Chapter M: S. M (4)

I watch the tall, sagacious trees
Turn as the monks do, every one;
The saplings, ardent novices,
Turning with them towards the sun,

That Monstrance held in God’s strong hands,
Burnished in amber and in red;
God, His Own priest, in blessing stands;
The earth, adoring, bows her head.

The idols of your market place,
Your high debates, where are they now?
Your lawyers’ clamour fades apace--
A bird is singing on the bough!

Three fragile, sacramental things
Endure, though all your pomps shall pass--
A butterfly’s immortal wings,
A daisy and a blade of grass.

A SONG OF LAUGHTER

BY THEODORE MAYNARD

The stars with their laughter are shaken;
The long waves laugh at sea;
And the little Imp of Laughter
Laughs in the soul of me.

I know the guffaw of a tempest,
The mirth of a blossom and bud--
But I laugh when I think of how Cuchulain laughed
At the crows with their bills in his blood.

The mother laughs low at her baby,
The bridegroom with joy in his bride--
And I think that Christ laughed when they Took Him
with staves
On the night before He died.

APOCALYPSE

“_And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away._”--Apoc. xxi. I.

BY THEODORE MAYNARD

Shall summer wood where we have laughed our fill;
Shall all your grass so good to walk upon;
Each field that we have loved, each little hill,
Be burnt like paper--as hath said Saint John?

Then not alone they die! For God hath told
How all His plains of mingled fire and glass,
His walls of hyacinth, His streets of gold,
His aureoles of jewelled light shall pass,

That He may make us nobler things that these,
And in her royal robes of blazing red
Adorn His bride. Yea, with what mysteries
And might and mirth shall she be diamonded.

And what new secrets shall our God disclose;
Or set what suns of burnished brass to flare;
Or what empurpled bloom to oust the rose;
Or what strange grass to glow like angels’ hair!

What pinnacles of silvery tracery,
What dizzy, rampired towers shall God devise
Of topaz, beryl and chalcedony
To make Heaven pleasant to His children’s eyes!

And in what cataclysms of flame and foam
Shall the first Heaven sink--as red as sin--
When God hath cast aside His ancient home
As far too mean to house His children in.

ST. BRIGID

BY DENIS A. MCCARTHY

Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, she wasn’t like other young things,
Dreaming of lads for her lovers, and twirling her bracelets and
rings;
Combing and coiling and curling her hair that was black as the
sloes,
Painting her lips and her cheeks that were ruddy and fresh as the
rose.
Ah, ’twasn’t Brigid would waste all her days in such follies as
these--
Christ was the Lover she worshipped for hour after hour on her
knees;
Christ and His Church and His poor,--and ’twas many a mile that she
trod
Serving the loathsomest lepers that ever were stricken by God.

Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, she sold all her jewels and gems,
Sold all her finely-spun robes that were braided with gold to the
hems;
Kept to her back but one garment, one dress that was faded and old,
Gave all her goods to the poor who were famished with hunger and
cold.
Ah, ’twasn’t Brigid would fling at the poor the hard word like a
stone--
Christ the Redeemer she saw in each wretch that was ragged and lone;
Every wandering beggar who asked for a bite or a bed
Knocked at her heart like the Man who had nowhere to shelter His
head.

Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, she angered her father at last.
“Where are your dresses, my daughter? Crom Cruach! You wear them out
fast!
Where are the chains that I bought you all wrought in red gold from
the mine?
Where the bright brooches of silver that once on your bosom would
shine?”
Ah, but ’twas he was the man that was proud of his name and his
race,
Proud of their prowess in battle and proud of their deeds in the
chase!
Knew not the Christ, the pale God Whom the priests from afar had
brought in,
Held to the old Gaelic gods that were known to Cuchullin and Finn.

Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, made answer, “O father,” said she,
“What is the richest of raiment, and what are bright jewels to me?
Lepers of Christ must I care for, the hungry of Christ must I feed;
How can I walk in rich robes when His people and mine are in need?”
Ah, but ’twas she didn’t fear for herself when he blustered and
swore,
Meekly she bowed when he ordered his chariot brought to the door;
Meekly obeyed when he bade her get in at the point of his sword,
Knowing whatever her fate she’d be safe with her Lover and Lord.

Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, was brought to the court of the King,
(Monarch of Leinster, MacEnda, whose praises the poets would sing).
“Hither, O monarch,” said Duffy, “I’ve come with a maiden to sell;
Buy her and bind her to bondage--she’s needing such discipline
well!”
Ah, but ’twas wise was the King. From the maid to the chieftain he
turned;
Mildness he saw in her face, in the other ’twas anger that burned;
“This is no bondmaid, I’ll swear it, O chief, but a girl of your
own.
Why sells the father the flesh of his flesh and the bone of his
bone?”

Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, was mute while her father replied--
“Monarch, this maid has no place as the child of a chieftain of
pride.
Beggars and wretches whose wounds would the soul of a soldier
affright,
Sure, ’tis on these she is wasting my substance from morning till
night!”
Ah, but ’twas bitter was Duffy; he spoke like a man that was vext.
Musing, the monarch was silent; he pondered the question perplexed.
“Maiden,” said he, “if ’tis true, as I’ve just from your father
heard tell,
Might it not be, as my bondmaid, you’d waste all my substance as
well?”

Brigid, the daughter of Duffy, made answer. “O monarch,” she said,
“Had I the wealth from your coffers, and had I the crown from your
head--
Yea, if the plentiful yield of the broad breasts of Erin were mine,
All would I give to the people of Christ who in poverty pine.”
Ah, but ’twas then that the King felt the heart in his bosom upleap,
“I am not worthy,” he cried, “such a maiden in bondage to keep!
Here’s a king’s sword for her ransom, and here’s a king’s word to
decree
Never to other than Christ and His poor let her servitude be!”

ROSA MYSTICA

BY DENIS A. MCCARTHY

O Mystic Rose, in God’s fair garden growing,
O Mystic Rose, in Heaven’s high courtyard blowing--
Make sweet, make sweet the pathway I am going,
O Mystic Rose!
The darkling, deathward way that I am going,
O Mystic Rose!

O Rose, more white than snow-wreath in December!
O Rose, more red than sunset’s dying ember,
My sins forget, my penitence remember,
O Mystic Rose!
Though all should fail, I pray that thou remember,
O Mystic Rose!

O Mystic Rose, the moments fly with fleetness;
To judgment I, with all my incompleteness--
But thou, make intercession by thy sweetness,
O Mystic Rose!
Be near to soothe and save me by the sweetness,
O Mystic Rose!

THE POOR MAN’S DAILY BREAD

BY DENIS A. MCCARTHY

Not only there where jewelled vestments blaze,
And princely prelates bow before Thy shrine,
Where myriads line the swept and garnished ways
Through which is borne Thy Majesty Divine--
O Jesus of the ever loving heart,
Not only there Thou art!

But where the lowliest church its cross uplifts
Above the city’s sordidness and sin;
Where all unheeded human wreckage drifts
And drowns amid the foulness and the din--
There, too, anear the very gates of hell,
O Saviour, dost Thou dwell!

Oh, meet it is that round Thy altar thrones,
Thy highest priests should ministering throng
With silken robe, with gold and precious stones,
With solemn chant and loud triumphant song:
What beauty that the world could give would be
Too beautiful for Thee?

And yet to those that work with grimy hands
And sweaty brows in ditches and in drains,
Thou comest with a love that understands
Their labor ill-requitted, and their pains.
Who knows so well as Thou what they endure,
O Father of the poor?

And so, deep-hid in many a city street,
Or far where lonely workers break the soil,
Are shrines where Thou, the Merciful, dost meet,
In love’s embrace, the weary ones that toil.
For them Thy hospitable board is spread,
With Thee, Thy very Self, their Daily Bread!

TO ASK OUR LADY’S PATRONAGE FOR A BOOK ON COLUMBUS: A FRAGMENT

BY THOMAS D’ARCY MCGEE

Star of the Sea, to whom, age after age,
The maiden kneels whose lover sails the sea;
Star, that the drowning death-pang can assuage,
And shape the soul’s course to eternity;
Mother of God, to Egypt’s realm exiled,
Mother of God, in Bethlehem’s crib confined,
Thee do I ask to aid my anxious mind,
And make this book find favour with thy Child.

Of one who lived and laboured in thy ray,
I would rehearse the striving and success;
Through the dense past I ne’er shall find my way,
Unless thou helpest, hold Comfortress;
A world of doubt and darkness to evade;
An ocean all unknown to Christian kind;
Another world by nature’s self arrayed,
O’er the wide waste of waves, I seek to find.

A GENERAL COMMUNION

BY ALICE MEYNELL

I saw the throng, so deeply separate,
Fed at one only board--
The devout people, moved, intent, elate,
And the devoted Lord.

Oh struck apart! not side from human side,
But soul from human soul,
As each asunder absorbed the multiplied,
The ever unparted whole.

I saw this people as a field of flowers,
Each grown at such a price
The sum of unimaginable powers
Did no more than suffice.

A thousand single central daisies they,
A thousand of the one;
For each the entire monopoly of day;
For each, the whole of the devoted sun.

THE SHEPHERDESS

BY ALICE MEYNELL

She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.
Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;
She guards them from the steep;
She feeds them on the fragrant height,
And folds them in for sleep.

She roams maternal hills and bright,
Dark valleys safe and deep.
Into that tender breast at night
The chastest stars may peep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.

She holds her little thoughts in sight,
Though gay they run and leap.
She is so circumspect and right;
She has her soul to keep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.

CHRIST IN THE UNIVERSE

BY ALICE MEYNELL

With this ambiguous earth
His dealings have been told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.

But not a star of all
The innumberable host of stars has heard
How He administered this terrestrial ball.
Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word.

Of His earth-visiting feet
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,
The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,
Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.

No planet knows that this
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave,

Nor, in our little day,
May his devices with the heavens be guessed,
His pilgrimage to tread the Milky Way
Or His bestowals there be manifest.

But in the eternities,
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.

O, be prepared, my soul!
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The million forms of God those stars enroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

“I AM THE WAY”

BY ALICE MEYNELL

Thou art the Way.
Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal,
I cannot say
If Thou hadst ever met my soul.

I cannot see--
I, child of process--if there lies
An end for me,
Full of repose, full of replies.

I’ll not reproach
The road that winds, my feet that err.
Access, approach
Art Thou, Time, Way, and Wayfarer.

VIA, ET VERITAS, ET VITA

BY ALICE MEYNELL

“You never attained to Him.” “If to attain
Be to abide, then that may be.”
“Endless the way, followed with how much pain!”
“The way was He.”

UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN

BY ALICE MEYNELL

Given, not lent,
And not withdrawn--once sent,
This Infant of mankind, this One,
Is still the little welcome Son.

New every year,
New born and newly dear,
He comes with tidings and a song,
The ages long, the ages long;

Even as the cold
Keen winter grows not old,
As childhood is so fresh, foreseen,
And spring in the familiar green.

Sudden as sweet
Come the expected feet.
All joy is young, and new all art,
And He, too, Whom we have by heart.

TO A DAISY

BY ALICE MEYNELL

Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide
Like all created things, secrets from me,
And stand a barrier to eternity.
And I, how can I praise thee well and wide

From where I dwell--upon the hither side?
Thou little veil for so great mystery,
When shall I penetrate all things and thee,
And then look back? For this I must abide.

Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled
Literally between me and the world.
Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring.

And from a poet’s side shall read his book.
O daisy mine, what will it be to look
From God’s side even of such a simple thing?

THE NEWER VAINGLORY

BY ALICE MEYNELL

Two men went up to pray; and one gave thanks,
Not with himself aloud,
With proclamation, calling on the ranks
Of an attentive crowd.

“Thank God, I clap not my own humble breast,
But other ruffians’ backs,
Imputing crime--such is my tolerant haste--
To any man that lacks.

“For I am tolerant, generous, keep no rules,
And the age honors me.
Thank God, I am not as these rigid fools,
Even as this Pharisee.”

THE FOLDED FLOCK

BY WILFRID MEYNELL

I saw the shepherd fold the sheep,
With all the little lambs that leap.

O Shepherd Lord, so I would be
Folded with all my family.

Or go they early, come they late,
Their mother and I must count them eight.

And how, for us, were any heaven
If we, sore-stricken, saw but seven?

Kind Shepherd, as of old Thou’lt run
And fold at need a straggling one.

CONVENT ECHOES

BY HELEN LOUISE MORIARTY

Clear on the air, their pulsing cadence pealing,
I hear a sweet refrain,
While o’er my thoughts a gentle mist is stealing,
And mem’ries come again,

Of quiet halls where dusk is slow descending,
Where peace has spread her wings.
Soft music in the distance only lending
More charms where twilight clings.

Anon appear the black robed nuns, their faces
Serene in sweet repose;
Across their brows the world has left no traces
Of earthly dreams or woes.

Now loud on air the organ music swelling,
They reach the chapel door--
The sweet faint incense stealing upward, telling
’Tis Benediction’s hour.

Now low-bowed heads, and hearts to Him ascending
On incense laden air.
Ah surely Heaven must smile with ear attending
The nun’s low whispered prayer.

Fond memory lingers on those dim old hallways--
Lingers and drops a tear,
And kind affection drapes the picture always
Through each succeeding year.

ENGLAND

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

Tyre of the West, and glorying in the name
More than in Faith’s pure fame!
O trust not crafty fort nor rock renown’d
Earn’d upon hostile ground;
Wielding Trade’s master-keys, at thy proud will
To lock or loose its waters, England! trust not still.

Dread thine own power! Since haughty Babel’s prime,
High towers have been man’s crime.
Since her hoar age, when the huge moat lay bare,
Strongholds have been man’s snare.
Thy nest is in the crags; ah, refuge frail!
Mad counsels in its hour, or traitors, will prevail.

He who scann’d Sodom for His righteous men
Still spares thee for thy ten;
But, should vain tongues the Bride of Heaven defy,
He will not pass thee by;
For, as earth’s kings welcome their spotless guests,
So gives He them by turn, to suffer or be blest.

THE PILLAR OF THE CLOUD

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home--
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,--one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I lov’d to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I lov’d the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride rul’d my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath bless’d me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have lov’d long since, and lost awhile.

THE GREEK FATHERS

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

Let heathen sing thy heathen praise,
Fall’n Greece! the thought of holier days
In my sad heart abides;
For sons of thine in Truth’s first hour
Were tongues and weapons of His power,
Born of the Spirit’s fiery shower,
Our fathers and our guides.

All thine is Clement’s varied page;
And Dionysius, ruler sage,
In days of doubt and pain;
And Origen with eagle eye;
And saintly Basil’s purpose high
To smite imperial heresy,
And cleanse the Altar’s stain.

From thee the glorious preacher came,
With soul of zeal and lips of flame,
A court’s stern martyr-guest;
And thine, O inexhaustive race!
Was Nazianzen’s heaven-taught grace;
And royal-hearted Athanase,
With Paul’s own mantel blessed.

RELICS OF SAINTS

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

“He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto Him.”

“The Fathers are in dust, yet live to God:”
So says the Truth; as if the motionless clay
Still held the seeds of life beneath the sod,
Smouldering and straggling till the judgment day.

And hence we learn with reverence to esteem
Of these frail houses, though the grave confines;
Sophist may urge his cunning tests, and deem
That they are earth;--but they are heavenly shrines.

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

Whene’er across this sinful flesh of mine
I draw the Holy Sign,
All good thoughts stir within me, and renew
Their slumbering strength divine;
Till there springs up a courage high and true
To suffer and to do.

And who shall say, but hateful spirits around,
For their brief hour unbound,
Shudder to see, and wail their overthrow?
While on far heathen ground
Some lonely Saint hails the fresh odour, though
Its source he cannot know?

THE SON OF GOD

BY CHARLES L. O’DONNELL, C.S.C.

The fount of Mary’s joy
Revealed now lies,
For, lo, has not the Boy
His Father’s eyes?

TO ST. JOSEPH

BY CHARLES L. O’DONNELL, C.S.C.

St. Joseph, when the day was done
And all your work put by,
You saw the stars come one by one
Out in the violet sky.

You did not know the stars by name,
But there sat at your knee
One who had made the light and flame
And all things bright that be.

You heard with Him birds in the tree
Twitter “Good-night” o’erhead,--
The Maker of the world must see
His little ones to bed.

Then when the darkness settled round,
To Him your prayers were said;
No wonder that your sleep was ground
The angels loved to tread.

THE DEAD MUSICIAN

In memory of Brother Basil,
Organist for half a century at Notre Dame

BY CHARLES L. O’DONNELL, C.S.C.

He was the player and the played upon,
He was the actor and the acted on,
Artist, and yet himself a substance wrought;
God played on him as he upon the keys,
Moving his soul to mightiest melodies
Of lowly serving, hid austerities,
And holy thought that our high dream out-tops,--
He was an organ where God kept the stops.
Naught, naught
Of all he gave us came so wondrous clear
As that he sounded to the Master’s ear.

Wedded he was to the immortal Three,
Poverty, Obedience and Chastity,
And in a fourth he found them all expressed,
For him all gathered were in Music’s breast,
And in God’s house
He took her for his spouse,--
High union that the world’s eye never scans
Nor world’s way knows.
Not any penny of applauding hands
He caught, nor would have caught,
Not any thought
Save to obey
Obedience that bade him play,
And for his bride
To have none else beside,
That both might keep unflecked their virgin snows.

Yet by our God’s great law
Such marriage issue saw,
As they who cast away may keep,
Who sow not reap.
In Chastity entombed
His manhood bloomed,
And children not of earth
Had spotless birth.
With might unmortal was he strong
That he begot
Of what was not,
Within the barren womb of silence, song.
Yea, many sons he had
To make his sole heart glad--
Romping the boundless meadows of the air,
Skipping the cloudy hills, and climbing bold
The heavens’ nightly stairs of starry gold.
Nay, winning heaven’s door
To mingle evermore
With deathless troops of angel harmony.
He filled the house of God
With servants at his nod,
A music-host of moving pagentry.
Lo, this priest, and that an acolyte:
Ah, such we name aright
Creative art,
To body forth love slumbering at the heart ...
Fools, they who pity him,
Imagine dim
Days that the world’s glare brightens not.
Until the seraphim
Shake from their flashing hair
Lightnings, and weave serpents there,
His days we reckon fair....

Yet more he had than this;
Lord of the liberative kiss,
To own and yet refrain,
To hold his hand in reign.
High continence of his high power,
That turns from virtue’s very flower,
In loss of that elected pain
A greater prize to gain.
As one who long had put wine by
Would now himself deny
Water, and thirsting die.
So, sometimes he was idle at the keys,
Pale fingers on the aged ivories;
Then, like a prisoned bird,
Music was seen, not heard,
Then were his quivering hands most strong
With blood of the repressed song,--
A fruitful barrenness. Oh, where
Out of angelic air,
This side the heavens’ spheres
Such sight to start and hinder tears.
Who knows, perhaps while silence throbbed
He heard the De Profundis sobbed
By his own organ at his bier to-day,--
It is the saints’ anticipative way,
He knew both hand and ear were clay.
That was one thought
Never is music wrought,
For silence only could that truth convey.
Widowed of him, his organ now is still,
His music-children fled, their echoing feet yet fill
The blue, far reaches of the vaulted nave,
The heart that sired them, pulseless in the grave.
Only the song he made is hushed, his soul,
Responsive to God’s touch, in His control
Elsewhere shall tune the termless ecstasy
Of one who all his life kept here
An alien ear,
Homesick for harpings of eternity.

GIOTTO’S CAMPANILE

BY THOMAS O’HAGAN

O pulsing heart with voice attuned
To all the soul builds high,
Framing in notes of love divine
A drama of the sky,
Across the Arno’s flowing tide
The notes chime on the air,
Deep as the mysteries of God
And tender as a prayer.

Here, where the Poet of Sorrows dwelt,
Whose altar Love had built,
And framed his morn in dreams so pure
That knew not stain nor guilt:
O _Vita Nuova_! Earthly Love
Then changed to love Divine;
Transfigured at the wedding-feast,
Earth’s grapes are heavenly wine.

Where cowled monk with soul of fire
Struck vice athwart the face,
With God’s anointed sword of truth
That flashed with beams of grace.
O bitter days of war and strife!
Heaven’s ardor was too great;
The Empire of the earth held sway
And sealed with saddest fate.

Methinks I hear from thy strong lips,
O century-dowered bell!
The story of the Whites and Blacks,
As banners rose or fell;
Methinks I hear an epic voice,
Full of God’s love and power,
With accent of an Exile sad
Speaking from out thy tower!

NAME OF MARY

BY JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY

Dear, honored name, beloved for human ties,
But loved and honored first that One was given
In living proof, to erring mortal eyes,
That our poor flesh is near akin to heaven.

Sweet word of dual meaning: one of grace,
And born of our kind Advocate above;
And one, by mercy linked to that dear face
That blessed my childhood with its mother-love,

And taught me first the simple prayer: “To thee,
Poor banished sons of Eve, we send our cries.”
Through mist of years, those words recall to me
A childish face upturned to loving eyes.

And yet, to some the name of Mary bears
No special meaning and no gracious power;
In that dear word they seek for hidden snares,
As wasps find poison in the sweetest flower.

But faithful hearts can see, o’er doubts and fears,
The Virgin-link that binds the Lord to earth;
Which, to the upturned trusting face, appears
Greater than angel, though of human birth.

The sweet-faced moon reflects, on cheerless night,
The rays of hidden sun that rise to-morrow;
So, unseen God still lets his promised light,
Through holy Mary, shine upon our sorrow.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

BY MARY A. O’REILLY

Night in the far Judean land,
The pregnant air is still,
The sky one blue unclouded band,
Seems drooping o’er each hill.
The hills then toward each other bend,
Some mighty secret to portend.
Gloria in excelsis Deo.

The sheep in near-by pastures browse,
Some bleat as if in pain;
The youthful shepherds watch and drowse,
Then drowse and watch again;
When lo! a light from Heaven appears
Which makes them huddle in their fears.
Gloria in excelsis Deo.

God’s glory shone around them there,
And then an angel cried--
“Fear not, for I good tidings bear
To you, and all beside.
For unto you is born this day
A Savior, Christ the Lord.” We pray--
Gloria in excelsis Deo.

Then swinging from the skies there came
Groups of the heavenly host,
Praising the Lord in sweet acclaim--
The burden of their toast--
“Glory to God on High,” again--
His “Peace on earth, good will to men.”
Gloria in excelsis Deo.

Within a stable sweet with hay,
And warm with breath of kine,
The Baby and His Mother lay,
O, mystery divine!
The bed of straw a cloud appears,
We hear the music of the spheres.
Gloria in excelsis Deo.

Dear maiden mother, let us now,
While to your breast He clings,
In humble adoration bow
With shepherds and with kings,
And at His feet our off’ring be
Praise, love, faith, hope and charity.
Gloria in excelsis Deo.

ROMA MATER SEMPAETERNA

BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL

The blue skies bend and are about her furled,
A maiden mantle; and with lilies bright
The sun daywhiles doth crown her, and at night
With stars her garment’s border is empearled.
Not a king’s favorite, perfumed and curled,
Is half so fair; no queen of martial might
So potent as the Mother of the Light,
The Mary of the Cities of the World!

Eternal Mother, at whose breasts of white
The infant Church was suckled and made strong
With the sweet milk of heavenly Truth and Love,
O thou that art all nations set above,
Strengthen us still because the way is long,
Mary of Cities, Mother of the Light!

MARY’S BABY

BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL

Joseph, mild and noble, bent above the straw:
A pale girl, a frail girl, suffering, he saw;
“O my Love, my Mary, my bride, I pity thee!”
“Nay, Dear,” said Mary, “All is well with me!”
“Baby, my Baby, O my Babe,” she sang.
Suddenly the golden night all with music rang.

Angels leading shepherds, shepherds leading sheep:
The silence of worship broke the mother’s sleep.
All the meek and lowly of the world were there;
Smiling she showed them that her Child was fair.
“Baby, my Baby,” kissing Him she said.
Suddenly a flaming star through the heavens sped.

Three old men and weary knelt them side by side,
The world’s wealth forswearing, majesty and pride;
Worldly might and wisdom before the Babe bent low:
Weeping, maid Mary said “I love Him so!”
“Baby, my Baby,” and the Baby slept.
Suddenly on Calvary all the olives wept.

THEY WENT FORTH TO BATTLE

BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL

They went forth to battle, but they always fell;
Their eyes were fixed above the sullen shields;
Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well,
And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell.
They knew not fear that to the foeman yields,
They were not weak, as one who vainly wields
A futile weapon, yet the sad scrolls tell
How on the hard-fought field they always fell.

It was a secret music that they heard,
A sad sweet plea for pity and for peace;
And that which pierced the heart was but a word,
Though the white breast was red-lipped where the sword
Pressed a fierce cruel kiss, to put surcease
On its hot thirst, but drank a hot increase.
Ah, then by some strange troubling doubt were stirred,
And died for hearing what no foeman heard.

They went forth to battle but they always fell;
Their might was not the might of lifted spears;
Over the battle-clamor came a spell
Of troubling music, and they fought not well.
Their wreaths are willows and their tribute, tears;
Their names are old sad stories in men’s ears;
Yet they will scatter the red hordes of Hell,
Who went to battle forth and always fell.

HE WHOM A DREAM HATH POSSESSED

BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL

He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of doubting,
For mist and the blowing of winds and the mouthing of words he
scorns;
Not the sinuous speech of schools he hears, but a knightly shouting,
And never comes darkness down, yet he greeteth a million morns.

He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of roaming;
All roads and the flowing of waves and the speediest flight he
knows,
But wherever his feet are set, his soul is forever homing,
And going he comes, and coming he heareth a call and goes.

He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of sorrow,
At death and the dropping of leaves and the fading of suns he
smiles,
For a dream remembers no past and scorns the desire of a morrow,
And a dream in a sea of doom sets surely the ultimate isles.

He whom a dream hath possessed treads the impalpable marches,
From the dust of the day’s long road he leaps to a laughing star,
And the ruin of worlds that fall he views from eternal arches,
And rides God’s battle-field in a flashing and golden car.

MARIA IMMACULATA

BY CONDÉ BENOIST PALLEN

I

How may I sing, unworthy I,
Our Lady’s glorious sanctity?
She whose celestial shoon
Rest on the horned moon
In Heaven’s highest galaxy;
She whom the poet sang of old
In that rare vision told
In soft Tuscan speech of gold,
The spotless spouse and mother-maid
The goodliest sapphire in Heaven’s floor inlaid,
Around whom wheels the circling flame
Of the rapt seraph breathing Mary’s name,
While choir to choir replies
In growing harmonies
Through all the glowing spheres of Paradise,
Till universal Heaven’s glad estate
Rings jubilation to their queen immaculate.

II

Ah me! Unworthy I to sing
The stainless mother of my King,
My King and Lord,
The Incarnate Word,
Heaven itself comprest
Within her virgin breast!
How may my faltering rhyme
Sing of Eternity in time,
Omnipotence in human frailty exprest,
Our earthly garden fragrant with celestial thyme.
What Muse, though great Urania guide her flight,
May dare the sacrosanct and awful height
Of that mysterious sublime
Within the secret counsels of the Infinite!
Omniscence there supreme and sole
Clasps the beginning and the whole
Of Love beyond created sight,
Uncreate and quintessential light!
Before the splendor of that ray
Cherub and seraph fall away
Dazzled and broken by excess
Of everpowering blessedness,
Yet panting for the fulness of the bliss
That breathes consuming fire from Love’s unkenned abyss.
Not through that fiery sphere my way,
But here where shines the veiléd day,
The flames of mystery insteeped
In this our mortal clay;
For in her maiden breast asleep
Lies all the Love of Heaven’s deep,
The holy circle of her zone
Incarnate Love’s terrestrial throne.

III

The great archangel veils his face
Before her: “Hail, full of grace!”
And Heaven is clasped of earth;
While all the wheeling spheres with all their choirs
Around her wheel seraphic fires.
Eden rises to its second birth;
Again the prime estate
Of man is renovate,
And all the elder worth renewed in her immaculate;
Virgin and spouse of Him
Who breathes the virtue of the Seraphim,
Virgin and mother of the Eternal Son,
Daughter, Virgin, Spouse in one!
The spotless mate of spotless Dove,
The one great miracle of God’s love,
From all eternity the chosen bride,
Save only her none, none
Exempt from sin’s dominion;
Save only her of Adam’s race
Or heavenly line, none full of grace;
On her alone, on her alone
The torrent of His love poured down
The deep abundance of its flood
Into the pure channels of her maidenhood,
The fleckless mirror of her grace
Reflecting all the beauty of His Face.

IV

She looks with human eyes
Into the eyes of Paradise;
Upon her virgin breast the Babe Divine
Gazes again into her eyne;
O vanity of words to tell
The wonder of that spell,
The ravishment of bliss
Upwelling from the deep abyss
Of Love incarnate gazing in the eyes
Of his terrestrial paradise!
See Heaven within her arms,
Gathered against all harms,
Innocence by innocence addrest,
Virgin love by virgin love carest,
The sinless mother and the sinless Son
For Heaven and earth to gaze upon!
Her living image on her knee,
O the depths of her maternity!
Her God, her Infant at her breast,
O Love beyond all utterance exprest,
The Eternal Word in virgin flesh made manifest!

V

Ye sons of Adam rejoice
With exultant voice!
Shake off your chains! Arise!
The ancient dragon has no power
O’er Jesse’s virgin flower,
And stricken ’neath a maiden’s sandal lies.
Nor may his venomed breath so much
As her garment’s outer margin touch;
And sin’s torrential flood,
That whelmed all Adam’s flesh and blood,
Its loathsome stream turns back
Before her footsteps’ radiant track.

VI

Rejoice, children of men!
Behold again
Your flesh rejuvenate
In her immaculate!
Rejoice with exceeding joy,
For in her free from sin’s alloy
Your renovated race
In plentitude of grace
Dare look again unshamed upon its Maker’s Face!
Chosen to bear the Eternal Word,
In her your more than dignity restored;
In her the more than golden worth
Of Eden’s prime when Heaven was linked with earth;
Unstained by Adam’s guilty forfeiture,
In her your long corrupted flesh made pure;
For of her, flesh of flesh and bone of bone,
Eternal Love builds up His stainless throne!

VII

Rejoice and be glad this day!
In jubilation lay
Your tribute at her feet,
Spotless and most meet,
The mystic rose of Jesse’s root,
To bear the heavenly fruit;
Wisdom’s seat and Heaven’s gate,
Our surest advocate,
Mother of God immaculate!
Be glad, O Adam’s clay,
Be glad this happy day.
And with accordant voice acclaim
Our spotless Lady’s stainless fame;
Be ye exceeding glad and sing
The mother of our King.
And though unworthy be my strain,
She is too tender not to deign
To lend a gracious ear
To this her children’s humble prayer:
_Mother of Mercy, hear!
Mother whose face is likest His,
Who our Redeemer is,
Grant us one day to share
Thy happiness in gazing on His Face,
Who found thee without spot and full of grace!_

THE RAISING OF THE FLAG

BY CONDÉ BENOIST PALLEN

Lift up the banner of our love
To the kiss of the winds above,
The banner of the world’s fair hope,
Set with stars from the azure cope,
When liberty was young,
And yet unsung
Clarioned her voice among
The trodden peoples, and stirred
The pulses with her word,
Till the swift flood red
From the quick heart sped,
Flushing valour’s cheek with flame
At sounding of her august sacred name!

Lift up the banner of the stars,
The standard of the double bars,
Red with the holy tide
Of heroes’ blood, who died
At the feet of liberty,
Shouting her battle-cry
Triumphantly
As they fell like sickled corn
In that first resplendent morn
Of freedom, glad to die
In the dawn of her clear eye!

Lift up the flag of starry blue
Caught from the crystal hue
Of central heaven’s glowing dome,
Where the great winds largely roam
In unrestrainéd liberty;
Caught from the cerulean sea
Of midmost ocean tossing free,
Flecked with the racing foam
Of rushing waters, as they leap
Unbridled from the laughing deep
In the gulfs of liberty!

Lift up the banner red
With the blood of heroes shed
In victory!
Lift up the banner blue
As heaven, and as true
In constancy!
Lift up the banner white
As sea foam in the light
Of liberty;
The banner of the triple hue,
The banner of the red and white and blue,
Bright ensign of the free!

Lift up the banner of the days to come,
When cease the trumpet and the rolling drum;
When peace in the nest of love
Unfolds the wings of the dove,
Brooding o’er the days to-be,
Peace born of freedom’s might,
Peace sprung from the power of right,
The peace of liberty!

Lift up the flag of high surprise
To greet the gladdened eyes
Of peoples far and near,
The glorious harbinger
Of earth’s wide liberties,
Streaming pure and clear
In freedom’s lofty atmosphere!

Lift up our hearts to Him who made to shine
In Heaven’s arch the glorious sign
Of mercy’s heavenly birth
To all the peoples of the earth,
The pledge of peace divine!
And let our glorious banner, too,
The banner of the rainbow’s hue,
In heaven’s wide expanse unfurled,
Be for a promise to the world
Of peace to all mankind;
Banner of peace and light,
Banner of red and blue and white,
Red as the crimson blood
Of Christ’s wide brotherhood,
Blue with the unchanging hope
Of heaven’s steadfast sun,
White as the radiant sun
The whole earth shining on!

THE BABE OF BETHLEHEM

BY CONDÉ BENOIST PALLEN

O cruel manger, how bleak, how bleak!
For the limbs of the Babe, my God;
Soft little limbs on the cold, cold straw;
Weep, O eyes, for thy God!

Bitter ye winds in the frosty night
Upon the Babe, my God,
Piercing the torn and broken thatch;
Lament, O heart, for thy God!

Bare is the floor, how bare, how bare
For the Babe’s sweet mother, my God;
Only a stable for mother and Babe;
How cruel thy world, my God!

Cast out, cast out, by his brother men
Unknown the Babe, my God;
The ox and the ass alone are there;
Soften, O heart, for thy God!

Dear little arms and sweet little hands,
That stretch for thy mother, my God;
Soft baby eyes to the mother’s eyes;
Melt, O heart, for thy God!

Waxen touches on mother’s heart,
Fingers of the Babe, my God;
Dear baby lips to her virgin breast,
The virgin mother of God.

The shepherds have come from the hills to adore
The Babe in the manger, my God;
Mary and Joseph welcome them there;
Worship, O soul, thy God!

But I alone may not come near
The Babe in the manger, my God;
Weep for thy sins, O heart, and plead
With Mary the mother of God.

May I not come, oh, just to the door,
To see the Babe, my God;
There will I stop and kneel and adore,
And weep for my sins, O God!

But Mary smiles, and rising up,
In her arms the Babe, my God,
She comes to the door and bends her down,
With the Babe in her arms, my God!

Her sinless arms in my sinful arms
Place the Babe, my God;
“He has come to take thy sins away;”
Break, O heart, for thy God!

THE TOYS

BY COVENTRY PATMORE

My little son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
And mov’d and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,
I struck him, and dismiss’d
With hard words and unkiss’d,
His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then fearing lest his grief should hinder him sleep
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
Fie had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach,
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
To comfort his sad heart.
So when that night I pray’d
To God, I wept, and said:
Ah, when at last we lie with trancéd breath,
Not vexing Thee in death,
And Thou rememberest of what toys
We made our joys,
How weakly understood
Thy great commanded good,
Then, fatherly not less
Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,
Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
“I will be sorry for their childishness.”

“IF I WERE DEAD”

BY COVENTRY PATMORE

“If I were dead, you’d some time say, Poor Child!”
The dear lips quiver’d as they spake,
And the tears break
From eyes, which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled.
Poor Child, poor Child!
I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song.
It is not true that Love will do no wrong.
Poor Child!
And did you think, when you so cried and smiled,
How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake,
And of those words your full avengers make?
Poor Child, poor Child!
And now, unless it be
That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee,
O God, have Thou no mercy upon me!
Poor Child!

DEPARTURE

BY COVENTRY PATMORE

It was not like your great and gracious ways!
Do you, that have nought other to lament,
Never, my Love, repent
Of how, that July afternoon,
You went,
With sudden, unintelligible phrase,
And frightened eye,
Upon your journey of so many days
Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?
I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;
And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays,
You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,
Your harrowing praise.
Well, it was well
To hear you such things speak,
And I could tell
What made your eyes a growing gloom of love,
As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove.
And it was like your great and gracious ways
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash
To let the laughter flash,
Whilst I drew near,
Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.
But all at once to leave me at the last,
More at the wonder than the loss aghast,
With huddled, unintelligible phrase,
And frighten’d eye,
And go your journey of all days
With not one kiss, or a good-bye,
And the only loveless look the look with which you passed;
’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.

REGINA CŒLI

BY COVENTRY PATMORE

Say, did his sisters wonder what could Joseph see
In a mild, silent little Maid like thee?
And was it awful, in that narrow house,
With God for Babe and Spouse?
Nay, like thy simple, female sort, each one
Apt to find Him in Husband and in Son,
Nothing to thee came strange in this.
Thy wonder was but wondrous bliss:
Wondrous, for, though
True Virgin lives not but does know,
(Howbeit none ever yet confess’d,)
That God lies really in her breast,
Of thine He made His special nest!
And so
All mothers worship little feet,
And kiss the very ground they’ve trod;
But, ah, thy little Baby sweet
Who was indeed thy God!

IDEAL

BY P. H. PEARSE

(Translated from the Irish by Thomas MacDonagh)

Naked I saw thee,
O beauty of beauty!
And I blinded my eyes
For fear I should flinch.

I heard thy music,
O sweetness of sweetness!
And I shut my ears
For fear I should fail.

I kissed thy lips,
O sweetness of sweetness!
And I hardened my heart
For fear of my ruin.

I blinded my eyes,
And my ears I shut,
I hardened my heart
And my love I quenched.

I turned my back
On the dream I had shaped,
And to this road before me
My face I turned.

I set my face
To the road here before me,
To the work that I see,
To the death that I shall meet.

MUSIC

BY CHARLES PHILLIPS

There is a hunger in my heart to-night,
A longing in my soul, to hear
The voice of heaven o’er the noise of earth
That doth assail mine ear.

For we are exiled children of the skies,
Lone and lost wanderers from home ...
The stars come out like lamps in windows lit
Far, far from where we roam;

Like candles lit to show the long late way,
Dear kindly beacons sure and bright;
But O, the heavy journeying, and O
The silence of the night!--

The dark and vasty silences that lie
Between the going and the goal!
Will not God reach a friendly hand to lift
And land my weary soul?

Will not God speak a friendly word to me
Above the tumult and the din
Of earthly things--one little word to hush
The voice of care and sin?...

He speaks! He answers my poor faltering prayer!
He opens heaven’s lattice wide;
He bids me bathe my brow in heavenly airs
Like to a flowing tide!

He calls; He gives unto my famished soul,
Unto my eager heart, its meed:
He breathes upon me with the breath of song,
And O, my soul is freed,

And I am lifted up and up, and held
A little while--a child, to see
The beauties of my Father’s house, which shall
No more be shut from me!