n Still lifts thy wave its sacrificial tune,\n And spills, like jewels of some eastern story,\n Its bright, impetuous avalanche of glory!\n\n And in the stilly spaces of the night,\n While heaven wonders with its wakeful stars,\n Thou prayest still, beneath the solemn light,\n In booming tones that reach to heaven\u2019s bars,\n Keeping thy vigils, while the angelic moon\n Walks on thy perilous verge with glorious shoon,\n Chanting from foam and spray without encease\n Thy yearning immemorial prayer for peace!\n\n\n\n\nCOMMUNION\n\nBY CAROLINE GILTINAN\n\n\n Mother Mary, thee I see\n Bringing Him, thy Babe, to me,\n Thou dost say, with trusting smile:\n \u201cHold Him, dear, a little while.\u201d\n Mother Mary, pity me,\n For He struggles to be free!\n My heart, my arms--He finds defiled:\n I am unworthy of thy Child.\n Mary, Mother, charity!\n Bring thy Baby back to me!\n\n\n\n\nTHE NIGHTINGALE\n\nBY GERALD GRIFFIN\n\n\n As the mute nightingale in closest groves\n Lies hid at noon, but when day\u2019s piercing eye\n Is locked in night, with full heart beating high\n Poureth her plain-song o\u2019er the light she loves;\n So, Virgin Ever-pure and Ever-blest,\n Moon of religion, from whose radiant face\n Reflected streams the light of heavenly grace\n On broken hearts, by contrite thoughts oppressed:\n So, Mary, they who justly feel the weight\n Of Heaven\u2019s offended Majesty, implore\n Thy reconciling aid with suppliant knee:\n Of sinful man, O sinless Advocate,\n To thee they turn, nor Him they less adore;\n \u2019Tis still His light they love, less dreadful seen in thee.\n\n\n\n\nTRYSTE NOEL\n\nBY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY\n\n\n The Ox he openeth wide the doore,\n And from the Snowe he calls her inne,\n And he hath seen her smile therefore,\n Our Ladye without Sinne.\n Now soone from Sleep\n A Starre shall leap,\n And sonne arrive both King and Hinde:\n _Amen, Amen_:\n But O the place co\u2019d I but finde!\n\n The Ox hath hushed his voyce and bent\n Trewe eyes of Pitty ore the Mow,\n And on his lovelie Neck, forspent,\n The Blessed layes her Browe.\n Around her feet,\n Full Warme and Sweete,\n His bowerie Breath doth meeklie dwell:\n _Amen, Amen_:\n But sore am I with Vaine Travel!\n\n The Ox is Host in Judah stall\n And Host of more than onlie one,\n For close she gathereth withal\n Our Lorde her littel Sonne.\n Glad Hinde and King\n Their Gyfte may bring,\n But wo\u2019d to-night my Teares were there,\n _Amen, Amen_:\n Between her Bosom and His hayre!\n\n\n\n\nTHE WILD RIDE\n\nBY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY\n\n\n _I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses\n All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,\n All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing._\n\n Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle,\n Weatherworn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion,\n With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.\n\n The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;\n There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice\n us:\n What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.\n\n Thought\u2019s self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,\n And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam:\n Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing.\n\n A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle,\n A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty:\n We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.\n\n _I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses\n All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,\n All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing._\n\n We spur to a land of no name, outracing the stormwind;\n We leap to the infinite dark like the sparks from the anvil.\n Thou leadest, O God! All\u2019s well with Thy troopers that follow.\n\n\n\n\nODE FOR A MASTER MARINER ASHORE\n\nBY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY\n\n\n There in his room, whene\u2019er the moon looks in,\n And silvers now a shell, and now a fin,\n And o\u2019er his chart glides like an argosy,\n Quiet and old sits he.\n Danger! he hath grown homesick for thy smile.\n Where hidest thou the while, heart\u2019s boast,\n Strange face of beauty sought and lost,\n Star-face that lured him out from boyhood\u2019s isle?\n Blown clear from dull indoors, his dreams behold\n Night-water smoke and sparkle as of old,\n The taffrail lurch, the sheets triumphant toss\n Their phosphor-flowers across.\n Towards ocean\u2019s either rim the long-exiled\n Wears on, till stunted cedars throw\n A lace-like shadow over snow,\n Or tropic fountains wash their agates wild.\n\n Awhile, play up and down the briny spar\n Odors of Surinam and Zanzibar,\n Till blithely thence he ploughs, in visions new,\n The Labradorian blue;\n All homeless hurricanes about him break;\n The purples of spent day he sees\n From Samos to the Hebrides,\n And drowned men dancing darkly in his wake.\n\n Where the small deadly foam-caps, well descried,\n Top, tier on tier, the hundred-mountained tide,\n Away, and far away, his pride is borne,\n Riding the noisy morn,\n Plunges, and preens her wings, and laughs to know\n The helm and tightening halyards still\n Follow the urging of his will,\n And scoff at sullen earth a league below.\n\n Mischance hath barred him from his heirdom high,\n And shackled him with many an inland tie,\n And of his only wisdom made a jibe\n Amid an alien tribe:\n No wave abroad but moans his fallen state,\n The trade-wind ranges now, the trade-wind roars!\n Why is it on a yellowing page he pores?\n Ah, why this hawser fast to a garden gate?\n\n Thou friend so long withdrawn, so deaf, so dim,\n Familiar Danger, O forget not him!\n Repeat of thine evangel yet the whole\n Unto his subject soul,\n Who suffers no such palsy of her drouth,\n Nor hath so tamely worn her chain,\n But she may know that voice again,\n And shake the reefs with answer of her mouth.\n\n O give him back, before his passion fail,\n The singing cordage and the hollow sail,\n And level with those aged eyes let be\n The bright unsteady sea;\n And move like any film from off his brain\n The pasture wall, the boughs that run\n Their evening arches to the sun,\n The hamlet spire across the sown champaign;\n And on the shut space and the trivial hour,\n Turn the great floods! and to thy spousal bower,\n With rapt arrest and solemn loitering,\n Him whom thou lovedst bring:\n That he, thy faithful one, with praising lip,\n Not having, at the last, less grace\n Of thee than had his roving race,\n Sum up his strength to perish with a ship.\n\n\n\n\nIN LEINSTER\n\nBY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY\n\n\n I try to knead and spin, but my life is low the while.\n Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile;\n Yet if I walk alone, and think of naught at all,\n Why from me that\u2019s young should the wild tears fall?\n\n The shower-stricken earth, the earth-colored streams,\n They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams;\n And yonder ivy fondling the broke castle-wall,\n It pulls upon my heart till the wild tears fall.\n\n The cabin-door looks down, a furze-lighted hill,\n And far as Leighlin Cross the fields are green and still;\n But once I hear the blackbird in Leighlin hedges call,\n The foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall!\n\n\n\n\nAUNT MARY\n\nA Christmas Chant\n\nBY ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER\n\n\n Now, of all the trees by the king\u2019s highway,\n Which do you love the best?\n O! the one that is green upon Christmas Day,\n The bush with the bleeding breast.\n Now the holly with her drops of blood for me:\n For that is our dear Aunt Mary\u2019s tree.\n\n Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour\u2019s Name,\n \u2019Tis a plant that loves the poor:\n Summer and winter it shines the same\n Beside the cottage door.\n O! the holly with her drops of blood for me:\n For that is our kind Aunt Mary\u2019s tree.\n\n \u2019Tis a bush that the birds will never leave:\n They sing in it all day long;\n But sweetest of all upon Christmas Eve\n Is to hear the robin\u2019s song.\n \u2019Tis the merriest sound upon earth or sea:\n For it comes from our own Aunt Mary\u2019s tree.\n\n So, of all that grows by the king\u2019s highway,\n I love that tree the best;\n \u2019Tis a bower for the birds upon Christmas Day,\n The bush of the bleeding breast.\n O! the holly with her drops of blood for me:\n For that is our sweet Aunt Mary\u2019s tree.\n\n\n\n\nKING ARTHUR\u2019S WAES-HAEL\n\nBY ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER\n\n\n Waes-hael for knight and dame;\n O merry be their dole;\n Drink-hael! In Jesu\u2019s name\n We fill the tawny bowl;\n But cover down the curving crest,\n Mould of the Orient Lady\u2019s breast.\n\n Waes-hael! yet lift no lid:\n Drain ye the reeds for wine.\n Drink-hael! the milk was hid\n That soothed that Babe divine;\n Hush\u2019d, as this hollow channel flows,\n He drew the balsam from the rose.\n\n Waes-hael! thus glowed the breast\n Where a God yearned to cling;\n Drink-hael! so Jesu pressed\n Life from its mystic spring;\n Then hush and bend in reverend sign\n And breathe the thrilling reeds for wine.\n\n Waes-hael! in shadowy scene\n Lo! Christmas children we:\n Drink-hael! behold we lean\n At a far Mother\u2019s knee;\n To dream that thus her bosom smiled,\n And learn the lip of Bethlehem\u2019s Child.\n\n\n\n\nOLD NUNS\n\nBY JAMES M. HAYES\n\n\n Our Lady smiles on youthful nuns,\n She loves them well.\n Our Lady\u2019s smile like sunshine floods\n Each convent cell,\n But fondest falls Our Lady\u2019s smile\n Where old nuns dwell;\n\n Old nuns whose hearts are young with love\n For Mary\u2019s Son,\n Old nuns whose prayers for faltering souls\n Have victory won,\n Old nuns whose lives are beautiful\n With service done.\n\n Their love a loveless world has saved\n From God\u2019s dread rod,\n The paths where Sorrow walks with Sin\n Their feet have trod,\n Their knees have worn the flags that pave\n The house of God.\n\n Our Lady smiles on youthful nuns,\n She loves them well;\n Our Lady\u2019s smile like sunshine floods\n Each convent cell;\n But fondest falls Our Lady\u2019s smile\n Where old nuns dwell.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MOTHER OF THE ROSE\n\nBY JAMES M. HAYES\n\n\n I kneel on Holy Thursday with the faithful worshipping\n Where Christ is throned in splendor as the sacramental King.\n\n I ever will remember it, that wondrous full-blown rose\n Among the burning tapers on the altar of repose.\n\n O blessed among roses all, to bloom in beauty there,\n To give your heart unto your God and in His glory share.\n\n * * * * *\n\n In quiet fields beyond the town, near where the river flows\n There is a humble garden where a gentle rose-tree grows.\n\n To-night Our Lord remembers on the altar of repose\n This rose-tree in the fields afar, the mother of the rose.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRANSFIGURATION\n\nBY JAMES M. HAYES\n\n\n He seeks the mountains where the olives grow,\n The Lord of Glory, veiled in humble guise;\n His soul is shadowed with a coming woe,\n The grief of all the world is in His eyes:\n His spirit struggles in the dark caress\n Of anguish, pain and utter loneliness.\n\n He always loved the mountain tops, for there\n Away from earth, He treads the mystic ways,\n And sees the vision of the Fairest Fair,\n As Heaven dawns upon His raptured gaze;\n The loneliness, the pain, the grief depart;\n Surpassing gladness fills His Sacred Heart.\n\n That day He stood upon the olive hill,\n And Peter, James and John in wonder saw\n The burning glories of the God-head fill\n His soul with grandeur, and in holy awe\n They fell upon the ground and cried for grace,\n Lest they should die beholding God\u2019s own Face.\n\n As minor chords that sob from strings of gold\n The Master speaks in accents sweet and sad:\n The vision past, the chosen three behold\n No one but Jesus and their souls are glad.\n The awe, the splendor and the glory gone,\n How sweet the face of Christ to look upon!\n\n\n\n\nBELOVED, IT IS MORN\n\nBY EMILY H. HICKEY\n\n\n Beloved, it is morn!\n A redder berry on the thorn,\n A deeper yellow on the corn,\n For this good day new-born.\n Pray, Sweet, for me\n That I may be\n Faithful to God and thee.\n\n Beloved, it is day!\n And lovers work, as children play,\n With heart and brain untired alway:\n Dear love, look up and pray.\n Pray, Sweet, for me\n That I may be\n Faithful to God and thee.\n\n Beloved, it is night!\n Thy heart and mine are full of light,\n Thy spirit shineth clear and white,\n God keep thee in His sight!\n Pray, Sweet, for me\n That I may be\n Faithful to God and thee.\n\n\n\n\nA SEA STORY\n\nBY EMILY H. HICKEY\n\n\n Silence. A while ago\n Shrieks went up piercingly;\n But now is the ship gone down;\n Good ship, well manned, was she.\n There\u2019s a raft that\u2019s a chance of life for one,\n This day upon the sea.\n\n A chance for one of two;\n Young, strong, are he and he,\n Just in the manhood prime,\n The comelier, verily,\n For the wrestle with wind and weather and wave,\n In the life upon the sea.\n\n One of them has a wife\n And little children three;\n Two that can toddle and lisp,\n And a suckling on the knee:\n Naked they\u2019ll go, and hunger sore,\n If he be lost at sea.\n\n One has a dream of home,\n A dream that well may be:\n He never has breathed it yet;\n She never has known it, she.\n But some one will be sick at heart\n If he be lost at sea.\n\n \u201cWife and kids at home!--\n Wife, kids, nor home has he!--\n Give us a chance, Bill!\u201d Then,\n \u201cAll right, Jem!\u201d Quietly\n A man gives up his life for a man,\n This day upon the sea.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STARLIGHT NIGHT\n\nBY GERARD HOPKINS, S.J.\n\n\n Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!\n O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!\n The bright boroughs, the quivering citadels there!\n The dim woods quick with diamond wells; the elf-eyes!\n The grey lawns cold where quaking gold-dew lies!\n Wind-beat white-beam; airy abeles all on flare!\n Flake-doves sent floating out at a farmyard scare!--\n Ah well! it is a purchase and a prize.\n\n Buy then! Bid then!--What?--Prayer, patience, alms, vows,--\n Look, look! a May-mess, like on orchard boughs;\n Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows.--\n These are indeed the barn: within-doors house\n The shocks. This piece-bright paling hides the Spouse\n Christ, and the mother of Christ and all his hallows.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HABIT OF PERFECTION\n\nBY GERARD HOPKINS, S.J.\n\n\n Elected Silence, sing to me\n And beat upon my whorled ear,\n Pipe me to pastures still and be\n The music that I care to hear.\n\n Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:\n It is the shut, the curfew sent\n From there where all surrenders come\n Which only make you eloquent.\n\n Be shelled, eyes, with double dark\n And find the uncreated light;\n This ruck and reel which you remark\n Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.\n\n Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,\n Desire not to be rinsed with wine:\n The can must be so sweet, the crust\n So fresh that come in fasts divine!\n\n Nostrils, your careless breath that spend\n Upon the stir and keep of pride,\n What relish shall the censers send\n Along the sanctuary side!\n\n O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet\n That want the yield of plushy sward,\n But you shall walk the golden street,\n And you unhouse and house the Lord.\n\n And, Poverty, be thou the bride\n And now the marriage feast begun,\n And lily-colored clothes provide\n Your spouse not labored-at, nor spun.\n\n\n\n\nSPRING\n\nBY GERARD HOPKINS, S.J.\n\n\n Nothing is so beautiful as spring--\n When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush:\n Thrush\u2019s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush\n Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring\n The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;\n The glassy pear-tree leaves and blooms, they brush\n The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush\n With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.\n\n What is all this juice and all this joy?\n A strain of the earth\u2019s sweet being in the beginning\n In Eden garden. Have, get, before it cloy,\n Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with shining,\n Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,\n Most, O maid\u2019s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FRIAR OF GENOA\n\nBY SCHARMEL IRIS\n\n\n In Genoa a friar walked;\n Of every sacred tale he talked;\n Alone he dwelt, in prayer he knelt;\n \u201cAve Maria, Ave Maria!\u201d\n From dawn till dusk he sang.\n\n His bruised and blistered feet were bare;\n His head burned in the sunlight\u2019s glare.\n On stones he slept, and worked and wept,\n \u201cAve Maria, Ave Maria!\u201d\n In every blow or pang.\n\n Out of his dole he clothed the poor,\n And every hardship did endure;\n He blessed the meek and nursed the weak\n \u201cAve Maria, Ave Maria!\u201d\n With each succeeding day.\n\n And begged for alms for those in need,\n A kind word spoke with every deed,\n With sinners dined and led the blind--\n \u201cAve Maria, Ave Maria!\u201d\n Until he passed away.\n\n And is his work done? Ah, surprise!\n Out of the tomb where low he lies\n A perfume blows, as of a rose:\n \u201cAve Maria, Ave Maria!\u201d\n It sings in shade or sun.\n\n And he who breathes it, him it feeds,\n And stirs his heart to noble deeds;\n And one has said, \u201cHe is not dead--\n \u201cAve Maria, Ave Maria!\u201d\n His life has just begun!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE DARK ANGEL\n\nBY LIONEL JOHNSON\n\n\n Dark Angel, with thine aching lust\n To rid the world of penitence:\n Malicious Angel, who still dost\n My soul such subtile violence!\n\n Because of thee, no thought, no thing,\n Abides for me undesecrate:\n Dark Angel, ever on the wing,\n Who never reachest me too late!\n\n When music sounds, then changest thou\n Its silvery to a sultry fire:\n Nor will thine envious heart allow\n Delight untortured by desire.\n\n Through thee, the gracious Muses turn\n To Furies, O mine Enemy!\n And all the things of beauty burn\n With flames of evil ecstasy.\n\n Because of thee, the land of dreams\n Becomes a gathering place of fears:\n Until tormented slumber seems\n One vehemence of useless tears.\n\n When sunlight glows upon the flowers,\n Or ripples down the dancing sea:\n Thou, with thy troop of passionate powers,\n Beleaguerest, bewilderest, me.\n\n Within the breath of autumn woods,\n Within the winter silences:\n Thy venomous spirit stirs and broods,\n O Master of impieties!\n\n The ardour of red flame is thine,\n And thine the steely soul of ice:\n Thou poisonest the fair design\n Of nature, with unfair device.\n\n Apples of ashes, golden bright;\n Waters of bitterness, how sweet!\n O banquet of a foul delight,\n Prepared by thee, dark Paraclete!\n\n Thou art the whisper in the gloom,\n The hinting tone, the haunting laugh:\n Thou art the adorner of my tomb,\n The minstrel of mine epitaph.\n\n I fight thee, in the Holy Name!\n Yet, what thou dost, is what God saith:\n Tempter! should I escape thy flame,\n Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death:\n\n The second Death, that never dies,\n That cannot die, when time is dead:\n Live Death, wherein the lost soul cries,\n Eternally uncomforted.\n\n Dark Angel, with thine aching lust!\n Of two defeats, of two despairs:\n Less dread, a change to drifting dust,\n Than thine eternity of cares.\n\n Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not so,\n Dark Angel! triumph over me:\n _Lonely, unto the Lone I go;\n Divine, to the Divinity._\n\n\n\n\nTE MARTYRUM CANDIDATUS\n\nBY LIONEL JOHNSON\n\n\n Ah, see the fair chivalry come, the companions of Christ!\n White Horsemen, who ride on white horses, the Knights of God!\n They, for their Lord and their Lover who sacrificed\n All, save the sweetness of treading, where He first trod!\n\n These through the darkness of death, the dominion of night,\n Swept, and they woke in white places at morning tide:\n They saw with their eyes, and sang for joy of the sight,\n They saw with their eyes the Eyes of the Crucified.\n\n Now, whithersoever He goeth, with Him they go:\n White Horsemen, who ride on white horses, oh fair to see!\n They ride, where the Rivers of Paradise flash and flow,\n White Horsemen, with Christ their Captain: forever He!\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTMAS AND IRELAND\n\nBY LIONEL JOHNSON\n\n\n The golden stars give warmthless fire,\n As weary Mary goes through night:\n Her feet are torn by stone and briar;\n She hath no rest, no strength, no light:\n O Mary, weary in the snow,\n Remember Ireland\u2019s woe!\n\n O Joseph, sad for Mary\u2019s sake!\n Look on our earthly Mother too:\n Let not the heart of Ireland break\n With agony the ages through:\n For Mary\u2019s love, love also thou\n Ireland, and save her now!\n\n Harsh were the folk, and bitter stern,\n At Bethlehem, that night of nights.\n _For you no cheering hearth shall burn:\n We have no room here, you no rights._\n O Mary and Joseph; hath not she,\n Ireland, been even as ye?\n\n The ancient David\u2019s royal house\n Was thine, Saint Joseph! wherefore she,\n Mary, thine Ever Virgin Spouse,\n To thine own city went with thee.\n Behold! thy citizens disown\n The heir of David\u2019s throne!\n\n Nay, more! The very King of Kings\n Was with you, coming to His own:\n They thrust Him forth to lowliest things;\n The poor, meek beasts of toil alone\n Stood by, when came to piteous birth\n The God of all the earth.\n\n And she, our Mother Ireland, knows\n Insult, and infamies of wrong:\n Her innocent children clad with woes,\n Her weakness trampled by the strong:\n And still upon her Holy Land\n Her pitiless foemen stand.\n\n From Manger unto Cross and Crown\n Went Christ: and Mother Mary passed\n Through Seven Sorrows, and sat down\n Upon the Angel Throne at last.\n Thence, Mary! to thine own Child pray,\n For Ireland\u2019s hope this day!\n\n She wanders amid winter still,\n The dew of tears is on her face:\n Her wounded heart takes yet its fill\n Of desolation and disgrace.\n God still is God! And through God she\n Foreknows her joy to be.\n\n The snows shall perish at the spring,\n The flowers pour fragrance round her feet:\n Ah, Jesus! Mary! Joseph! bring\n This mercy from the Mercy Seat!\n Send it, sweet King of Glory, born\n Humbly on Christmas Morn!\n\n\n\n\nTO MY PATRONS\n\nBY LIONEL JOHNSON\n\n\n Thy spear rent Christ, when dead for me He lay:\n My sin rends Christ, though never one save He\n Perfectly loves me, comforts me. Then pray,\n Longinus Saint! the Crucified, for me.\n\n Hard is the holy war, and hard the way:\n At rest with ancient victors would I be.\n O faith\u2019s first glory from our England! pray,\n St. Alban! to the Lord of Hosts, for me.\n\n Fain would I watch with thee, till morning gray,\n Beneath the stars austere: so might I see\n Sunrise, and light, and joy, at last. Then pray,\n John Baptist Saint! unto the Christ, for me.\n\n Remembering God\u2019s coronation day;\n Thorns for His crown; His throne, a Cross: to thee\n Heaven\u2019s kingdom dearer was than earth\u2019s. Then pray\n Saint Louis! to the King of kings, for me.\n\n Thy love loved all things: thy love knew no stay,\n But drew the very wild beasts round thy knee.\n O lover of the least and lowest! pray,\n Saint Francis! to the Son of Man, for me.\n\n Bishop of souls in servitude astray,\n Who didst for holy service set them free:\n Use still thy discipline of love, and pray.\n Saint Charles! unto the world\u2019s High Priest, for me.\n\n\n\n\nOUR LADY OF THE SNOWS\n\n(Upon reading the poem of that name in the Underwoods of Mr. Stevenson)\n\nBY LIONEL JOHNSON\n\n\n Far from the world, far from delight,\n Distinguishing not day from night;\n Vowed to one sacrifice of all\n The happy things, that men befall;\n Pleading one sacrifice, before\n Whom sun and sea and wind adore;\n Far from earth\u2019s comfort, far away,\n We cry to God, we cry and pray\n For men, who have the common day.\n Dance, merry world! and sing: but we,\n Hearing, remember Calvary:\n Get gold, and thrive you! but the sun\n Once paled; and the centurion\n Said: _This dead man was God\u2019s own Son_.\n Think you, we shrink from common toil,\n Works of the mart, works of the soil;\n That, prisoners of strong despair,\n We breathe this melancholy air;\n Forgetting the dear calls of race,\n And bonds of house, and ties of place;\n That, cowards, from the field we turn,\n And heavenward, in our weakness, yearn?\n Unjust! unjust! while you despise\n Our lonely years, our mournful cries:\n You are the happier for our prayer;\n The guerdon of our souls, you share.\n Not in such feebleness of heart,\n We play our solitary part;\n Not fugitives of battle, we\n Hide from the world, and let things be:\n But rather, looking over earth,\n Between the bounds of death and birth;\n And sad at heart, for sorrow and sin,\n We wondered, where might help begin.\n And on our wonder came God\u2019s choice,\n A sudden light, a clarion voice,\n Clearing the dark, and sounding clear:\n And we obeyed: behold us, here!\n In prison bound, but with your chains:\n Sufferers, but of alien pains.\n Merry the world, and thrives apace,\n Each in his customary place:\n Sailors upon the carrying sea,\n Shepherds upon the pasture lea,\n And merchants of the town; and they,\n Who march to death, the fighting way;\n And there are lovers in the spring,\n With those, who dance, and those, who sing:\n The commonwealth of every day,\n Eastward and westward, far away,\n Once the sun paled; once cried aloud\n The Roman, from beneath the cloud:\n _This day the Son of God is dead_!\n Yet heed men, what the Roman said?\n They heed not: we then heed for them,\n The mindless of Jerusalem;\n Careless, they live and die: but we\n Care, in their stead, for Calvary.\n O joyous men and women! strong,\n To urge the wheel of life along,\n With strenuous arm, and cheerful strain,\n And wisdom of laborous brain:\n We give our life, our heart, our breath,\n That you may live to conquer death;\n That, past your tomb, with souls in health,\n Joy may be yours, and blessed wealth;\n Through vigils of the painful night,\n Our spirits with your tempters fight:\n For you, for you, we live alone,\n Where no joy comes, where cold winds moan:\n Nor friends have we, nor have we foes;\n Our Queen is of the lonely Snows.\n Ah! and sometimes, our prayers between,\n Come sudden thoughts of what hath been:\n Dreams! And from dreams, once more we fall\n To prayer: _God save, Christ keep, them all_.\n And thou, who knowest not these things,\n Hearken, what news our message brings!\n Our toils, thy joy of life forgot:\n Our lives of prayer forget thee not.\n\n\n\n\nCADGWITH\n\nBY LIONEL JOHNSON\n\n\n My windows open to the autumn night,\n In vain I watched for sleep to visit me:\n How should sleep dull mine ears, and dim my sight,\n Who saw the stars, and listened to the sea?\n\n Ah, how the City of our God is fair!\n If, without sea and starless though it be,\n For joy of the majestic beauty there,\n Men shall not miss the stars, nor mourn the sea.\n\n\n\n\nA FRIEND\n\nBY LIONEL JOHNSON\n\n\n All, that he came to give,\n He gave, and went again:\n I have seen one man live,\n I have seen one man reign,\n With all the graces in his train.\n\n As one of us, he wrought\n Things of the common hour:\n Whence was the charmed soul brought,\n That gave each act such power;\n The natural beauty of a flower?\n\n Magnificence and grace,\n Excellent courtesy:\n A brightness on the face,\n Airs of high memory:\n Whence came all these, to such as he?\n\n Like young Shakespearian kings,\n He won the adoring throng:\n And, as Apollo sings,\n He triumphed with a song:\n Triumphed, and sang, and passed along.\n\n With a light word he took\n The hearts of men in thrall:\n And, with a golden look,\n Welcomed them, at his call\n Giving their love, their strength, their all.\n\n No man less proud than he,\n Nor cared for homage less;\n Only, he could not be\n Far off from happiness:\n Nature was bound to his success.\n\n Weary, the cares, the jars\n The lets, of every day:\n But the heavens filled with stars,\n Chanced he upon the way:\n And where he stayed, all joy would stay.\n\n Now, when sad night draws down,\n When the austere stars burn:\n Roaming the vast stars burn:\n My thoughts and memories yearn\n Toward him, who never will return.\n\n Yet I have seen him live,\n And owned my friend, a king:\n And that he came to give,\n He gave, and I, who sing\n His praise, bring all I have to bring.\n\n\n\n\nBY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS\n\nBY LIONEL JOHNSON\n\n\n Sombre and rich, the skies;\n Great glooms and starry plains.\n Gently the night wind sighs;\n Else a vast silence reigns.\n\n The splendid silence clings\n Around me: and around\n The saddest of all kings\n Crowned, and again discrowned.\n\n Comely and calm, he rides\n Hard by his own Whitehall:\n Only the night wind glides:\n No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.\n\n Gone, too, his Court: and yet,\n The stars his courtiers are;\n Stars in their stations set;\n And every wandering star.\n\n Alone he rides, alone,\n The fair and fatal king:\n Dark night is all his own,\n That strange and solemn thing.\n\n Which are more full of fate:\n The stars; or those sad eyes?\n Which are more still and great:\n Those brows; or the dark skies?\n\n Although his whole heart yearn\n In passionate tragedy:\n Never was face so stern\n With sweet austerity.\n\n Vanquished in life, his death\n By beauty made amends:\n The passing of his breath\n Won his defeated ends.\n\n Brief life, and hapless? Nay:\n Through death, life grew sublime.\n _Speak after sentence?_ Yea:\n And to the end of time.\n\n Armoured he rides, his head\n Bare to the stars of doom:\n He triumphs now, the dead,\n Beholding London\u2019s gloom.\n\n Our wearier spirit faints,\n Vexed in the world\u2019s employ:\n His soul was of the saints;\n And art to him was joy.\n\n King, tried in fires of woe!\n Men hunger for thy grace:\n And through the night I go,\n Loving thy mournful face.\n\n Yet, when the city sleeps;\n When all the cries are still:\n The stars and heavenly deeps\n Work out a perfect will.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOUSEWIFE\u2019S PRAYER\n\nBY BLANCHE MARY KELLY\n\n\n Lady, who with tender word\n Didst keep the house of Christ the Lord,\n Who didst set forth the bread and wine\n Before the Living Wheat and Vine,\n Reverently didst make the bed\n Whereon was laid the holy Head\n That such a cruel pillow prest\n For our behoof, on Calvary\u2019s crest;\n Be beside me while I go\n About my labors to and fro.\n Speed the wheel and speed the loom,\n Guide the needle and the broom,\n Make my bread rise sweet and light,\n Make my cheese come foamy white,\n Yellow may my butter be\n As cowslips blowing on the lea.\n Homely though my tasks and small,\n Be beside me at them all.\n Then when I shall stand to face\n Jesu in the judgment place,\n To me thy gracious help afford,\n Who art the Handmaid of the Lord.\n\n\n\n\nBROTHER JUNIPER\n\nBY BLANCHE MARY KELLY\n\n\n As unto Francis Poverty,\n So Folly was a bride to thee.\n Not the jade that fashions quips\n For the smiles of mocking lips,\n And in the face of stony Death\n Capers till she\u2019s out of breath,\n But the maid that moves and sings\n About divinely foolish things,\n She that gives her substance all\n For love, and laughs to find it small,\n She that drew God\u2019s Son to be\n A butt, a jest on Calvary,\n And \u2019neath the leper\u2019s guise doth know\n The King in his incognito.\n\n The world is grown too wise, and we\n Go our sad ways sensibly.\n O, would that our lean souls might win\n Some grace of thine, God\u2019s harlequin,\n Whose days were lavished like fool\u2019s gold\n Upon His pleasures manifold.\n \u201cWould God,\u201d cried Francis, on his knees,\n \u201cI had a forest of such trees!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE THRONE OF THE KING\n\nBY FRANCIS CLEMENT KELLEY\n\n\n The sun was setting, and its golden glow\n Deepened the shadows on the village street,\n And reverent touched the beauty of the head\n Of Him who sat, in thought, beside the well\n Of Nazareth. Two women came to fill\n Their earthen jars; and sent their burdens down\n To where the water lay; then drew them up.\n But still the Boy, unmoved, gazed steadily\n Upon the distant hills, that girded round\n Jerusalem, the City of the Soul.\n\n His eyes were deep as some unfathomed sea,\n That tosses wreckage on its billowed crest;\n But hides its treasures ever in the caves,\n That men shall never touch, or touching die.\n \u201cHow strange the Boy,\u201d one woman softly said\n As back they went, their burdens on their heads.\n \u201cYet He is Joseph\u2019s Son,\u201d the other spoke,\n \u201cAnd Joseph is my neighbor, a just man;\n But not more lettered than the other men,\n Your own and mine. He is not priest nor scribe\n That he could teach such wisdom to his Son.\n And it doth sometimes seem the Boy is wise\n Beyond His years, with knowledge overmuch.\u201d\n \u201cHis mother, whom I know,\u201d her friend replied,\n \u201cAs Mary, sweeps the shavings from the floor,\n Cooks the poor fare for Joseph and her Son,\n Cares for the water, and her jar brings here\n As we do every day, who know not much\n Beyond the things we hear from holy men.\n Yet strange is Mary too; I know not where\n To match the peace that\u2019s on her tranquil brow;\n Though, through it all, I\u2019ve seen the Shadow there\n The dread of days to come, though all resigned.\n So like His mother is this only Son\n In beauty, in the peace that\u2019s on His face;\n But sometimes, deeper still, the Shadow falls\n Across His features. Look! behold it now.\n For it doth speak the dread of awful things,\n More awful than the ruin of a world!\u201d\n\n A-down the street there rang a clatter loud\n Of horses dashing in a maddened run,\n And sounds of wheels swift rolling on the pave.\n The women shrank affrighted to the wall,\n And cowered there in trembling, mortal fear.\n In view the charging horses passed along\n Straight to the well, no driver grasped the reins,\n For he had fallen to the stony street.\n Yet never moved the Boy, nor turned His eyes\n From off the hills that held them so intent.\n But from a doorway rushed a stranger lad\n Who grasped the bit of one, and held him fast.\n The others, panting, stopped so near the Boy\n That, on His face He must have felt the heat\n Which steaming rose from their perspiring flanks,\n As now they stood, foam-flecked and trembling by.\n The driver came and meekly murmured thanks,\n Before he led his charges back again\n To where his master waited for the steeds.\n \u201cHe gave me naught but words, and I did save\n The steeds. The chariot, too, would have been dashed\n All broken on the stones, had I not come.\u201d\n The lad was angered, but the Boy moved not,\n Though from the distant hills His gaze was drawn.\n \u201cDost thou not know,\u201d the lad said, wonderingly,\n \u201cHow near was Death to thee a moment since?\u201d\n\n The Boy, now fully aroused, smiled at the lad\n All kindly, as a loving father smiles\n Upon his child that waked him unaware,\n Whose sleep nor storm nor clatter could affect,\n Yet at the touch of little baby hands\n Opens wide his eyes, that twinkle joyfully.\n \u201cNo nearer to grim Death,\u201d the Boy replied,\n \u201cWas I than thou, my friend, art near it now.\n Thou seekest Joseph and hast wandered far\n From distant Jaffa, where thy father died.\n Thou\u2019rt Fidus named. From Joseph thou wouldst learn\n The craftsman\u2019s art, and how to handle tools\n To work with wood, that thou thyself may\u2019st be\n Like him, a craftsman skilled in his own trade.\u201d\n \u201cA prophet Thou!\u201d the lad in wonder cried.\n \u201cCome with me,\u201d made He answer. \u201cI am known\n As Joseph\u2019s Son; so I will speak for thee.\u201d\n\n As evening fell on Nazareth\u2019s burning street\n Each day these two would wander out alone;\n And by the well, or in a quiet glade\n Seated, would hold their talk, with none to hear.\n Yet converse scarce it was; with ears intent,\n Fidus did always listen, while the Boy\n Poured out a tale of Kings and Prophets old;\n Of marvels that they worked to testify\n Unto a King whom yet the earth would see,\n A King of all Judea and the world;\n Whose glory, mounting even to the stars\n Would dim with rich effulgence, their great light.\n The Sun of Justice He, the Moon of night\n That had for ages settled o\u2019er the earth.\n He told of wonders that the King would do\n Before He mounted to His mighty throne.\n He told of love surpassing every love\n That earth had seen, and of His Kingdom wide;\n Till all on fire Fidus hung\u2019red to see\n The King Himself, and worship at His throne.\n \u201cA Roman though I am,\u201d he oft would cry,\n \u201cThy King I\u2019d welcome and for Him I\u2019d serve.\u201d\n \u201cYet thou art craftsman and no soldier thou.\u201d\n \u201cA craftsman too can serve his loyal due.\u201d\n \u201cHow wouldst thou serve?\u201d the Boy inquiring spoke.\n \u201cWhen Joseph bids me go, that I can learn no more,\n This I can do--to build for Him His throne.\u201d\n The Shadow swept across the boyish face--\n The Shadow Fidus once had seen before;\n And he was silent, for in awe he stood\n When that mysterious shade shut off the light\n That shone out from the radiant brow.\n The Shadow was not fear, nor dread of death;\n But dread of something worse than death could bring.\n It was as if a lily, broken, bent,\n But yet unsullied, now was stained with filth\n By impious hand; more cruel far than death\n The marring of the whiteness death had spared:\n Or like a stream, that through its mountain bed\n Had raced unfettered, toward the amber sea,\n And o\u2019er the rapids and the pebbles dashed\n Clear, cold and placid when the mouth is reached;\n Then, death unfeared before it, ready now\n To give back to the ocean all it gave,\n Into its pureness poured a stream so dark\n That tainted all its life, when life was lost.\n \u2019Twas thus the Shadow seemed; but soon it passed,\n And smiling boyhood turned a happy face\n The while he said: \u201cSo thou wouldst build His throne?\n But dost thou know the form that throne will take?\u201d\n\n \u201c\u2019T will be a throne,\u201d Fidus replied, \u201cso high\n That all may see Him, while from it He reigns,\n And know that He has come unto His own.\u201d\n\n \u201cAye,\u201d quick the Boy made answer, \u201cit shall be\n Uplifted high that every man may see;\n Not Jews alone but even ye of Rome;\n And men from Britain too, on farthest shore\n Of Rome\u2019s great Empire: they shall see and know\n The King who reigns upon that living throne;\n And in the Islands of unchartered seas\n The King shall lifted be, that all may know;\n And worlds still undiscovered shall bow down\n To do Him homage, yet shall hate His name.\n For homage goes with hate, and hate will be\n The measure of the homage that shall swell\n In p\u00e6ans great around the royal throne.\u201d\n\n Fidus looked wond\u2019ring at the Boy Who spoke,\n As if the right to build the throne were His\n And He could give it to the friend who asked\n This only boon, as pledge of love untold.\n\n \u201cAnd I would build it strong so it could go\n O\u2019er sea and land, and last for aye and aye.\u201d\n\n \u201cSo thou wouldst build the throne?\u201d again the Boy\n Half musing spoke. Across His face once more\n The Shadow fell; and, as he stood, His hands\n He lifted up and out, as if in prayer.\n Another Shadow fell upon the ground,\n The arms and body strangely like a Cross.\n Fidus was silent till the prayer was done.\n The sun now set, and all the shadows passed.\n They, arm in arm, ran fast to Joseph\u2019s house.\n But, at the door they paused and, said the Boy:\n \u201cThou must remember ever this thy day\n When I the promise gave that I can keep,\n For thou shalt build His throne!\u201d\n\n The years passed on,\n And Fidus to the Roman hosts returned\n Where, welcomed as a soldier\u2019s clever son,\n He wrought in wood for all the legions there\n In Jaffa, where his father had been killed.\n For eighteen years he stayed beside the sea\n And, working at the trade that Joseph taught,\n He never once forgot the precious pledge\n The Boy had made. But never saw nor heard\n Aught of his friend. Then he was sent away\n By Pilate\u2019s call, unto Jerusalem.\n\n The evening of the day when he arrived\n Great turmoil swept along the Jaffa road,\n And near the Gate of Gardens, where the hill\n Called Calvary lifted up its rocky head.\n He heard the crowds discuss a Wonder-Man\n The priests had taken, and was on His way\n To judgment. \u201cOut on such a King,\u201d cried one,\n \u201cHimself He can not save from shameful death.\n To-morrow\u2019s sun will see Him lifted up\n Above the hill, and throw the Shadow of\n A Cross upon you fools who thought Him King.\u201d\n\n And on the faces dark of all around,\n Fidus saw Hate he could not understand.\n Then up a vision rose of Nazareth\n When evening fell; a Boy of beauty rare,\n With a strange Shadow on His lovely face,\n Standing with arms outstretched in prayer,\n The glory of the setting sun upon His head.\n But long and grim the shadow of a Cross\n Before Him as He stood. Then to his mind\n Came swift the stories of the mighty King,\n And then the promise: \u201cThou shalt build His throne.\u201d\n Alas! the long and wav\u2019ring years had swept\n The dreams of youth away; but still remained\n The love, that hungered now to feel the hand\n Within his own of Mary\u2019s Son. The day\n Rose brightly in the East. At Pilate\u2019s door\n He met by chance a captain he had known\n In Jaffa, who bade him attentive wait\n Within the hall, amongst the soldiers there.\n But soon a tumult rose without the doors;\n The Wonder-Man was coming to be judged.\n Then, as the cries increased, his friend came in.\n \u201cMake thou a Cross,\u201d he said, \u201cWe have but two\n And, if I judge aright, three shall be sent\n Beyond the wall this day to Calvary.\u201d\n\n No more of shouting Fidus heard, for he\n Alone made ready a great Cross of wood;\n And, that his craftsman skill should be confessed,\n He made it well, both strong and workmanlike.\n \u201c\u2019Tis fit,\u201d he said, \u201cto serve a King,\u201d and smiled\n At his grim jest; then went he on his way.\n\n Out in the streets the crowd was surging on\n Along the way that leads to Calvary\u2019s hill.\n And o\u2019er it Fidus saw his Cross; and then,\n Sometimes, a thorn-crowned head with waving hair\n Blood-clotted now, and stained a deeper hue;\n And Hate seemed in the air vibrating round.\n When sudden, like a bell that sweetly rings\n Above a storm, and seems a messenger\n Of Peace and Love, there woke upon his soul\n From out the sleeping past, some prophet words:\n \u201cFor homage goes with hate, and hate shall be\n The measure of the homage that shall swell\n In p\u00e6ans great around the royal throne.\u201d\n\n The surging crowd hid from his eyes the things\n He did not care to see, but faint he heard\n The hammer strokes, that seemed to drive the nails\n Deep in his heart. Then turned he to a man\n Who silent stood beside him, and he said:\n \u201cA stranger I, from Jaffa, yesternight\n I came. This man? What evil hath He done?\u201d\n \u201cI know not any wrong that He hath done,\u201d\n\n Came answer fast. \u201cI only know the good\n That He had wrought. Behold my eyes that see!\n Once they were dark. He passed me by one day\n And loud I cried: \u2018O Son of David, mercy show\n That I may see.\u2019 He touched me and I saw.\u201d\n Another silent man near Fidus stood,\n To him he spoke, \u201cAnd friend, what knowest thou?\u201d\n \u201cI know that now I live though I was dead;\n For I had gone into the ending tomb\n All spiced for rest and bound with linen bands;\n And He did come, and He did call me forth.\n I heard His voice that sounded far away,\n As if I stood within a valley deep,\n And some one, from the mountain crest,\n Kept calling me. Then clearer was the Voice;\n As if on wings, I soared aloft to Him,\n Who had the Power to bid me come or stay.\n Again my heart did beat and vital blood\n Surged through my wid\u2019ning veins. I lived again.\u201d\n\n Then Fidus quick recalled a wondrous thing:\n He saw the Boy in Joseph\u2019s little shop,\n A sick lamb refuged in His tender arms.\n He gently stroked the lamb and then the pain\n Was gone from out its piteous pleading eyes.\n And, lo, the man felt hot tears on his cheeks.\n\n The Cross was raised, and faint the outline stood\n \u2019Twixt Fidus and the lurid, murky sky\n That threatened from afar a terror dark.\n Then swift it came, for all of darkness dread\n That air could hold, fell down upon the earth.\n The stumbling crowd in panic slunk away;\n But Fidus groped through darkness to the Cross.\n\n He heard a moan of sorrow. Well he knew\n The voice of Mary, she of Joseph\u2019s house.\n His heart stood still; the Vision came again:\n That evening fair--the Boy--the distant hills--\n The Shadow of the Cross upon the earth\n As He stood silent all absorbed in prayer--\n The promise that himself should build a throne.\n \u201cAye,\u201d so the Boy had said, \u201cfor it shall be\n Raised up on high that every man may see,\n Not Jews alone, but even ye of Rome;\n And men from Britain too, on farthest shore\n Of Rome\u2019s great Empire: they shall see and know\n The King Who reigns upon that living throne;\n And, in the Islands of uncharted seas\n The King shall lifted be that all may know;\n And worlds still undiscovered shall bow down\n To do Him homage, yet shall hate His name.\n For homage goes with hate, and hate will be\n The measure of the homage that shall swell\n In p\u00e6ans great around His royal throne.\u201d\n A lightning flash! The rocks asunder rent,\n The tombs burst open and the dead arose.\n One moment Fidus saw the Crucified\n Ere darkness fell again around the Cross.\n But in that moment a new vision rose;\n He saw the hill rise high, and higher still,\n Till over all the mountains of the world\n It towering stood; and nations, worshipping\n Gazed on a mighty throne that bore a King!\n Blood red the jewels in His crown of thorns,\n With ermined pain that wrapped Him all about,\n Deep in His hands the orb and sceptre nails,\n Quite gone the Shadow of the primal sin\n And, on His brow, fulfilled the ancient pledge\n Of Earth\u2019s Redemption.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHILD\u2019S WISH GRANTED\n\nBY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP\n\n\n Do you remember, my sweet, absent son,\n How in the soft June days forever done\n You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high;\n And, when I lifted you, soft came your cry,--\n \u201cPut me \u2019way up,--\u2019way up in blue sky\u201d?\n\n I laughed and said I could not,--set you down\n Your gray eyes wonder-filled beneath that crown\n Of bright hair gladdening me as your raced by,\n Another Father now, more strong than I,\n Has borne you voiceless to your dear blue sky.\n\n\n\n\nCHARITY\n\nBY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP\n\n\n Unarmed she goeth, yet her hands\n Strike deeper awe than steel-caparisoned bands,\n No fatal hurt of foe she fears,--\n Veiled, as with mail, in mist of gentle tears.\n\n \u2019Gainst her thou canst not bar the door;\n Like air she enters; where none dared before.\n Even to the rich she can forgive\n Their regal selfishness,--and let them live!\n\n\n\n\nA SONG BEFORE GRIEF\n\nBY ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP\n\n\n Sorrow, my friend,\n When shall you come again?\n The wind is slow, and the bent willows send\n Their silvery motions wearily down the plain.\n The bird is dead\n That sang this morning through the summer rain!\n\n Sorrow, my friend,\n I owe my soul to you.\n And if my life with any glory end\n Of tenderness for others, and the words are true,\n Said, honoring, when I\u2019m dead,--\n Sorrow, to you, the mellow praise, the funeral wreath, are due.\n\n And yet, my friend,\n When love and joy are strong,\n Your terrible visage from my sight I rend\n With glances to blue heaven. Hovering along,\n By mine your shadow led,\n \u201cAway!\u201d I shriek, \u201cnor dare to work my new-sprung mercies wrong!\u201d\n\n Still, you are near:\n Who can your care withstand?\n When deep eternity shall look most clear,\n Sending bright waves to kiss the trembling land,\n My joy shall disappear,--\n A flaming torch thrown to the golden sea by your pale hand.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CLOCK\u2019S SONG\n\nBY ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP\n\n\n Eileen of four,\n Eileen of smiles;\n Eileen of five,\n Eileen of tears;\n Eileen of ten, of fifteen years,\n Eileen of youth\n And woman\u2019s wiles;\n Eileen of twenty,\n In love\u2019s land,\n Eileen all tender\n In her bliss,\n Untouched by sorrow\u2019s treacherous kiss,\n And the sly weapons in life\u2019s hand,--\n Eileen aroused to share all fate,\n Eileen a wife,\n Pale, beautiful,\n Eileen most grave and dutiful,\n Mourning her dreams in queenly state.\n Eileen! Eileen!...\n\n\n\n\nIRELAND\n\nBY EDMUND LEAMY (Senior)\n\n\n I loved a love--a royal love--\n In the golden long ago;\n And she was fair as fair could be.\n The foam upon the broken sea,\n The sheen of sun, or moon, or star,\n The sparkle from the diamond spar,\n Not half so rare and radiant are\n As my own love--my royal love--\n In the golden long ago.\n\n And she had stately palace halls--\n In the golden long ago;\n And warriors, men of stainless swords,\n Were seated at her festive boards,\n Fierce champions of her lightest words,\n While hymned the bard the chieftain\u2019s praise,\n And sang their deed of battle days,\n To cheer my love, my royal love,\n In the golden long ago.\n\n She wore a stately diadem--\n In the golden long ago;\n Wrought by a cunning craftsman\u2019s hand,\n And fashioned from a battle brand,\n Full fit for the queen of a soldier land;\n Her sceptre was a sabre keen,\n Her robe a robe of radiant green,\n My queenly love, my royal love,\n In the golden long ago.\n\n Alas for my love, my royal love,\n Of the golden long ago!\n For gone are all her warrior bands,\n And rusted are her battle brands,\n And broken her sabre bright and keen,\n And torn her robe of radiant green,\n A slave where she was a stainless queen,\n My own love, my royal love,\n Of the golden long ago.\n\n But there is hope for my royal love\n Of the golden long ago;\n Beyond the broad and shining sea\n Gathers a stubborn chivalry,\n That yet will come to make her free,\n And hedge her round with gleaming spears,\n And crown her queen of all the years,\n My own love, my royal love,\n Of the golden long ago.\n\n\n\n\nMUSIC MAGIC\n\nBY EDMUND LEAMY\n\n\n _Perhaps there is no magic in this dull old world of ours;\n Perhaps there are no Fairy Tales to gladden heart-break hours;\n Perhaps there is no beauty, and perhaps all things are wrong;\n But still there is the wonder of a little, old-time song!_\n\n A squeaking and battered old organ, rattling a moss-covered tune,\n Stood in the street of the city, there, in the heat of the noon;\n Banging of roses and sunshine, thrilling of lands far away,\n Whispering songs of my childhood,--sorrowful, simple and gay;\n I was a child for a moment, filled with a child\u2019s petty fears,\n Dreaming, and dreaming, and dreaming, never a thought of the tears.\n Then as the music softened, singing of love and of life,\n Brought it back thought of the old days, far from the toil and the\n strife,\n Glimmer of gold in the star-light, shimmer of silk by the sea;\n Words that were whispered, half-spoken, dreams that were never to\n be.\n\n Sweet intermingled with sadness, what is as dear as the past?\n Is there a day in the future that is as fair as the last?\n Music, oh, music the master, there in the heat of the noon,\n A squeaking and battered old organ, rattling a moss-covered tune,\n Carried me back in my dreaming, far, to the long, long ago;\n Feeling, \u2019way down in my heart-chords, hope I thought never could\n glow;\n Brought to me, who was a failure, beaten and crossed in the fight,\n Help in the hour of the darkness--pointed the way to the light.\n\n _Perhaps there is no magic in this dull, old world of ours;\n Perhaps there are no Fairy Tales to gladden heart-break hours;\n Perhaps there is no beauty and perhaps all things are wrong;\n But still there is the wonder of a little, old-time song!_\n\n\n\n\nGETHSEMANE\n\nBY EDMUND LEAMY\n\n\n Breathes there a man who claimeth not\n One lonely spot,\n His own Gethsemane,\n Whither with his inmost pain\n He fain\n Would weary plod,\n Find the surcease that is known\n In wind a-moan\n And sobbing sea,\n Cry his sorrow hid of men,\n And then--\n Touch hands with God.\n\n\n\n\nMY LIPS WOULD SING----\n\nBY EDMUND LEAMY\n\n\n My lips would sing a song for you, a soulful little song for you,\n A plaintive little song for you, upon a summer\u2019s day;\n But for the very life of me, the merry, merry life of me,\n The laughter-loving life of me, I cannot but be gay.\n\n For oh, the sun is shining, Dear, and who could be repining, Dear,\n And who would be unhappy, Dear, when all the world is young?\n So I will hum a melody, a mirthful little melody,\n A joyous little melody that never yet was sung.\n\n And you shall hear of Fairyland, of Kings and Queens of Fairyland,\n Of men and maids of Fairyland, and Love shall be the theme,\n And straight before your brimming eyes, a golden glint of Paradise\n Shall steal, My Dear, to still your sighs, and give you back your\n dream.\n\n And you will taste of happiness, a tiny bit of happiness,\n A wistful bit of happiness, upon a summer\u2019s day;\n And just a little smile from you, a sunny little smile from you,\n A trembly little smile from you shall be a poet\u2019s pay!\n\n\n\n\nMY SHIP\n\nBY EDMUND LEAMY\n\n\n My ship is an old ship and her sails are grey and torn,\n And in the dim and misty night she seems a thing forlorn;\n Her battered sides are beetle black, her decks are scarred and old,\n And heavy rise the musty scents from out her crumbling hold.\n\n The young ships in the tide-way with a sneering smile sail by,\n And fair they flash their white sails against a sun-drenched sky,\n And fleet they run before the clouds that usher in a blow,\n But could a storm coerce my ship whene\u2019er she wished to go!\n\n My ship is an old ship and her sails are torn and grey,\n And she\u2019s not white and beautiful, nor fragile such as they,\n But she has sailed o\u2019er every sea to every land a-gleam,\n And on her decks make merry now the wraiths of youthful dream!\n\n\n\n\nVISIONS\n\nBY EDMUND LEAMY\n\n\n _I never watch the sun set a-down the Western skies\n But that within its wonderness I see my mother\u2019s eyes;\n I never hear the West wind sob softly in the trees\n But that there comes her broken call far o\u2019er the distant seas;\n And never shine the dim stars but that my heart would go\n Away and back to olden lands and dreams of long ago._\n\n A rover of the wide world, when yet my heart was young\n The sea came whispering to me in well-beloved tongue,\n And oh! the promises she held of golden lands a-gleam\n That clung about my boy-heart and filled mine eyes with dream,\n And Wanderlust came luring me till \u2019neath the stars I swore\n That I would be a wanderer for ever, ever more.\n\n A-rover of the wide world, I\u2019ve seen the Northern lights\n A-flashing countless colours in the knife-cold wintry nights;\n I\u2019ve watched the Southern Cross ablaze o\u2019er smiling, sunny lands,\n And seen the lazy sea caress palm-sheltered, silvery sands;\n Still wild unrest is scouring me, the Wanderlust of yore,\n And I must be a wanderer for ever, ever more.\n\n _And yet, I see the sun set a-down the Western skies\n And glimpse within the wonderness my mother\u2019s pleading eyes;\n And yet I hear the West wind sob softly in the trees,\n That vainly cloaks her broken call far o\u2019er the distant seas;\n And still when shine the dim stars my wander heart would go\n Away and back to her side, and dreams of long ago._\n\n\n\n\nIRELAND, MOTHER OF PRIESTS\n\nBY SHANE LESLIE\n\n\n The fishwife sits by the side\n Of her childing bed,\n Her fire is deserted and sad,\n Her beads are long said;\n Her tears ebb and flow with the sea,\n Her grief on the years,\n But little she looks to the tide,\n And little she hears:\n For children in springtime play round\n Her sorrowing heart,\n To win them their feeding she loves\n To hunger apart;\n Her children in summer she counts\n Awhile for her own;\n But winter is ever the same,\n The loved ones are flown.\n Far over the sea they are gone,\n Far out of her ken\n They travel the furthest of seas\n As fishers of men.\n Yet never a word to her sons\n To keep them at home,\n And never a motherly cry\n Goes over the foam;\n She sits with her head in her hands,\n Her eyes on the flame,\n And thinks of the others that played,\n Yet left her the same,\n With vesture she wove on the loom\n Four-coloured to be,\n And lanterns she trimmed with her hair\n To light them to sea.\n Oh, far have the living ones gone,\n And further the dead,\n For spirits come never to watch\n The fisherwife\u2019s bed;\n And sonless she sits at the hearth,\n And peers in the flame,\n She knows that their fishing must come\n As ever it came--\n A fishing that never set home,\n But seaways it led,\n For God who has taken her sons\n Has buried her dead.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HUNTERS\n\nBY RUTH TEMPLE LINDSAY\n\n\n \u201cThe Devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may\n devour.\u201d\n\n The Lion, he prowleth far and near.\n Nor swerves for pain or rue;\n He heedeth nought of sloth nor fear,\n He prowleth--prowleth through\n The silent glade and the weary street,\n In the empty dark and the full noon heat;\n And a little Lamb with aching feet--\n He prowleth too.\n\n The Lion croucheth alert, apart--\n With patience doth he woo;\n He waiteth long by this shuttered heart,\n And the Lamb--He waiteth too.\n Up the lurid passes of dreams that kill,\n Through the twisting maze of the great Untrue,\n The Lion followeth the fainting will--\n And the Lamb--He followeth too.\n\n From the tickets dim of the hidden way\n Where the debts of Hell accrue,\n The Lion leapeth upon his prey:\n But the Lamb--He leapeth too.\n Ah! loose the leash of the sins that damn,\n Mark Devil and God as goals,\n In the panting love of a famished Lamb,\n Gone mad with the need of souls.\n\n The Lion, he strayeth near and far;\n What heights hath he left untrod?\n He crawleth nigh to the purest star,\n On the trail of the saints of God.\n And throughout the darkness of things unclean,\n In the depths where the sin-ghouls brood,\n There prowleth ever with yearning mien--\n A lamb as white as Blood!\n\n\n\n\nIN CHERRY LANE\n\nBY REV. WILLIAM LIVINGSTON\n\n\n In Cherry Lane the blossoms blow\n In wreaths of white around the trees,\n And spread their petals wide, as though\n They longed for nectar-seeking bees.\n\n O\u2019erhead, the arching boughs that spring\n From pillar trunks look down and smile\n On lowly currant shrubs that cling\n Around their feet along the aisle.\n\n In Cherry Lane the sunbeams steal\n Through many a leaf and branch above,\n And tender shoots come forth to feel\n The touches of a wondrous love.\n\n And life grows warmer with the hours,\n Unmoved, unchilled by human pang,\n Till from the stems now robed in flowers\n The great red drops in clusters hang.\n\n Ah, Mother mine! white blossoms came\n And filled my soul with thoughts of thee,\n Who art to those that love thy name\n What honeyed buds are to the bee.\n\n Thou art the floweret white and fair,\n A virgin from thy stainless birth,\n The fruitful stem designed to bear\n A Saviour to our sinful earth.\n\n And when the cherries, ripe and red,\n Come forth upon the breast of June,\n They\u2019ll tell me of a heart that bled,\n By men forgotten all too soon.\n\n Ah, precious drops! through future days\n Preserve my soul from spot or stain,\n With tender thoughts of love and praise\n That once were mine in Cherry Lane.\n\n\n\n\nSURRENDER\n\nBY S. M. M.\n\n\n If thou art merely conscious clay--ah, well,\n Tire not such stuff with futile, tread-mill climb\n Which lifts to leave thee level with the slime;\n Nor think that death can break thy earth-born spell;\n Clay hath no heel Achillean, vulnerable.\n Be animate till some deliberate time\n Shall choke and crunch thee to potential grime,\n For thou art fit for neither heaven nor hell.\n\n But He Who made thee cousin to the clod\n First plunged thee in the Spirit Which is He,\n Whence thou hast risen, divinely armed and shod\n To scale the ramparts of eternity.\n Already stricken with the shafts of God,\n Thou fallest prisoner to the Deity.\n\n\n\n\nHYMN FOR PENTECOST\n\nBY JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN\n\n\n Pure Spirit of the always-faithful God,\n Kindler of Heaven\u2019s true light within the soul!\n From the lorn land our sainted fathers trod,\n Ascends to Thee our cry of hope and dole.\n Thee, Thee we praise;\n To Thee we raise\n Our choral hymn in these awakening days:\n O send us down anew that fire\n Which of old lived in David\u2019s and Isaiah\u2019s lyre.\n\n Centuries had rolled, and earth lay tombed in sleep,\n The nightmare-sleep of nations beneath kings;\n And far abroad o\u2019er liberty\u2019s great deep\n Death\u2019s angel waved his black and stilling wings.\n Then struck Thine hour!\n Thou, in Thy power,\n But breathedst, and the free stood up, a tower;\n And tyranny\u2019s thrones and strongholds fell,\n And men made jubilee for an abolished hell.\n\n And she, our mother-home, the famed, the fair,\n The golden house of light and intellect,\n Must she still groan in her intense despair?\n Shall she lie prone while Europe stands erect?\n Forfend this, Thou\n To whom we vow\n Souls even our giant wrongs shall never bow:\n Thou wilt not leave our green flag furled,\n Nor bear that we abide the byword of the world.\n\n Like the last lamp that burned in Tullia\u2019s tomb\n Through ages, vainly, with unwaning ray;\n Our star of hope lights but a path of gloom\n Whose false track leads us round and round alway.\n But Thou canst open\n A gate from hope\n To victory! Thou canst nerve our arms to cope\n With looming storm and danger still,\n And lend a thunder-voice to the land\u2019s lightning will.\n\n Descend, then, Spirit of the Eternal King!\n To Thee, to Him, to His avenging Son,\n The Triune of God, in boundless trust we cling;\n His help once ours, our nationhood is won.\n We watch the time\n Till that sublime\n Event shall thrill the free of every clime.\n Speed, mighty Spirit! speed its march,\n And thus complete for earth mankind\u2019s triumphal arch.\n\n\n\n\nDARK ROSALEEN\n\nBY JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN\n\n\n O my dark Rosaleen,\n Do not sigh, do not weep!\n The priests are on the ocean green,\n They march along the deep.\n There\u2019s wine from the royal Pope\n Upon the ocean green,\n And Spanish ale shall give you hope,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n My own Rosaleen!\n Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,\n Shall give you health, and help, and hope,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n\n Over hills and through dales\n Have I roamed for your sake;\n All yesterday I sailed the sails\n On river and on lake.\n The Erne, at its highest flood,\n I dashed across unseen,\n For there was lightning in my blood,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n My own Rosaleen!\n Oh! there was lightning in my blood,\n Red lightning through my blood,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n\n All day long, in unrest,\n To and fro do I move,\n The very soul within my breast\n Is wasted for you, love!\n The heart in my bosom faints\n To think of you, my Queen,\n My life of life, my saint of saints,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n My own Rosaleen!\n To hear your sweet and sad complaints,\n My life, my love, my saint of saints,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n\n Woe and pain, pain and woe,\n Are my lot, night and noon,\n To see your bright face clouded so,\n Like to the mournful moon.\n But yet will I rear your throne\n Again in golden sheen;\n \u2019Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n My own Rosaleen!\n \u2019Tis you shall have the golden throne,\n \u2019Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n\n Over dews, over sands,\n Will I fly for your weal:\n Your holy, delicate white hands\n Shall girdle me with steel.\n At home in your emerald bowers,\n From morning\u2019s dawn till e\u2019en,\n You\u2019ll pray for me, my flower of flowers,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n My own Rosaleen!\n You\u2019ll think of me through daylight\u2019s hours,\n My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n\n I could scale the blue air,\n I could plough the high hills,\n Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer,\n To heal your many ills!\n And one beamy smile from you\n Would float like light between\n My toils and me, my own, my true,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n My own Rosaleen!\n Would give me life and soul anew,\n A second life, a soul anew,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n\n Oh! the Erne shall run red\n With redundance of blood,\n The earth shall rock beneath our tread,\n And flames wrap hill and wood,\n And gun-peal and slogan-cry\n Wake many a glen serene,\n Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n My own Rosaleen!\n The Judgment Hour must first be nigh,\n Ere you shall fade, ere you can die,\n My dark Rosaleen!\n\n\n\n\nWHAT IS WHITE?\n\nBY THOMAS MACDONAGH\n\n\n What is white?\n The soul of the sage, faith-lit,\n The trust of Age,\n The infant\u2019s untaught wit.\n What more white?\n The face of Truth made known,\n The Voice of Youth\n Singing before her throne.\n\n\n\n\nWISHES FOR MY SON\n\nBorn on St. Cecilia\u2019s Day, 1912\n\nBY THOMAS MACDONAGH\n\n\n Now, my son, is life for you--\n And I wish you joy of it,--\n Joy of power in all you do,\n Deeper passion, better wit\n Than I had who had enough,\n Quicker life and length thereof,\n More of every gift but love.\n\n Love I have beyond all men,\n Love that now you share with me--\n What have I to wish you then\n But that you be good and free,\n And that God to you may give\n Grace in stronger days to live?\n\n For I wish you more than I\n Ever knew of glorious deed,\n Though no rapture passed me by\n That an eager heart could heed,\n Though I followed heights and sought\n Things the sequel never brought.\n\n Wild and perilous holy things\n Flaming with a martyr\u2019s blood,\n And the joy that laughs and sings\n Where a foe must be withstood,\n Joy of headlong happy chance\n Leading on the battle dance.\n\n But I found no enemy,\n No man in a world of wrong,\n That Christ\u2019s word of Charity\n Did not render clean and strong--\n Who was I to judge my kind,\n Blindest groper of the blind?\n\n God to you may give the sight\n And the clear undoubting strength\n Wars to knit for single right,\n Freedom\u2019s war to knit at length,\n And to win, through wrath and strife,\n To the sequel of my life.\n\n But for you, so small and young,\n Born on Saint Cecilia\u2019s Day,\n I in more harmonious song\n Now for nearer joys should pray--\n Simple joys: the natural growth\n Of your childhood and your youth,\n Courage, innocence and truth:\n\n These for you, so small and young,\n In your hand and heart and tongue.\n\n\n\n\nRESIGNATION\n\nBY SEUMAS MACMANUS\n\n\n Be still, sad soul, be still,\n Bend you to Heaven\u2019s high will.\n When the toilsome race is run,\n And the summit strove for won--\n When secrets are unsealed,\n All hidden things revealed,\n All mysteries made known,\n The good we doubted shown,\n Vexed questionings at rest,\n I\u2019ll say, \u201cWell, God knew best.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\n Me thought you went full soon,\n In the rapture of the noon,\n In the glory of the sun,\n Your noble work begun--\n In your grasp the magic wand\n That would raise a stricken land--\n A while you fain would stay;\n But the call brooked no delay:\n You sighed, and bowed your head,\n And they put you with the dead.\n\n Our God is kind, and He\n Will blunt the shaft to me;\n Will stay the dripping woe\n Ere the chalice overflow;\n May let me end the race\n With the high sun on my face,\n And the hot blood bounding free,\n Through the beating veins of me.\n At most but some sad hours\n And He\u2019ll call me when Night lowers.\n\n Oh, at the Trysting Gate,\n With radiant face you\u2019ll wait!\n With arms in love outspread\n To take a weary head,\n And clasp it to your breast\n Where always it found rest.\n You\u2019ll speak no word for joy,\n But, crooning o\u2019er your boy,\n Draw him into the Light,\n Where nevermore comes Night.\n\n\n\n\nIN DARK HOUR\n\nBY SEUMAS MACMANUS\n\n\n I Turn my steps where the Lonely Road\n Winds far as the eye can see,\n And I bend my back for the burden sore\n That God has reached down to me.\n\n I have said farewell to the sun-kissed plains,\n To joy I gave good-bye;\n Now the bleak wide wastes of the world are mine,\n And the winds that wail in the sky.\n\n No bright flower blooms, no sweet bird calls,\n Nor hermit ever abode,\n Not a green thing lifts one lowly leaf,\n O God, on the Lonely Road!\n\n The thick dank mists come stealing down,\n And press me on every side.\n With never a voice to cheer me on,\n And never a hand to guide.\n\n I shall cry in my need for a Voice and Hand,\n And the solace of love-wet eyes--\n And an icy clutch will close on my heart,\n When Echo, the mocker, replies.\n\n I know my good soul will fail me not,\n When Forms from the Dark round me creep,\n And whisper \u2019twere sweet to journey no more,\n But lay down the burden and sleep.\n\n (_Look onward and up, O Heart of my Heart,\n Where the road strikes the skies afar!\n To cheer you, and guide, thro\u2019 your darkest hour,\n Behold yon beckoning Star!_)\n\n I set my face to the grey wild wastes,\n I bend my back to the load--\n Dear God be kind with the heart-sick child\n Who steps on the Lonely Road.\n\n\n\n\nA SONG OF COLOURS\n\nBY THEODORE MAYNARD\n\n\n Gold for the crown of Mary,\n Blue for the sea and sky,\n Green for the woods and the meadows\n Where small white daisies lie,\n And red for the colour of Christ\u2019s blood\n When He came to the cross to die.\n\n These things the high God gave us\n And left in the world He made--\n Gold for the hilt\u2019s enrichment,\n And blue for the sword\u2019s good blade,\n And red for the roses a youth may set\n On the white brows of a maid.\n\n Green for the cool, sweet gardens\n Which stretch about the house,\n And the delicate new frondage\n The winds of spring arouse,\n And red for the wine which a man may drink\n With his fellows in carouse.\n\n Blue and green for the comfort\n Of tired hearts and eyes,\n And red for that sudden hour which comes\n With danger and great surprise,\n And white for the honour of God\u2019s throne\n When the dead shall all arise.\n\n Gold for the cope and chalice,\n For kingly pomp and pride,\n And red for the feathers men wear in their caps\n When they win a war or a bride,\n And red for the robe which they dressed God in\n On the bitter day He died.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WORLD\u2019S MISER\n\nBY THEODORE MAYNARD\n\n\nI\n\n A miser with an eager face\n Sees that each roseleaf is in place.\n\n He keeps beneath strong bolts and bars\n The piercing beauty of the stars.\n\n The colours of the dying day\n He hoards as treasure--well He may!--\n\n And saves with care (lest they be lost)\n The dainty diagrams of frost.\n\n He counts the hairs of every head,\n And grieves to see a sparrow dead.\n\n\nII\n\n Among the yellow primroses\n He holds His Summer palaces,\n\n And sets the grass about them all\n To guard them as His spearmen small.\n\n He fixes on each wayside stone\n A mark to show it as His own,\n\n And knows when raindrops fall through air\n Whether each single one be there,\n\n That gathered into ponds and brooks.\n They may become His picture books,\n\n To show in every spot and place\n The living glory of His face.\n\n\n\n\nCECIDIT, CECIDIT BABYLON MAGNA!\n\nBY THEODORE MAYNARD\n\n\n The aimless business of your feet,\n Your swinging wheels and piston rods,\n The smoke of every sullen street\n Have passed away with all your Gods.\n\n For in a meadow far from these\n A hodman treads across the loam,\n Bearing his solid sanctities\n To that strange altar called his home.\n\n I watch the tall, sagacious trees\n Turn as the monks do, every one;\n The saplings, ardent novices,\n Turning with them towards the sun,\n\n That Monstrance held in God\u2019s strong hands,\n Burnished in amber and in red;\n God, His Own priest, in blessing stands;\n The earth, adoring, bows her head.\n\n The idols of your market place,\n Your high debates, where are they now?\n Your lawyers\u2019 clamour fades apace--\n A bird is singing on the bough!\n\n Three fragile, sacramental things\n Endure, though all your pomps shall pass--\n A butterfly\u2019s immortal wings,\n A daisy and a blade of grass.\n\n\n\n\nA SONG OF LAUGHTER\n\nBY THEODORE MAYNARD\n\n\n The stars with their laughter are shaken;\n The long waves laugh at sea;\n And the little Imp of Laughter\n Laughs in the soul of me.\n\n I know the guffaw of a tempest,\n The mirth of a blossom and bud--\n But I laugh when I think of how Cuchulain laughed\n At the crows with their bills in his blood.\n\n The mother laughs low at her baby,\n The bridegroom with joy in his bride--\n And I think that Christ laughed when they Took Him\n with staves\n On the night before He died.\n\n\n\n\nAPOCALYPSE\n\n\u201c_And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the\nfirst earth are passed away._\u201d--Apoc. xxi. I.\n\nBY THEODORE MAYNARD\n\n\n Shall summer wood where we have laughed our fill;\n Shall all your grass so good to walk upon;\n Each field that we have loved, each little hill,\n Be burnt like paper--as hath said Saint John?\n\n Then not alone they die! For God hath told\n How all His plains of mingled fire and glass,\n His walls of hyacinth, His streets of gold,\n His aureoles of jewelled light shall pass,\n\n That He may make us nobler things that these,\n And in her royal robes of blazing red\n Adorn His bride. Yea, with what mysteries\n And might and mirth shall she be diamonded.\n\n And what new secrets shall our God disclose;\n Or set what suns of burnished brass to flare;\n Or what empurpled bloom to oust the rose;\n Or what strange grass to glow like angels\u2019 hair!\n\n What pinnacles of silvery tracery,\n What dizzy, rampired towers shall God devise\n Of topaz, beryl and chalcedony\n To make Heaven pleasant to His children\u2019s eyes!\n\n And in what cataclysms of flame and foam\n Shall the first Heaven sink--as red as sin--\n When God hath cast aside His ancient home\n As far too mean to house His children in.\n\n\n\n\nST. BRIGID\n\nBY DENIS A. MCCARTHY\n\n\n Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, she wasn\u2019t like other young things,\n Dreaming of lads for her lovers, and twirling her bracelets and\n rings;\n Combing and coiling and curling her hair that was black as the\n sloes,\n Painting her lips and her cheeks that were ruddy and fresh as the\n rose.\n Ah, \u2019twasn\u2019t Brigid would waste all her days in such follies as\n these--\n Christ was the Lover she worshipped for hour after hour on her\n knees;\n Christ and His Church and His poor,--and \u2019twas many a mile that she\n trod\n Serving the loathsomest lepers that ever were stricken by God.\n\n Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, she sold all her jewels and gems,\n Sold all her finely-spun robes that were braided with gold to the\n hems;\n Kept to her back but one garment, one dress that was faded and old,\n Gave all her goods to the poor who were famished with hunger and\n cold.\n Ah, \u2019twasn\u2019t Brigid would fling at the poor the hard word like a\n stone--\n Christ the Redeemer she saw in each wretch that was ragged and lone;\n Every wandering beggar who asked for a bite or a bed\n Knocked at her heart like the Man who had nowhere to shelter His\n head.\n\n Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, she angered her father at last.\n \u201cWhere are your dresses, my daughter? Crom Cruach! You wear them out\n fast!\n Where are the chains that I bought you all wrought in red gold from\n the mine?\n Where the bright brooches of silver that once on your bosom would\n shine?\u201d\n Ah, but \u2019twas he was the man that was proud of his name and his\n race,\n Proud of their prowess in battle and proud of their deeds in the\n chase!\n Knew not the Christ, the pale God Whom the priests from afar had\n brought in,\n Held to the old Gaelic gods that were known to Cuchullin and Finn.\n\n Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, made answer, \u201cO father,\u201d said she,\n \u201cWhat is the richest of raiment, and what are bright jewels to me?\n Lepers of Christ must I care for, the hungry of Christ must I feed;\n How can I walk in rich robes when His people and mine are in need?\u201d\n Ah, but \u2019twas she didn\u2019t fear for herself when he blustered and\n swore,\n Meekly she bowed when he ordered his chariot brought to the door;\n Meekly obeyed when he bade her get in at the point of his sword,\n Knowing whatever her fate she\u2019d be safe with her Lover and Lord.\n\n Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, was brought to the court of the King,\n (Monarch of Leinster, MacEnda, whose praises the poets would sing).\n \u201cHither, O monarch,\u201d said Duffy, \u201cI\u2019ve come with a maiden to sell;\n Buy her and bind her to bondage--she\u2019s needing such discipline\n well!\u201d\n Ah, but \u2019twas wise was the King. From the maid to the chieftain he\n turned;\n Mildness he saw in her face, in the other \u2019twas anger that burned;\n \u201cThis is no bondmaid, I\u2019ll swear it, O chief, but a girl of your\n own.\n Why sells the father the flesh of his flesh and the bone of his\n bone?\u201d\n\n Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, was mute while her father replied--\n \u201cMonarch, this maid has no place as the child of a chieftain of\n pride.\n Beggars and wretches whose wounds would the soul of a soldier\n affright,\n Sure, \u2019tis on these she is wasting my substance from morning till\n night!\u201d\n Ah, but \u2019twas bitter was Duffy; he spoke like a man that was vext.\n Musing, the monarch was silent; he pondered the question perplexed.\n \u201cMaiden,\u201d said he, \u201cif \u2019tis true, as I\u2019ve just from your father\n heard tell,\n Might it not be, as my bondmaid, you\u2019d waste all my substance as\n well?\u201d\n\n Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, made answer. \u201cO monarch,\u201d she said,\n \u201cHad I the wealth from your coffers, and had I the crown from your\n head--\n Yea, if the plentiful yield of the broad breasts of Erin were mine,\n All would I give to the people of Christ who in poverty pine.\u201d\n Ah, but \u2019twas then that the King felt the heart in his bosom upleap,\n \u201cI am not worthy,\u201d he cried, \u201csuch a maiden in bondage to keep!\n Here\u2019s a king\u2019s sword for her ransom, and here\u2019s a king\u2019s word to\n decree\n Never to other than Christ and His poor let her servitude be!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nROSA MYSTICA\n\nBY DENIS A. MCCARTHY\n\n\n O Mystic Rose, in God\u2019s fair garden growing,\n O Mystic Rose, in Heaven\u2019s high courtyard blowing--\n Make sweet, make sweet the pathway I am going,\n O Mystic Rose!\n The darkling, deathward way that I am going,\n O Mystic Rose!\n\n O Rose, more white than snow-wreath in December!\n O Rose, more red than sunset\u2019s dying ember,\n My sins forget, my penitence remember,\n O Mystic Rose!\n Though all should fail, I pray that thou remember,\n O Mystic Rose!\n\n O Mystic Rose, the moments fly with fleetness;\n To judgment I, with all my incompleteness--\n But thou, make intercession by thy sweetness,\n O Mystic Rose!\n Be near to soothe and save me by the sweetness,\n O Mystic Rose!\n\n\n\n\nTHE POOR MAN\u2019S DAILY BREAD\n\nBY DENIS A. MCCARTHY\n\n\n Not only there where jewelled vestments blaze,\n And princely prelates bow before Thy shrine,\n Where myriads line the swept and garnished ways\n Through which is borne Thy Majesty Divine--\n O Jesus of the ever loving heart,\n Not only there Thou art!\n\n But where the lowliest church its cross uplifts\n Above the city\u2019s sordidness and sin;\n Where all unheeded human wreckage drifts\n And drowns amid the foulness and the din--\n There, too, anear the very gates of hell,\n O Saviour, dost Thou dwell!\n\n Oh, meet it is that round Thy altar thrones,\n Thy highest priests should ministering throng\n With silken robe, with gold and precious stones,\n With solemn chant and loud triumphant song:\n What beauty that the world could give would be\n Too beautiful for Thee?\n\n And yet to those that work with grimy hands\n And sweaty brows in ditches and in drains,\n Thou comest with a love that understands\n Their labor ill-requitted, and their pains.\n Who knows so well as Thou what they endure,\n O Father of the poor?\n\n And so, deep-hid in many a city street,\n Or far where lonely workers break the soil,\n Are shrines where Thou, the Merciful, dost meet,\n In love\u2019s embrace, the weary ones that toil.\n For them Thy hospitable board is spread,\n With Thee, Thy very Self, their Daily Bread!\n\n\n\n\nTO ASK OUR LADY\u2019S PATRONAGE FOR A BOOK ON COLUMBUS: A FRAGMENT\n\nBY THOMAS D\u2019ARCY MCGEE\n\n\n Star of the Sea, to whom, age after age,\n The maiden kneels whose lover sails the sea;\n Star, that the drowning death-pang can assuage,\n And shape the soul\u2019s course to eternity;\n Mother of God, to Egypt\u2019s realm exiled,\n Mother of God, in Bethlehem\u2019s crib confined,\n Thee do I ask to aid my anxious mind,\n And make this book find favour with thy Child.\n\n Of one who lived and laboured in thy ray,\n I would rehearse the striving and success;\n Through the dense past I ne\u2019er shall find my way,\n Unless thou helpest, hold Comfortress;\n A world of doubt and darkness to evade;\n An ocean all unknown to Christian kind;\n Another world by nature\u2019s self arrayed,\n O\u2019er the wide waste of waves, I seek to find.\n\n\n\n\nA GENERAL COMMUNION\n\nBY ALICE MEYNELL\n\n\n I saw the throng, so deeply separate,\n Fed at one only board--\n The devout people, moved, intent, elate,\n And the devoted Lord.\n\n Oh struck apart! not side from human side,\n But soul from human soul,\n As each asunder absorbed the multiplied,\n The ever unparted whole.\n\n I saw this people as a field of flowers,\n Each grown at such a price\n The sum of unimaginable powers\n Did no more than suffice.\n\n A thousand single central daisies they,\n A thousand of the one;\n For each the entire monopoly of day;\n For each, the whole of the devoted sun.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SHEPHERDESS\n\nBY ALICE MEYNELL\n\n\n She walks--the lady of my delight--\n A shepherdess of sheep.\n Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;\n She guards them from the steep;\n She feeds them on the fragrant height,\n And folds them in for sleep.\n\n She roams maternal hills and bright,\n Dark valleys safe and deep.\n Into that tender breast at night\n The chastest stars may peep.\n She walks--the lady of my delight--\n A shepherdess of sheep.\n\n She holds her little thoughts in sight,\n Though gay they run and leap.\n She is so circumspect and right;\n She has her soul to keep.\n She walks--the lady of my delight--\n A shepherdess of sheep.\n\n\n\n\nCHRIST IN THE UNIVERSE\n\nBY ALICE MEYNELL\n\n\n With this ambiguous earth\n His dealings have been told us. These abide:\n The signal to a maid, the human birth,\n The lesson, and the young Man crucified.\n\n But not a star of all\n The innumberable host of stars has heard\n How He administered this terrestrial ball.\n Our race have kept their Lord\u2019s entrusted Word.\n\n Of His earth-visiting feet\n None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,\n The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,\n Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.\n\n No planet knows that this\n Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,\n Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,\n Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave,\n\n Nor, in our little day,\n May his devices with the heavens be guessed,\n His pilgrimage to tread the Milky Way\n Or His bestowals there be manifest.\n\n But in the eternities,\n Doubtless we shall compare together, hear\n A million alien Gospels, in what guise\n He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.\n\n O, be prepared, my soul!\n To read the inconceivable, to scan\n The million forms of God those stars enroll\n When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.\n\n\n\n\n\u201cI AM THE WAY\u201d\n\nBY ALICE MEYNELL\n\n\n Thou art the Way.\n Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal,\n I cannot say\n If Thou hadst ever met my soul.\n\n I cannot see--\n I, child of process--if there lies\n An end for me,\n Full of repose, full of replies.\n\n I\u2019ll not reproach\n The road that winds, my feet that err.\n Access, approach\n Art Thou, Time, Way, and Wayfarer.\n\n\n\n\nVIA, ET VERITAS, ET VITA\n\nBY ALICE MEYNELL\n\n\n \u201cYou never attained to Him.\u201d \u201cIf to attain\n Be to abide, then that may be.\u201d\n \u201cEndless the way, followed with how much pain!\u201d\n \u201cThe way was He.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nUNTO US A SON IS GIVEN\n\nBY ALICE MEYNELL\n\n\n Given, not lent,\n And not withdrawn--once sent,\n This Infant of mankind, this One,\n Is still the little welcome Son.\n\n New every year,\n New born and newly dear,\n He comes with tidings and a song,\n The ages long, the ages long;\n\n Even as the cold\n Keen winter grows not old,\n As childhood is so fresh, foreseen,\n And spring in the familiar green.\n\n Sudden as sweet\n Come the expected feet.\n All joy is young, and new all art,\n And He, too, Whom we have by heart.\n\n\n\n\nTO A DAISY\n\nBY ALICE MEYNELL\n\n\n Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide\n Like all created things, secrets from me,\n And stand a barrier to eternity.\n And I, how can I praise thee well and wide\n\n From where I dwell--upon the hither side?\n Thou little veil for so great mystery,\n When shall I penetrate all things and thee,\n And then look back? For this I must abide.\n\n Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled\n Literally between me and the world.\n Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring.\n\n And from a poet\u2019s side shall read his book.\n O daisy mine, what will it be to look\n From God\u2019s side even of such a simple thing?\n\n\n\n\nTHE NEWER VAINGLORY\n\nBY ALICE MEYNELL\n\n\n Two men went up to pray; and one gave thanks,\n Not with himself aloud,\n With proclamation, calling on the ranks\n Of an attentive crowd.\n\n \u201cThank God, I clap not my own humble breast,\n But other ruffians\u2019 backs,\n Imputing crime--such is my tolerant haste--\n To any man that lacks.\n\n \u201cFor I am tolerant, generous, keep no rules,\n And the age honors me.\n Thank God, I am not as these rigid fools,\n Even as this Pharisee.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE FOLDED FLOCK\n\nBY WILFRID MEYNELL\n\n\n I saw the shepherd fold the sheep,\n With all the little lambs that leap.\n\n O Shepherd Lord, so I would be\n Folded with all my family.\n\n Or go they early, come they late,\n Their mother and I must count them eight.\n\n And how, for us, were any heaven\n If we, sore-stricken, saw but seven?\n\n Kind Shepherd, as of old Thou\u2019lt run\n And fold at need a straggling one.\n\n\n\n\nCONVENT ECHOES\n\nBY HELEN LOUISE MORIARTY\n\n\n Clear on the air, their pulsing cadence pealing,\n I hear a sweet refrain,\n While o\u2019er my thoughts a gentle mist is stealing,\n And mem\u2019ries come again,\n\n Of quiet halls where dusk is slow descending,\n Where peace has spread her wings.\n Soft music in the distance only lending\n More charms where twilight clings.\n\n Anon appear the black robed nuns, their faces\n Serene in sweet repose;\n Across their brows the world has left no traces\n Of earthly dreams or woes.\n\n Now loud on air the organ music swelling,\n They reach the chapel door--\n The sweet faint incense stealing upward, telling\n \u2019Tis Benediction\u2019s hour.\n\n Now low-bowed heads, and hearts to Him ascending\n On incense laden air.\n Ah surely Heaven must smile with ear attending\n The nun\u2019s low whispered prayer.\n\n Fond memory lingers on those dim old hallways--\n Lingers and drops a tear,\n And kind affection drapes the picture always\n Through each succeeding year.\n\n\n\n\nENGLAND\n\nBY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN\n\n\n Tyre of the West, and glorying in the name\n More than in Faith\u2019s pure fame!\n O trust not crafty fort nor rock renown\u2019d\n Earn\u2019d upon hostile ground;\n Wielding Trade\u2019s master-keys, at thy proud will\n To lock or loose its waters, England! trust not still.\n\n Dread thine own power! Since haughty Babel\u2019s prime,\n High towers have been man\u2019s crime.\n Since her hoar age, when the huge moat lay bare,\n Strongholds have been man\u2019s snare.\n Thy nest is in the crags; ah, refuge frail!\n Mad counsels in its hour, or traitors, will prevail.\n\n He who scann\u2019d Sodom for His righteous men\n Still spares thee for thy ten;\n But, should vain tongues the Bride of Heaven defy,\n He will not pass thee by;\n For, as earth\u2019s kings welcome their spotless guests,\n So gives He them by turn, to suffer or be blest.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PILLAR OF THE CLOUD\n\nBY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN\n\n\n Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,\n Lead Thou me on!\n The night is dark, and I am far from home--\n Lead Thou me on!\n Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see\n The distant scene,--one step enough for me.\n\n I was not ever thus, nor pray\u2019d that Thou\n Shouldst lead me on.\n I lov\u2019d to choose and see my path; but now\n Lead Thou me on!\n I lov\u2019d the garish day, and, spite of fears,\n Pride rul\u2019d my will: remember not past years.\n\n So long Thy power hath bless\u2019d me, sure it still\n Will lead me on,\n O\u2019er moor and fen, o\u2019er crag and torrent, till\n The night is gone;\n And with the morn those angel faces smile\n Which I have lov\u2019d long since, and lost awhile.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GREEK FATHERS\n\nBY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN\n\n\n Let heathen sing thy heathen praise,\n Fall\u2019n Greece! the thought of holier days\n In my sad heart abides;\n For sons of thine in Truth\u2019s first hour\n Were tongues and weapons of His power,\n Born of the Spirit\u2019s fiery shower,\n Our fathers and our guides.\n\n All thine is Clement\u2019s varied page;\n And Dionysius, ruler sage,\n In days of doubt and pain;\n And Origen with eagle eye;\n And saintly Basil\u2019s purpose high\n To smite imperial heresy,\n And cleanse the Altar\u2019s stain.\n\n From thee the glorious preacher came,\n With soul of zeal and lips of flame,\n A court\u2019s stern martyr-guest;\n And thine, O inexhaustive race!\n Was Nazianzen\u2019s heaven-taught grace;\n And royal-hearted Athanase,\n With Paul\u2019s own mantel blessed.\n\n\n\n\nRELICS OF SAINTS\n\nBY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN\n\n \u201cHe is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto\n Him.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThe Fathers are in dust, yet live to God:\u201d\n So says the Truth; as if the motionless clay\n Still held the seeds of life beneath the sod,\n Smouldering and straggling till the judgment day.\n\n And hence we learn with reverence to esteem\n Of these frail houses, though the grave confines;\n Sophist may urge his cunning tests, and deem\n That they are earth;--but they are heavenly shrines.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SIGN OF THE CROSS\n\nBY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN\n\n\n Whene\u2019er across this sinful flesh of mine\n I draw the Holy Sign,\n All good thoughts stir within me, and renew\n Their slumbering strength divine;\n Till there springs up a courage high and true\n To suffer and to do.\n\n And who shall say, but hateful spirits around,\n For their brief hour unbound,\n Shudder to see, and wail their overthrow?\n While on far heathen ground\n Some lonely Saint hails the fresh odour, though\n Its source he cannot know?\n\n\n\n\nTHE SON OF GOD\n\nBY CHARLES L. O\u2019DONNELL, C.S.C.\n\n\n The fount of Mary\u2019s joy\n Revealed now lies,\n For, lo, has not the Boy\n His Father\u2019s eyes?\n\n\n\n\nTO ST. JOSEPH\n\nBY CHARLES L. O\u2019DONNELL, C.S.C.\n\n\n St. Joseph, when the day was done\n And all your work put by,\n You saw the stars come one by one\n Out in the violet sky.\n\n You did not know the stars by name,\n But there sat at your knee\n One who had made the light and flame\n And all things bright that be.\n\n You heard with Him birds in the tree\n Twitter \u201cGood-night\u201d o\u2019erhead,--\n The Maker of the world must see\n His little ones to bed.\n\n Then when the darkness settled round,\n To Him your prayers were said;\n No wonder that your sleep was ground\n The angels loved to tread.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEAD MUSICIAN\n\n In memory of Brother Basil,\n Organist for half a century at Notre Dame\n\nBY CHARLES L. O\u2019DONNELL, C.S.C.\n\n\n He was the player and the played upon,\n He was the actor and the acted on,\n Artist, and yet himself a substance wrought;\n God played on him as he upon the keys,\n Moving his soul to mightiest melodies\n Of lowly serving, hid austerities,\n And holy thought that our high dream out-tops,--\n He was an organ where God kept the stops.\n Naught, naught\n Of all he gave us came so wondrous clear\n As that he sounded to the Master\u2019s ear.\n\n Wedded he was to the immortal Three,\n Poverty, Obedience and Chastity,\n And in a fourth he found them all expressed,\n For him all gathered were in Music\u2019s breast,\n And in God\u2019s house\n He took her for his spouse,--\n High union that the world\u2019s eye never scans\n Nor world\u2019s way knows.\n Not any penny of applauding hands\n He caught, nor would have caught,\n Not any thought\n Save to obey\n Obedience that bade him play,\n And for his bride\n To have none else beside,\n That both might keep unflecked their virgin snows.\n\n Yet by our God\u2019s great law\n Such marriage issue saw,\n As they who cast away may keep,\n Who sow not reap.\n In Chastity entombed\n His manhood bloomed,\n And children not of earth\n Had spotless birth.\n With might unmortal was he strong\n That he begot\n Of what was not,\n Within the barren womb of silence, song.\n Yea, many sons he had\n To make his sole heart glad--\n Romping the boundless meadows of the air,\n Skipping the cloudy hills, and climbing bold\n The heavens\u2019 nightly stairs of starry gold.\n Nay, winning heaven\u2019s door\n To mingle evermore\n With deathless troops of angel harmony.\n He filled the house of God\n With servants at his nod,\n A music-host of moving pagentry.\n Lo, this priest, and that an acolyte:\n Ah, such we name aright\n Creative art,\n To body forth love slumbering at the heart ...\n Fools, they who pity him,\n Imagine dim\n Days that the world\u2019s glare brightens not.\n Until the seraphim\n Shake from their flashing hair\n Lightnings, and weave serpents there,\n His days we reckon fair....\n\n Yet more he had than this;\n Lord of the liberative kiss,\n To own and yet refrain,\n To hold his hand in reign.\n High continence of his high power,\n That turns from virtue\u2019s very flower,\n In loss of that elected pain\n A greater prize to gain.\n As one who long had put wine by\n Would now himself deny\n Water, and thirsting die.\n So, sometimes he was idle at the keys,\n Pale fingers on the aged ivories;\n Then, like a prisoned bird,\n Music was seen, not heard,\n Then were his quivering hands most strong\n With blood of the repressed song,--\n A fruitful barrenness. Oh, where\n Out of angelic air,\n This side the heavens\u2019 spheres\n Such sight to start and hinder tears.\n Who knows, perhaps while silence throbbed\n He heard the De Profundis sobbed\n By his own organ at his bier to-day,--\n It is the saints\u2019 anticipative way,\n He knew both hand and ear were clay.\n That was one thought\n Never is music wrought,\n For silence only could that truth convey.\n Widowed of him, his organ now is still,\n His music-children fled, their echoing feet yet fill\n The blue, far reaches of the vaulted nave,\n The heart that sired them, pulseless in the grave.\n Only the song he made is hushed, his soul,\n Responsive to God\u2019s touch, in His control\n Elsewhere shall tune the termless ecstasy\n Of one who all his life kept here\n An alien ear,\n Homesick for harpings of eternity.\n\n\n\n\nGIOTTO\u2019S CAMPANILE\n\nBY THOMAS O\u2019HAGAN\n\n\n O pulsing heart with voice attuned\n To all the soul builds high,\n Framing in notes of love divine\n A drama of the sky,\n Across the Arno\u2019s flowing tide\n The notes chime on the air,\n Deep as the mysteries of God\n And tender as a prayer.\n\n Here, where the Poet of Sorrows dwelt,\n Whose altar Love had built,\n And framed his morn in dreams so pure\n That knew not stain nor guilt:\n O _Vita Nuova_! Earthly Love\n Then changed to love Divine;\n Transfigured at the wedding-feast,\n Earth\u2019s grapes are heavenly wine.\n\n Where cowled monk with soul of fire\n Struck vice athwart the face,\n With God\u2019s anointed sword of truth\n That flashed with beams of grace.\n O bitter days of war and strife!\n Heaven\u2019s ardor was too great;\n The Empire of the earth held sway\n And sealed with saddest fate.\n\n Methinks I hear from thy strong lips,\n O century-dowered bell!\n The story of the Whites and Blacks,\n As banners rose or fell;\n Methinks I hear an epic voice,\n Full of God\u2019s love and power,\n With accent of an Exile sad\n Speaking from out thy tower!\n\n\n\n\nNAME OF MARY\n\nBY JOHN BOYLE O\u2019REILLY\n\n\n Dear, honored name, beloved for human ties,\n But loved and honored first that One was given\n In living proof, to erring mortal eyes,\n That our poor flesh is near akin to heaven.\n\n Sweet word of dual meaning: one of grace,\n And born of our kind Advocate above;\n And one, by mercy linked to that dear face\n That blessed my childhood with its mother-love,\n\n And taught me first the simple prayer: \u201cTo thee,\n Poor banished sons of Eve, we send our cries.\u201d\n Through mist of years, those words recall to me\n A childish face upturned to loving eyes.\n\n And yet, to some the name of Mary bears\n No special meaning and no gracious power;\n In that dear word they seek for hidden snares,\n As wasps find poison in the sweetest flower.\n\n But faithful hearts can see, o\u2019er doubts and fears,\n The Virgin-link that binds the Lord to earth;\n Which, to the upturned trusting face, appears\n Greater than angel, though of human birth.\n\n The sweet-faced moon reflects, on cheerless night,\n The rays of hidden sun that rise to-morrow;\n So, unseen God still lets his promised light,\n Through holy Mary, shine upon our sorrow.\n\n\n\n\nA CHRISTMAS CAROL\n\nBY MARY A. O\u2019REILLY\n\n\n Night in the far Judean land,\n The pregnant air is still,\n The sky one blue unclouded band,\n Seems drooping o\u2019er each hill.\n The hills then toward each other bend,\n Some mighty secret to portend.\n Gloria in excelsis Deo.\n\n The sheep in near-by pastures browse,\n Some bleat as if in pain;\n The youthful shepherds watch and drowse,\n Then drowse and watch again;\n When lo! a light from Heaven appears\n Which makes them huddle in their fears.\n Gloria in excelsis Deo.\n\n God\u2019s glory shone around them there,\n And then an angel cried--\n \u201cFear not, for I good tidings bear\n To you, and all beside.\n For unto you is born this day\n A Savior, Christ the Lord.\u201d We pray--\n Gloria in excelsis Deo.\n\n Then swinging from the skies there came\n Groups of the heavenly host,\n Praising the Lord in sweet acclaim--\n The burden of their toast--\n \u201cGlory to God on High,\u201d again--\n His \u201cPeace on earth, good will to men.\u201d\n Gloria in excelsis Deo.\n\n Within a stable sweet with hay,\n And warm with breath of kine,\n The Baby and His Mother lay,\n O, mystery divine!\n The bed of straw a cloud appears,\n We hear the music of the spheres.\n Gloria in excelsis Deo.\n\n Dear maiden mother, let us now,\n While to your breast He clings,\n In humble adoration bow\n With shepherds and with kings,\n And at His feet our off\u2019ring be\n Praise, love, faith, hope and charity.\n Gloria in excelsis Deo.\n\n\n\n\nROMA MATER SEMPAETERNA\n\nBY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL\n\n\n The blue skies bend and are about her furled,\n A maiden mantle; and with lilies bright\n The sun daywhiles doth crown her, and at night\n With stars her garment\u2019s border is empearled.\n Not a king\u2019s favorite, perfumed and curled,\n Is half so fair; no queen of martial might\n So potent as the Mother of the Light,\n The Mary of the Cities of the World!\n\n Eternal Mother, at whose breasts of white\n The infant Church was suckled and made strong\n With the sweet milk of heavenly Truth and Love,\n O thou that art all nations set above,\n Strengthen us still because the way is long,\n Mary of Cities, Mother of the Light!\n\n\n\n\nMARY\u2019S BABY\n\nBY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL\n\n\n Joseph, mild and noble, bent above the straw:\n A pale girl, a frail girl, suffering, he saw;\n \u201cO my Love, my Mary, my bride, I pity thee!\u201d\n \u201cNay, Dear,\u201d said Mary, \u201cAll is well with me!\u201d\n \u201cBaby, my Baby, O my Babe,\u201d she sang.\n Suddenly the golden night all with music rang.\n\n Angels leading shepherds, shepherds leading sheep:\n The silence of worship broke the mother\u2019s sleep.\n All the meek and lowly of the world were there;\n Smiling she showed them that her Child was fair.\n \u201cBaby, my Baby,\u201d kissing Him she said.\n Suddenly a flaming star through the heavens sped.\n\n Three old men and weary knelt them side by side,\n The world\u2019s wealth forswearing, majesty and pride;\n Worldly might and wisdom before the Babe bent low:\n Weeping, maid Mary said \u201cI love Him so!\u201d\n \u201cBaby, my Baby,\u201d and the Baby slept.\n Suddenly on Calvary all the olives wept.\n\n\n\n\nTHEY WENT FORTH TO BATTLE\n\nBY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL\n\n\n They went forth to battle, but they always fell;\n Their eyes were fixed above the sullen shields;\n Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well,\n And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell.\n They knew not fear that to the foeman yields,\n They were not weak, as one who vainly wields\n A futile weapon, yet the sad scrolls tell\n How on the hard-fought field they always fell.\n\n It was a secret music that they heard,\n A sad sweet plea for pity and for peace;\n And that which pierced the heart was but a word,\n Though the white breast was red-lipped where the sword\n Pressed a fierce cruel kiss, to put surcease\n On its hot thirst, but drank a hot increase.\n Ah, then by some strange troubling doubt were stirred,\n And died for hearing what no foeman heard.\n\n They went forth to battle but they always fell;\n Their might was not the might of lifted spears;\n Over the battle-clamor came a spell\n Of troubling music, and they fought not well.\n Their wreaths are willows and their tribute, tears;\n Their names are old sad stories in men\u2019s ears;\n Yet they will scatter the red hordes of Hell,\n Who went to battle forth and always fell.\n\n\n\n\nHE WHOM A DREAM HATH POSSESSED\n\nBY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL\n\n\n He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of doubting,\n For mist and the blowing of winds and the mouthing of words he\n scorns;\n Not the sinuous speech of schools he hears, but a knightly shouting,\n And never comes darkness down, yet he greeteth a million morns.\n\n He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of roaming;\n All roads and the flowing of waves and the speediest flight he\n knows,\n But wherever his feet are set, his soul is forever homing,\n And going he comes, and coming he heareth a call and goes.\n\n He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of sorrow,\n At death and the dropping of leaves and the fading of suns he\n smiles,\n For a dream remembers no past and scorns the desire of a morrow,\n And a dream in a sea of doom sets surely the ultimate isles.\n\n He whom a dream hath possessed treads the impalpable marches,\n From the dust of the day\u2019s long road he leaps to a laughing star,\n And the ruin of worlds that fall he views from eternal arches,\n And rides God\u2019s battle-field in a flashing and golden car.\n\n\n\n\nMARIA IMMACULATA\n\nBY COND\u00c9 BENOIST PALLEN\n\n\nI\n\n How may I sing, unworthy I,\n Our Lady\u2019s glorious sanctity?\n She whose celestial shoon\n Rest on the horned moon\n In Heaven\u2019s highest galaxy;\n She whom the poet sang of old\n In that rare vision told\n In soft Tuscan speech of gold,\n The spotless spouse and mother-maid\n The goodliest sapphire in Heaven\u2019s floor inlaid,\n Around whom wheels the circling flame\n Of the rapt seraph breathing Mary\u2019s name,\n While choir to choir replies\n In growing harmonies\n Through all the glowing spheres of Paradise,\n Till universal Heaven\u2019s glad estate\n Rings jubilation to their queen immaculate.\n\n\nII\n\n Ah me! Unworthy I to sing\n The stainless mother of my King,\n My King and Lord,\n The Incarnate Word,\n Heaven itself comprest\n Within her virgin breast!\n How may my faltering rhyme\n Sing of Eternity in time,\n Omnipotence in human frailty exprest,\n Our earthly garden fragrant with celestial thyme.\n What Muse, though great Urania guide her flight,\n May dare the sacrosanct and awful height\n Of that mysterious sublime\n Within the secret counsels of the Infinite!\n Omniscence there supreme and sole\n Clasps the beginning and the whole\n Of Love beyond created sight,\n Uncreate and quintessential light!\n Before the splendor of that ray\n Cherub and seraph fall away\n Dazzled and broken by excess\n Of everpowering blessedness,\n Yet panting for the fulness of the bliss\n That breathes consuming fire from Love\u2019s unkenned abyss.\n Not through that fiery sphere my way,\n But here where shines the veil\u00e9d day,\n The flames of mystery insteeped\n In this our mortal clay;\n For in her maiden breast asleep\n Lies all the Love of Heaven\u2019s deep,\n The holy circle of her zone\n Incarnate Love\u2019s terrestrial throne.\n\n\nIII\n\n The great archangel veils his face\n Before her: \u201cHail, full of grace!\u201d\n And Heaven is clasped of earth;\n While all the wheeling spheres with all their choirs\n Around her wheel seraphic fires.\n Eden rises to its second birth;\n Again the prime estate\n Of man is renovate,\n And all the elder worth renewed in her immaculate;\n Virgin and spouse of Him\n Who breathes the virtue of the Seraphim,\n Virgin and mother of the Eternal Son,\n Daughter, Virgin, Spouse in one!\n The spotless mate of spotless Dove,\n The one great miracle of God\u2019s love,\n From all eternity the chosen bride,\n Save only her none, none\n Exempt from sin\u2019s dominion;\n Save only her of Adam\u2019s race\n Or heavenly line, none full of grace;\n On her alone, on her alone\n The torrent of His love poured down\n The deep abundance of its flood\n Into the pure channels of her maidenhood,\n The fleckless mirror of her grace\n Reflecting all the beauty of His Face.\n\n\nIV\n\n She looks with human eyes\n Into the eyes of Paradise;\n Upon her virgin breast the Babe Divine\n Gazes again into her eyne;\n O vanity of words to tell\n The wonder of that spell,\n The ravishment of bliss\n Upwelling from the deep abyss\n Of Love incarnate gazing in the eyes\n Of his terrestrial paradise!\n See Heaven within her arms,\n Gathered against all harms,\n Innocence by innocence addrest,\n Virgin love by virgin love carest,\n The sinless mother and the sinless Son\n For Heaven and earth to gaze upon!\n Her living image on her knee,\n O the depths of her maternity!\n Her God, her Infant at her breast,\n O Love beyond all utterance exprest,\n The Eternal Word in virgin flesh made manifest!\n\n\nV\n\n Ye sons of Adam rejoice\n With exultant voice!\n Shake off your chains! Arise!\n The ancient dragon has no power\n O\u2019er Jesse\u2019s virgin flower,\n And stricken \u2019neath a maiden\u2019s sandal lies.\n Nor may his venomed breath so much\n As her garment\u2019s outer margin touch;\n And sin\u2019s torrential flood,\n That whelmed all Adam\u2019s flesh and blood,\n Its loathsome stream turns back\n Before her footsteps\u2019 radiant track.\n\n\nVI\n\n Rejoice, children of men!\n Behold again\n Your flesh rejuvenate\n In her immaculate!\n Rejoice with exceeding joy,\n For in her free from sin\u2019s alloy\n Your renovated race\n In plentitude of grace\n Dare look again unshamed upon its Maker\u2019s Face!\n Chosen to bear the Eternal Word,\n In her your more than dignity restored;\n In her the more than golden worth\n Of Eden\u2019s prime when Heaven was linked with earth;\n Unstained by Adam\u2019s guilty forfeiture,\n In her your long corrupted flesh made pure;\n For of her, flesh of flesh and bone of bone,\n Eternal Love builds up His stainless throne!\n\n\nVII\n\n Rejoice and be glad this day!\n In jubilation lay\n Your tribute at her feet,\n Spotless and most meet,\n The mystic rose of Jesse\u2019s root,\n To bear the heavenly fruit;\n Wisdom\u2019s seat and Heaven\u2019s gate,\n Our surest advocate,\n Mother of God immaculate!\n Be glad, O Adam\u2019s clay,\n Be glad this happy day.\n And with accordant voice acclaim\n Our spotless Lady\u2019s stainless fame;\n Be ye exceeding glad and sing\n The mother of our King.\n And though unworthy be my strain,\n She is too tender not to deign\n To lend a gracious ear\n To this her children\u2019s humble prayer:\n _Mother of Mercy, hear!\n Mother whose face is likest His,\n Who our Redeemer is,\n Grant us one day to share\n Thy happiness in gazing on His Face,\n Who found thee without spot and full of grace!_\n\n\n\n\nTHE RAISING OF THE FLAG\n\nBY COND\u00c9 BENOIST PALLEN\n\n\n Lift up the banner of our love\n To the kiss of the winds above,\n The banner of the world\u2019s fair hope,\n Set with stars from the azure cope,\n When liberty was young,\n And yet unsung\n Clarioned her voice among\n The trodden peoples, and stirred\n The pulses with her word,\n Till the swift flood red\n From the quick heart sped,\n Flushing valour\u2019s cheek with flame\n At sounding of her august sacred name!\n\n Lift up the banner of the stars,\n The standard of the double bars,\n Red with the holy tide\n Of heroes\u2019 blood, who died\n At the feet of liberty,\n Shouting her battle-cry\n Triumphantly\n As they fell like sickled corn\n In that first resplendent morn\n Of freedom, glad to die\n In the dawn of her clear eye!\n\n Lift up the flag of starry blue\n Caught from the crystal hue\n Of central heaven\u2019s glowing dome,\n Where the great winds largely roam\n In unrestrain\u00e9d liberty;\n Caught from the cerulean sea\n Of midmost ocean tossing free,\n Flecked with the racing foam\n Of rushing waters, as they leap\n Unbridled from the laughing deep\n In the gulfs of liberty!\n\n Lift up the banner red\n With the blood of heroes shed\n In victory!\n Lift up the banner blue\n As heaven, and as true\n In constancy!\n Lift up the banner white\n As sea foam in the light\n Of liberty;\n The banner of the triple hue,\n The banner of the red and white and blue,\n Bright ensign of the free!\n\n Lift up the banner of the days to come,\n When cease the trumpet and the rolling drum;\n When peace in the nest of love\n Unfolds the wings of the dove,\n Brooding o\u2019er the days to-be,\n Peace born of freedom\u2019s might,\n Peace sprung from the power of right,\n The peace of liberty!\n\n Lift up the flag of high surprise\n To greet the gladdened eyes\n Of peoples far and near,\n The glorious harbinger\n Of earth\u2019s wide liberties,\n Streaming pure and clear\n In freedom\u2019s lofty atmosphere!\n\n Lift up our hearts to Him who made to shine\n In Heaven\u2019s arch the glorious sign\n Of mercy\u2019s heavenly birth\n To all the peoples of the earth,\n The pledge of peace divine!\n And let our glorious banner, too,\n The banner of the rainbow\u2019s hue,\n In heaven\u2019s wide expanse unfurled,\n Be for a promise to the world\n Of peace to all mankind;\n Banner of peace and light,\n Banner of red and blue and white,\n Red as the crimson blood\n Of Christ\u2019s wide brotherhood,\n Blue with the unchanging hope\n Of heaven\u2019s steadfast sun,\n White as the radiant sun\n The whole earth shining on!\n\n\n\n\nTHE BABE OF BETHLEHEM\n\nBY COND\u00c9 BENOIST PALLEN\n\n\n O cruel manger, how bleak, how bleak!\n For the limbs of the Babe, my God;\n Soft little limbs on the cold, cold straw;\n Weep, O eyes, for thy God!\n\n Bitter ye winds in the frosty night\n Upon the Babe, my God,\n Piercing the torn and broken thatch;\n Lament, O heart, for thy God!\n\n Bare is the floor, how bare, how bare\n For the Babe\u2019s sweet mother, my God;\n Only a stable for mother and Babe;\n How cruel thy world, my God!\n\n Cast out, cast out, by his brother men\n Unknown the Babe, my God;\n The ox and the ass alone are there;\n Soften, O heart, for thy God!\n\n Dear little arms and sweet little hands,\n That stretch for thy mother, my God;\n Soft baby eyes to the mother\u2019s eyes;\n Melt, O heart, for thy God!\n\n Waxen touches on mother\u2019s heart,\n Fingers of the Babe, my God;\n Dear baby lips to her virgin breast,\n The virgin mother of God.\n\n The shepherds have come from the hills to adore\n The Babe in the manger, my God;\n Mary and Joseph welcome them there;\n Worship, O soul, thy God!\n\n But I alone may not come near\n The Babe in the manger, my God;\n Weep for thy sins, O heart, and plead\n With Mary the mother of God.\n\n May I not come, oh, just to the door,\n To see the Babe, my God;\n There will I stop and kneel and adore,\n And weep for my sins, O God!\n\n But Mary smiles, and rising up,\n In her arms the Babe, my God,\n She comes to the door and bends her down,\n With the Babe in her arms, my God!\n\n Her sinless arms in my sinful arms\n Place the Babe, my God;\n \u201cHe has come to take thy sins away;\u201d\n Break, O heart, for thy God!\n\n\n\n\nTHE TOYS\n\nBY COVENTRY PATMORE\n\n\n My little son, who look\u2019d from thoughtful eyes\n And mov\u2019d and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,\n Having my law the seventh time disobey\u2019d,\n I struck him, and dismiss\u2019d\n With hard words and unkiss\u2019d,\n His Mother, who was patient, being dead.\n Then fearing lest his grief should hinder him sleep\n I visited his bed,\n But found him slumbering deep,\n With darken\u2019d eyelids, and their lashes yet\n From his late sobbing wet.\n And I, with moan,\n Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;\n For, on a table drawn beside his head,\n Fie had put, within his reach,\n A box of counters and a red-vein\u2019d stone,\n A piece of glass abraded by the beach,\n And six or seven shells,\n A bottle with bluebells\n And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,\n To comfort his sad heart.\n So when that night I pray\u2019d\n To God, I wept, and said:\n Ah, when at last we lie with tranc\u00e9d breath,\n Not vexing Thee in death,\n And Thou rememberest of what toys\n We made our joys,\n How weakly understood\n Thy great commanded good,\n Then, fatherly not less\n Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,\n Thou\u2019lt leave Thy wrath, and say,\n \u201cI will be sorry for their childishness.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\u201cIF I WERE DEAD\u201d\n\nBY COVENTRY PATMORE\n\n\n \u201cIf I were dead, you\u2019d some time say, Poor Child!\u201d\n The dear lips quiver\u2019d as they spake,\n And the tears break\n From eyes, which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled.\n Poor Child, poor Child!\n I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song.\n It is not true that Love will do no wrong.\n Poor Child!\n And did you think, when you so cried and smiled,\n How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake,\n And of those words your full avengers make?\n Poor Child, poor Child!\n And now, unless it be\n That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee,\n O God, have Thou no mercy upon me!\n Poor Child!\n\n\n\n\nDEPARTURE\n\nBY COVENTRY PATMORE\n\n\n It was not like your great and gracious ways!\n Do you, that have nought other to lament,\n Never, my Love, repent\n Of how, that July afternoon,\n You went,\n With sudden, unintelligible phrase,\n And frightened eye,\n Upon your journey of so many days\n Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?\n I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;\n And so we sate, within the low sun\u2019s rays,\n You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,\n Your harrowing praise.\n Well, it was well\n To hear you such things speak,\n And I could tell\n What made your eyes a growing gloom of love,\n As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove.\n And it was like your great and gracious ways\n To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,\n Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash\n To let the laughter flash,\n Whilst I drew near,\n Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.\n But all at once to leave me at the last,\n More at the wonder than the loss aghast,\n With huddled, unintelligible phrase,\n And frighten\u2019d eye,\n And go your journey of all days\n With not one kiss, or a good-bye,\n And the only loveless look the look with which you passed;\n \u2019Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.\n\n\n\n\nREGINA C\u0152LI\n\nBY COVENTRY PATMORE\n\n\n Say, did his sisters wonder what could Joseph see\n In a mild, silent little Maid like thee?\n And was it awful, in that narrow house,\n With God for Babe and Spouse?\n Nay, like thy simple, female sort, each one\n Apt to find Him in Husband and in Son,\n Nothing to thee came strange in this.\n Thy wonder was but wondrous bliss:\n Wondrous, for, though\n True Virgin lives not but does know,\n (Howbeit none ever yet confess\u2019d,)\n That God lies really in her breast,\n Of thine He made His special nest!\n And so\n All mothers worship little feet,\n And kiss the very ground they\u2019ve trod;\n But, ah, thy little Baby sweet\n Who was indeed thy God!\n\n\n\n\nIDEAL\n\nBY P. H. PEARSE\n\n(Translated from the Irish by Thomas MacDonagh)\n\n\n Naked I saw thee,\n O beauty of beauty!\n And I blinded my eyes\n For fear I should flinch.\n\n I heard thy music,\n O sweetness of sweetness!\n And I shut my ears\n For fear I should fail.\n\n I kissed thy lips,\n O sweetness of sweetness!\n And I hardened my heart\n For fear of my ruin.\n\n I blinded my eyes,\n And my ears I shut,\n I hardened my heart\n And my love I quenched.\n\n I turned my back\n On the dream I had shaped,\n And to this road before me\n My face I turned.\n\n I set my face\n To the road here before me,\n To the work that I see,\n To the death that I shall meet.\n\n\n\n\nMUSIC\n\nBY CHARLES PHILLIPS\n\n\n There is a hunger in my heart to-night,\n A longing in my soul, to hear\n The voice of heaven o\u2019er the noise of earth\n That doth assail mine ear.\n\n For we are exiled children of the skies,\n Lone and lost wanderers from home ...\n The stars come out like lamps in windows lit\n Far, far from where we roam;\n\n Like candles lit to show the long late way,\n Dear kindly beacons sure and bright;\n But O, the heavy journeying, and O\n The silence of the night!--\n\n The dark and vasty silences that lie\n Between the going and the goal!\n Will not God reach a friendly hand to lift\n And land my weary soul?\n\n Will not God speak a friendly word to me\n Above the tumult and the din\n Of earthly things--one little word to hush\n The voice of care and sin?...\n\n He speaks! He answers my poor faltering prayer!\n He opens heaven\u2019s lattice wide;\n He bids me bathe my brow in heavenly airs\n Like to a flowing tide!\n\n He calls; He gives unto my famished soul,\n Unto my eager heart, its meed:\n He breathes upon me with the breath of song,\n And O, my soul is freed,\n\n And I am lifted up and up, and held\n A little while--a child, to see\n The beauties of my Father\u2019s house, which shall\n No more be shut from me!\n\n\n\n\nI SEE HIS BLOOD UPON THE ROSE\n\nBY JOSEPH MARY PLUNKETT\n\n\n I see His blood upon the rose\n And in the stars the glory of His eyes,\n His Body gleams amid eternal snows,\n His tears fall from the skies.\n\n I see His face in every flower;\n The thunder and the singing of the birds\n Are but His voice--and carven by His power\n Rocks are His written words.\n\n All pathways by His feet are worn,\n His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,\n His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,\n His cross is every tree.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STARS SANG IN GOD\u2019S GARDEN\n\nBY JOSEPH MARY PLUNKETT\n\n\n The stars sang in God\u2019s garden;\n The stars are the birds of God;\n The night-time is God\u2019s harvest,\n Its fruits are the words of God.\n\n God ploughed His fields at morning,\n God sowed His seed at noon,\n God reaped and gathered in His corn\n With the rising of the moon.\n\n The sun rose up at midnight,\n The sun rose red as blood,\n It showed the Reaper, the dead Christ,\n Upon His cross of wood.\n\n For many live that one may die,\n And one must die that many live--\n The stars are silent in the sky\n Lest my poor songs be fugitive.\n\n\n\n\n\u201cIS IT NOTHING TO YOU?\u201d\n\nBY MAY PROBYN\n\n\n We were playing on the green together,\n My sweetheart and I--\n Oh, so heedless in the gay June weather,\n When the word went forth that we must die.\n Oh, so merrily the balls of amber\n And of ivory tossed we to the sky,\n While the word went forth in the King\u2019s chamber,\n That we both must die.\n\n Oh, so idly, straying through the pleasaunce,\n Plucked we here and there\n Fruit and bud, while in the royal presence\n The King\u2019s son was casting from his hair\n Glory of the wreathen gold that crowned it,\n And, ungirding all his garment fair,\n Flinging by the jewelled clasp that bound it,\n With his feet made bare,\n\n Down the myrtled stairway of the palace,\n Ashes on his head,\n Came he, through the rose and citron alleys,\n In the rough sark of sackcloth habited,\n And in a hempen halter--oh! we jested,\n Lightly, and we laughed as he was led\n To the torture, while the bloom we breasted\n Where the grapes grew red.\n\n Oh, so sweet the birds, when he was dying,\n Piped to her and me--\n Is no room this glad June day for sighing--\n He is dead, and she and I go free!\n When the sun shall set on all our pleasure\n We will mourn him--What, so you decree\n We are heartless?--Nay, but in what measure\n Do you more than we?\n\n\n\n\nTHE BEES OF MYDDLETON MANOR\n\n17th Century\n\nBY MAY PROBYN\n\n\n Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my golden-belted bees:\n My little son was seven years old--the mint-flower touched his\n knees;\n Yellow were his curly locks;\n Yellow were his stocking-clocks;\n His plaything of a sword had a diamond in its hilt;\n Where the garden beds lay sunny,\n And the bees were making honey,\n \u201cFor God and the king--to arms! to arms!\u201d the day long would he\n lilt.\n Smock\u2019d in lace and flowered brocade, my pretty son of seven\n Wept sore because the kitten died, and left the charge uneven.\n \u201cI head one battalion, mother--\n Kitty,\u201d sobbed he, \u201cled the other!\n And when we reach\u2019d the bee-hive bench\n We used to halt and storm the trench:\n If we could plant our standard here,\n With all the bees a-buzzing near,\n And fly the colors safe from sting,\n The town was taken for the king!\u201d\n Flirting flitting over the thyme, by bees with yellow band--\n My little son of seven came close, and clipp\u2019d me by the hand;\n A wreath of mourning cloth was wound\n His small left arm and sword-hilt round,\n And on the thatch of every hive a whisp of black was bound.\n \u201cSweet mother, we must tell the bees, or they will swarm away:\n Ye little bees!\u201d he called, \u201cdraw nigh, and hark to what I say,\n And make us golden honey still for our white wheaten bread,\n Though never more\n We rush on war\n With Kitty at our head:\n Who\u2019ll give the toast\n When swords are cross\u2019d,\n Now Kitty lieth dead?\u201d\n Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my bees of yellow girth:\n My son of seven changed his mood, and clasp\u2019d me in his mirth.\n \u201cSweet mother, when I grow a man and fall on battlefield,\u201d\n He cried, and down in the daisied grass upon one knee he kneel\u2019d,\n \u201cI charge thee, come and tell the bees how I for the king lie dead;\n And thou shalt never lack fine honey for thy wheaten bread!\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\n Flitting, flitting, flitting, my busy bees, alas!\n No footsteps of my soldier son came clinking through the grass.\n Thrice he kiss\u2019d me for farewell;\n And far on the stone his shadow fell;\n He buckled spurs and sword-belt on, as the sun began to stoop,\n Set foot in stirrup, and sprang to horse, and rode to join his\n troop.\n To the west he rode, where the winds were at play,\n And Monmouth\u2019s army mustering lay;\n Where Bridgewater flew her banner high,\n And gave up her keys, when the Duke came by;\n And the maids of Taunton paid him court\n With colors their own white hands had wrought;\n And red as a field, where blood doth run,\n Sedgemoor blazed in the setting sun.\n\n Broider\u2019d sash and clasp of gold, my soldier son, alas!\n The mint was all in flower, and the clover in the grass:\n \u201cWith every bed\n In bloom,\u201d I said,\n \u201cWhat further lack the bees,\n That they buzz so loud,\n Like a restless cloud,\n Among the orchard trees?\u201d\n No voice in the air, from Sedgemoor field,\n Moan\u2019d out how Grey and the horse had reel\u2019d;\n Met me no ghost, with haunting eyes,\n That westward pointed \u2019mid its sighs,\n And pull\u2019d apart a bloody vest,\n And show\u2019d the sword-gash in his breast.\n\n Empty hives, and flitting bees, and sunny morning hours;\n I snipp\u2019d the blossom\u2019d lavender, and the pinks, and the\n gillyflowers;\n No petal trembled in my hold--\n I saw not the dead stretched stark and cold\n On the trampled turf at the shepherd\u2019s door,\n In the cloak and the doublet Monmouth wore,\n With Monmouth\u2019s scarf and headgear on,\n And the eyes, not clos\u2019d, of my soldier son;\n I knew not how, ere the cocks did crow, the fight was fought in the\n dark,\n With naught for guide but the enemy\u2019s guns, when the flint flash\u2019d\n out a spark,\n Till, routed at first sound of fire, the cavalry broke and fled,\n And the hoofs struck dumb, where they spurn\u2019d the slain, and the\n meadow stream ran red;\n I saw not the handful of horsemen spur through the dusk, and out of\n sight,\n My soldier son at the Duke\u2019s left hand, and Grey that rode on his\n right.\n Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my honey-making bees,\n They left the musk, and the marigolds and the scented faint sweet\n peas;\n They gather\u2019d in a darkening cloud, and sway\u2019d, and rose to fly;\n A blackness on the summer blue, they swept across the sky.\n Gaunt and ghastly with gaping wounds--(my soldier son, alas!)\n Footsore and faint, the messenger came halting through the grass.\n The wind went by and shook the leaves--the mint-stalk shed its\n flower--\n And I miss\u2019d the murmuring round the hives, and my boding heart beat\n slower.\n His soul we cheer\u2019d with meat and wine;\n With woman\u2019s craft and balsam fine\n We bathed his hurts, and bound them soft,\n While west the wind played through the croft,\n And the low sun dyed the pinks blood red,\n And, straying near the mint-flower shed,\n A wild bee wantoned o\u2019er the bed.\n\n He told how my son, at the shepherd\u2019s door, kept watch in Monmouth\u2019s\n clothes,\n While Monmouth donned the shepherd\u2019s frock, in hope to cheat his\n foes.\n A couple of troopers spied him stand,\n And bade him yield to the king\u2019s command:\n \u201cSurrender, thou rebel as good as dead,\n A price is set on thy traitor head!\u201d\n My soldier son, with secret smile,\n Held both at bay for a little while,\n Dealt them such death blow as he fell,\n Neither was left the tale to tell;\n With dying eyes that asked no grace,\n They stared on him for a minute\u2019s space,\n And felt that it was not Monmouth\u2019s face.\n Crimsoned through was Monmouth\u2019s cloak, when the soldier dropped at\n their side--\n \u201cThose knaves will carry no word,\u201d he said, and he smiled in his\n pain, and died.\n \u201cTwo days,\u201d told the messenger, \u201cdid we lie\n Hid in the fields of peas and rye,\n Hid in the ditch of brake and sedge,\n With the enemy\u2019s scouts down every hedge,\n Till Grey was seized, and Monmouth seized, that under the fern did\n crouch,\n Starved and haggard, and all unshaved, with a few raw peas in his\n pouch.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\n No music soundeth in my ears, but a passing bell that tolls\n For gallant lords with head on block--sweet Heaven receive their\n souls!\n And a mound, unnamed, in Sedgemoor grass,\n That laps my soldier son, alas!\n The bloom is shed--\n The bees are fled--\n Middleton luck it\u2019s done and dead.\n\n\n\n\nA LEGEND\n\nBY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER\n\n\nI\n\n The Monk was preaching: strong his earnest word,\n From the abundance of his heart he spoke,\n And the flame spread,--in every soul that heard\n Sorrow and love and good resolve awoke:--\n The poor lay Brother, ignorant and old,\n Thanked God that he had heard such words of gold.\n\n\nII\n\n \u201cStill let the glory, Lord, be thine alone,\u201d--\n So prayed the Monk, his heart absorbed in praise:\n \u201cThine be the glory: if my hands have sown\n The harvest ripened in Thy mercy\u2019s rays,\n It was Thy blessing, Lord, that made my word\n Bring light and love to every soul that heard.\u201d\n\n\nIII\n\n \u201cO Lord, I thank Thee that my feeble strength\n Has been so blest; that sinful hearts and cold\n Were melted at my pleading,--knew at length\n How sweet Thy service and how safe Thy fold:\n While souls that loved Thee saw before them rise\n Still holier heights of loving sacrifice.\u201d\n\n\nIV\n\n So prayed the Monk: when suddenly he heard\n An Angel speaking thus: \u201cKnow, O my Son,\n The words had all been vain, but hearts were stirred,\n And saints were edified, and sinners won,\n By his, the poor lay Brother\u2019s humble aid\n Who sat upon the pulpit stair and prayed.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE SACRED HEART\n\nBY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER\n\n\n What wouldst thou have, O soul,\n Thou weary soul?\n Lo! I have sought for rest\n On the Earth\u2019s heaving breast,\n From pole to pole.\n Sleep--I have been with her,\n But she gave dreams;\n Death--nay, the rest he gives\n Rest only seems.\n Fair nature knows it not--\n The grass is growing;\n The blue air knows it not--\n The winds are blowing:\n Not in the changing sky,\n The stormy sea,\n Yet somewhere in God\u2019s wide world\n Rest there must be.\n Within thy Saviour\u2019s Heart\n Place all thy care,\n And learn, O weary soul,\n Thy Rest is there.\n\n What wouldst thou, trembling soul?\n Strength for the strife,--\n Strength for this fiery war\n That we call Life.\n Fears gather thickly round;\n Shadowy foes,\n Like unto armed men,\n Around me close.\n What am I, frail and poor,\n When griefs arise?\n No help from the weak earth,\n Or the cold skies.\n Lo! I can find no guards,\n No weapons borrow;\n Shrinking, alone I stand,\n With mighty sorrow.\n Courage, thou trembling soul,\n Grief thou must bear,\n Yet thou canst find a strength\n Will match despair;\n Within thy Saviour\u2019s Heart--\n Seek for it there.\n\n What wouldst thou have, sad soul,\n Oppressed with grief?--\n Comfort: I seek in vain,\n Nor find relief.\n Nature, all pitiless,\n Smiles on my pain;\n I ask my fellow-men,\n They give disdain.\n I asked the babbling streams,\n But they flowed on;\n I asked the wise and good,\n But they gave none.\n Though I have asked the stars,\n Coldly they shine.\n They are too bright to know\n Grief such as mine.\n I asked for comfort still,\n And I found tears,\n And I have sought in vain\n Long, weary years.\n Listen, thou mournful soul,\n Thy pain shall cease;\n Deep in His sacred Heart\n Dwells joy and peace.\n\n Yes, in that Heart divine\n The Angels bright\n Find, through eternal years,\n Still new delight.\n From thence his constancy\n The martyr drew,\n And there the virgin band\n Their refuge knew.\n There, racked by pain without,\n And dread within,\n How many souls have found\n Heaven\u2019s bliss begin.\n Then leave thy vain attempts\n To seek for peace;\n The world can never give\n One soul release;\n But in thy Saviour\u2019s Heart\n Securely dwell,\n No pain can harm thee, hid\n In that sweet cell.\n Then fly, O coward soul,\n Delay no more:\n What words can speak the joy\n For thee in store?\n What smiles of earth can tell\n Of peace like thine?\n Silence and tears are best\n For things divine.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ANNUNCIATION\n\nBY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER\n\n\n How pure, and frail, and white,\n The snowdrops shine!\n Gather a garland bright\n For Mary\u2019s shrine.\n\n For, born of winter snows,\n These fragile flowers\n Are gifts to our fair Queen\n From Spring\u2019s first hours.\n\n For on this bless\u00e8d day\n She knelt at prayer;\n When, lo! before her shone\n An Angel fair.\n\n \u201cHail, Mary!\u201d thus he cried,\n With reverent fear:\n She, with sweet wondering eyes,\n Marvelled to hear.\n\n Be still, ye clouds of Heaven!\n Be silent, Earth!\n And hear an Angel tell\n Of Jesus\u2019 birth,\n\n While she, whom Gabriel hails\n As full of grace,\n Listens with humble faith\n In her sweet face.\n\n Be still,--Pride, War, and Pomp,\n Vain Hopes, vain Fears,\n For now an Angel speaks,\n And Mary hears.\n\n \u201cHail, Mary!\u201d lo, it rings\n Through ages on;\n \u201cHail Mary!\u201d it shall sound,\n Till Time is done\n\n \u201cHail, Mary!\u201d infant lips\n Lisp it to-day;\n \u201cHail, Mary!\u201d with faint smile\n The dying say.\n\n \u201cHail, Mary!\u201d many a heart\n Broken with grief,\n In that angelic prayer\n Has found relief.\n\n And many a half-lost soul,\n When turned at bay,\n With those triumphant words\n Has won the day.\n\n \u201cHail, Mary, Queen of Heaven!\u201d\n Let us repeat,\n And place our snowdrop wreath\n Here at her feet.\n\n\n\n\nOUR DAILY BREAD\n\nBY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER\n\n\n Give us our daily Bread,\n O God, the bread of strength!\n For we have learnt to know\n How weak we are at length.\n As children we are weak,\n As children must be fed;--\n Give us Thy Grace, O Lord,\n To be our daily Bread.\n\n Give us our daily Bread:--\n The bitter bread of grief.\n We sought earth\u2019s poisoned feasts\n For pleasure and relief;\n We sought her deadly fruits,\n But now, O God, instead,\n We ask thy healing grief\n To be our daily Bread.\n\n Give us our daily Bread\n To cheer our fainting soul;\n The feast of comfort, Lord,\n And peace, to make us whole:\n For we are sick of tears,\n The useless tears we shed;--\n Now give us comfort, Lord,\n To be our daily Bread.\n\n Give us our daily Bread,\n The Bread of Angels, Lord,\n For us, so many times,\n Broken, betrayed, adored:\n His Body and His Blood;--\n The feast that Jesus spread:\n Give Him--our life, our all--\n To be our daily Bread!\n\n\n\n\nMY MARYLAND\n\nBY JAMES RYDER RANDALL\n\n\n The despot\u2019s heel is on thy shore,\n Maryland!\n His torch is at thy temple door,\n Maryland!\n Avenge the patriotic gore\n That flecked the streets of Baltimore,\n And be the battle-queen of yore,\n Maryland, my Maryland!\n\n Hark to an exiled son\u2019s appeal,\n Maryland!\n My Mother State, to thee I kneel,\n Maryland!\n For life and death, for woe and weal,\n Thy peerless chivalry reveal,\n And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,\n Maryland, my Maryland!\n\n Thou wilt not cower in the dust,\n Maryland!\n Thy beaming sword shall never rust,\n Maryland!\n Remember Carroll\u2019s sacred trust,\n Remember Howard\u2019s warlike thrust,\n And all thy slumberers with the just,\n Maryland, my Maryland!\n\n Come! \u2019tis the red dawn of the day,\n Maryland!\n Come with thy panoplied array,\n Maryland!\n With Ringgold\u2019s spirit for the fray,\n With Watson\u2019s blood at Monterey,\n With fearless Lowe and dashing May,\n Maryland, my Maryland!\n\n Dear Mother, burst the tyrant\u2019s chain,\n Maryland!\n Virginia should not call in vain,\n Maryland!\n She meets her sisters on the plain,--\n \u201c_Sic semper!_\u201d \u2019tis the proud refrain\n That baffles minions back amain,\n Maryland!\n Arise in majesty again,\n Maryland, my Maryland!\n\n Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,\n Maryland!\n Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,\n Maryland!\n Come to thine own heroic throng\n Stalking with Liberty along,\n And chant thy dauntless slogan-song,\n Maryland, my Maryland!\n\n I see the blush upon thy cheek,\n Maryland!\n For thou wast ever bravely meek,\n Maryland!\n But lo! there surges forth a shriek,\n From hill to hill, from creek to creek,\n Potomac calls to Chesapeake,\n Maryland, my Maryland!\n\n Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,\n Maryland!\n Thou wilt not crook to his control,\n Maryland!\n Better the fire upon thee roll,\n Better the shot, the blade, the bowl,\n Than crucifixion of the soul,\n Maryland, my Maryland!\n\n I hear the distant thunder hum,\n Maryland!\n The Old Line\u2019s bugle, fife and drum,\n Maryland!\n She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb;\n Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!\n She breathes! She burns! She\u2019ll come! She\u2019ll come!\n Maryland, my Maryland!\n\n\n\n\nMAGDALEN\n\nBY JAMES RYDER RANDALL\n\n\n The Hebrew girl, with flaming brow,\n The banner-blush of shame,\n Sinks at the sinless Saviour\u2019s Knees\n And dares to breathe His name.\n From the full fountain of her eyes\n The lava-globes are roll\u2019d--\n They wash His feet; she spurns them off\n With her ringlet-scarf of gold.\n\n The Meek One feels the eloquence\n Of agonizing prayer,\n The burning tears, the suppliant face,\n The penitential hair;\n And when, to crown her brimming woe,\n The ointment box is riven--\n \u201cRise, daughter, rise! Much hast thou loved,\n Be all thy sins forgiven!\u201d\n\n Dear God! The prayer of good and pure,\n The canticles of light,\n Enrobe Thy throne with gorgeous skies,\n As incense in Thy sight;\n May the shivered vase of Magdalen\n Soothe many an outcast\u2019s smart,\n Teaching what fragrant pleas may spring\n From out a _broken heart_!\n\n\n\n\nWHY THE ROBIN\u2019S BREAST WAS RED\n\nBY JAMES RYDER RANDALL\n\n\n The Saviour, bowed beneath His Cross, climbed up the dreary hill,\n And from the agonizing wreath ran many a crimson rill;\n The cruel Roman thrust Him on with unrelenting hand,\n Till, staggering slowly \u2019mid the crowd, He fell upon the sand.\n\n A little bird that warbled near, that memorable day,\n Flitted around and strove to wrench one single thorn away;\n The cruel spike impaled his breast,--and thus \u2019tis sweetly said,\n The robin has his silver vest incarnadined with red.\n\n Ah, Jesu! Jesu! Son of man! my dolor and my sighs\n Reveal the lesson taught by this winged Ishmael of the skies.\n I, in the palace of delight or cavern of despair,\n Have plucked no thorns from Thy dear brow, but planted thousands\n there!\n\n\n\n\nLE REPOS IN EGYPTE: THE SPHINX\n\nBY AGNES REPPLIER\n\n\n All day I watch the stretch of burning sand;\n All night I brood beneath the golden stars;\n Amid the silence of a desolate land,\n No touch of bitterness my reverie mars.\n Built by the proudest of a kingly line,\n Over my head the centuries fly fast;\n The secrets of the mighty dead are mine;\n I hold the key of a forgotten past.\n Yet, ever hushed into a rapturous dream,\n I see again that night. A halo mild\n Shone from the liquid moon. Beneath her beam\n Traveled a tired young Mother and the Child.\n Within mine arms she slumbered, and alone\n I watched the Infant. At my feet her guide\n Lay stretched o\u2019er-wearied. On my breast of stone\n Rested the Crucified.\n\n\n\n\nANDROMEDA\n\nBY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE\n\n\n They chained her fair young body to the cold and cruel stone;\n The beast begot of sea and slime had marked her for his own;\n The callous world beheld the wrong, and left her there alone.\n Base caitiffs who belied her, false kinsmen who denied her,\n Ye left her there alone!\n My Beautiful, they left thee in thy peril and thy pain;\n The night that hath no morrow was brooding on the main:\n But, lo! a light is breaking of hope for thee again;\n \u2019T is Perseus\u2019s sword a-flaming, thy dawn of day proclaiming\n Across the western main.\n O Ireland! O my country! he comes to break thy chain!\n\n\n\n\nNATURE THE FALSE GODDESS\n\nBY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE\n\n\n The vilest work of vilest man,\n The cup that drugs, the sword that slays,\n The purchased kiss of courtesan,\n The lying tongue of blame of praise,\n\n The cobra\u2019s fang, the tiger\u2019s tongue,\n The python\u2019s murderous embrace--\n The wrath of any living thing\n A man may fear but bravely face.\n\n But thou, cold Mother, knowest naught\n Of love, of hate, or joy, or woe;\n Thy bounties come to man unsought,\n Thy curses fall on friend and foe.\n\n Thou bearest balm upon thy breath,\n Or sowest poison in the air;\n And if man reapeth life or death,\n Thou dost not know, thou dost not care.\n\n Thou art God\u2019s instrument of fate,\n Obedient, mighty, soulless, blind,\n No demon to propitiate,\n No deity in love enshrined.\n\n Let him who turns from God away\n To Bel or Moloch bend the knee;\n Defile his soul to wood or clay,\n Or thrill with Voodoo\u2019s ecstasy.\n\n Seek any fetich undivine,\n Be any superstition\u2019s thrall,\n From Heaven or Hell will come a sign;\n But thou alone art deaf to all.\n\n\n\n\nTHREE DOVES\n\nBY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE\n\n\n Seaward, at morn, my doves flew free;\n At eve they circled back to me.\n The first was Faith; the second, Hope;\n The third, the whitest, Charity.\n\n Above the plunging surges play\n Dream-like they hovered, day by day.\n At last they turned, and bore to me\n Green signs of peace thro\u2019 nightfall gray,\n\n No shore forlorn, no loveliest land\n Their gentle eye had left unscanned,\n \u2019Mid hues of twilight-heliotrope\n Or daybreak fires by heaven-breath fanned\n\n Quick visions of celestial grace,--\n Hither they waft, from earth\u2019s broad space,\n Kind thoughts for all humanity,\n They shine with radiance from God\u2019s face.\n\n Ah, since my heart they choose for home,\n Why loose them,--forth again to roam?\n Yet look; they rise with loftier scope\n They wheel in flight toward Heaven\u2019s pure dome.\n\n Fly, messengers that find no rest\n Save in such toil as makes man blest!\n Your home is God\u2019s immensity;\n We hold you but at His behest.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WAY OF THE WORLD\n\nBY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE\n\n\n The hands of the King are soft and fair\n They never knew labor\u2019s strain\n The hands of the Robber redly wear\n The bloody brand of Cain.\n But the hands of the Man are hard and scarred\n With the scars of toil and pain.\n\n The slaves of Pilate have washed his hands\n As white as a kings might be.\n Barrabas with wrists unfettered stands\n For the world has made him free.\n But Thy palms toil-worn by nails are torn,\n O Christ, on Calvary.\n\n\n\n\nAVE MARIA\n\nBY JOHN JEROME ROONEY\n\n\n Lady, thy soldier I would be,\n This day I choose thy shield,\n And go, thrice-armored for the fight,\n Forth to the world\u2019s wide field.\n\n There I shall meet the dark allies,\n The Flesh, the Fiend, the World,\n And fiercely shall their darts of fire\n Upon my heart be hurled.\n\n But I will raise my buckler strong\n Betwixt me and the foe,\n And, with the spirit\u2019s flaming sword,\n Shall give them blow for blow.\n\n Lady, thy sailor I would be,\n This day I sign my name\n To sail the high seas of the earth\n For glory of thy fame.\n\n The tempest may besiege my bark,\n The pirate lie in wait:\n The perils of the monstrous deep\n May tempt o\u2019erwhelming fate:\n\n Yet, wheresoe\u2019er my ship may steer\n Upon the waters wide,\n Thy name shall be my compass sure,\n Thy star my midnight guide.\n\n Thy poet, Lady, I would be\n To sing thy peerless praise;\n Thy loyal bard, I\u2019d bring to thee\n Heart-music from all lays.\n\n Soft melody, outpoured in June\n By God\u2019s dear feathered throng,\n Would mingle with the organ\u2019s roll\n To glorify my song;\n\n And Dante\u2019s voice and Petrarch\u2019s strain\n And Milton\u2019s matchless line\n Would lend to my poor minstrel note\n A harmony divine.\n\n Lady, I choose to be thy son;\n For Mother thee I choose;\n O, for thy sweet and holy Child,\n Do not my claim refuse!\n\n Alone and motherless am I:\n Tho\u2019 strong, I long for rest--\n The thunder of the world\u2019s applause\n Is not a mother\u2019s breast.\n\n Ave Maria! Shield us all.\n Thy sons we choose to be.\n Mother of grace, we raise our hearts,\n Our hearts, our love to thee!\n\n\n\n\nREVELATION\n\n\u201c_And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the\nfirst earth were passed away_.\u201d--Revelation XXI:1\n\nBY JOHN JEROME ROONEY\n\n\n The Lord God said to His angel: \u201cLet the old things pass away.\n They have heaped the earth with slaughter their sin obscures the\n day.\n Roll up the night on a curtain: let the stars fade one by one:\n Out of the face of the heavens my anger shall blot the sun.\n For the man I made and breathed on, filled with my breath of breath,\n Hath sown the seas with hatred, his skies are dark with death.\n The babe is slain at the bosom, the babe who beholds my face;\n A welter of woe he leaves it,--the dream of my love and grace.\n\n \u201cLove was the dower I gave him, love the light of his days,\n Love the core of his being, love, and the upward gaze.\n Hate is the meat he feeds on, hate is his daily bread:\n His drink is the blood of his brother, whom Cain hath stricken dead.\n I said to the man in the Garden: \u2018Where is thy brother, Cain?\u2019\n \u2018Am I my brother\u2019s keeper?\u2019 now comes the answer again.\u201d\n The Lord God said to His angel: \u201cThis Thing is accursed and a lie:\n It hath sinned from the Law I gave it, and surely it shall die.\u201d\n\n \u201cThe Beasts of the field are patient, the birds rejoice in song,--\n But what is this Thing of blood-lust, and where does it belong?\n Lo, I shall establish a judgment: Let the old things pass away:\n They have heaped the fields with slaughter: their sin defiles the\n day.\n They have laid on the weak sore burdens, on the just, their whips\n and ban:\n For a handful of crimsoned silver they have kissed the Son of Man.\n Roll back the scroll of the heavens; from out of the womb of birth\n Come forth new heavens untainted; come forth, renewed, the Earth!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nMARQUETTE ON THE SHORES OF THE MISSISSIPPI\n\nOn seeing the original manuscript map of the Mississippi River by its\ndiscoverer, Father Marquette\n\nBY JOHN JEROME ROONEY\n\n\n Here, in the midnight of the solemn wood,\n He heard a roar as of a mighty wind,--\n The onward rush of waters unconfined\n Trampling in legions thro\u2019 the solitude.\n Then lo! before him swept the conquering flood,\n Free as the freedom of the truth-strong mind\n Which hills of Doubt could neither hide nor bind,\n Which, all in vain, the valley mounds withstood!\n\n With glowing eye he saw the prancing tide\n With yellow mane rush onward thro\u2019 the night\n Into the vastness he had never trod:\n Nor dreamt of conquest of that kingdom wide\n As down the flood his spirit took its flight\n Seeking the long-lost children of his God!\n\n\n\n\nTHE EMPIRE BUILDER\n\n(On the death of a Catholic gentleman)\n\nBY JOHN JEROME ROONEY\n\n\nI\n\n This is the song of the Empire Builder,\n Who out of the ends of the earth,\n Thro\u2019 travail of war and of carnage\n Brings strange, new realms to birth.\n\n This is the boast of the Empire Builder:\n Give heed to the deeds of his hands\n And scorn thou not the glory he hath\n In his gold and his wasted lands.\n\n He hath counted his neighbors\u2019 cattle\n With the cold, gray eye of greed:\n He hath marked for his own the fields of wheat\n Where he never had sown the seed:\n\n The vine-clad cot by the hillside,\n Where the farmer\u2019s children play,--\n \u201cThis shall fit in my plan,\u201d he said;\n \u201cWhat use for such as they?\u201d\n\n And so, in the dusk of evening,\n He brought his arm\u00e9d men,\n And where had shone the clustering grapes\n There stretched a waste again.\n\n Homeless, the children wandered\n Thro\u2019 the fields their father won:\n No more shall they feel his clasp and kiss--\n Aye, never beneath the sun.\n\n Vex, vex not the Empire Builder,\n Nor babble of Mercy\u2019s shield;\n Hath he not his vaster issue--\n The linking of field to field?\n\n Hath he not noted the boundary\n That lies \u2019twixt \u201cmine and thine\u201d?\n Hath he not said, \u201c\u2019Twere better for thee\n If thine henceforth be mine\u201d?\n\n And so doth the Empire Builder,\n From out of the ends of the earth,\n Thro\u2019 travail of war and of carnage\n Bring strange, new realms to birth--\n\n Realms builded on broken hearthstones,\n The triumph of Rapine\u2019s hour--\n That one may boast in the halls of Fame\n And sit in the seats of Power!\n\n\nII\n\n This is the song of the Empire Builder,\n Who built not of wasted lands,\n But who builded a kingdom of golden deeds\n And of things not made by hands!\n\n The fields of the spirit were his to roam,\n The paths where the love-flowers grew:\n He felt the breath of the spirits\u2019 spring\n In every wind that blew:\n\n It came not laden with dying groans\n And homeless orphans\u2019 cries:\n It blew from the mountains of the Lord\n And the fields of Paradise.\n\n This is the boast of the Empire Builder\n Who built not of mouldering clay:\n That the kingdom He built, not made by hands,\n Shall never pass away!\n\n The mind cannot measure its boundaries,\n All Space is its outer gate:\n It is broader than ever a man conceived\n And more durable than Fate.\n\n This is the Empire our brother built,\n In His little hour of Earth,\n Thro\u2019 the spirit\u2019s travail of righteous deeds\n And the spirit\u2019s glad rebirth.\n\n He had silenced the boast of the Empire Builder,\n With his gold and wasted lands,\n By his deathless kingdom of golden deeds\n And of things not made by hands.\n\n This is the kingdom our brother built:\n It is good: it hath sufficed;--\n For who can measure the glory he keeps\n With our Elder Brother, Christ?\n\n\n\n\nTHE MEN BEHIND THE GUNS\n\nBY JOHN JEROME ROONEY\n\n\n A cheer and salute for the Admiral, and here\u2019s to the Captain bold,\n And never forget the Commodore\u2019s debt when the deeds of might are\n told!\n They stand to the deck through the battle\u2019s wreck when the great\n shells roar and screech--\n And never they fear when the foe is near to practice what they\n preach:\n But off with your hat and three times three for Columbia\u2019s true-blue\n sons,\n The men below who batter the foe--the men behind the guns!\n\n Oh, light and merry of heart are they when they swing into port once\n more,\n When, with more than enough of the \u201cgreen-backed stuff,\u201d they start\n for their leave-o\u2019-shore;\n And you\u2019d think, perhaps, that the blue-bloused chaps who loll along\n the street\n Are a tender bit, with salt on it, for some fierce \u201cmustache\u201d to\n eat--\n Some warrior bold, with straps of gold, who dazzles and fairly stuns\n The modest worth of the sailor boys--the lads who serve the guns.\n\n But say not a word till the shot is heard that tells the fight is\n on,\n Till the long, deep roar grows more and more from the ships of\n \u201cYank\u201d and \u201cDon,\u201d\n Till over the deep the tempests sweep of fire and bursting shell,\n And the very air is a mad Despair in the throes of a living hell;\n Then down, deep down, in the mighty ship, unseen by the midday suns,\n You\u2019ll find the chaps who are giving the raps--the men behind the\n guns!\n\n Oh, well they know the cyclones blow that they loose from their\n cloud of death,\n And they know is heard the thunder-word their fierce ten-incher\n saith!\n The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the\n great recoil,\n And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his\n spoil--\n But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs\n Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the\n guns!\n\n\n\n\nA THOUGHT FROM CARDINAL NEWMAN[A]\n\nBY MATTHEW RUSSELL, S. J.\n\n\n The world shines bright for inexperienced eyes,\n And death seems distant to the gay and strong,\n And in the youthful heart proud fancies throng,\n And only present good can nature prize.\n How then shall youth o\u2019er these low vapours rise,\n And climb the upward path so steep and long?\n And how, amid earth\u2019s sights and sounds of wrong,\n Walk with pure heart and face raised to the skies?\n\n By gazing on the Infinitely Good,\n Whose love must quell, or hallow every other--\n By living in the shadow of the Rood,\n For He that hangs there is our Elder Brother,\n Who dying gave to us Himself as food,\n And His own Mother as our nursing Mother.\n\n[A] In the last of his \u201cDiscourses to Mixed Congregations,\u201d Dr. Newman\ncalls the Blessed Virgin the Mother of Emanuel, and says: \u201cIt is the\nboast of the Catholic religion that it has the gift of making the young\nheart chaste; and why is this, but that it gives us Jesus for our food\nand Mary for our nursing Mother?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONQUERED BANNER\n\nBY ABRAM J. RYAN\n\n\n Furl that Banner, for \u2019tis weary;\n Round its staff \u2019tis drooping dreary:\n Furl it, fold it,--it is best;\n For there\u2019s not a man to wave it,\n And there\u2019s not a sword to save it,\n And there\u2019s not one left to lave it\n In the blood which heroes gave it,\n And its foes now scorn and brave it:\n Furl it, hide it,--let it rest!\n\n Take that Banner down! \u2019tis tattered;\n Broken is its staff and shattered;\n And the valiant hosts are scattered,\n Over whom it floated high.\n Oh, \u2019tis hard for us to fold it,\n Hard to think there\u2019s none to hold it,\n Now must furl it with a sigh!\n\n Furl that Banner!--furl it sadly!\n Once ten thousands hailed it gladly,\n And ten thousands wildly, madly,\n Swore it should forever wave;\n Swore that foeman\u2019s sword should never\n Hearts like theirs entwined dissever\n Till that flag should float forever\n O\u2019er their freedom or their grave!\n\n Furl it! for the hands that grasped it,\n And the hearts that fondly clasped it,\n Cold and dead are lying low;\n And that Banner--it is trailing\n While around it sounds the wailing\n Of its people in their woe.\n\n For, though conquered, they adore it,--\n Love the cold, dead hands that bore it,\n Weep for those who fell before it,\n Pardon those who trailed and tore it;\n And oh, wildly they deplore it.\n Now to furl and fold it so!\n\n Furl that Banner! True, \u2019tis gory,\n Yet \u2019tis wreathed around with glory,\n And \u2019twill live in song and story\n Though its folds are in the dust!\n For its fame on brightest pages,\n Penned by poets and by sages,\n Shall go sounding down the ages--\n Furl its folds though now we must.\n\n Furl that Banner, softly, slowly!\n Treat it gently--it is holy,\n For it droops above the dead.\n Touch it not--unfold it never;\n Let it droop there, furled forever,--\n For its people\u2019s hopes are fled!\n\n\n\n\nA CHILD\u2019S WISH\n\nBY ABRAM J. RYAN\n\n\n I wish I were the little key\n That locks Love\u2019s Captive in,\n And lets Him out to go and free\n A sinful heart from sin.\n\n I wish I were the little bell\n That tinkles for the Host,\n When God comes down each day to dwell\n With hearts He loves the most.\n\n I wish I were the chalice fair,\n That holds the Blood of Love,\n When every gleam lights holy prayer\n Upon its way above.\n\n I wish I were the little flower\n So near the Host\u2019s sweet face,\n Or like the light that half an hour\n Burns on the shrine of grace.\n\n I wish I were the altar where,\n As on His mother\u2019s breast,\n Christ nestles, like a child, fore\u2019er\n In Eucharistic rest.\n\n But, oh, my God, I wish the most\n That my poor heart may be\n A home all holy for each Host\n That comes in love to me.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SWORD OF ROBERT LEE\n\nBY ABRAM J. RYAN\n\n\n Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright\n Flashed the sword of Lee!\n Far in the front of the deadly fight,\n High o\u2019er the brave in the cause of Right,\n Its stainless sheen, like a beacon bright,\n Led us to Victory.\n\n Out of its scabbard, where, full long,\n It slumbered peacefully,\n Roused from its rest by the battle\u2019s song,\n Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong,\n Guarding the right, avenging the wrong,\n Gleamed the sword of Lee.\n\n Forth from its scabbard, high in air\n Beneath Virginia\u2019s sky--\n And they who saw it gleaming there,\n And knew who bore it, knelt to swear\n That where that sword led they would dare\n To follow--and to die.\n\n Out of its scabbard! Never hand\n Waved sword from stain as free,\n Nor purer sword led braver band,\n Nor braver bled for a brighter land,\n Nor brighter land had a cause so grand,\n Nor cause a chief like Lee!\n\n Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed\n That sword might victor be;\n And when our triumph was delayed,\n And many a heart grew sore afraid,\n We still hoped on while gleamed the blade\n Of noble Robert Lee.\n\n Forth from its scabbard all in vain\n Bright flashed the sword of Lee;\n \u2019Tis shrouded now in its sheath again,\n It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain,\n Defeated, yet without a stain,\n Proudly and peacefully.\n\n\n\n\nSONG OF THE MYSTIC\n\nBY ABRAM J. RYAN\n\n\n I walk down the Valley of Silence--\n Down the dim voiceless Valley--alone!\n And I hear not the fall of a footstep\n Around me, save God\u2019s and my own;\n And the hush of my heart is as holy\n As hovers where angels have flown!\n\n Long ago was I weary of voices\n Whose magic my heart could not win;\n Long ago was I weary of noises\n That fretted my soul with their din;\n Long ago was I weary of places\n Where I met but the human--and sin.\n\n I walked through the world with the worldly;\n I craved what the world never gave;\n And I said: \u201cIn the world, each Ideal\n That shines like a star on life\u2019s wave,\n Is wrecked on the shores of the Real,\n And sleeps like a dream in a grave.\u201d\n\n And still did I pine for the Perfect,\n And still found the false with the true;\n I sought \u2019mid the human for heaven,\n And caught a mere glimpse of its blue;\n And I wept when the clouds of the mortal\n Veiled even that glimpse from my view.\n\n And I toiled on, heart-tired of the Human;\n And I moaned \u2019mid the mazes of men;\n Till I knelt, long ago, at an altar\n And heard a voice call me. Since then\n I walk down the Valley of Silence\n That lies far beyond human ken.\n\n Do you ask what I found in the Valley?\n \u2019Tis my trysting-place with the Divine;\n And I fell at the feet of the Holy,\n And above me a voice said: \u201cBe mine!\u201d\n And there rose from the depths of my spirit\n An echo--\u201cMy heart shall be thine.\u201d\n\n Do you ask how I live in the Valley?\n I weep--and I dream--and I pray.\n But my tears are as sweet as the dewdrops\n That fall on the roses in May;\n And my prayers, like a perfume from censers,\n Ascendeth to God, night and day.\n\n In the hush of the Valley of Silence,\n I dream all the songs that I sing;\n And the music floats down the dim Valley,\n Till each finds a word for a wing,\n That to men, like the Dove of the Deluge,\n A message of Peace they may bring.\n\n But far on the deep there are billows\n That never shall break on the beach;\n And I have heard songs in the Silence\n That never shall float into speech;\n And I have had dreams in the Valley\n Too lofty for language to reach.\n\n And I have seen Thoughts in the Valley--\n Ah, me! how my spirit was stirred!\n And they wear holy veils on their faces,\n Their footsteps can scarcely be heard;\n They pass through the Valley, like virgins\n Too pure for the touch of a word!\n\n Do you ask me the place of the Valley,\n Ye hearts that are harrowed by Care?\n It lieth afar, between mountains,\n And God and His angels are there;\n And one is the dark mount of Sorrow,\n And one the bright mountain of Prayer.\n\n\n\n\nMARY, VIRGIN AND MOTHER\n\nBY E. SETON\n\n\n Oh, Virgin Joy of all the world art thou,\n In whose white, fragrant steps the countless throng\n On souls elect doth follow God with song:\n Creation\u2019s Queen, whose bright and holy brow\n The multitude of Saints, like stars, endow\n With changeful splendors, flashing far and strong:\n The Maid unshadow\u2019d by the primal wrong:\n God\u2019s Lily, chosen in His shrine to bow.\n\n All these thy glories are, and still a grace\n More high, more dread, and yet more sweet and fair,\n Doth bind thy royal brows, O Mary blest.\n God called thee Mother; yea, His sacred face\n The tender likeness of thine own doth wear.\n And thou art ours--we trust Him for the rest.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WIND ON THE HILLS\n\nBY DORA SIGERSON\n\n\n Go not to the hills of Erin\n When the night winds are about;\n Put up your bar and shutter,\n And so keep the danger out.\n\n For the good-folk whirl within it,\n And they pull by the hand,\n And they push you by the shoulder,\n Till you move to their command.\n\n And lo! you have forgotten\n What you have known of tears,\n And you will not remember\n That the world goes full of years;\n\n A year there is a lifetime,\n And a second but a day;\n And an older world will greet you\n Each morn you come away.\n\n Your wife grows old with weeping,\n And your children one by one\n Grow grey with nights of watching,\n Before your dance is done.\n\n And it will chance some morning\n You will come home no more;\n Your wife sees but a withered leaf\n In the wind about the door.\n\n And your children will inherit\n The unrest of the wind;\n They shall seek some face elusive,\n And some land they never find.\n\n When the wind is loud, they sighing\n Go with hearts unsatisfied,\n For some joy beyond remembrance,\n For some memory denied.\n\n And all your children\u2019s children,\n They cannot sleep or rest,\n When the wind is out in Erin\n And the sun is in the West.\n\n\n\n\nBELIEVE AND TAKE HEART\n\nBY JOHN LANCASTER SPALDING\n\n\n What can console for a dead world?\n We tread on dust which once was life;\n To nothingness all things are hurled:\n What meaning in a hopeless strife?\n Time\u2019s awful storm\n Breaks but the form.\n\n Whatever comes, whatever goes,\n Still throbs the heart whereby we live;\n The primal joys still lighten woes,\n And time which steals doth also give.\n Fear not, be brave:\n God can thee save.\n\n The essential truth of life remains,\n Its goodness and its beauty too,\n Pure love\u2019s unutterable gains,\n And hope which trills us through and through:\n God has not fled,\n Souls are not dead.\n\n Not in most ancient Palestine,\n Nor in the lightsome air of Greece,\n Were human struggles more divine,\n More blessed with guerdon of increase:\n Take thou thy stand\n In the workers\u2019 band.\n\n Hast then no faith? Thine is the fault:--\n What prophets, heroes, sages, saints,\n Have loved, on thee still makes assault,\n Thee with immortal things acquaints.\n On life then seize:\n Doubt is disease.\n\n\n\n\nAVE MARIA BELLS\n\nBY CHARLES WARREN STODDARD\n\n\n At dawn, the joyful choir of bells,\n In consecrated citadels,\n Flings on the sweet and drowsy air\n A brief, melodious call to prayer;\n For Mary, Virgin meek and lowly,\n Conceived of the Spirit Holy,\n As the Lord\u2019s angel did declare.\n\n At noon, above the fretful street,\n Our souls are lifted to repeat\n The prayer, with low and wistful voice:\n \u201cAccording to thy word and choice,\n Though sorrowful and heavy laden,\n So be it done to thy Handmaiden\u201d;\n Then all the sacred bells rejoice.\n\n At eve with roses in the west,\n The daylight\u2019s withering bequest,\n Ring, prayerful bells, while blossom bright\n The stars, the lilies of the night:\n Of all the songs the years have sung us,\n \u201cThe Word made Flesh had dwelt among us,\u201d\n Is still our ever-new delight.\n\n\n\n\nSTIGMATA\n\nBY CHARLES WARREN STODDARD\n\n\n In the wrath of the lips that assail us,\n In the scorn of the lips that are dumb,\n The symbols of sorrow avail us,\n The joy of the people is come.\n They parted Thy garments for barter,\n They follow Thy steps with complaint;\n Let them know that the pyre of the martyr\n But purges the blood of the saint!\n\n They have crucified Thee for a token,\n For a token Thy flesh crucified\n Shall bleed in a heart that is broken\n For love of the wound in Thy side;\n In pity for palms that were pleading,\n For feet that were grievously used,\n There is blood on the brow that is bleeding\n And torn, as Thy brow that was bruised!\n\n By Thee have we life, breath, and being;\n Thou hast knowledge of us and our kind;\n Thou hast pleasure of eyes that are seeing,\n And sorrow of eyes that are blind;\n By the seal of the mystery shown us--\n The wound that with Thy wounds accord--\n O Lord, have mercy upon us!\n Have mercy upon us, O Lord!\n\n\n\n\nTHE BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL\n\nBY CHARLES WARREN STODDARD\n\n(The Mission of San Gabriel Archangel, near Los Angeles, founded in\n1771, was, for a time, the most flourishing mission in California)\n\n\n Thine was the corn and the wine,\n The blood of the grape that nourished;\n The blossom and fruit of the vine\n That was heralded far away.\n When the wine and fig-tree flourished,\n The promise of peace and of glad increase\n Forever and ever and aye.\n What then wert thou, and what art now?\n Answer me, O, I pray!\n\n And every note of every bell\n Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!\n In the tower that is left the tale to tell\n Of Gabriel, the Archangel.\n\n Oil of the olive was thine;\n Flood of the wine-press flowing,\n Blood of the Christ was the wine--\n Blood of the Lamb that was slain.\n Thy gifts were fat of the kine\n Forever coming and going\n Far over the hills, the thousand hills--\n Their lowing a soft refrain.\n What then wert thou, and what art now?\n Answer me once again!\n\n And every note of every bell\n Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!\n In the tower that is left the tale to tell\n Of Gabriel, the Archangel.\n\n Seed of the corn was thine--\n Body of Him thus broken\n And mingled with blood of the vine--\n The bread and the wine of life.\n Out of the good sunshine\n They were given to thee as a token--\n The body of Him, and the blood of Him,\n When the gifts of God were rife.\n What then wert thou, and what art now?\n After the weary strife?\n\n And every note of every bell\n Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!\n In the tower that is left the tale to tell\n Of Gabriel the Archangel.\n\n Where are they now, O bells?\n Where are the fruits of the Mission?\n Garnered, where no one dwells,\n Shepherd and flock are fled.\n O\u2019er the Lord\u2019s vineyard swells\n The tide that with fell perdition\n Sounded their doom and fashioned their tomb\n And buried them with the dead.\n What then wert thou, and what art now?\n The answer is still unsaid.\n\n And every note of every bell\n Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!\n In the tower that is left the tale to tell\n Of Gabriel, the Archangel.\n\n Where are they now, O tower!\n The locusts and wild honey?\n Where is the sacred dower\n That the bride of Christ was given?\n Gone to the wielders of power,\n The misers and minters of money;\n Gone for the greed that is their creed--\n And these in the land have thriven.\n What then wert thou, and what art now,\n And wherefore hast thou striven?\n\n And every note of every bell\n Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!\n In the tower that is left the tale to tell\n Of Gabriel, the Archangel.\n\n\n\n\nTHE POOR\n\nBY SPEER STRAHAN, C.S.C.\n\n\n The poor I saw at the cloister gate\n Mutely beg with their patient eyes\n An alms, for the love of Him who sate\n And supped with the poor in human guise.\n\n And there were monks saw the nails\u2019 deep scars\n In the shrunken hands that reached for bread,\n Who heard a Voice from beyond the stars\n In the broken thanks of them they fed.\n\n I, too, at the gates of God each day\n Seek for an alms of strength and grace,\n Beggar am I that wait and pray\n To feast my soul on His beauteous Face.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROMISED COUNTRY\n\nBY SPEER STRAHAN, C.S.C.\n\n\n Fair must that promised country be\n Whose streams rise from eternity\n And One doth lead upon that way\n Whose footfalls are the paths of day.\n\n Nor lurking fear pursues them there,\n As forward in the morning air\n With Him the blessed ransomed go,\n Their garments washen white as snow.\n\n Alas! my days are very dim\n That look up to the Seraphim.\n Ah, Lord, some dawning may I be\n One of that shining company!\n\n\n\n\nHOLY COMMUNION\n\nBY SPEER STRAHAN, C.S.C.\n\n\n Disguised He stands without in the street;\n Far come is He on heavy feet.\n O heart of mine, open thy gate;\n For darkness falls, and it is late!\n\n Lord of the heaven\u2019s fairest height,\n Homeless in the traveler\u2019s night,\n Begging my hearth, my board, my cup,\n That I, not He, may richly sup.\n\n O soul of mine, the board begin,\n And let this wondrous Beggar in!\n\n\n\n\nSTARS OF CHEER\n\nBY CAROLINE D. SWAN\n\n\n The silent Christmas stars shine cool and clear\n Above a world of mingled joy and woe;\n On peaceful cottage homes, with thanks aglow\n For royal bounty of the grape-crowned year;\n And on red fields of blood, where many a tear\n Is wiped away by Death, a gentle foe,\n More merciful than they who bade it flow.\n Shine, silver stars, rain down your blessed cheer!\n\n Comfort the mourner with your Angel song!\n The Christ-Child reigns. Behold His tiny hand\n Upraised in benediction warm and sweet!\n O\u2019er every joy and every bitter wrong\n The Babe of Bethlehem hath supreme command;\n Come, worship, kings and peoples, at His feet!\n\n\n\n\nCHRIST AND THE PAGAN\n\nBY JOHN B. TABB\n\n\n I had no God but these,\n The sacerdotal Trees,\n And they uplifted me.\n \u201c_I hung upon a tree._\u201d\n\n The sun and moon I saw,\n And reverential awe\n Subdued me day and night.\n \u201c_I am the perfect light._\u201d\n\n Within a lifeless Stone--\n All other gods unknown--\n I sought Divinity.\n \u201c_The Corner-Stone am I._\u201d\n\n For sacrificial feast\n I slaughtered man and beast,\n Red recompense to gain.\n \u201c_So I, a Lamb, was slain._\n\n _Yea; such My hungering Grace\n That where ev\u2019r My face\n Is hidden, none may grope\n Beyond eternal Hope._\u201d\n\n\n\n\nOUT OF BOUNDS\n\nBY JOHN B. TABB\n\n\n A little Boy of heavenly birth,\n But far from home to-day,\n Comes down to find His ball, the Earth,\n That Sin has cast away.\n O comrades, let us one and all\n Join in to get Him back His ball!\n\n\n\n\nFATHER DAMIEN\n\nBY JOHN B. TABB\n\n\n O God, the cleanest offering\n Of tainted earth below,\n Unblushing to Thy feet we bring--\n \u201c_A leper white as snow_!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nRECOGNITION\n\nBY JOHN B. TABB\n\n\n When Christ went up to Calvary,\n His crown upon His head,\n Each tree unto its fellow-tree\n In awful silence said:\n \u201cBehold the Gardener is He\n Of Eden and Gethsemane!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\u201cIS THY SERVANT A DOG?\u201d\n\nBY JOHN B. TABB\n\n\n So _must_ he be, who in the crowded street,\n Where shameless Sin and flaunting Pleasure meet,\n Amid the noisome footprints finds the sweet\n Faint vestige of Thy feet.\n\n\n\n\nLILIUM REGIS\n\nBY FRANCIS THOMPSON\n\n\n O Lily of the King, low lies thy silver wing,\n And long has been the hour of thine unqueening;\n And thy scent of Paradise on the night-wind spends its sighs,\n Nor any take the secrets of its meaning.\n O Lily of the King, I speak a heavy thing,\n O patience, most sorrowful of daughters!\n Lo, the hour is at hand for the troubling of the land,\n And red shall be the breaking of the waters.\n\n Sit fast upon thy stalk, when the blast shall with thee talk,\n With the mercies of the King for thine awning,\n And the Just understand that thine hour is at hand,\n Thine hour at hand with power in the dawning.\n When the nations lie in blood, and their kings a broken brood,\n Look up, O most sorrowful of daughters!\n Lift up thy head and hark what sounds are in the dark,\n For His feet are coming to thee on the waters.\n\n O Lily of the King, I shall not see that sing,\n I shall not see the hour of thy queening!\n But my Song shall see, and wake like a flower that dawn-winds shake,\n And sigh with joy the odours of its meaning.\n O Lily of the King, remember then the thing\n That this dead mouth sang; and thy daughters,\n As they dance before His way; sing there on the Day\n What I sang when night was on the waters!\n\n\n\n\nTO THE ENGLISH MARTYRS\n\nBY FRANCIS THOMPSON\n\n\n Rain, rain on Tyburn tree,\n Red rain a-falling;\n Dew, dew on Tyburn tree,\n Red dew on Tyburn tree,\n And the swart bird a-calling.\n The shadow lies on England now\n Of the deathly-fruited bough:\n Cold and black with malison\n Lies between the land and sun;\n Putting out the sun, the bough\n Shades England now!\n\n The troubled heavens so wan with care,\n And burdened with the earth\u2019s despair\n Shiver a-cold; the starved heaven\n Has want, with wanting men bereaven.\n Blest fruit of the unblest bough,\n Aid the land that smote you, now!\n That feels the sentence and the curse\n Ye died if so ye might reverse.\n When God was stolen from out man\u2019s mouth,\n\n Stolen was the bread; then hunger and drouth\n Went to and fro; began the wail,\n Struck root the poor-house and the jail,\n Ere cut the dykes, let through that flood,\n Ye writ the protest with your blood;\n Against this night--wherein our breath\n Withers, and the toiled heart perisheth,--\n Entered the _caveat_ of your death.\n Christ in the form of His true Bride,\n Again hung pierced and crucified,\n And groaned, \u201cI thirst!\u201d Not still ye stood,--\n Ye had your hearts, ye had your blood;\n And pouring out the eager cup,--\n \u201cThe wine is weak, yet, Lord Christ, sup.\u201d\n Ah, blest! who bathed the parched Vine\n With richer than His Cana-wine,\n And heard, your most sharp supper past:\n \u201cYe kept the best wine to the last!\u201d\n\n Ah, happy who\n That sequestered secret knew,\n How sweeter than bee-haunted dells\n The blosmy blood of martyrs smells!\n Who did upon the scaffold\u2019s bed,\n The ceremonial steel between you, wed\n With God\u2019s grave proxy, high and reverend Death;\n Or felt about your neck, sweetly,\n (While the dull horde\n Saw but the unrelenting cord)\n The Bridegroom\u2019s arm, and that long kiss\n That kissed away your breath, and claimed you His.\n You did, with thrift of holy gain,\n Unvenoming the sting of pain,\n Hive its sharp heather-honey. Ye\n Had sentience of the mystery\n To make Abaddon\u2019s hooked wings\n Buoy you up to starry things;\n Pain of heart, and pain of sense,\n Pain the scourge, ye taught to cleanse;\n Pain the loss became possessing;\n Pain the curse was pain the blessing.\n\n Chains, rack, hunger, solitude,--these,\n Which did your soul from earth release,\n Left it free to rush upon\n And merge in its compulsive Sun.\n Desolated, bruised, forsaken,\n Nothing taking, all things taken,\n Lacerated and tormented,\n The stifled soul, in naught contented,\n On all hands straitened, cribbed, denied,\n Can but fetch breath o\u2019 the Godward side.\n Oh, to me, give but to me\n That flower of felicity,\n Which on your topmost spirit ware\n The difficult and snowy air\n Of high refusal! and the heat\n Of central love which fed with sweet\n And holy fire i\u2019 the frozen sod\n Roots that ta\u2019en hold on God.\n\n Unwithering youth in you renewed\n Those rosy waters of your blood,--\n The true _Fons Juventutis_; ye\n Pass with conquest that Red Sea,\n And stretch out your victorious hand\n Over the Fair and Holy Land.\n O by the Church\u2019s pondering art\n Late set and named upon the chart\n Of her divine astronomy,\n Through your influence from on high\n Long shed unnoted! Bright\n New cluster in our Northern night,\n Cleanse from its pain and undelight\n An impotent and tarnished hymn,\n Whose marish exhalations dim\n Splendours they would transfuse! And thou\n Kindle the words which blot thee now,\n Over whose sacred corse unhearsed\n Europe veiled her face, and cursed\n The regal mantle grained in gore\n Of genius, freedom, faith, and More!\n\n Ah, happy Fool of Christ, unawed\n By familiar sanctities,\n You served your Lord at holy ease!\n Dear Jester in the Courts of God----\n In whose spirit, enchanting yet,\n Wisdom and love together met,\n Laughed on each other for content!\n That an inward merriment,\n An inviolate soul of pleasure,\n To your motions taught a measure\n All your days; which tyrant king,\n Nor bonds, nor any bitter thing,\n Could embitter or perturb;\n No daughter\u2019s tears, nor, more acerb,\n A daughter\u2019s frail declension from\n Thy serene example, come\n Between thee and thy much content.\n Nor could the last sharp argument\n Turn thee from thy sweetest folly;\n To the keen _accolade_ and holy\n Thou didst bend low a sprightly knee,\n And jest Death out of gravity\n As a too sad-visaged friend;\n So, jocund passing to the end\n Of thy laughing martyrdom;\n And now from travel art gone home\n Where, since gain of thee was given,\n Surely there is more mirth in heaven!\n\n Thus, in Fisher and in thee,\n Arose the purple dynasty,\n The anointed Kings of Tyburn tree;\n High in act and word each one:\n He that spake--and to the sun\n Pointed--\u201cI shall shortly be\n Above yon fellow,\u201d He too, he\n No less high of speech and brave,\n Whose word was: \u201cThough I shall have\n Sharp dinner, yet I trust in Christ\n To have a most sweet supper.\u201d Priced\n Much by men that utterance was\n Of the doomed Leonidas,--\n Not more exalt than these, which note\n Men who thought as Shakespeare wrote.\n But more lofty eloquence\n Than is writ by poet\u2019s pens\n Lives in your great deaths: O these\n Have more fire than poesies!\n And more ardent than all ode,\n The pomps and raptures of your blood!\n By that blood ye hold in fee\n This earth of England; Kings are ye:\n And ye have armies--Want, and Cold,\n And heavy Judgments manifold\n Hung in the unhappy air, and Sins\n That the sick gorge to heave begins,\n Agonies and Martyrdoms,\n Love, Hope, Desire, and all that comes\n From the unwatered soul of man\n Gaping on God. These are the van\n Of conquest, these obey you; these,\n And all the strengths of weaknesses,\n That brazen walls disbed. Your hand,\n Princes, put forth to the command,\n And levy upon the guilty land\n Your saving wars; on it go down,\n Black beneath God\u2019s and heaven\u2019s frown;\n Your prevalent approaches make\n With unsustainable grace, and take\n Captive the land that captived you;\n To Christ enslave ye and subdue\n Her so bragged freedom: for the crime\n She wrought on you in antique time,\n Parcel the land among you; reign,\n Viceroys to your sweet Suzerain!\n Till she shall know\n This lesson in her overthrow:\n Hardest servitude has he\n That\u2019s jailed in arrogant liberty;\n And freedom, spacious and unflawed,\n Who is walled about with God.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOUND OF HEAVEN\n\nBY FRANCIS THOMPSON\n\n\n I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;\n I fled Him down the arches of the years;\n I fled Him down the labrinthine ways\n Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears\n I hid from Him, and under running laughter.\n Up vistaed hopes I sped;\n And shot, precipitated,\n Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,\n From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.\n But with unhurrying chase,\n And unperturbed pace,\n Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,\n They beat--and a Voice beat\n More instant than the Feet--\n \u201cAll things betray thee, who betrayest Me.\u201d\n\n I pleaded, outlaw-wise,\n By many a hearted casement, curtained red,\n Trellised with intertwining charities;\n (For, though I knew His love Who followed,\n Yet was I sore adread\n Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside);\n But, if one little casement parted wide.\n The gust of His approach would clash it to.\n Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.\n Across the margent of the world I fled,\n And troubled the gold gateway of the stars,\n Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;\n Fretted to dulcet jars\n And silvern chatter the pale ports o\u2019 the moon.\n I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon;\n With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over\n From his tremendous Lover!\n Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!\n I tempted all His servitors, but to find\n My own betrayal in their constancy,\n In faith to Him their fickleness to me,\n Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.\n To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;\n Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.\n But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,\n The long savannahs of the blue;\n Or whether, Thunder-driven,\n They clanged his chariot \u2019thwart a heaven\n Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o\u2019 their feet:--\n Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.\n Still with unhurrying chase,\n And unperturbed pace,\n Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,\n Came on the following Feet,\n And a Voice above their beat--\n \u201cNaught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.\u201d\n\n I sought no more that after which I strayed\n In face of man or maid;\n But still within the little children\u2019s eyes\n Seems something, something that replies;\n _They_ at least are for me, surely for me!\n I turned me to them very wistfully;\n But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair\n With dawning answers there,\n Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.\n \u201cCome then, ye other children, Nature\u2019s--share\n With me\u201d (said I) \u201cyour delicate fellowship;\n Let me greet you lip to lip,\n Let me twine with you caresses,\n Wantoning\n With our Lady-Mother\u2019s vagrant tresses,\n Banqueting\n With her in her wind-walled palace,\n Underneath her azured dais,\n Quaffing, as your taintless way is,\n From a chalice\n Lucent-weeping out of the day spring.\u201d\n So it was done:\n _I_ in their delicate fellowship was one--\n Drew the bolt of Nature\u2019s secrecies.\n _I_ knew all the swift importings\n On the wilful face of skies;\n I knew how the clouds arise\n Spumed of the wild sea-snortings;\n All that\u2019s born or dies\n Rose and drooped with--made them shapers\n Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine--\n With them joyed and was bereaven.\n I was heavy with the even,\n When she lit her glimmering tapers\n Round the day\u2019s dead sanctities.\n I laughed in the morning\u2019s eyes.\n I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,\n Heaven and I wept together,\n And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;\n Against the red throb of its sunset-heart\n I laid my own to beat,\n And share commingling heat;\n But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.\n In vain my tears were wet on Heaven\u2019s grey cheek.\n For ah, we know not what each other says\n These things and I; in sound _I_ speak--\n _Their_ sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.\n Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drought;\n Let her, if she would owe me,\n Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me\n The breasts of her tenderness:\n Never did any milk of hers once bless\n My thirsting mouth.\n Nigh and nigh draws the chase,\n With unperturbed pace,\n Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;\n And past those noised fleet--\n A Voice comes yet more fleet--\n \u201cLo! naught contents thee who content\u2019st not Me.\u201d\n\n Naked I wait Thy love\u2019s uplifted stroke!\n My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,\n I am defenceless utterly.\n I slept, methinks, and woke,\n And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.\n In the rash lustihead of my young powers,\n I shook the pillaring hours\n And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,\n I stand amid the dust o\u2019 the mounded years--\n My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.\n My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,\n Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.\n Yea, faileth now even dream\n The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;\n Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist\n I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,\n Are yielding; cords of all too weak account\n For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.\n Ah! is Thy love indeed\n A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,\n Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?\n Ah! must--\n Designer infinite!--\n Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?\n My freshness spent its wavering shower i\u2019 the dust;\n And now my heart is as a broken fount,\n Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever\n From the dank thoughts that shiver\n Upon the sighful branches of my mind.\n Such is; what is to be?\n The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?\n I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;\n Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds\n From the hid battlements of Eternity;\n Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then\n Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.\n But not ere him who summoneth\n I first have seen enwound\n With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;\n His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.\n Whether man\u2019s heart or life it be which yields\n Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields\n Be dunged with rotten death?\n\n Now of that long pursuit\n Comes on at hand the bruit;\n That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:\n \u201cAnd is thy earth so marred,\n Shattered in shard on shard?\n Lo! all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!\n Strange, piteous, futile thing,\n Wherefore should any set thee love apart?\n Seeing none but I makes much of naught\u201d (He said)\n \u201cAnd human love needs human meriting:\n How hast thou merited--\n Of all man\u2019s clotted clay the dingiest clot?\n Alack, thou knowest not\n How little worthy of any love thou art!\n Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee\n Save Me, save only Me?\n All which I took from thee I did but take,\n Not for thy harms,\n But just that thou might\u2019st seek it in My arms.\n All which thy child\u2019s mistake\n Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:\n Rise, clasp My hand, and come!\u201d\n\n Halts by me that footfall:\n Is my gloom, after all,\n Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?\n \u201cAh, fondest, blindest, weakest,\n I am He Whom thou seekest!\n Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE DREAD OF HEIGHT\n\nBY FRANCIS THOMPSON\n\n \u201c_If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say;\n We see: your sin remaineth._\u201d--John ix. 41\n\n\n Not the Circean wine\n Most perilous is for pain:\n Grapes of the heaven\u2019s star-loaden vine,\n Whereto the lofty-placed\n Thoughts of fair souls attain,\n Tempt with a more retributive delight,\n And do disrelish all life\u2019s sober taste.\n\n \u2019Tis to have drunk too well\n The drink that is divine,\n Maketh the kind earth waste,\n And breath intolerable.\n\n Ah, me!\n How shall my mouth content it with mortality?\n Lo, secret music, sweetest music,\n From distances of distance drifting its lone flight,\n Down the arcane where Night would perish in night,\n Like a god\u2019s loosened locks slips undulously:\n Music that is too grievous of the height\n For safe and low delight,\n Too infinite\n For bounded hearts which yet would girth the sea!\n So let it be,\n Though sweet be great, and though my heart be small:\n So let it be,\n O music, music, though you wake in me\n No joy, no joy at all;\n Although you only wake\n Uttermost sadness, measure of delight,\n Which else I could not credit to the height,\n Did I not know,\n Did I not know,\n That ill is statured to its opposite;\n And even of sadness so,\n Of utter sadness, make\n Of extreme sad a rod to mete\n The incredible excess of unsensed sweet,\n And mystic wall of strange felicity.\n So let it be,\n Though sweet be great, and though my heart be small,\n And bitter meat\n The food of Gods for men to eat;\n Yea, John ate daintier, and did tread\n Less ways of heat,\n Than whom to their wind-carpeted\n High banquet hall,\n And golden love-feasts, the fair stars entreat.\n\n But ah! withal,\n Some hold, some stay,\n O difficult joy, I pray,\n Some arms of thine,\n Not only, only arms of mine!\n Lest like a weary girl I fall\n From clasping love so high,\n And lacking thus thine arms, then may\n Most hapless I\n Turn utterly to love of basest rate;\n For low they fall whose fall is from the sky.\n\n Yea, who me shall secure\n But I, of height grown desperate,\n Surcease my wing, and my lost fate\n Be dashed from pure\n To broken writhings in the shameful slime:\n Lower than man, for I dreamed higher,\n Thrust down, by how much I aspire,\n And damned with drink of immortality?\n For such things be,\n Yea, and the lowest reach of reeky Hell\n Is but made possible\n By foreta\u2019en breath of Heaven\u2019s austerest clime.\n\n These tidings from the vast to bring\n Needeth not doctor nor divine,\n Too well, too well\n My flesh doth know the heart-perturbing thing;\n That dread theology alone\n Is mine,\n Most native and my own;\n And ever with victorious toil\n When I have made\n Of the delfic peaks dim escalade,\n My soul with anguish and recoil\n Doth like a city in an earthquake rock,\n As at my feet the abyss is cloven then,\n With deeper menace than for other men,\n Of my potential cousinship with mire;\n That all my conquered skies do grow a hollow mock,\n My fearful powers retire,\n No longer strong,\n Reversing the shook banners of their song.\n\n Ah, for a heart less native to high Heaven,\n A hooded eye, for jesses and restraint,\n Or for a will accipitrine to pursue!--\n The veil of tutelar flesh to simple livers given,\n Or those brave-fledging fervours of the Saint,\n Whose heavenly falcon-craft doth never taint,\n Nor they in sickest time their ample virtue mew.\n\n\n\n\nTO MY GODCHILD--FRANCIS M. W. M.\n\nBY FRANCIS THOMPSON\n\n\n This labouring, vast, Tellurian galleon,\n Riding at anchor off the orient sun,\n Had broken its cable, and stood out to space\n Down some froze Arctic of the aerial ways:\n And now, back warping from the inclement main,\n Its vapourous shroudage drenched with icy rain,\n It swung into its azure roads again;\n When, floated on the prosperous sun-gale, you\n Lit, a white halcyon auspice, \u2019mid our frozen crew.\n\n To the Sun, stranger, surely you belong,\n Giver of golden days and golden song;\n Nor is it by an all-unhappy plan\n You bear the name of me, his constant Magian.\n Yet, ah! from any other that it came,\n Lest fated to my fate you be, as to my name.\n When at the first those tidings did they bring,\n My heart turned troubled at the ominous thing:\n Though well may such a title him endower,\n For when a poet\u2019s prayer implores a poet\u2019s power.\n The Assisian, who kept plighted faith to three,\n To Song, to Sanctitude, and Poverty,\n (In two alone of whom most singers prove\n A fatal faithfulness of during love!);\n He the sweet Sales, of whom we scarcely ken\n How God he could love more, he so loved men;\n The crown and crowned of Laura and Italy;\n And Fletcher\u2019s fellow--from these, and not from me,\n Take you your name, and take your legacy!\n\n Or, if a right successive you declare\n When worms, for ivies, intertwine my hair,\n Take but this Poesy that now followeth\n My clayey best with sullen servile breath,\n Made then your happy freedman by testating death.\n My song I do but hold for you in trust,\n I ask you but to blossom from my dust.\n When you have compassed all weak I began,\n Diviner poet, and ah! diviner man--\n The man at feud with the perduring child\n In you before song\u2019s altar nobly reconciled--\n From the wise heavens I half shall smile to see\n How little a world, which owned you, needed me.\n If, while you keep the vigils of the night,\n For your wild tears make darkness all too bright,\n Some lone orb through your lonely window peeps,\n As it played lover over your sweet sleeps,\n Think it a golden crevice in the sky,\n Which I have pierced but to behold you by!\n\n And when, immortal mortal, droops your head,\n And you, the child of deathless song, are dead;\n Then, as you search with unaccustomed glance\n The ranks of Paradise for my countenance,\n Turn not your tread along the Uranian sod\n Among the bearded counsellors of God;\n For, if in Eden as on earth are we,\n I sure shall keep a younger company:\n Pass where beneath their ranged gonfalons\n The starry cohorts shake their shielded suns,\n The dreadful mass of their enridged spears:\n Pass where majestical the eternal peers,\n The stately choice of the great Saintdom, meet--\n A silvern segregation, globed complete\n In sandalled shadow of the Triune feet;\n Pass by where wait, young poet-wayfarer,\n Your cousined clusters, emulous to share\n With you the roseal lightnings burning \u2019mid their hair;\n Pass the crystalline sea, the Lampads seven:--\n Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.\n\n\n\n\nMICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL\n\nBY KATHERINE TYNAN\n\n\n Not woman-faced and sweet, as look\n The angels in the picture-book;\n But terrible in majesty,\n More than an army passing by.\n\n His hair floats not upon the wind\n Like theirs, but curled and closely twined;\n Wrought with his aureole, so that none\n Shall know the gold curls from the crown.\n\n His wings he hath put away in steel,\n He goes mail-clad from head to heel;\n Never moon-silver hath outshone\n His breastplate and his morion.\n\n His brows are like a battlement,\n Beautiful, brave and innocent;\n His eyes with fires of battle burn--\n On his strong mouth the smile is stern.\n\n His horse, the horse of Heaven, goes forth,\n Bearing him off to South and North,\n Neighing far off, as one that sees\n The battle over distances.\n\n His fiery sword is never at rest,\n His foot is in the stirrup prest;\n Through all the world where wrong is done\n Michael the Soldier rideth on.\n\n Michael, Commander! Angels are\n That sound the trumpet and that bear\n The banners by the Throne, where is\n The King one nameth on his knees.\n\n Angels there are of peace and prayers,\n And they that go with wayfarers,\n And they that watch the house of birth,\n And they that bring the dead from earth.\n\n And mine own Angel. Yet I see,\n Heading God\u2019s army gloriously,\n Michael Archangel, like a sun,\n Splendid beyond comparison!\n\n\n\n\nPLANTING BULBS\n\nBY KATHERINE TYNAN\n\n\n Setting my bulbs a-row\n In cold earth under the grasses,\n Till the frost and the snow\n Are gone and the Winter passes--\n\n Sudden a footfall light,\n Sudden a bird-call ringing;\n And these in gold and in white\n Shall rise with a sound of winging.\n\n Airy and delicate all,\n All go trooping and dancing\n At Spring\u2019s call and footfall,\n Airily dancing, advancing.\n\n In the dark of the year,\n Turning the earth so chilly,\n I look to the day of cheer,\n Primrose and daffodilly.\n\n Turning the sods and the clay\n I think on the poor sad people\n Hiding their dead away\n In the churchyard, under the steeple.\n\n All poor women and men,\n Broken-hearted and weeping,\n Their dead they call on in vain,\n Quietly smiling and sleeping.\n\n Friends, now listen and hear,\n Give over crying and grieving,\n There shall come a day and a year\n When the dead shall be as the living.\n\n There shall come a call, a footfall,\n And the golden trumpeters blowing\n Shall stir the dead with their call,\n Bid them be rising and going.\n\n Then in the daffodil weather\n Lover shall run to lover;\n Friends all trooping together;\n Death and Winter be over.\n\n Laying my bulbs in the dark,\n Visions have I of hereafter.\n Lip to lip, breast to breast, hark!\n No more weeping, but laughter!\n\n\n\n\nSHEEP AND LAMBS\n\nBY KATHERINE TYNAN\n\n\n All in the April evening,\n April airs were abroad;\n The sheep with their little lambs\n Passed me by on the road.\n\n The sheep with their little lambs\n Passed me by on the road;\n All in the April evening\n I thought on the Lamb of God.\n\n The lambs were weary, and crying\n With a weak, human cry.\n I thought on the Lamb of God\n Going meekly to die.\n\n Up in the blue, blue mountains\n Dewy pastures are sweet;\n Rest for the little bodies,\n Rest for the little feet.\n\n But for the Lamb of God\n Up on a hilltop green\n Only a cross of shame\n Two stark crosses between.\n\n All in the April evening,\n April airs were abroad;\n I saw the sheep with their lambs,\n And thought on the Lamb of God.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAKING OF BIRDS\n\nBY KATHERINE TYNAN\n\n\n God made Him birds in a pleasant humour;\n Tired of planets and suns was He.\n He said: \u201cI will add a glory to summer,\n Gifts for my creatures banished from Me!\u201d\n\n He had a thought and it set Him smiling\n Of the shape of a bird and its glancing head,\n Its dainty air and its grace beguiling:\n \u201cI will make feathers,\u201d the Lord God said.\n\n He made the robin; He made the swallow;\n His deft hands moulding the shape to His mood,\n The thrush and the lark and the finch to follow,\n And laughed to see that His work was good.\n\n He Who has given men gift of laughter,\n Made in His image; He fashioned fit\n The blink of the owl and the stork thereafter,\n The little wren and the long-tailed tit.\n\n He spent in the making His wit and fancies;\n The wing-feathers He fashioned them strong;\n Deft and dear as daisies and pansies,\n He crowned His work with the gift of song.\n\n \u201cDearlings,\u201d He said, \u201cmake songs for my praises!\u201d\n He tossed them loose to the sun and the wind,\n Airily sweet as pansies and daisies;\n He taught them to build a nest to their mind.\n\n The dear Lord God of His glories weary--\n Christ our Lord had the heart of a boy--\n Made Him birds in a moment merry,\n Bade them soar and sing for His joy.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN OF THE HOUSE\n\nBY KATHERINE TYNAN\n\n\n Joseph, honoured from sea to sea,\n This is your name that pleases me,\n \u201cMan of the House.\u201d\n\n I see you rise at the dawn and light\n The fire and blow till the flame is bright.\n\n I see you take the pitcher and carry\n The deep well-water for Jesus and Mary.\n\n You knead the corn for the bread so fine,\n Gather them grapes from the hanging vine.\n\n There are little feet that are soft and slow,\n Follow you whithersoever you go.\n\n There\u2019s a little face at your workshop door,\n A little one sits down on your floor:\n\n Holds His hands for the shavings curled,\n The soft little hands that have made the world.\n\n Mary calls you: the meal is ready:\n You swing the Child to your shoulder steady.\n\n I see your quiet smile as you sit\n And watch the little Son thrive and eat.\n\n The vine curls by the window space,\n The wings of angels cover the face.\n\n Up in the rafters, polished and olden,\n There\u2019s a Dove that broods and his wings are golden.\n\n You who kept Them through shine and storm,\n A staff, a shelter kindly and warm,\n\n Father of Jesus, husband of Mary,\n Hold us your lilies for sanctuary!\n\n Joseph, honoured from sea to sea,\n Guard me mine and my own roof-tree,\n \u201cMan of the House\u201d!\n\n\n\n\nCOELO ET IN TERRA\n\nBY THOMAS WALSH\n\n\n Earth is a jealous mother; from her breast\n She will endure no separation long\n From aught she bore;\n So one by one\n She claimeth evermore\n The parent and the friend--\n The loveliest and the best,\n The meek, the faithful, and the strong,--\n Till, link by golden link undone,\n The very tomb that seems\n To youth the dismal gulf of all that\u2019s fair,\n Becomes the chosen hearthstone of our dreams,\n The wonder-house of all most rare,\n Most deathless, and most dear;\n Where the bereaved heart,\n Life\u2019s exile held apart,\n Would turn for love-warmth and abiding cheer.\n Yea,--earth can be so kind,--\n Then ye that rule the wind,\n Are ye of less appeal?\n Ye spirits of the stars\n And regions where the suns\n Themselves as atoms wheel\n Beneath your thundering cars?\n Cerulean ones!--\n Or goddesses, or saints,\n Or demiurge, or Trinities,\n Wherewith heaven highest faints!\n Are ye less kind than these\n Dim vaults of clay,\n Ye boasts and fathers of the ancient day?\n Thou god Avernian, Dis!--behold\n What timid form and old\n Adown thy purple gulf descends\n Unto the arch of Death--(Grim friend of friends!\n Be thou placated!) \u2019Tis a mother, see,\n Takes her first step--a child--into eternity!\n Leave her not fearful there\n Who was of love entire,\n So gentle and so fair!--\n Thy majesty and dread withhold\n For the high head and bold,--\n Imperial Death, mock not thyself with ire!\n Nay,--then it was not fear\n That stayed her foot the while;\n For now her lovely eyes,\n Unclouded, brown,\n Are lighted with their greeting smile--\n The Hand awaited through the gloom\n Is seen!--her whitened forehead lies\n Upon the Shepherd\u2019s shoulder down--\n Yea,--her own Jesus comes,--to lead\n Unto the meadows where is Peace indeed!\n\n\n\n\nEGIDIO OF COIMBRA--1597 A.D.\n\nBY THOMAS WALSH\n\n\n The rumor came to Frei Egidio\n In cloistered Santa Cruz, that out of Spain\n King Philips secret courier had fared\n With orders under seal suspending all\n The statutes of Coimbra that controlled\n The contests for the prefessorial chairs,\n And ordering the Faculty to grant\n Padre Francisco Suarez primacy\n Among the masters theological.\n And Frei Egidio, whose ancient name\n Fonseca was relinquished when at court\n It shone its brightest, who had ceaseless toiled\n His score of years in cloister and in schools,\n Unravelling knotty texts, disputing long\n With monk and doctor of the Carmelites,\n Dominicans and Trinitarians,\n Consulting with the students, visiting,\n Fawning and banqueting--himself and all\n His faction in the University--\n Now in the iron mandate from Madrid\n Saw failure blight his hopes, and Santa Cruz\n Eclipsed, through imposition unforeseen\n Of Suarez de Toledo--only half\n A monk!--a fledgling doctor in the Schools!--\n And Frei Egidio unsleeping schemed\n To check the rising of this Spanish star\n Within Coimbra,--and his henchmen went\n Stealthy and sure to sow malignant seed\n To choke the Hapsburg\u2019s new autocracy.\n Stately was Frei Egidio, robust,\n Swarthy and smooth his cheek; his raven locks\n Piling about his tonsure in a crown.\n Dark flashed his eye whene\u2019er he rose to cast\n His syllogistic spear across the lists,\n Where many a mighty crest Minerva-crowned\n Was forced to yield, or learnt the rapier thrust\n Of his _distinguo_ and _non-sequiter_.\n Still more he shone when in procession moved\n The doctors, masters, and licentiates,\n With tufted caps, and rainbow gowns, and stoles,\n And ring, and book across the steeps and squares,\n While gallant youths pressed round on horse or foot\n Holding his robe or stirrup through the town--\n The _Catedratico da Vespera_.\n But now this little shrivelled man sent out\n From Salamanca,--Philip\u2019s paragon!--\n To rule Coimbra in theology!--\n One of Loyola\u2019s strange and restless band\n In the Collegio de Jesus,--reproach\n To every gorgeous doctor in the halls.\n \u2019Twas true he hid away within his house,\n Came seldom to the festival or Acts,\n Nor oft asserted his high presidence\n O\u2019er Frei Egidio--in craft or scorn,\n It mattered not--for Frei Egidio\n Would pluck him forth; no signet of the King\n Could serve him here; the doctors of the Schools\n Should learn how he, Fonseca, had been wronged.\n With formal placards soon they smeared the walls\n Of shrine and college, telling day and hour\n And place, where Doutor Frei Egidio\n Da Presentacao, of the Eremites\n Of Sao Agostinho, titular\n _Da Vespera_, would his conclusions hold\n \u201c_De Voluntario et Involuntario_\u201d\n Against all-comers, and imprimis there,\n The Doutor Padre Suarez, titular\n _Da Prima_ of Coimbra, theologue\n Of the _Collegia_ and _Compania\n De Jesus_. From near and far they came,\n And took their stated rank, and filed\n Into the Hall of Acts; the Chancellor\n And Rector in their robes of silk, and fur,\n And velvet, and great chains and seals of state;\n The Bishop, and Inquisitor, and Dean,\n And Chapter, in their purple; Canonists\n In green; and Jurists in their scarlet gowns;\n Frei Luiz of the Chair of Holy Writ,\n In black and white of the Dominicans;\n Frei Manoel of the Chair of Scotus, garbed\n In white and brown of Carmel; titulars\n In Peter Lombard and Durandus,--sons\n Of Bernard, Francis and Saint Benedict.\n When each in order of his ancientry\n Was seated in the tribune, and below\n Ranged the licentiates, and bachelors,\n And, out beyond, the thousand students,--gay\n In plumes and ruffs, or rags and disrepair,--\n There entered Bacharel Frei Constantino\n Citing the _obligations_; whereupon\n Egidio began his argument\n With exposition and arrangement clear,\n And summary abrupt and crushing, as\n His old experience in the courts had taught,--\n So free in tone and doctrine that the throng\n Swayed on their benches, beating noisily\n Great tomes together like the roll of drums.\n Then silence for Suarez\u2019s _quodlibet_;\n As half-reluctant, without emphasis,\n His cold unwavering voice proposed the plan\n Of his objection,--When uproarious\n Upon the instant, Frei Egidio\n In tones of thunder shouted o\u2019er the hall,--\n \u201c_Nego majorem!_\u201d--the scholastic world\u2019s\n Unmitigated insult! How would he,\n Spain\u2019s boasted theologian, reply\n To Portugal\u2019s? The Jesuits around\n Suarez\u2019s rostrum marvelled, whispered, turned,\n And hid their faces, when they saw him bowed\n Silent a moment, ere descending, calm,\n He led them home across the jeering town.\n Then the mad acclamations; bells of shrine\n And monastery on the hills; the sweep\n Of robes prelatical, the cavalcade\n Of gorgeous nobles into Santa Cruz;\n The blare of trumpets, and the lanterns strung\n Yellow beneath the moon; the beggar throngs;\n The maskers down the lanes; the nightingales\n And river-songs of students wafted far\n Across Mondego\u2019s Hills of Loneliness\n And Meditation where Coimbra slept.\n Thus triumphed Frei Egidio. But high\n In the Collegio de Jesus the blow\n Was red on every cheek; the Rector rose\n In the community and said: \u201cPadre\n Francisco, not in fifty years have we\n In our Coimbra known such sore defeat;\n Tell me, I pray, had you no thought to save\n Your honor and the honor of our schools--\n You, boast of Rome and Salamanca\u2019s halls.--\n You, to whom all the dialectic arts\n Have been as play--could you not parry, feint,\n Or bait Egidio until some chance\n Or newer turn might save your argument?\u201d\n Suarez bowed and answered: \u201cBetter far\n That we be humbled than a great man fall\n To utter shame and ruin! Had I told\n Egidio there that in denying thus\n My proposition he was challenging\n A solemn canon, word for word, prescribed\n At Constance by the Universal Church--\n Fetch me the Book of Councils--he was lost.\u201d\n Scarce was the secret spoken, ere it stole\n In rumor through the novice-court, and thence\n Below to Santa Cruz,--stole, like a cloud,\n Black, ominous, across the starlit dome\n Above the black _mosteiro_, where the moon\n Revelled amid the sculptured lattices,--\n The marble ropes and palms memorial\n Of old Da Gama and his caravels,--\n Upon the rose-paths and the trickling pools\n Along the Cloister do Silencio.\n There paced Fonseca, solitary guest\n To catch the final crumbs, the laughter, far\n Adown the stream, of lutes that mourned his feast,\n When lo! a billet in his path!--\u201c_Awake_,--\u201d\n He read,--\u201c_at Constance \u2019twas decreed. Thy voice\n Hath mocked the very words of Holy Church._\u201d--\n No more,--yet in foreboding he made haste\n To find his taper,--fumbled through the stacks\n In dust and chill,--unclasped the folio\n _Liber Conciliorum_,--saw his doom--\n Perchance the rack and Secret Prisons--writ\n Upon the parchment!--Silence, mocking lutes!\n Come, rain! come, whirlwind, blot the lanterns out:\n Now knew he their insidious subterfuge--\n The slippery Pharisees--to undermine\n Coimbra\u2019s last bright paragon,--they claimed\n Another victim!--But his rage gave way\n To grief; his scorn was all to blame; no scheme\n Was theirs; Suarez spoke the Council\u2019s words\n As duty bound him,--With the break of day\n Came self-renouncement to Egidio;\n And in amaze to greet his ashen face\n The sacristan laid out for him the alb\n And chasuble of Requiem; resigned,\n Like some bowed reed the storm has swept by night,\n He took the chalice, veiled it \u2019gainst his breast,\n And \u2019mid the first faint glimmer down the nave\n Crept forth unto his mystic Calvary.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTE\n\n\nThis eBook makes the following corrections to the printed text:\n\n Acknowledgment\n Small, Maynard Company\n Small, Maynard & Company\n Acknowledgment\n Houghton, Mifflin Company\n Houghton Mifflin Company\n Pg x\n The Soul of Kernaghan\n The Soul of Karnaghan\n Pg xi\n Garesche, S.J., Edward F.\n Garesch\u00e9, S.J., Edward F.\n Pg xiii\n MacDonough, Thomas\n MacDonagh, Thomas\n Pg 4\n Moved \u201cThe men that live in West England\u201d to following stanza\n Pg 6\n My brother, good morniing\n My brother, good morning\n Pg 7\n Stands about my wraith\n Stand about my wraith\n Pg 13\n with eyes like stars??\n with eyes like stars?\n Pg 14\n Started new stanza after \u201cthis is the moment of love.\u201d\n Pg 26\n The tickling clock\n The ticking clock\n Pg 41\n vandals stormed, thy sacred tree\n vandals stormed thy sacred tree\n Pg 51\n \u201c... peace to men!\u2019\n \u201c... peace to men!\u201d\n Pg 54\n His glorous face\n His glorious face\n Pg 66\n Started new stanza after \u201cWaiteth on Sorrow still;\u201d\n Pg 118\n And Joseph is my neighbor\n \u201cAnd Joseph is my neighbor\n Pg 120\n \u2018A prophet Thou!\u201d\n \u201cA prophet Thou!\u201d\n Pg 120\n \u2018Come with me,\u201d\n \u201cCome with me,\u201d\n Pg 120\n \u2018Yet ... and no soldier thou.\u201d\n \u201cYet ... and no soldier thou.\u201d\n Pg 120\n \u2018How wouldst thou serve?\u201d\n \u201cHow wouldst thou serve?\u201d\n Pg 123\n Himself He can not\n \u201cHimself He can not\n Pg 135\n Within it\u2019s wonderness\n Within its wonderness\n Pg 143\n Started new stanza after \u201clightning will\u201d\n Pg 152\n the bitter day He died\n the bitter day He died.\n Pg 166\n \u201cEndless ... with how much pain!\n \u201cEndless ... with how much pain!\u201d\n Pg 167\n praise thee well and wide\n praise thee well and wide.\n Pg 172\n \u2018The Fathers ... live to God:\u201d\n \u201cThe Fathers ... live to God:\u201d\n Pg 181\n Praising the Iord\n Praising the Lord\n Pg 210\n every soul that heard.\n every soul that heard.\u201d\n Pg 215\n Be stilll,--Pride\n Be still,--Pride\n Pg 234 (footnote)\n Newman calls the Blesed Virgin\n Newman calls the Blessed Virgin\n Pg 246\n Started new stanza after \u201cthat was bruised!\u201d\n Pg 262\n Naught shelters thee ...\u201d\n \u201cNaught shelters thee ...\u201d\n Pg 266\n \u2018Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest\n \u201cAh, fondest, blindest, weakest\n Pg 268\n Of utter sadnes\n Of utter sadness\n Pg 270\n their ample virtue mew\n their ample virtue mew.\n Pg 271\n ivies, interwine my hair\n ivies, intertwine my hair\n Pg 278\n Follow you withersoever you go.\n Follow you whithersoever you go.","title":"Dreams and Images: An Anthology of Catholic Poets","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":51221}