r m «r YHH7^-H3U C fh J t/. *U. , A 4 ^A. 4^ A LITTLE BOOK FOR JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS “For Lycidas is dead, dead ere bis prime, Young Lycidas, and bath not left his peer A LITTLE BOOK FOR JOHN O’MAHON Y’S FRIENDS BY KATHARINE TYNAN ___ > PRINTED FOR THOMAS B MOSHER AND PUBLISHED BY HIM AT XLV EXCHANGE STREET PORTLAND MAINE MDCCCCIX CMEaL A (j FOREWORD 15590 lt By Killarney’s lakes and fells.” FOREWORD wo little pam- phlets lie before us , one of which i we take the un- asked liberty of reprinting in the belief that what was meant for a few personal friends will be found on perusal acceptable to many another in whose heart ling- ers the recollection of some life once very near and dear that has now passed into the great silence . It is no violation of confi- dence reposed in us to say that this brilliant young bar- VIII FOREWORD r is ter, John O’Mahony , whose untimely death took place during November, iQOj, was a brother-indaw of Mrs . Tynan- H inks on . The four poems appended by Mrs . Hinkson to her brief memorial are , or so they seem to us, among the truest and sweetest of her later lyrics . It is the simple, unaffected tenderness of this little book of memories so genumely Cel- tic, and yet so universally hu- man, that constitutes its note of distinction and makes it difficult to find or even seek its like elsewhere . We fail to discover in the prose or verse of Mr . Yeats for example just this unadorned, natural pathos . FOREWORD IX What was said so beauti- fully once and forever of Ar- temus Ward by Mr . fames Rhoades some forty years ago, may well be recalled and re- affirmed of fohn O’ Mahony in this foreword of ours to A Little Book for His Friends. Is he gone to a land of no laughter — This man that made mirth for us all ? Proves death but a silence hereafter, Where the echoes of earth cannot fall ? Once closed, have the lips no more duty, No more pleasure the exquisite ears ? Has the heart done overflowing with beauty , As the eyes have with tears ? For the man in our heart lingered after , When the merriment died from our ears, A nd those who were loudest in laughter Are silent in tears. T. B. M. Sit closer , friends , around the board ! Death grants us yet a little time. Companion of our nights of mirth , Where all were merry who were wise ; Does Death quite understand your worth, And know the value of his prize ? I doubt me if he comprehends — He knows no friends. Again a parting sail we see ; A nother boat has left the shore. A kinder soul on board has she Than ever left the land before. And as her outward course she bends , Sit closer, friends ! ARTHUR MACY. A LITTLE BOOK FOR JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS A LITTLE BOOK FOR JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS A MEMORY used to say that Wiw Stevenson should §2^|y^ have known him to give him immortality in a book. He was a true Steven- son character. Indeed, in a manner of speaking he was a brother of Stevenson. Valiant in velvet , light in ragged luck . The sestet might have been written of him down to the 4 A LITTLE BOOK FOR . . . something of the Shorter Catechist, for he was oddly, sincerely pious, and one never could be sure of the moment when he might not read you a sud- den homily, although h i s wildness drove a coach and four through the conventional laws. Wild — he was wild ; wild as the wind that comes over the mountains, and, like that, sparkling and full of refreshment. He had the wild, dark eye of an Arab horse, an eye that in houses and amid towns meditated flight. You had a note of warning when, suddenly fur- tive, his eye was turned on you that at any moment he might be off like the wind. JOHN O’MAHONY’s FRIENDS s He loved the wild ones of the world like himself. I really think in his heart of hearts he had rather be a jolly tramp than the brilliant and successful lawyer Fate forced him to be. Yes, Fate forced her gifts on him ; made him successful ; more, made him hard-working, gave him the instant audience his soul loved, gave him a season or two of success rapid beyond men’s experience — the excite- ment, the applause, the laughter which wore out his eager heart. I believe if he had lived in the eighteenth century he would have chosen to be a highwayman — one like his favourite hero, “Bold Bren- 6 A LITTLE BOOK FOR nan of the Moor,” who was also an outlaw for his coun- try’s sake, and robbed the rich to give to the poor. I can hear him now corning home at night trolling a verse of the ballad by which Bren- nan is enshrined for ever in the hearts of the country people. It was a common thing for him to come home in the small hours. Every- one loved him and would fain hold him of their company, and he was not one to break away from friendly detaining hands. The night might be wild and wet, cold and snow- ing, as it might be balmy and set with stars. To him all weather came alike. He was initiate in the things of Na- JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 7 ture, and the wind and the rain were his brothers. You would hear him a long way off trolling his song. It might be “The White Cock- ade,” as it often was : King Charles is King James’s son, And from a royal race is sprung, Then up with the shout and out with the blade, And viva la ! the White Cockade. Or it might be “Brennan on the Moor : ” ’Tis of a gallant highwayman A story I will tell. His name was Billy Brennan, In Ireland he did dwell. All on the Kilworth mountain He runned his wild career, And many a goodly gentleman Before him shook with fear. 8 A LITTLE BOOK FOR Chorus: Brennan on the Moor, boys, Brennan on the Moor, Bold and undaunted stood Young Brennan on the Moor. One day, as Billy Brennan From the mountains came down, He met the Mayor of Limerick One mile outside the town. The Mayor he knew his features, “ Young man, I think,” says he, “ Your name is Willie Brennan: You must come along with me.” Now Brennan’s wife had gone to town Provisions for to buy, And as she saw her Willie dear She began to wail and cry. “ Give me,” says he, “ that ten- penny,” And as the words he spoke She handed him a blunderbuss From underneath her cloak. JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 9 Now Brennan with that blunder- buss A tale he did unfold, He made the Mayor of Limerick To yield him up his gold; Five hundred pounds in silver He took from off him there, And with his horse and saddle To the mountains did repair. And so on in the intermin- able rhymed history of him who, like Robin Hood : A brace of loaded pistols He carried night and day. He never robbed a poor man Upon the King’s highway; But what he took from off the rich, Like Turpin and Black Bess, He did divide it to assist Poor widows in distress. Or it might be a “ Come- all-ye,” describing the latest IO A LITTLE BOOK FOR execution, sung in fairs and sold as a broad-sheet by the ballad-singers. He would come in possibly — nay, rather oftener than not — soaked through in that land of mild, perpetual rain, but at peace with the elements and all the world. And see- ing his dear face you forgave him straightway the dinner that waited in vain, the long evening of expectation, with the blank of his absence like a sore at the heart of it, the late hour, the broken slum- ber. Always he was worth waiting for, even into the small hours. He might have set your orderly life all askew, but here he was at last, lov- ing and giving, carrying very JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 1 1 often material gifts, always bubbling over with jests and stories, ready to sit down and unpack the budget of delight- ful things, although he was wet through and you were in your dressing-gown and con- scious of the extinguished fire. He would button-hole you to your bedroom door with the stories which were to colour your dreams with the gold of laughter. And of course everything was for- given. You had but to lay eyes on him to forgive him. His humour was usually humane. Occasionally it was impish, elfish, a marsh-fire which those it played over forgot as soon as it had fled 12 A LITTLE BOOK FOR elsewhere. At its most mis- chievous it left no scar. You laughed with him when he was merry at your expense. There was never the rancour behind the jibes that desired to push the point home. There was something imper- sonal, aloof, in his quips and cranks. Among the most touchy people in the world he was a chartered mocker. I have said he was wild, wild as the west wind that ’s mild and kind. Little hands one did not see plucked at him ; little voices one did not hear, voices of the winds and waters, were incessantly call- ing him out from civilisation, to leave the dull world behind and come out and be free. JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS i3 Once it was a brook sing- ing over its golden bed, brown as amber, yellow gold in its high lights. We leant over a bridge on the country road looking down into its depths. He glanced back at the mountains from which it came, and there was an ache of longing in his voice. “ I never saw a little stream yet,” he said, “ that I didn’t want to track it to its source. It’ll have bubbled up maybe between the fronds of a hart’s tongue fern and made a little pool. And then maybe it slipped over a rock and fell in a golden fringe. Do you remember the streams at Killarney falling over the rocks that edge the 14 A LITTLE BOOK FOR roads ? And after that it ’ll have made a channel for it- self, and gone singing down the dark glens and foaming about the boulders. It ’s a trout stream. If you watched it long enough up there you ’d see the fin of a trout where he was skulking in the pools. I wonder at all how the first trout came in it.” Then he was moved to tell me the story of the Molaga trout. He was full of folk- lore, and ever ready to impart it. His knowledge made the very stones live. “ Did you ever hear of St. Molaga ? It was he brought the honey-bees into Ireland. There is a well he blessed in County Cork. There was a JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS *5 little silver trout used to swim round and round in it, and he too was blessed and called St. Molaga’s trout. The waters possessed the power of healing, but it was unlaw- ful to use it for any culinary purpose, and it couldn’t be got to boil. To this day they say in the County Cork if a kettle is long a-boiling : 4 It must have St. Molaga’s trout in it.’ ” I got him to write a deli- cious piece of folk-lore, “ The Trencher-man and the Molaga Trout,” which ap- peared in The Speaker . It was to have been the first of many. He was in love with the idea of making a book of these stories, racy and de- i6 A LITTLE BOOK FOR lightfully humorous and sim- ple, gathered from the lips of the old peasants with whom he found it so easy to make friends. “ I J d like it to appear in America,” he said. “ I ’d love to think of the old people reading it that emigrated out there.” But the book never got further than the second story, which also appeared in The Speaker, 1 think. He was no great one for making books. He needed the in- stant audience of the eyes and the lips and the throats, that looked and smiled and roared their applause at him. That day at the brookside he turned away as one who JOHN o’mAHONY’S FRIENDS x 7 shoulders his burden again regretfully. “ I ought to have been at the Four Courts half an hour ago,” he said ; “ I ’ve a big case to make up.” It was the case that made his reputation, that set him on that brilliant way of easy yet strenuous effort which com- bined with the excitement and the applause he loved to break his heart. Another time we met a stalwart gipsy man, a “tink- er,” as they call them in Ireland, a big, bullet-headed fellow with a great shock of grizzled curls and a face burnt almost black by the sun. There was some sug- gestion of the Wine-God in his looks, ‘the Wine-God dis- i8 A LITTLE BOOK FOR guised for amorous adven- tures perhaps. We trudged the length of a long moun- tain road with him. The “tinker” was sprung of a line of famous pipers : his father had won the All-Ire- land prize at the Feis. For all his pagan looks the fellow was a Christian gipsy and would receive Christian burial when he died, although the house was not built that could harbour him for long, nor the roof-tree that he would not feel an intolerable oppression between him and 6 the sky. They talked of many things and I listened. The tinkers forbears had fought in the JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS *9 Rebellion of ’98, on the right side, be sure. Wasn’t his grandfather killed at Oulart Hollow ? He talked of “ the troubles,” looking from side to side in the twilight as though “ the troubles ” were not over and done with long ago, as though the bronze hedgerow might yet conceal a lurking spy or an armed yeoman. He was going over the mountains to Bray, walk- ing. Some time in the early morning he would be there. He had my companion’s last half-crown — this was before the great case brought the briefs raining upon him — and as he shambled off with his long trotting gait up the mountain side, a long, long 20 A LITTLE BOOK FOR look of sore desire for the freedom of the night and the hills followed him. “ He ’ll find a cave in the hills to-night,” said the long- ing voice, “ and he ’ll fill it with dead leaves for a bed. The stars and the moon ’ll be looking in at him.” After we had gone a little way the subject recurred. “Did you notice,” he asked, “ the great walk of him from the hips ? And did you see how his brogues were slit down to give his foot freedom in walking ? It would be grand to be out with him on the hillside to- night listening to his stories and songs. A grand life for a man surely.” JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 2 I Those were golden days and golden walks long ago. One never knew how good they were while they lasted. Once as we went along he prodded at a tiny beetle with his stick. “ Look at him, now,” he said, “ he ’ s putting out the two little spurs behind to de- fend himself. There isn’t an old woman in the County Cork that wouldn’t run after him and stamp him out of existence. He is the daire dhoul , the devil’s beetle, and they think there ’s a hundred days’ indulgence for killing him. You never heard of the daire dhoul ? Why surely you did. It betrayed our Lord to the Jews. He had • 22 A LITTLE BOOK FOR • escaped from His enemies and was out in the open country. As He passed through a cornfield the men were sowing the corn. Be- cause of His passing it sprang into golden grain, and bent itself into long avenues to let Him pass, closing up after Him so that none should know the way he had gone. The apple-boughs, covered with blossom, bent low before Him, and the blossom ripened to yellow, golden fruit. The next day came His pursuers and found the reapers reap- ing the corn. ‘ Did such a man pass this way ? 9 they asked. ‘ He passed, but when the corn was being sown,’ said the reapers. Now JOHN o’mAHONY’s FRIENDS 2 3 they had gathered a basket of the fruit to refresh them, and on an apple there sat the daire dhouL He put up his evil little black head, and said in Irish, ‘ Inagh, inagh ,’ which means ‘ Yesterday, yesterday/ That is why he is the daire dhoul , the devil’s beetle, and accursed.” From this it would be an easy transition to Conall Carnach. I can hear the soft, wailing Cork brogue and remember the very smells, the dead leaves and the smoke from the moun- tains where the heather was on fire, of that autumn day years ago. “You know that Conall Carnach, the Lord of Dunse- 24 A LITTLE BOOK FOR verick, was present at the Crucifixion. No ? Well, all the nations of the earth were represented there, and Conall was for the Irish. He was a famous wrestler, and that is how he came to leave his castle of Dunseverick, near Ballycastle, on the Antrim coast. He travelled all over the world wrestling, and took part in the gladiatorial games in Rome. Well, he came on to Jerusalem, the very day of the Crucifixion. He came up with the crowd just at the time Veronica gave the nap- kin to our Lord to dry His face, and he saw Simon help Him to carry the Cross. Every one noticed his great size and beauty as he stood JOHN O’MAHONY’s FRIENDS 2 5 below the Cross. While he stood there a drop of our Lord’s blood fell upon his head. That was the first Christian baptism of all Ire- land. Then Conall saw the soldiers flinging dice for the seamless garment, and said, ‘ Let me have a throw.’ They agreed, and his throw of the dice won the prize. But he re- fused it, because he had been profoundly impressed by the august death he had wit- nessed. They say that each representative of the Gentile nations present that day was privileged to render our Lord a service. And Conall Car- nach’s was — you know they say the Angel rolled away the stone from the mouth of 26 A LITTLE BOOK FOR the sepulchre for the Resur- rection ; no, then, it was Conall Carnach that put his great shoulder to it and sent it spinning. He was the first to bring to Ireland the name of Christ and the story of the Crucifixion. ,, And then again it would be some homely saint of his own family. “ Saints ! Sure my own great-grandmother’s uncle, Father O’Brien, was as great a saint as any of them. We have his pyx in the family still. There was a young girl at Muskerry dying of a decline, and he was sent for to anoint her. She was the only support of her old JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 27 father and mother, and a good girl she was. Well, he had given her the last Sacra- ments and was leaving her when she caught at his skirt. ‘ God can do more than that for me,’ she says. 4 If you believe it stand up and help your parents,’ he said, hold- ing out his hand to her. She stood up, sound in life and limb, and lived to be an old woman. There was a little boy, a cripple, at Kilcrea, and one day he sat on a ditch overlooking a field where there was a hurling match. He was very sad because he could never play at hurley. There were two men playing and one cursed the other. The little cripple on the ditch 28 A LITTLE BOOK FOR rebuked the curser for the honour of God. Now, while this was happening, there came by Father O’Brien. 4 Why aren’t you hurling, boy ? ’ he asked. The boy pointed to his crooked limb for answer. 4 Go and play,’ said Father O’Brien , 4 go and play.’ That was all, but the little cripple jumped from the ditch, ran into the field, and joined the play, using his crutch for a caman. 44 Those were the penal days, and it was not easy for a priest to live at all with a price on his head. But there were good Protestants who said it was hard that people shouldn’t be allowed their own creed and their own JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 2 9 minister, and it was in and out of their houses Father O’Brien lived. It was at the fairs he used to meet his people, and move about among them as a drover, finding out when marriages were called for or christen- ings, and giving word of the place where the Mass was to be said. Well, a scoundrel named R made a plot to seize and betray Father O’Brien. The family is known and disrespected in Cork to this day. He got half a dozen scoundrels to assist him, and they joined the priest as he was leaving the fair of Ballinhassig and entered into conversation with him. Now, they had to 30 A LITTLE BOOK FOR cross the Lee at a certain point by stepping-stones, and midway the stream R tripped Father O’Brien, and he fell and lay in the stream. And all the time he was car- rying the Sacred Host in his breast . Well, they tied him -up, and then and there took him to the house of a gentle- man named Gill man, who was a magistrate, or what- ever corresponded to it in those days. He was one of the good Protestants, and when the scoundrels had taken themselves off he gave Father O’Brien his liberty. Of the men who had betrayed him all died violent deaths within a few years, except old R , and he lived and JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 3 1 apparently thrived. But in his old age he was following a fox-hunt, and he was seen hard after the fox crossing the hill of Garvagh. Well, it might as well have been a hill into the other world ; for, after he had topped it, tale or tidings of him no man ever heard. His horse was found drowned some time after, just floating out of the river to the sea. “ I could tell you scores of such things. It ’s a thou- sand pities you haven’t the Irish. The Munster peas- ants are full of stories, not only of Christ and the saints, but of heroes and chieftains. Did you ever hear that Hugh 3 2 A LITTLE BOOK FOR O’Neill only said two tender things in all his life of hard fighting ? One was to his wife, Mabel Bagnal, the other was to Hugh O’Donnell. It was at the Battle of Kinsale. Over all the roar and tumult of the battle the old chieftain could be heard calling to the young one, who was flashing through the battle like a brand, 4 Thororn-na-cha , Aodh ! Thororn-na-cha ! ’ which is, 4 Keep close to me, Hugh ! Keep close to me, Hugh ! ’ Then there was a grand man, Donal the Bas- tard, of whom I have many stories. But I will tell you those another day.” “ Write them down,” I JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 33 used to say, “ write them down.” But he was not much good at writing down, and he was ready to give his sto- ries away to anyone who wanted them, although at the back of his mind he had the intention always of writing some day. Indeed, he began a novel or two and laid them aside. There was nothing he possessed he would not give away. You had only to tell him that you had an or- der for a story and could not find a plot, an occasion for an article and could not find a subject, and he was thought- ful for a moment. Then he would give you his plot or his subject. Perhaps one part of the truth about him 34 A LITTLE BOOK FOR was that he could not write for money. In his College days he shouldered the ed- itorship and practically all the work of an archaeological journal which brought him little fame and no fortune — only he loved doing it. Later, when he was on Cir- cuit — solicitors clamouring for him — he would find time to write long letters, full of stories ; now and again a folk-story or a legend. “ You should weave it into a ballad, the story of St. Gob- net, the little patroness of Ballyvourney, after whom so many County Cork girls are called. It is Englished, ‘ Abby.’ She was a sea- king’s daughter and he was JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 35 a shrine-robber. She had no sisters or mother, and used to keep to the ship with him and his men. Once she was ashore in a wood and God sent an angel to tell her to fly from her father, and to give her life to Himself. Well, she would, but she knew of no place of security. The angel told her to travel and give no rest to the sole of her foot until she would find nine white deer asleep. She went on and she came to a place and found three . She fondled them a while and then went on to Kilgobnet, where she found six . Here she stayed until they were all good friends. Then she left her heart with them and went 3 6 A LITTLE BOOK FOR on to Ballyvourney. There, as God willed it, she found the nine , and she made her dwelling with them and they became her sisters, and she died in their midst and is buried there.” Everywhere he went he met with the most delicious adventures. “ Wherever he goes, something is bound to happen,” said one who pre- ceded him into the shadows. Indeed, all life conspired to make mirth and adventure for him. For some two years before his death he suffered greatly, but put his sufferings out of sight. A superhuman cour- age enabled him to keep the signs and portents of those JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 37 years from the one who loved him best. He was ordered rest, rest, rest — an impossi- ble prescription to him. “ Sure, he wouldn’t take care of himself,” said a homely lover of his since, “ and who could blame him ? I hear that when he came out of Court there was a row of cars waiting for him, and the people fighting for who ’d have him.” Probably there was some truth in the pic- turesque statement. He was the best and gayest company in all the world. On Circuit he was always called up to the Judges’ table. He could be as audacious as he liked with the big men of his own or another profession. He 38 A LITTLE BOOK FOR only provoked smiles and honest laughter wherever he went. He used to come in bub- bling over with stories. In the midst of them a heart spasm would seize him, and he would sink on a chair and turn his face away. As soon as it had gone by he would begin anew. He could not but laugh and make others laugh, even between one heart spasm and another. At this time as always he was giving away with both hands. He had the most beautiful generosity, and to need money was the passport to his purse. He had the curious local patriotism which belongs to Cork men only JOHN O’MAHONY’s FRIENDS 39 out of all Ireland — why, let the student of history ex- plain — and every Cork man was his brother, in a more special way than that which made every poor devil his brother. He knew to the full the exquisiteness of giv- ing. The study he would have thought least worth while would have been the study of finance. All sorts of poor devils were helped on by his bounty. Since his death the most hopeless, helpless, pushed-to-the-wall waiter, incapable of waiting, met me with a watery eye in a Dublin hotel. “I saw you with — him,” he said, “ Ah sure, he was a terrible loss to me. I ’d 40 A LITTLE BOOK FOR never have kept goin’ only for him. And sure we ’re down in the dirt, myself and the wife and childher since he was taken.” “Listen, sir,” said a Dub- lin carman when he lay dy- ing, hailing a friend of his — “ how is he ? ” “He could hardly be worse and live.” “ Ah, well, may the bless- ing of God go with him ! I wouldn’t have a horse and car to-day only for him.” “ Tell me now,” the friend said curiously, “did he help you to buy back the horse or the car ? ” “ Well, indeed, sir, to tell you the truth, he put a bit of money into both for me — JOHN o’mAHONY’S FRIENDS 4i may the Lord reward him ! ” One always knew where he was by the milestones of his gifts. When a basket full of speckled silver trout, or a little barrel of oysters from the Atlantic, or a little jar of whisky arrived by the parcel post, one always knew by the post-mark just how far he had got on Circuit. One laughed then, tenderly affectionate, over those late nights of long ago, when he would come sliding in in the small hours and disarm your righteous indignation by a present put into your hand before the cool and cutting speeches you had prepared could begin to be uttered. 42 A LITTLE BOOK FOR While he lay dying briefs rained upon his bed, with gifts, for everyone loved him, and the carriages of the Judges stood outside his door. They sent him comfortable messages. He was to take time to get well. No matter what happened he would be looked after. One of the hardest-headed men in all Ireland, the most implacable of enemies, but soft-hearted somewhere out of sight, came in mysteriously in the dusk of the evening, and left a banknote for a large amount on his bed. “ The other fel- lows quarrel over who will devil for me,” he wrote in his last letter, “ and toss me over the guineas with a laugh.” JOHN o’mAHONY’s FRIENDS 43 “ The little nurse who ’s look- ing after me,” he wrote, “ woke me out of a most beautiful sleep last night to give me my sleeping draught. ,, During the last month he had terrible attacks of heart- failure in which he seemed to die only to rally amazingly. Between the attacks he was writing to the clamouring so- licitors that he hoped to be back at work in a week, in ten days. He was lying at a seaside hotel where they had sent him, in the hope that he might sleep, the one chance for him. The dispensary doctor who was called up in the bitter November nights, and would come running 44 A LITTLE BOOK FOR through the village dressing himself as he ran — the Dub- lin specialist whose motor- car would come whizzing almost as soon as he had been rung up on the tele- phone — they fought death hand to hand for him, for love. Neither would accept money for their services. They are splendidly Quixotic, those Irish doctors. Just the last day he had to live, when he seemed better, he was heard saying over to himself the verses of the Dies Irce , muttering between, “ What a coward I am ! What a coward I am ! ” He, that had fought pain and death with such superb cour- age, never crying out, never JOHN O’MAHONY’S FRIENDS 45 complaining, through the immense suffering. “ I never saw men crying openly as they did at his funeral,” someone wrote. “ Everyone was crying.” Indeed, people cry yet at his grave, his grave in the village street below the mountains, the street which he used to trudge so cheerfully in the nights and the bad weather. His grave is never alone. He was generous and friendly indiscriminately to the just and the unjust. “ The beg- gars loved him,” someone said, “ and there ’s always a beggar praying by his grave.” The last time I was there a friend of his who was visiting the grave suddenly burst into 46 A LITTLE BOOK tears, and apologised for his weakness. “ It was seeing the crocuses coming up above him,” he said; “I couldn’t bear to see them, realising that he ’d never return.” He knew everybody be- tween the four seas of Ire- land, and was friendly with them all. Between the four seas was lamentation when he died. Love covers his grave like roses. TO THE BELOVED DEAD ou Light of Laugh- ter happiest, In the old times what joy, what jest ! But now the times are sad and new, And all our laughter gone with you. The old times were ever the best. You were as wild as the West Wind, The West Wind that ’s wild and kind. 48 TO THE BELOVED DEAD Nothing could bind you, nothing keep. You are gone over the hills of sleep. Be free, beloved, as the West Wind. You gave with both hands over and over, And every poor man was your lover. Who ever turned from you unfed, Heavy-hearted, uncom- forted ? May God repay you over and over ! O Light of Youth, ’tis well you go Before the winter and the snow ; TO THE BELOVED DEAD 49 For who could think of you, a mourner, An old man in a chimney corner, Quiet and glad of rest ? Ah, no ! You Light of Laughter, wild and giving, Who could wish you sad length of living ? But all our laughter goes with you, You and the Morning and the dew. ’Tis a sad world of care and grieving. THE VOICES know now what I did not know, The trouble in the wind and rain That all night long sigh and complain. All night in the lonely night The Voices spake to one another, Voice of the Rain and Wind her brother. Ah ! what a world where youth must die ! Wind and Rain went crying and grieving ; Half for the dead and half for the living. THE VOICES SI When I was young I did not know What the Wind cried in the rainy weather, The Wind and the Rain cry- ing together. THE SPENDTHRIFT e left so little, did He had so brief a time to stay, ’Twas hardly worth his while to gather Dross of our little earthly day. The things that other people prize He gave to others, being wise, Being so heavenly-foolish rather, That kept his gains for Par- adise. Hardly a keepsake did he leave, And all his gold was fugitive. THE SPENDTHRIFT 53 He kept those things that will not perish, For him the widow and or- phan grieve. He gave with a light laugh indeed, As he and gold were ill agreed ; Held it the poorest thing to cherish, Save that it filled another’s need. He had his Pilgrim’s Scrip of Hope, And Living Waters in his cup, The Staff of Faith that still suffices The stumbling soul to lift it up. 54 THE SPENDTHRIFT Being so soon a traveller, Of earthly things he had no care ; But on the road that ’s Par- adise^ He went the lighter, being bare. NEW YEAR’S EVE ime was we trusted the New Year Old Year’s wrongs t’ undo : When you and I were young, my dear, And could begin anew. We said : “ The old trouble ’s at an end, The good times lie before Now we have griefs no year will mend, And an unopening door. We shall not run to greet the year, Nor feel our hearts leap up 56 NEW YEAR’S EVE With the old happy hope, my dear ; The fond, irrational hope. The year will bring the birds and flowers, The ripening sun and rain : Never an hour of all her hours Will bring the dead again. BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 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