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 RKV. I . I,. J)ri--i-Y, \A.. I).
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES 
 
 POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. P. L. DUFFY, LL. D. 
 
 (ILEX) 
 
 CHARLESTON, S. C. 
 NICHOLAS G. DUFFY, PRINTER 
 
 1908
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1908, 
 BY 
 
 REV. P. L. DlTKFY, Uv. D.
 
 PS 
 
 3507
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 >. Yielding to the kind and urgent request of indulgent 
 
 ; friends, men whom I could not refuse, I have collected for this 
 Volume verses written at intervals during busy years of parish 
 work. 
 
 jr I am a Priest of God, a laborer in His Vineyard, and these 
 
 in 
 
 verses are but the glint on the grape ; at most but wayside 
 
 z flowers culled on the way to and from the work of my Master 
 of the Vineyard, with never a dream of pressing them between 
 Q the covers of a book. 
 
 Few have been the hours on Parnassus, many on Calvary 
 
 O 
 
 O and the happiest at the Altar of my God. 
 (Q 
 
 ui THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Charleston, S. C. 
 
 44.8370
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SON, GIVE ME THY HEART, ... 1 
 Tu Es SACERDOS, . . 3 
 
 KIAWAH, ....... 6 
 
 MATER DOLOROSA, . . 8 
 
 MEMORIAL ODE, . . . 9 
 
 THE SACRED HEART, . . 11 
 
 A GOLDEN WEDDING, 13 
 
 AFTERNOON IN ST. PETER S, . . .14 
 BENEATH THE PINES, . . .16 
 
 SUNSET AT SEA, . . ... 17 
 
 DEVOIR, .... 19 
 
 HER VIOLIN, . . . . 20 
 
 THE MAN WITH THE HOE, . . .21 
 
 HER MITE, . .... 23 
 
 HAMPTON, ... ... 24 
 
 MAGDALEN, . . .... 26 
 
 AVE VERUM, .... .28 
 
 BESIDE THE SEA, 30 
 
 THE SHADOWED HEART, . .31 
 
 ADVENT, 32 
 
 THE REQUIEM OF THE RAIN, . 33 
 
 AT KILLARNEY, ... 35 
 
 A GOLDEN JUBILEE, 37 
 
 MARSE CHAN, . 39 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL, . ... 40 
 
 MAGNOLIA GARDENS, ..... 42 
 THE DEAD KNIGHT, ... .43
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 ON THE BEACH, ... 44 
 
 CHOICE, 45 
 
 A SABBATH, 46 
 
 FATHER DAMIEN S PORTRAIT, 47 
 
 Rus IN URBE, ... 48 
 
 BIRTHDAY LINES, ..... 50 
 A VOTIVE LEAF, ... .51 
 
 EDKLWHISS, . 53 
 
 WHY WKEPEST THOU ? .54 
 
 VIOL 57 
 
 YACHTING, ... 58 
 
 His ROSRS, . .... 59 
 
 UNDER THE OAKS, ..... 60 
 HEALING, . . .61 
 
 A CLASSMATE, 63 
 
 MEMORIAL DAY, ...... 
 
 Music, 66 
 
 A PICTURED CHILD, ..... 67 
 STELLA MARIS, ...... 68 
 
 LILIES, 69 
 
 ANGEL-WISE, ...... 70 
 
 STARLIGHT, ... ... 71 
 
 AN INNOCENT VICTIM. . . . -72 
 
 SUMMITS, ....... 74 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 CLOISTERED, ... 79 
 
 IN MEMORIAM, . . . . 80 
 
 THE LABARUM, . . .81 
 
 LEO XIII, . 82
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 A SILVER CYCLE. ..... 83 
 
 NOON AT NAPLES, ... .84 
 
 NIGHT IN VENICE, ..... 85 
 
 ON LISTED FIELD, .... 86 
 
 A GOLDEN JUBILEE, . ... 87 
 
 THE COLOSSEUM, 88 
 
 THE CATACOMBS, 89 
 
 MORNING AT MONTMARTRE, ... 90 
 CENTENARY, ...... 91 
 
 A LEAF AND A LIFE, .... 92 
 
 VISION, .... . 97 
 
 PASSION, ... 104 
 
 IN COLLEGE DAYS. 
 
 THE ROBINS SONG, . . . ill 
 
 SINGING ON THE TERRACE, . . . 112 
 
 THE CHURCH UPON THE HILL, . .114 
 
 OUT TO THE HARBOR BAR, . . . 116 
 
 NIGHT PRAYERS ON THE MOUNTAIN, . 118 
 
 CREED, ....... 120 
 
 GOOD^FRIDAY, . . . .122
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 MATER DOLOROSA, 
 (GUIDO RENI . ) 
 
 MAGDALEN, 
 BESIDE THE SEA, 
 MAGNOLIA GARDENS, 
 ON THE BEACH, 
 FATHER DAMIEN, 
 THE OAKS, 
 AN INNOCENT VICTIM, 
 
 PAGE
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 SON, GIVE ME THY HEART." 
 
 i. 
 My soul one day reached out beyond the skies; 
 
 The very face of God my spirit sought, 
 But all too splendid for my poor, dim eyes, 
 
 Straining in vain through radiant realms of thought. 
 
 ii. 
 His glory blazed upon my eyes upraised, 
 
 Far, far beyond my yearning human heart; 
 My soul adoring Him was awed and dazed, 
 
 My heart bowed down and He seemed far apart. 
 
 ill. 
 
 Again I took the shining upward path 
 Of things created to the Primal Cause; 
 
 Looked out on Time and Space whereon He hath 
 Writ Love, and sung it set to rhythmic laws. 
 
 IV. 
 His name was sounded by the sounding seas, 
 
 And spelled by sun and stars; ten thousand lips 
 Hymned to Him ever sweetest symphonies, 
 
 And rose and jasmine felt his finger-tips. 
 
 v. 
 
 Again I looked at man, at Thought at Art, 
 And He was there, his likeness mirrored clear; 
 
 I saw Him imaged in a tender heart, 
 I almost touched him in a sinner s tear.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And yet He seemed so very far above 
 
 The clay whereon my heart so human stands; 
 
 And still that heart was hungering for love, 
 And still my soul reached out its eager hands. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Ah me! it is our self-sufficient way 
 
 To take our little beam of reason thus, 
 
 And make of it a sun to light our day, 
 And pierce all vistas that encompass us. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 His gracious way, the loving Father s way, 
 To take us through the pathways far and dim. 
 
 As little children by His side ahvay, 
 
 Our hand in His, our trustful eyes on Him. 
 
 IX. 
 
 At last Faith said to Reason: "Peace, be still!" 
 And lo! He led me down from stars and skies 
 
 And out from wondrous laws and causes till 
 I knelt beside the Cross with streaming eyes. 
 
 x. 
 
 And He was very near; and as I knelt 
 
 So near to Him and from the world apart, 
 
 I felt the beating of His heart, I felt 
 
 At last that God and I were heart to heart.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 TU ES SACERDOS. 
 
 Great Priest of God! the Alter Christus thou! 
 
 Anointed, blest; 
 Eternal signet on thy youthful brow 
 
 The kingliest. 
 
 Christ is our King, to serve whom is to reign. 
 
 What counts all loss ? 
 What ecstacy should be each passing pain 
 
 Sharing His Cross. 
 
 No primrose paths, no siren songs for thee; 
 
 Christ s footsteps trace 
 A via dolorosa where we see 
 
 His woe-worn face. 
 
 Disciples in His path of penitence, 
 
 With love athrill, 
 Adored that face divine, of effluence 
 
 Ineffable. 
 
 That blessed the hearts of those who followed Him, 
 
 The Kindly Light, 
 That sunlike shone on Tabor making dim 
 
 All earth s delight. 
 
 What mattered martyrdom! great guerdon won 
 
 That aureoles; 
 Stipremest, sweetest meed of service done 
 
 By sainted souls. 
 
 The Priest his gifts unto the Altar brings, 
 
 Science or art; 
 A clean oblation to the King of Kings, 
 
 A votive heart. 
 
 3
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 As man, self-immolated, thus he stands, 
 
 Greatest yet least; 
 Frail man uplifting sacrificial hands, 
 
 Puissant Priest. 
 
 "Follow thou Me." The battle fought and won 
 
 He lives apart, 
 Where falls the shadow of the Cross upon 
 
 His raptured heart. 
 
 Without the grace of God, but blind and dumb; 
 
 With need to pray 
 Lest he who would save others should become 
 
 A castaway. 
 
 Compassionate, Christ-like, he maketh whole, 
 
 Poor, broken hearts; 
 Pardon, through Christ He brings the sorrowing soul, 
 
 And peace imparts. 
 
 Thus having made, with power from above, 
 
 That soul a shrine, 
 He thrones therein the Sacrament of Love 
 
 Its Guest divine. 
 
 Death He defeats and vanquishes the tomb, 
 
 Its gates unbars, 
 And speeds the shriven soul out from its gloom 
 
 Beyond the stars. 
 
 Behold the ancient fires of sacrifice 
 
 Altars illume, 
 And thence the incensed smoke the olden skies 
 
 Plume and perfume.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Priesthood and holocaust of flock and field, 
 
 Symbol and sign, 
 To Thee O Christ, their mystic meaning yield, 
 
 Victim divine. 
 
 Thy Priest, greater than Aaron, priest of old, 
 
 Obeying Thee, 
 Renews the sacrifice, figures foretold, 
 
 Of Calvary. 
 
 He stands with dignity almost divine, 
 
 The other Christ, 
 And divinizes altared bread and wine 
 
 God sacrificed. 
 
 Over His body, real and mystical, 
 
 The sovereign; 
 His God, to sacrifice empowered to call 
 
 And pardon men. 
 
 To leave all things and follow Him, forget 
 
 Vision and dream, 
 The heart in utter self -surrender, yet 
 
 Triumph supreme. 
 
 What matters it what lot in life he hath, 
 
 Come wreath or rod, 
 Steadfast his soul along its star-ward path 
 
 Goes up to God.
 
 A WREATH OK ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 KIAWAH. 
 
 Out of the glimmer of starlight, 
 On the silent stream we glide 
 
 Into the sunrise splendor 
 
 That purples the glassy tide. 
 
 From the golden gates of morning 
 Red hosts march up the sky, 
 
 And crimson the clouds where Beauty 
 Holds court enthroned on high. 
 
 And into our souls the splendor 
 Of this Southern summer morn 
 
 Comes like a benediction, 
 
 And skyward thoughts are born. 
 
 But hark to the breakers booming! 
 
 We anchor, our course is run; 
 Hail ocean, and breeze, and sand dune; 
 
 Hail halcyon day in the sun. 
 
 From our hearts the clouds unsunny 
 
 Of care and life s unrest 
 Flee like the mists of morning 
 
 At Kiawah, the blest. 
 
 The shadows slant, and homeward 
 We turn from the radiant day, 
 
 From Kiawah the beautiful, 
 A memory fair alway.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 A song floats down the river, 
 
 From boatmen dusky and strong, 
 
 The rhythmic stroke of the oarsmen 
 Attuned to the weird old song. 
 
 Is it some gracious vision 
 Framed in the setting sun, 
 
 Of life on the old plantation, 
 When the happy day was done. 
 
 Is it some wandering echo 
 
 Of music forever fled? 
 Is it some dream whose magic 
 
 Conjures a day that is dead? 
 
 Alas, for the dream and the vision, 
 And the days that are no more 
 
 Only the ashes of roses 
 
 Sings the sweet old song of yore. 
 
 The spires of home are looming 
 In the dusk of the eventide; 
 
 The sun has set, but forever 
 Shall its afterglow abide. 
 
 Thus far from my sunny Southland, 
 Ailing, alone in my room, 
 
 I drift away in my dreaming 
 
 Homeward from gloom to bloom. 
 
 The snow is heaping its crystals, 
 
 The fairest I ever saw; 
 But my soul is steeped in the sunshine 
 
 Afar at Kiawah. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., March 10th, 1895. 
 
 7
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THK MATER DOLOROSA. 
 (GUIDO RENI.) 
 
 The Mother s upraised face that brings 
 . Our heart into our gaze; and where 
 The eyes so agonized are wings 
 
 To thought, and thought soars into prayer. 
 
 The shadow passed His face woe-worn 
 That smites her brow; the light upon 
 
 Her eyes was sifted by each thorn 
 
 That crowned her dying God, her Son. 
 
 Guido achieved that perfect face; 
 
 And yet with something higher than art 
 He set on all its sad sweet grace 
 
 The signet of a broken heart. 
 
 The love and worship of his theme 
 He must have studied angel-wise; 
 
 Then knelt painting the pain supreme 
 That glorifies those lifted eyes.
 
 MATKR DOI.OKOSA, 
 
 (r.ril)O KKM. )
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 MEMORIAL ODE. 
 
 READ AT THE MEMORIAL EXERCISES MAGNOLIA 
 CEMETERY, SUNDAY MAY 10, 1903. 
 
 We meet where all things beauteous crown 
 
 The bourgeoning year; 
 We come to guard the fair renown 
 
 Entempled here. 
 
 Pilgrims, we find a fane within 
 
 Each soldier sod; 
 For love of country is akin 
 
 To love of God. 
 
 With votive wreaths which love entwines, 
 
 Our Vestals come 
 For floral service at these shrines 
 
 Of martyrdom. 
 
 In Sabbath calm and Vesper lull, 
 
 With benison, 
 They place their garlands beautiful 
 
 These graves upon. 
 
 With soul exalted, crystal clear, 
 
 As purest knight 
 Each righteous warrior sleeping here, 
 
 Sprang to the fight. 
 
 O glorious erst in battle-wrack 
 
 The Stars and Bars; 
 And grand these men in bivouac 
 
 Above the stars. 
 
 9
 
 A WREATH OP ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Now Sabbath peace and rest enfold 
 
 The flag they bore: 
 Honor these heroes aureoled 
 
 Forever more. 
 
 Not all of worth is in the mart, 
 
 Or graceless gain; 
 White virtues, flowers of the heart, 
 
 Blossom from pain. 
 
 The hallowed cause, come gain or loss, 
 
 The soul adorns; 
 The Saviour died, His throne a Cross, 
 
 His crown of thorns. 
 
 Sons of the South, year after year, 
 
 These graves shall bless, 
 And grace their souls with lessons here 
 
 In nobleness. 
 
 Magnolias benediction wave, 
 
 In war s surcease; 
 And these old oaks, above each grave, 
 
 Breathe peace, sweet peace. 
 
 We thank Thee, Lord, for lives like these, 
 
 Our bravest, best. 
 Over the river, under the trees, 
 
 God give them rest. 
 
 10
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THE SACRED HEART. 
 
 My wayward thoughts from Earth to-day are soaring 
 
 As from the world I kneel apart, 
 And bowing low dear Jesus am imploring 
 
 That thou wilt grace impart 
 To me a sinner lovingly adoring 
 Thy Sacred Heart. 
 
 While here, to Thee in sweet surrender kneeling, 
 
 Roses of pleasure ashen fall; 
 Here seared and stricken hearts find tender healing; 
 
 Stilled is the siren s call, 
 While every raptured feeling is revealing 
 My God, my all. 
 
 Oh chasten me, dear Lord, that I the clearer 
 
 May see its rich redeeming tide, 
 And leaving all and daily drawing nearer, 
 
 May in that Heart abide, 
 Fast cleaving to my loving Jesus dearer 
 Than all beside. 
 
 What matter then how fierce the gale that tosses 
 
 My life-bark on its stormy sea; 
 Within Thy Sacred Heart what count the losses 
 
 The years may bring to me; 
 
 How light, how sweet will be my precious crosses 
 When borne for Thee. 
 
 11
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Oh God why is it that men s hearts are going 
 
 Darkling, defiant far astray, 
 Thy chosen children too, ungrateful growing, 
 
 Wander, alas, away, 
 
 While Thy Heart s crimson tide is fondly flowing 
 For them alway. 
 
 Oh pity souls should scorn its blessed bleeding 
 
 The Cross forsaken for the mart; 
 The leading of the Kindly Light unheeding 
 
 Groping in gloom apart, 
 
 Deaf to Love s ceaseless call and patient pleading 
 "Give Me thy heart." 
 
 Oh make us ponder often on its aching 
 
 The sweetest Heart that ever bled, 
 The saddest, agonizing unto breaking, 
 
 Its last drop for us shed; 
 
 Then with responsive hearts from sin awaking 
 Near Thee we ll tread. 
 
 And happy in Thy blessed footsteps wending 
 
 Our way in sweet security, 
 Thy light meanwhile with cloud and shadow blending 
 
 Our path will radiant be, 
 As loving, trusting we shall go ascending 
 Dear Heart to Thee. 
 
 O let that kindly light forsake us never 
 
 In days that darkle we implore, 
 And let Thy love till death enfold us ever 
 
 Sweet Heart that we adore, 
 
 Then naught from Thee our blissful souls shall sever 
 Forevermore . 
 
 12
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 A GOLDEN WEDDING. 
 
 Golden their Fifty Years ! 
 Golden their smiles and tears ; 
 Golden, for God appears, 
 
 Gilding their days. 
 Golden they keep their bond ; 
 Golden their love so fond, 
 Golden here and beyond, 
 
 Golden always. 
 
 Golden each kindly face ; 
 Golden, aglow with grace ; 
 Golden their home blest place, 
 
 Shrining their love. 
 Golden their gracious ways ; 
 Golden the hearts they raise, 
 Golden with prayer and praise 
 
 To God above. 
 
 Golden the soul of each, 
 Golden in thought and speech ; 
 Golden their lives that teach 
 
 Love unto us. 
 
 Golden their deeds, each one, 
 Golden, alloy in none ; 
 Golden their crown when won 
 
 And glorious. 
 
 Golden half-century ! 
 Golden the memory ; 
 Golden their gloaming be 
 
 Till day departs. 
 Golden the friendships sown, 
 Golden the reverence grown, 
 Golden_the throne they own, 
 
 Deep in our hearts. 
 
 13
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 AFTERNOON IN SAINT PETER S. 
 ROME, JULY 29, 1905. 
 
 God s mightiest Temple thou! the sunlight streams 
 In sapphire splendor through thy Dove and Dome 
 
 Within thy portals come centurial dreams ; 
 I hear the beating of thy heart O Rome. 
 
 Thou art the heart of Rome heart of the world, 
 Once under warring Caesar s strong control; 
 
 But now his legions dust, his banners furled, 
 The Rome of Christ, the City of the Soul. 
 
 Greater than Caesar, Peter sleeps beneath 
 This marble floor, his Empire vaster far ; 
 
 Ever the halo shines while fades the wreath, 
 Peter is throned where crowned Apostles are. 
 
 Pale wraiths of Empires pass in spectral line, 
 And phantom forms of kings almost forgot ; 
 
 Thy marbled Charlemagne and Constantine 
 Revisit from thy Portico this spot. 
 
 Here Peter, Prince of Christ s Apostles died, 
 Nero s Arena from whose sanguined sod, 
 
 By martyr and Apostle glorified, 
 
 Rises earth s grandest temple to our God. 
 
 Here Attila and Alaric who spared 
 
 Naught else, and Genseric, fierce Goth and Hun, 
 Halted before Saint Peter s shrine and shared 
 
 The Christian s awe, their vandal deeds undone. 
 
 14
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Here Emperors knelt for chrism and for crown, 
 And here in martyrs dust the sainted sleep, 
 
 Pontiff and priest and prince of just renown, 
 And here God s angels viewless vigils keep. 
 
 These lofty walls dissolve, the golden glow 
 On yonder Baldachin no altar frames ; 
 
 I move not yet I stand where long ago 
 Martyrs in myriads met lions and flames. 
 
 The sunbeams slant, the dreamful shadows fall 
 
 Bramante, Raphael and Angelo 
 Touch to their stately splendor dome and wall 
 
 Until with Art God s temple is aglow. 
 
 Soul-satisfied I turn my tranced eyes 
 
 And pass the Portico, deathless my dreams ; 
 
 Yon Dome looms in the fair Italian skies, 
 And there the Cross in sunset glory gleams. 
 
 15
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 BENEATH THE PINES. 
 
 Through slowly changing ways September strays, 
 
 Sweet-eyed but with a sigh 
 For dying joyance of the Summer days, 
 
 Glad Summer days going by. 
 
 Sad-eyed she moves among the dreaming pines 
 
 That only wake to sigh 
 O er carols hushed, o er flowerless jasmine vines 
 
 And golden days gone by. 
 
 With grave sweet grace she greets upon her ways 
 
 To-day, poor hearts that sigh; 
 Sigh as they move through weary, shadowed days, 
 
 For sunnier days gone by. 
 
 No, in her pensive train Joy follows not, 
 
 Nor songs without a sigh, 
 But Peace and Rest, old faces unforgot, 
 
 And souls of days gone by. 
 
 The pines may whisper peace, calm skies speak rest, 
 
 But yet the heart will sigh 
 For puseless hearts, hopes shrouded, loved the best, 
 
 And deathless days gone by. 
 
 Ah me! some songless hearts will echo here 
 
 Sad-voiced September s sigh, 
 Until these pines, in some young year or sere, 
 
 Shall sigh their last good bye. 
 
 Summerville, S. C. 
 
 16
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 SUNSET AT SEA. 
 
 Pilgrims, we wander far from home 
 Where blue Atlantic billows roll, 
 
 Our hearts and faces turned to Rome, 
 To Rome, the City of the Soul. 
 
 How radiantly beautiful 
 
 The Heavens bend above the deep, 
 And golden glows the liquid lull 
 
 Of Ocean with its waves asleep. 
 
 Essence of opal, amethyst 
 
 And sapphire seem the gleaming skies ; 
 Has not that iridescent mist 
 
 Drifted afar from Paradise ? 
 
 With Pilgrim eyes we see the skies 
 And summer seas with beauty blest, 
 
 While yonder sunset glorifies 
 
 The gloaming in the curtained West, 
 
 With crimson curtains that appear 
 
 To drop from Heaven to Ocean s verge ; 
 
 This hour supreme God is so near 
 Earth into Heaven seems to merge. 
 
 He hangs those carmine curtains there 
 Pendent from sunset s golden bars, 
 
 Who carpets Earth with flowers fair, 
 And canopies the night with stars. 
 
 17
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 The God of Beauty who imparts 
 Splendor beyond that of the sun 
 
 Unsetting splendor to the hearts 
 
 That love Him and His grace has won. 
 
 Oh Beauty ancient ever new ! 
 
 Long lucent lances pierce the sky, 
 Or are they flashes in the blue 
 
 From wings of angels passing by ? 
 
 From out this Vesper lull, to men, 
 Peace angel-wise comes o er the sea, 
 
 And calms the troubled heart as when 
 Christ stilled the storm in Galilee. 
 
 God grant this hour may symbolize 
 Life s Pilgrimage at set of sun 
 
 The Vision that shall greet our eyes 
 Of glory when our day is done. 
 
 In Mid-Atlantic, July 18, 1905.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 DEVOIR. 
 
 The glow of youth was on his brow, 
 Within his soul the grace of God, 
 
 One year ago ; above him now 
 The fallen leaves, the wintry sod. 
 
 Cold is the patient heart that bore 
 The body s lingering pain of years ; 
 
 His brave bright eyes greet us no more 
 To smile away love s starting tears. 
 
 Toil was his tourney ; debonair, 
 
 His pen his lance, he bore his part ; 
 
 His mother was his Ladye Fa,ir, 
 
 His devoir done with knightly heart. 
 
 Home was his Court, his Table Round 
 The dear ones at the hearth he met ; 
 
 His guerdon, love, with these he found 
 And these, ah no, cannot forget. 
 
 His presence was so large a part 
 Of home it seems to linger yet ; 
 
 Alas for them the aching heart, 
 The longing and the lashes wet. 
 
 He shrined God in his sinless soul, 
 And Faith to mourners whispereth 
 
 That Christ, All-Healer, maketh whole 
 His own though bruised, aye, unto death. 
 
 19
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 HER VIOLIN. 
 
 The sunbeams fell aslant the hill 
 
 And touched to gold the cottage eaves ; 
 
 The skies were blue, the winds were still 
 And troubled not the russet leaves. 
 
 In healing halls I dwelt apart 
 
 A little while, a spell within 
 My erstwhile tired and tuneless heart 
 
 That heard a wondrous violin. 
 
 And saw a guileless girl s face, 
 The glow of innocence therein, 
 
 Bending with unaffected grace 
 Above her magic violin. 
 
 Her soul it was that touched the strings 
 That night and sweetest music made ; 
 
 To : night a prayerful memory brings 
 Again her "Angels Serenade." 
 
 Her Adagio told in minor key 
 Of pain of longing and of loss ; 
 
 I chose to hear it plaintively 
 
 Moaning of woe upon the Cross. 
 
 That music floats across the years 
 
 And silences the city s din ; 
 And to a soul attuned appears 
 
 The vision of a violin. 
 
 20
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THE MAN WITH THE HOE. 
 
 (ANSWER TO EDWIN MARKHAM.) 
 
 Knotted and gnarled the rugged figure stands, 
 Vassal to the despotic needs of life, 
 His field his world and his hoe his wealth ; 
 And yet not brother to the ox, for, hark ! 
 Along the sunset skies the Angelus 
 Hallows the twilight and he bows in prayer. 
 No, Millet did not mar him thus, this man 
 Who thrills to valiant tales of L,a Vendee ; 
 Whom Jeanne D Arc s name awakes to ecstasy ; 
 And did another saintly L,ouis lead, 
 Would die, Crusader, on far Syrian sands. 
 
 Never the muses through his weary days 
 
 Dowered his toil or thinking with a dream. 
 
 Never the star-eyed goddess Science read 
 
 The poem of fossil, story of a star, 
 
 Or glimpsed the microcosm of the cell ; 
 
 And yet not brother to the ox, for far 
 
 Beyond Parnassus and the Pleiades 
 
 His soul soars into the infinitude, 
 
 And worshipful, bows down above the stars, 
 
 High in the temple of the Triune God. 
 
 No, no, not brother to the ox, this man, 
 The toiler, brother to the Fishermen 
 Of Galilee ; brother of martyrs, yea, 
 Of Jesus, Carpenter of Nazareth. 
 Not brother to the ox. 
 
 21
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 The sovereign soul 
 
 Though throned in this uncouth and toihvorn man 
 Still owns the image of its God and still 
 Unconquerable and immortal reigns 
 Serene, secure against the warring world, 
 As when the martyrs faced fierce lions and flames, 
 And mighty Rome could not coerce a soul ; 
 Or now in the arena of the heart, 
 Steadfast against the raging flames and beasts 
 That unmake man, this toiling peasant can 
 Conquer where fell Caesar, Napoleon, 
 And stand a man, with kingly signet on 
 The image and the likeness of his God. 
 
 And though no gilded gallery is his, 
 
 No joy of Roman or Athenian thought, 
 
 No heritage of Grove or Portico, 
 
 No glance at aeons or the empyrean, 
 
 Yet for this burdened toiler Christ was born ; 
 
 For him the message and the angel s song, 
 
 "Glory to God on high and peace to men !" 
 
 For him the scourge, the thorns, the nails, the lance 
 
 Wrought utterness of woe on Calvary ; 
 
 For him Rabboni and the Easter morn, 
 
 The promise and the proof of deathless days 
 
 "I am the Resurrection and the Life." 
 
 O, masters, lords and rulers in all lands, 
 
 Your brother in the brotherhood of man 
 
 Is folded in the fatherhood of God. 
 
 22
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 HER MITE. 
 
 Scarce audible the timid lisp 
 
 Of childhood s speech as at the door 
 She said: "Dear Mother may I give 
 
 Something to Father for the poor?" 
 
 Her ringers searched her little purse 
 And cent by cent she smiled to part 
 
 With all, to be a blessed ray 
 
 Of sunshine to some shadowed heart. 
 
 A tender thought, a gracious gift 
 And words like buds on little lips; 
 
 A deed to sweeten older hearts 
 And dim our eyes in wet eclipse. 
 
 A little thought, a little act, 
 A little child with wistful eyes, 
 
 But promises of Christ, we know, 
 Such deeds of love eternalize. 
 
 23
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 HAMPTON. 
 
 Days of a grace most tender 
 
 In all the Creator s plan; 
 Life of serenest splendor 
 
 And men, like Lee, Arthurian. 
 
 Echoes of olden voices, 
 
 Phantom delights long dead; 
 
 Ashes of golden roses, 
 Shadows of splendor fled. 
 
 Vision of Hampton, princely, 
 
 In old plantation days, 
 Serving his State and blameless 
 
 Conscience his King always. 
 
 Alas, for the days so hallowed, 
 And their grace forever fled; 
 
 Alas, for the furled banner, 
 Alas, for our gallant dead. 
 
 Starlike, the light of a nation, 
 
 Sublime in sad eclipse, 
 Forever an inspiration 
 
 On unforgetting lips. 
 
 Afterglow of the glory 
 
 Of the Grey and the Stars and Bars, 
 Deathless the deeds of heroes 
 
 Tented beyond the stars. 
 
 24
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Vision of Hampton charging, 
 
 The Stars and Bars above 
 His legion, their knightly leader 
 
 Panoplied in their love. 
 
 Spectre of fortunes broken 
 
 Of vandals in forum and mart, 
 
 Of a State profaned and prostrate 
 With harpies at her heart. 
 
 
 
 Vision of Hampton, Chieftain, 
 
 Saving his stricken State, 
 Kingly in Council and Senate, 
 
 Greatest of our great. 
 
 Oh, the gloom and the glory looming 
 Of hallowed, heroic years; 
 
 Oh, vision of Hampton misted 
 In Carolina s tears. 
 
 26
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 MAGDALEN. 
 
 Her wondrous beauty who might paint 
 
 That far day when 
 Weeping she knelt, the sinner-saint, 
 
 The Magdalen. 
 
 Simon, self-righteous, grieves to see 
 
 Her tainted touch; 
 But Christ rebukes the Pharisee: 
 
 "She hath loved much." 
 
 "Many her sins forgiven," he hears, 
 
 "Is it not meet 
 To pardon her? See, with her tears 
 
 She bathes my feet." 
 
 Her penitence wins pardon there. 
 
 So full, so sweet, 
 The golden glory of her hair 
 
 Makes dry His feet. 
 
 An after day with love replete 
 
 And anguished loss, 
 Great saint she kissed those bleeding feet 
 
 Nailed to the Cross. 
 
 Her love illumes that awful gloom; 
 
 Alone, forlorn 
 Dawn finds her hastening to the tomb 
 
 That Easter morn. 
 
 With her anointing spice she will 
 
 Sw T eeten His death; 
 Nairn and Bethany she still 
 
 Remembereth. 
 
 26
 
 MAODAI.KN.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Some solace for her woe she feels 
 
 To tend Him dead; 
 But at the empty tomb she kneels 
 
 Uncomforted. 
 
 "Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?" 
 
 O voice divine! 
 "Rabboni!" O what rapture now 
 
 Mary is thine. 
 
 The wounds of sin that sorrow heals 
 
 Are radiant scars 
 That life, however dark, reveals 
 
 As shining stars. 
 
 The barren heart that evil sears 
 
 And sows with weeds, 
 When ploughed by penance, wet with tears, 
 
 Owns priceless seeds, 
 
 That bloom and bourgeon beautified, 
 
 With grace aglow, 
 Touched by the blood of Him who died 
 
 To heal our woe. 
 
 O broken vase! O broken heart 
 
 Of Magdalen. 
 Like love and grief Oh Christ impart 
 
 To sinning men. 
 
 From Hope entombed the dark stone rolls 
 
 Moved by Thy word ; 
 Oh roll away the stone from souls 
 
 Sin-sepulchred. 
 
 27
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 AVE VERUM. 
 
 Music I place among sacred things 
 
 Since that morn it greeted the Saviour s birth, 
 Choiring the praise of the King of Kings 
 
 And bringing his message of peace to earth. 
 
 One Christmas morning the altar aglow 
 
 In the Chapel, throned the Presence Divine 
 
 Of the first glad Christmas long ago, 
 Under the stars in Palestine. 
 
 Some strain of that far off morning born 
 
 Must have wandered on to the Chapel there, 
 
 And merged itself that Christmas morn 
 
 In the Ave Verum that winged our prayer, 
 
 And guided our souls to the summit of tears 
 And a tear, I hold, is the fairest gem 
 
 In the crown of love and over the years 
 Love led us back to Bethlehem. 
 
 Back to that morn of Infinite Love 
 
 Our hearts flew over the centuries dead, 
 
 And peace on earth and glory above, 
 
 Through the hush of our hearts was heralded. 
 
 Yes, that Ave Verum attuned the jars 
 Of toil and pain in our lives that day, 
 
 To the song that sounded under the stars 
 
 Where the Prince of Peace in the manger lay. 
 
 28
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Some days that wane not, each memory owns; 
 
 To me one memorial morning brings 
 An Ave Verum s beautiful tones 
 
 That came like the rustling of angels wings. 
 
 In music, I hold, man sometimes hears 
 
 Something more potent than nature and art, 
 
 For a voice that pearls our prayer with tears 
 Is the voice of a bowed, a beautiful heart. 
 
 29
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 BESIDE THE SEA. 
 
 Twas God s own day beside the sunlit sea; 
 
 Two sauntered saint-like on the shining shore; 
 One music-loving sought the psalmody 
 
 Of breakers on the beach, and we were four. 
 
 The pathos of the Passiontide was there 
 Albeit the sunshine, and in pensive mood 
 
 Our casual words held undertones of prayer 
 And souls soared into the infinitude. 
 
 The lustrous sea and sky, the lucent tints 
 Of shells were pages in a sacred tome; 
 
 One worshipful beheld the finger prints 
 Of God upon the opalescent foam. 
 
 From sunlit sand dunes near each priestly palm 
 Waved benediction. Odors of the sea 
 
 Seemed incense; wave and heart were blest with calm 
 As when Christ stilled the storm on Galilee. 
 
 Yes, for a little while life s stress and care 
 Drifted far out beyond the ocean s rim 
 
 Ard God that day was very near us there 
 
 While sea and sky hymned to our souls of Him. 
 
 And God s own days may gleam in stormy years 
 And grace like sunshine blessed peace impart, 
 
 For He can sweeten bitter brine of tears 
 And quell the whelming tempest of the heart. 
 
 Isle of Palms. 
 
 30

 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THE SHADOWED HEART. 
 
 Lily of innocence abloom 
 
 With grace of God in girlhood years; 
 Soul-flowers of God like thee illume 
 
 The shadows in this vale of tears. 
 
 Fresh as the dewy grasses green, 
 Fair as the flowers in Eden grown, 
 
 Of Maytime blooms incarnate queen, 
 Girl bud with beauty barely blown. 
 
 And so your kindness deigned to cull 
 The firstlings that the fields impart, 
 
 Bringing the offering beautiful, 
 
 Thou sunbeam of this shadowed heart. 
 
 Heart in the shadow of the Cross 
 
 Which Calvary s Passion flowers entwine, 
 
 Perfuming human pain and loss 
 Sweet shadow shrining Love divine. 
 
 31
 
 A WRKATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 ADVENT. 
 
 An Altar flowerless, where lights are few; 
 
 The Gloria mute, the Vestment violet 
 Symbol of sorrow 7 , sombre robes of rue! 
 
 Why Advent, should thy wistful eyes be wet? 
 
 Plaintive this prelude to the Angels hymn, 
 Tearful its theme in touching minor chord; 
 
 And foregleams of that natal morn are dim, 
 
 What time the kindly kine looked on the Lord. 
 
 Advent, thy voice holds echoes of the sighs 
 Of prophet, patriarch and saint of old, 
 
 With yearning eyes on unresponsive skies 
 Expecting the Messiah oft foretold. 
 
 And in thy face, oh Advent, deeper gloom, 
 And sad and strong yet tender tones are thine, 
 
 Pleading with hearts w r herein there is no room, 
 No greeting for the coming Guest divine. 
 
 A Voice austere, another John, thou art, 
 
 Heralding Christ to Sinners, born for them: 
 
 "Awake, arise, thou hard unheeding heart, 
 The path of penance leads to Bethlehem." 
 
 Along that path I fain would go akin 
 
 To Shepherds, with no royal gift to bring. 
 
 Christ make my heart, inhospitable inn, 
 A shelter poor but welcome for my King. 
 
 32
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THE REQUIEM OF THE RAIN. 
 
 (CAPTAIN F. W. DAWSON.) 
 
 In a ceaseless, sad refrain, 
 The wailing winds unite 
 
 With the sobbing, pitying rain, 
 Over his grave to-night. 
 
 Dark are the tearful skies, 
 Over the wind and rain! 
 
 Dark our hearts, for the eyes 
 Never to smile again. 
 
 Spirits of comrades slain, 
 
 Phantoms of years that are fled, 
 Sob in the wind and the rain 
 
 Over the soldier dead. 
 
 Throbbing with prayer and pain, 
 Our hearts are at his grave; 
 
 Sadder than wind and rain, 
 Mourning the true and brave. 
 
 His name our love invokes, 
 
 In vain, alas, in vain; 
 Under the weeping oaks, 
 
 Under the moaning rain. 
 
 33
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Strong as the wind in storm, 
 Sweet as the rain in spring, 
 
 The heart in the kingly form 
 Heart of a knight, a king. 
 
 Some summer sun may spread 
 His grave the grasses o er! 
 
 But oh, the dead, the dead, 
 Will come again no more. 
 
 Cease, rain, your sobbing cease, 
 His new-made grave above; 
 
 Christ, give him rest and peace- 
 The Christian man we love. 
 
 March 13, 1889. 
 
 34
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 AT KILLARNEY. 
 
 (ON THE LAKES, AUGUST 30, 1905.) 
 
 "Killarney far the bugle sends 
 The notes that lingering echoes wake; 
 
 Heard beauty with seen beauty blends 
 The song is wedded to the lake. 
 
 Erin, those plaintive echoes grieve 
 For glories that have ceased to be; 
 
 Fair Queen, the purpling shadows weave 
 A shroud for thy dead royalty. 
 
 Thy Brehon laws pure justice dealt 
 
 To clan and chief, and courts were thine, 
 
 When Romulus and Remus dwelt 
 In huts upon the Palatine. 
 
 Of mighty kings and valiant men, 
 Of bard and sage, this was the home 
 
 When Goth and Hun and Saracen 
 Laid low thy pride, imperial Rome. 
 
 The Shepherd boy on Slemish hill 
 Calls to his flocks as evening falls; 
 
 Later his saintly accents thrill 
 
 Bowed King and court in Tara s halls. 
 
 From heights that wall this waveless calm, 
 Come phantom echoes sweet and low, 
 
 Of cloisters choiring hymn and psalm 
 More than a thousand years ago. 
 
 35
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 All Europe homage rendered thee 
 
 Through centuries of Learning s reign, 
 
 When Gaels taught in Italy 
 
 And graced the schools of Charlemagne. 
 
 Enamored of thy loveliness 
 
 Kings, Vikings would make thee their own, 
 And warred until thou didst possess 
 
 The Cross alone and not a throne. 
 
 Greatness begotten of the soul 
 
 Yields not to might or pain or loss; 
 
 Hail Erin! victrix in thy dole, 
 Truest of nations to the Cross. 
 
 Heroic race! Thy heritage 
 
 Valor and virtue, through the years 
 
 Writ in thy Iliad, page on page, 
 How oft in blood, how oft in tears 
 
 The crown was wrested from thy brow 
 And Sorrow draped thee fold on fold; 
 
 Mother of saints and martyrs thou, 
 Uncrowned of men, but atireoled. 
 
 Cease, bugle, cease thy tender song; 
 
 Cease, echoes, in the darkening glen, 
 Or tears will flow from eyes that long 
 
 To see thee Erin Queen again. 
 
 36
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 A GOLDEN JUBILEE. 
 
 MOTHER TERESA, CHARLESTON CONVENT. 
 
 Low in the twilight time of Christmas tide, 
 Before God s altar, flowered and aglow, 
 
 A white-robed maiden bowed, a bride, 
 God s bride a half a hundred years ago. 
 
 The world had smiled upon her, young and fair, 
 Had sung its siren song; its gain or loss 
 
 She counted not, but left the luring glare, 
 And knelt within the shadow of the Cross. 
 
 What counts all gain or loss, to have a part 
 With Christ in pain and loss; with him in love 
 
 Of stricken hearts? Her seeming shadowed heart 
 Glowed, kneeling there, with radiance from above. 
 
 A half a hundred years ago! We name 
 
 To-day her Golden Wedding fitting phrase! 
 
 Through sorrow s ways, in lives of pain and shame 
 She wedded golden deeds to prayerful days. 
 
 She touched the aching brow to lesser ache; 
 
 On lives that bore a cross she placed a crown; 
 Hearts that were breaking through her did not break, 
 
 And near her Death lost something of his frown. 
 
 37
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Flower-like above those buried years we see, 
 Fairer for darkest shadows and for tears, 
 
 Missions of mercy, deeds of charity, 
 
 Unfading flowers to bloom through deathless years. 
 
 Time, let thy touch be as a mother s touch, 
 On her through all her happy days to be 
 
 To aching brow and heart her touch was such, 
 God bless her, bless her through eternity. 
 
 January 6th, 1881.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 MARSE CHAN. 
 
 Here, writ on each pathetic page, 
 
 The radiant story 
 Of Chivalry our golden age 
 
 And olden glory. 
 
 The tender tale a laurel wreath, 
 
 Whereon te pillow 
 Our love for those who sleep beneath 
 
 Cypress and willow. 
 
 A requiem sounds across sad years, 
 
 A sacred psalter, 
 And fall the South s entempled tears, 
 
 Our hearts the altar. 
 
 And there the priesthood of the pen 
 
 Their service render, 
 Until dead days come back again 
 
 The Old South s splendor. 
 
 39
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 Grand Palace of our Sovereign King; 
 
 Altar of God, Temple of Him 
 Whose praise the choiring angels sing, 
 
 Before whom bow the Seraphim. 
 
 Beyond long years a vision looms 
 Of holocausts from field and fold 
 
 And sacrificial smoke that plumes 
 Expectant skies in days of old. 
 
 And tent and tabernacle hold 
 
 Altars of symbols that sufficed 
 For sacrifices that foretold 
 
 The great High Priest and Victim, Christ. 
 
 Lo! Temple sublime of Solomon! 
 
 Holy of Holies, psalm and hymn, 
 All, all thy golden grandeur gone, 
 
 Altar and Arc and Cherubim. 
 
 But glory here, for grandeur gone, 
 For He for whom the prophets sighed 
 
 Is here, High Priest and Victim one, 
 Jesus our Love, the Crucified. 
 
 Chalice and paten are His throne; 
 
 Love veils in seeming bread and wine 
 The glory that the Heavens own 
 
 Beautiful Host, Victim divine. 
 
 40
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Typed in this temple Heaven behold, 
 And Calvary in the altar near; 
 
 Grand let it be with gifts of gold, 
 Holy of Holies, God is here. 
 
 Pontiff and King with loving heart, 
 Have wrought with royal offering 
 
 Marbled Cathedrals glowing with art, 
 To shrine their Eucharistic King. 
 
 Here shall the L,evite at His call 
 In sweet surrender prostrate lie, 
 
 The Alter Christus, leaving all 
 To follow Him, if need, to die. 
 
 In splendid ritual shall be viewed 
 The seal of power on Bishops set 
 
 In Apostolic plenitude, 
 Recalling far-off Olivet. 
 
 The font, the lustral waters here; 
 
 Before this Altar brides shall wed, 
 And Hope shall speak to hearts that hear 
 
 The solemn requiem of their dead. 
 
 Oh! Earth thy treasures hither bring; 
 
 Render thy tribute rarest Art; 
 Genius come hither worshipping; 
 
 Kneel, Man, with an adoring heart. 
 
 41
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 MAGNOLIA GARDENS ON THE ASHLEY. 
 
 Here Beauty holds her Court, her gracious King 
 The sovereign sun; her suite the flowers abla/e 
 With radiant raiment woven by Southern rays, 
 The placid woodland waters mirroring 
 The flowery splendors of the bourgeoning Spring. 
 Here petalled portieres deck the walls of bloom; 
 Azaleas aflame the halls illume; 
 Magnolias column stately avenues, 
 Gleaming arcades, marbled with lucent hues. 
 
 The sunlit air is vibrant with perfume 
 Sweeter than music and each bud unblown 
 Incenses Beauty on her glowing throne. 
 
 The roses breathe their homage all day long. 
 Spring is her vassal, life a scented song. 
 
 Fair Temple thou! Memorial of the Past. 
 
 The aisles are pillared by the plaintive pines, 
 And pendent mosses drape and ivy twines 
 
 Old oaks that sentinel sweet memories. 
 
 Cold silence epitaphs hushed revelries; 
 
 On graves of dear dead days bloom flowers fair 
 
 And wraiths of dead delights are in the air. 
 
 The eyes see Beauty s Court, but hearts behold 
 
 The greater glories of the days of old. 
 
 The scene is sombre where the shafts of gloom 
 
 Pierce the spring sunshine from the ancient tomb. 
 
 But which is better, holier, light or shade? 
 
 The splendors that the hanging gardens made 
 
 O er Babylon but immemorial dross, 
 
 Or Calvary, crowned and shadowed by the Cross? 
 
 42
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THE DEAD KNIGHT. 
 
 (ROBERT BARNWELL RHETT, JR., M. D.) 
 
 To beat back Death, heal penury and pain, 
 
 His chosen part; 
 Untarnished by corroding greed of gain, 
 
 His golden heart. 
 
 Vassal in toil, in nobleness a King; 
 
 Love his device, 
 His signet, service to the suffering 
 
 And sacrifice. 
 
 Selfless about his hallowed quest he went; 
 
 Intense his strife 
 With Death that struck at others thus he spent 
 
 Himself, his life. 
 
 Stainless his knightly soul, dentless his shield; 
 
 Full panoplied 
 In perfect courtesy on every field, 
 
 Love was his meed. 
 
 The people s prayers, the Christian s crown are thine 
 
 Physician, man, 
 Who poured in wounded hearts love s oil and wine 
 
 Samaritan. 
 
 Farew r ell! Thy memory with immortelle 
 
 Is garlanded: 
 Rest well, thou knightly foe of Death, where dwell 
 
 The deathless dead. 
 
 43
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 ON THE BEACH. 
 
 I walked between the gleam and gloom 
 
 To-day, on storied Moultrie s strand, 
 And listened to the mellow boom 
 
 Of breakers on the silvery sand . 
 A mystic spell my spirit wooed, 
 
 Sweeter than sweetest ever found 
 In songful sylvan solitude 
 
 Or sunset summit, crimson-crowned. 
 
 Upon the sea a vesper calm 
 
 Lay brooding over liquid miles, 
 Hallowing like a wordless psalm 
 
 Or stillness in cathedral aisles. 
 Like fair nun s faces, pure and white, 
 
 Wave crests were gleaming on the bar; 
 And, like a sanctuary light, 
 
 There glimmered far the evening star. 
 
 O sea! O sea! a heart thou hast: 
 
 Upon the shore I heard its beat, 
 From out thy bosom, deep and vast. 
 
 Upon Life s shore are weary feet; 
 And weary hearts reach out beyond; 
 
 While Faith uplifted, Peter trod 
 The sea of old; and heart-beats fond, 
 
 Reach down from out the heart of God. 
 
 44

 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 CHOICE. 
 
 "Serve me," the world sings, 
 Tempting with offerings 
 
 Till we grow faint. 
 Fair is her smiling face, 
 Fond is her false embrace, 
 Desert and drear the place 
 
 Set for the saint. 
 
 Though thus the world beguile 
 Luring with song and smile, 
 
 Siren is she. 
 
 Fairer the face of Christ 
 On the Cross sacrificed, 
 Ransom divinely priced 
 
 For you and me. 
 
 45
 
 A WRKATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 A SABBATH. 
 
 Just when the pensive days began to miss 
 
 Glad Summer dead; 
 Ere hectic Autumn had begun to kiss 
 
 The leaves to red; 
 
 When wistful skies told more of tears than mirth- 
 Thau mirth more blest, 
 
 And hints of Heaven hovered over earth, 
 She won her rest. 
 
 When dreaming pines held fewer songs than sighs; 
 
 In sweet surcease 
 Of toil that Sabbath morn when fields and skies 
 
 Were whispering "Peace," 
 
 We laid her in God s Acre safe from strife, 
 
 With peace above 
 And peace around her, fittingly, whose life 
 
 Was peace and love. 
 
 And all the Village grieved, and flowers were laid 
 
 Above her there, 
 Fair as her deeds, and kneeling sad hearts made 
 
 A wreath of prayer. 
 
 That morning comes a Sabbath to the heart 
 
 Vexed with unrest; 
 Its sainted dead, its peace and prayer impart 
 
 A memory blest.
 
 FATHKK DAMIKX. MAKTVK I RIKST, 
 
 >IKI> OK J,K1 KOSY AT Mol.OKAI. Al KII. 1<>. 1SSV.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 FATHER DAMIEN S PORTRAIT. 
 
 Greeting ! with Damien s portrait which you prize; 
 
 His form unscarred, 
 Youth on his brow unlined; love in his C3 es 
 
 Divinely starred. 
 
 Intense, his priestly gaze appears to go 
 
 Across the years 
 To Cavalry, and for its utter woe 
 
 Holds unshed tears, 
 
 And gleams of sacrificial light that come, 
 
 And beautify, 
 From out his heart aflame for martyrdom 
 
 At Molokai. 
 
 Unmarred his face and fair, and not as when 
 
 Far seas beside, 
 Self -exiled, leprous for the love of men, 
 
 He Christlike died. 
 
 That day God by the choiring hosts above 
 
 Was glorified; 
 And golden gleamed the bond of mankind s love 
 
 When Damien died.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 RUS IN URBE. 
 
 It is only a little idyl, 
 
 Penned by a child in her teens, 
 Yet a magical wand that conjures 
 
 Life s fairest, sunniest scenes. 
 
 She wafts me far from the City 
 From the care and toil it yields, 
 
 And over the years she bears me 
 Back to my boyhood s fields. 
 
 Back to the vernal splendor 
 Of Southern forest and lane, 
 
 Out from the ruts in the city, 
 Out from its burden and pain. 
 
 Like stately pines are the steeples 
 That loom in the twilight gloom, 
 
 And the dull and angular houses 
 Merge into banks of bloom. 
 
 The City s discordant noises 
 Are changed to a summer song, 
 
 And the lilt of the reapers mellows 
 The din of the trafficking throng. 
 
 The stones blossom into daisies; 
 
 Each street is a woodland lane, 
 And I am a boy and dreaming 
 
 Among the jasmines again. 
 
 48
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Of the bloom and the blessed sunshine 
 
 And joyance I am a part, 
 With a song in my soul and ever 
 
 The peace of the fields in my heart. 
 
 O memory hold thy treasures 
 Till the time of the eventide; 
 
 Let the glow of the early morning 
 With the gloaming of life abide. 
 
 49
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 BIRTHDAY LINES. 
 
 God bless thee on thy happy natal day. 
 
 Smile, brightest skies, 
 Upon this gleaming milestone on her way 
 
 To Paradise. 
 
 Some sacred sorrows in this life of thine, 
 
 And sacrifice, 
 Lend hallowed light to pensive eyes that shine 
 
 Madonna-wise. 
 
 And eager toil for love of dear ones lends 
 
 A nobleness 
 To thee, fair Friend, whom kindred and thy friends 
 
 All love and bless. 
 
 And God has set His signet on thy days 
 
 Of peace and calm, 
 Of grace that gleams in all thy words and ways, 
 
 Thy life a psalm. 
 
 God keep thee thus always and give to thee 
 
 A natal morn 
 Some day, some day in far eternity, 
 
 To glory born. 
 
 Some day when all thy peaceful days shall close, 
 
 Thy work well done, 
 There, where the Beatific Vision glows, 
 
 Thy crown well won. 
 
 50
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 A VOTIVE LEAF. 
 
 (ON RECEIVING CARLYLE MCKINLEY S POEMS.) 
 
 Veiled is the sorcery of Sapelo, 
 
 And shadowed the sand dunes by the sea, 
 
 While the mourning waves make moan below 
 And the plaintive pines their threnody. 
 
 For he sang of the sunshine at Sapelo 
 
 As he toiled in the tumult of street and mart; 
 
 And the lingering grace of the afterglow 
 Enraptured with rest his weary heart. 
 
 And sadder the silence at Timrod s grave, 
 
 For there, as a pilgrim, with heart bowed down, 
 
 Came his fellow poet to loyally crave 
 
 Our love for the dead and a fadeless crown. 
 
 And wove in the wish a fond farewell 
 
 Of his own sweet verses of love and praise 
 
 A votive chaplet, an immortelle, 
 
 To grace that grave through the songless days. 
 
 In "After Ten Years" his voice comes down 
 From beyond Parnassus and over the stars, 
 
 And summons the men of knightly renown, 
 Who blazoned with glory the Stars and Bars. 
 
 And tenderer the face of the Crucifer; 
 
 More piteous the pierced hands and feet, 
 For the lines of the poet minister 
 
 In a mission with love replete 
 
 61
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 The love of the Master in words and deeds, 
 
 That pardon and peace impart, 
 When the soul of the sinner in sorrow bleeds, 
 
 And Love flowers forth in a desert heart. 
 
 In this treasured volume the Muses call 
 
 His friends to his grave with quickened grief; 
 
 Poet! Chide not the friend who would let fall 
 On thy laureled mound this withering leaf. 
 
 52
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 EDELWEISS. 
 
 (ON THE RIGI, AUGUST 4, 1905.) 
 
 On Rigi s utmost rim I dream, 
 The lace-like cloudlets far below, 
 
 And see the high horizon gleam 
 With glacier and eternal snow. 
 
 Above the world of carking care, 
 
 Where strife or stress may not intrude, 
 
 The heart to-day attuned to prayer 
 Sings in this crystal solitude. 
 
 Of God this Alpine vastness speaks, 
 God mirrored by the earth and sky; 
 
 In snowy vestments priest-like peaks 
 
 Point to the great white Throne on high. 
 
 God of the lilies of the vale 
 
 As well as heights of snow and ice, 
 
 For here He crowns with beauty pale, 
 The Nun of flowers, this Edelweiss. 
 
 53
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 WHY WEEPEST THOU ? 
 
 O ! Easter Altar, beautiful 
 
 With lilies fair 
 
 And votive blooms she loved to cull 
 And offer there. 
 
 There at her casket garlanded 
 
 And flower-drest, 
 One year ago we knelt and said, 
 
 God give her rest. 
 
 Her sainted soul with grace was bright, 
 
 And love divine. 
 Her hallowed home blessed with its light 
 
 Glowed like a shrine. 
 
 She bid the clouds of care depart, 
 
 Erst happy while, 
 And summoned summer to the heart 
 
 With sunny smile. 
 
 She saunters by the summer sea 
 
 No more, no more, 
 But walks, through blissful years to be, 
 
 The golden shore. 
 
 But shadowed now the sunlit sea 
 
 And sad its tones, 
 And in the waves weird minstrelsy 
 
 A requiem moans. 
 
 54
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 In dreams along the moonlit track 
 
 Of silver foam, 
 Adown the starlight she comes back 
 
 Again to home. 
 
 No more she tends the seeded sod 
 
 And buds unblown, 
 To make the Altar of her God 
 
 A flowered throne. 
 
 Along life s path her gracious ways 
 Bloomed like the flowers 
 
 Like violets they graced the days, 
 The perfumed hours. 
 
 And hushed the voice so gently wise, 
 
 So sweet, so full 
 Of tenderness, and closed the eyes 
 
 So beautiful. 
 
 The heart beneath the oaks is still, 
 
 With God above 
 It loves the dear ones still, athrill 
 
 With larger love. 
 
 Sad hearts she healed with gentlest touch 
 
 Cannot forget; 
 These pray for her they loved so much, 
 
 With eyelids wet. 
 
 The kindly hands are folded now 
 
 That, known not, gave. 
 And we in love and sorrow bow 
 
 Above her grave. 
 
 55
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 We place her precious flowers there 
 
 Our tears upon, 
 And echo there her dying prayer, 
 
 "Thy will be done." 
 
 Bruised hearts that break our Lord can make 
 
 In Heaven whole ; 
 Till then we pray with hearts that ache, 
 
 God rest her soul. 
 
 "Whom seekest thou ? Why weepest thou ? 
 
 That Easter morn 
 The Saviour said, and says it now 
 
 To hearts forlorn. 
 
 And pointing to his pierced side, 
 
 The Crucified 
 But risen Christ said, "Peace abide, " 
 
 That eventide. 
 
 He died upon the bitter tree 
 
 And rose our King ; 
 "Oh, grave where is thy victory, 
 
 Oh, death thy sting?" 
 
 The glory of that Easter parts 
 
 The gates of gloom 
 Hope s pathway home for parted hearts 
 
 On through the tomb. 
 
 "And He shall wipe away all tears," 
 
 And glorified, 
 Forever through eternal years, 
 
 Love shall abide. 
 
 56
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 VIOLETS. 
 
 Though sunbeams these forget, 
 Though dews no longer wet, 
 Withered and scentless yet 
 
 Dearer to me 
 Than all the roses rare 
 Scenting the sunny air, 
 Treasured with tender care 
 
 Dead though they be. 
 
 Faded ! ah no they bloom, 
 Ah yes, their sweet perfume 
 Through days of glare or gloom 
 
 Cannot depart; 
 Sun-like a memory fair, 
 Dew-like a daily prayer, 
 Make the dead violets there 
 
 Bloom in my heart. 
 
 57
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 YACHTING. 
 
 Out from the bay this summer day, 
 
 From corroding care we race; 
 We sail away in sun and spray, 
 
 That bronze each happy face; 
 Potent as wine the bracing brine, 
 
 And as Vikings free are we; 
 Almost divine this joy of thine, 
 
 O, sovereign, sunlit sea. 
 
 An elixir exhales from summer gales, 
 
 Sailing serene blue billows between; 
 In memory pales the verdure of vales, 
 
 And the sheen of the evergreen; 
 In the sun and the breeze on summer seas, 
 
 The lordliest lives we live, 
 For days like these are ecstasies, 
 
 Supremest earth can give. 
 
 To ocean s flow in the afterglow, 
 
 Is attuned my pensive mood 
 An adagio, an echo low 
 
 Of the vast infinitude; 
 Reaching afar where the beacons are, 
 
 Past the dim and distant shores, 
 Beyond the bar and the farthest star, 
 
 My spirit soars and adores. 
 
 God s word can keep the winds that sweep, 
 
 At rest on sea and land, 
 The mighty deep, its storms asleep, 
 
 In the hollow of His hand. 
 His mercies still the whole world fill, 
 
 And peace, sweet peace, impart, 
 For if we will His love can still 
 
 The tempest of the heart. 
 
 n*
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 HIS ROSES. 
 
 Fair roses from the little plot 
 He planted in his leisure hours; 
 
 So like his kindness unforgot, 
 
 And fragrant as these beauteous flowers. 
 
 For like these roses precious seeds 
 Of golden sheaves he loved to sow 
 
 In orphaned hearts, his gracious deeds, 
 Plucking the weeds of want and woe. 
 
 Friends keep with tender care the place 
 Where flowers his memory caress; 
 
 Each bud seems like some little face, 
 His kindness touched to sunniness. 
 
 Though he is gone, his roses bloom 
 Radiant from out his seeded sod; 
 
 So, too, his deeds beyond the tomb 
 Bloom in the garden of his God. 
 
 I place these roses, pure and fair, 
 Upon God s altar, offering rare, 
 
 Where he is ofttimes named, and where 
 His charity perfumes my prayer. 
 
 59
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 UNDER THE OAKS. 
 
 Between the columned oaks we rode: 
 
 Gray mosses canopied the scene; 
 Faintly the setting sunbeams glowed, 
 
 Sifted between the gray and green. 
 One sighed and said: "A place to weep," 
 
 Where all day long the shadows fall, 
 And solitude and silence keep 
 
 Their sombre vigils over all. 
 
 As twilight faded into dusk 
 
 The keen, tense thought of street and mart 
 Fell from us like a withered husk, 
 
 And glowed the grace within the heart 
 That finds in hushed cathedral aisles 
 
 Stillness and dimness dearer far 
 Than siren songs or luring smiles, 
 
 And altar light that dims a star. 
 
 The grace that hears the sweetest songs 
 
 In minor chord when memories hold 
 The unforgetting heart that longs 
 
 To greet again fond hearts of old; 
 That fairest holds of all things found 
 
 Under the skies, however shaped 
 By man or sun, a sacred mound 
 
 Beneath an oak with mosses draped, 
 
 The grace that sees more radiant glow 
 
 A tear in love or pity shed 
 Than sunset, purpling peaks of snow, 
 
 Or heavens rainbow garlanded; 
 And in our shadowed hours the grace 
 
 That sees above all pain or loss, 
 The glory of His sad, sweet face 
 
 Shrined in the shadow of the Cross. 
 60
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 HEALING. 
 
 (To THE SISTERS OF MERCY 
 ST. FRANCIS XAVIER INFIRMARY.) 
 
 Far by the sunlit sea 
 Long since in Galilee, 
 Christ sauntered silently 
 
 Prayerfully. 
 
 Fain would He healing bring 
 Unto all sorrowing. 
 Jesus, our gracious King, 
 
 All-Healer He. 
 
 Magdalen weeps and kneels, 
 Penitent love appeals; 
 Pardon with love He seals, 
 
 So Jesus heals. 
 Ears where were sepulchred 
 Sweet sounds of lute and bird, 
 Hearing His healing word 
 
 To music stirred. 
 
 Not only souls that ache, 
 Not only hearts that break, 
 Unto His healing wake 
 
 Out of their gloom; 
 But bodies bruised and spent 
 Felt His medicament; 
 Nay, by His words were rent 
 
 Cerement and tomb. 
 
 61
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Darkness that sentinels 
 Prisoned eyes He dispels; 
 Lips where sad silence dwells 
 
 Sing canticles. 
 Feet that were halt before 
 Haste to the Temple door; 
 Hands reach up to adore 
 
 Palsied no more. 
 
 Lo! in His footsteps press, 
 Sharing His tenderness, 
 Sisters who tend and bless, 
 
 Even as He, 
 
 Those they find suffering; 
 Healing to these they bring, 
 Christ-like ministering 
 
 Jesus for Thee. 
 
 On the Silver Jubilee of the Infirmary 1907. 
 
 6-J
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 A CLASSMATE. 
 
 Fair memories of College days unroll, 
 
 Misted in tears, 
 For him who kept the whiteness of his soul 
 
 Through all his years. 
 
 To starry heights where Science is enthroned 
 
 He eager trod, 
 And knelt, for higher wisdom still he owned - 
 
 The fear of God. 
 
 Brave, blithe and debonair there was no place 
 
 For other fear; 
 Obedience became him like a grace, 
 
 This Mountaineer. 
 
 Life was a happy tourney then, his dower 
 
 His panoply, 
 High honor and his heart the perfect flower 
 
 Of chivalry. 
 
 Faith gilded his honor; love perfumed his heart 
 
 That held our own 
 Through all these years, though far apart, 
 
 And graver grown. 
 
 To Alma Mater loyal love he gave; 
 
 Her rolls bequeath 
 No purer name than his upon whose grave 
 
 Love lays this wreath.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 MEMORIAL DAY 
 
 Honor the dead, these soldiers sleeping 
 
 Their glorious sleep ; 
 With love of man and woman s weeping, 
 
 Their memory keep. 
 
 These graves of heroes, resting breathless, 
 
 Are flowered fanes, 
 Where Valor hymns a Lost Cause, deathless 
 
 While Honor reigns. 
 
 Oh, wouldst thou know the knightly manner 
 
 They fought and bled ? 
 Go, ask the blood upon that banner* 
 
 Shot to a shred. 
 
 Let not our love and reverence falter 
 
 Through years to be ; 
 Their sacrifice was on the altar 
 
 Of liberty. 
 
 The consecration of a nation 
 
 Whose cause survives 
 In hearts that hold it inspiration 
 
 To nobler lives. 
 
 Bring garlands of remembrance hither 
 
 With tear drops wet, 
 Better that arms and hearts should wither 
 
 Than these forget. 
 
 *The battle flag of the Irish Volunteers. 
 
 64
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Another sunset and they perish 
 
 Each rose and wreath ; 
 Not so the deeds of those we cherish 
 
 Asleep beneath. 
 
 Our dead, however days may darken, 
 
 Shall sentinel 
 The Southland, calling while we hearken, 
 
 "All s well, all s well!" 
 
 God s acre owns no battle splendor ; 
 
 In war s surcease 
 The shadows fold them, silent, tender, 
 
 In peace, sweet peace. 
 
 Place votive cross and crown above them, 
 
 And immortelle, 
 To say that through the years we love them 
 
 Whom God rests well. 
 
 65
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 For all things here below, decay and death : 
 
 For seasons, suns and stars, all things save one, 
 
 The sovereign soul, image of God, that breath 
 Divine, which may not know oblivion. 
 
 Created in the undreamed harmonies 
 
 Of Godhead, it descended from above 
 Whence Music comes, heard best on bended knees. 
 
 With heart attuned unto its theme of love. 
 
 When Christ, the Prince of Peace, would break the bars 
 Of prisoned souls, song heralded His birth ; 
 
 Exultant angels choired beneath the stars, 
 "Glory to God on high and peace to earth." 
 
 His love too large for arbitrary word, 
 
 And blessedness too deep for fathomed phrase, 
 
 In mystic music make their meaning heard 
 
 The while the raptured soul bows down and prays. 
 
 The empire of the chisel and the brush, 
 
 Outlasting sceptred realms, shall cease to be ; 
 
 But high above the dead creation s hush 
 Music shall still delight divinity. 
 
 ft 
 
 For anthem upon anthem shall ^nroll 
 
 From choiring saint and seraph worshipping, 
 And in this native language of the soul 
 We, glorified, shall sing unto our King. 
 
 66
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 A PICTURED CHILD. 
 
 A pictured child tense thought beguiles, 
 So life-like I could fain believe 
 
 That from the gilded frame she smiles 
 And speaks to me, dear Genevieve. 
 
 An added joy to happy hearts 
 
 And solace to the hearts that grieve, 
 
 This sweet and sinless soul imparts 
 Sunbeam incarnate, Genevieve. 
 
 Child Sovereign, we own her reign; 
 
 Her words and ways, so winsome, weave 
 About our hearts a flower-like chain 
 
 Linking our love to Genevieve. 
 
 Tired eyes shall rest upon this face 
 Finding from toil and care reprieve, 
 
 So angel-wise the guileless grace 
 That hallows gentle Genevieve. 
 
 As such Christ asks us to be led, 
 Such into Heaven He w r ill receive; 
 
 Of such, His Kingdom, He hath said 
 Children in trust like Genevieve. 
 
 67
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 STELLA MARLS. 
 
 Golden the dawning when thou dost arise 
 Heralding joyance of mornings to be, 
 
 Smiling a welcome to Youth s sunny skies, 
 Star of the Morning, Star of the Sea. 
 
 Glimmering, tremulous, when the shades fall 
 Gleam in the gloaming, I pray thee for me, 
 
 Lighting the shadows and piercing the pall, 
 Star of the Evening, Star of the Sea. 
 
 Ever in tempests, down through the dark 
 Shine as a beacon that tired eyes may see 
 
 Heaven, the haven to harbor my bark, 
 Star of the Midnight, Star of the Sea. 
 
 Mary, Sweet Mother thou art the Star, 
 
 And Life is the Ocean beamed on by Thee, 
 
 We are the voyagers faring afar, 
 Star of the Pilgrim, Star of the Sea. 
 
 i
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 LILIES. 
 
 A dream of dreams that vesper hour 
 Beneath the dreamful skies of May; 
 
 And round us Maytime bud and flower 
 And nuns to lead the pensive way. 
 
 The incense from the Altar seemed 
 
 To float upon the purer air; 
 The organ hushed, the Convent dreamed 
 
 Its nun-like dream of peace and prayer. 
 
 The distant city s din and glare, 
 
 The world of sin and stress and loss, 
 
 In deepening twilight faded there 
 Before the Shadow of the Cross, 
 
 
 That fell, a grace, upon that hour 
 
 The Cross that maketh bruised hearts whole 
 And with a more than sun-like power 
 
 A splendor sheds upon the soul. 
 
 Beyond, the still God s Acre loomed, 
 
 Where lily-like above the sod, 
 The white stones told of souls that bloomed 
 
 As lilies loved and culled by God. 
 
 White lilies nurtured tenderly, 
 
 Uplifted by the Hand of Love 
 To bloom through all the years to be, 
 
 Gardened by God above. 
 
 St. Joseph s Convent, Emmitsburg, Md.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 ANGEL-WISE. 
 
 A bud unblown 
 Blooms at His throne; 
 Their dove has flown 
 
 To God above; 
 And angel-wise 
 With wistful eyes 
 Looks from the skies, 
 
 With larger love, 
 
 On dear ones here, 
 And year by year 
 As they draw near 
 
 She loving waits 
 To greet each face, 
 With radiant grace, 
 When they shall pace 
 
 The pearly gates. 
 
 4 
 
 A sunbeam s light 
 When days were bright, 
 A star when night 
 
 Would darken home. 
 Joy to their sight, 
 Their hearts delight, 
 Sweet soul as white 
 
 As blown sea foam. 
 
 Kind winds caress 
 The grave they bless ; 
 With tenderness 
 
 Come shade and sun. 
 The yearning years 
 Own lonely tears, 
 Yet Jesus hears 
 
 "Thy Will be Done. 
 70
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 STARLIGHT. 
 
 I mused on Moultrie s sunlit strand 
 One summer day some summers gone, 
 
 When sky and sea and shining sand 
 Had Summer s Southern splendor on. 
 
 I sauntered there in sweet surcease 
 Of care one night when silver bars 
 
 Were on the sea, and pictured peace 
 In dreaming waves and wistful stars. 
 
 Earth s glories held my dazzled gaze 
 That radiant summer day gone by; 
 
 That pensive night through starlit ways 
 My heart reached out to God on high. 
 
 Tears dim your eyes in Sorrow s night. 
 
 But kneel. Lo ! Faith and Hope and Love 
 Bar Sorrow with their starry light, 
 
 Caught from the Kindly Light above. 
 
 71
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 AN INNOCENT VICTIM. 
 
 War gloomed the land; death swept the plain 
 Where the battle raged with visage red, 
 
 And where amid the maimed and slain 
 Sisters of Mercy, fearless sped. 
 
 A wounded man, a nun in prayer 
 
 Vision of peace in savage war, 
 An angel mid the demons there, 
 
 Sublimer than an Emperor. 
 
 His blood is staunched, her prayer is said; 
 
 The bravest of the brave thou art. 
 Salute her ! God ! that bullet sped 
 
 Straight to her vowed and virgin heart. 
 
 White in her hallowed grace she lies, 
 Dead on the field ensanguined whence 
 
 Her soul flew up to Paradise, 
 Winged with angelic innocence. 
 
 Laurel the victors in the fight, 
 
 And wreathe the graves of heroes dead ; 
 But let this nun, it is her right, 
 
 With immortelle be garlanded. 
 
 Marble and medal may record 
 
 The passing tale of their renown ; 
 
 For her the "Well Done" of the Lord 
 And His imperishable crown. 
 72
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 For them a paean, for her a hymn, 
 The spotless victim sacrificed 
 
 For man beloved, redeemed by Him 
 Victim divine, our Saviour Christ. 
 
 Soldiers in tears bear her away, 
 Vision of love in hate and war. 
 
 Who won, you ask, that direful day- 
 The love of Christ was conqueror.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 SUMMITS. 
 
 A dear delight to leave the level ways 
 The senses sway, and din of street and mart, 
 
 And led by Talent and by Genius gaze 
 On treasures in their skyward temple Art. 
 
 A dear delight on that enchanted height 
 To worship Truth and Beauty in the hush 
 
 Of rapture at their forms of grace and might, 
 Wrought by Promethean chisel, pen and brush. 
 
 A dear delight. What matter if we say- 
 In charming Meyerbeer somehow we hear 
 
 But Talent s voice ; or that in pensive Gray 
 But toiling Talent s fairest fruits appear. 
 
 A dear delight. What matter if we hold 
 
 The magic touch of Genius is upon 
 Our Shakespeare and on Homer s muse of old, 
 
 Or sculptured splendors of the Parthenon. 
 
 A dear delight. But yet a higher delight 
 
 Than Mind may ow r n, the Heart of man beseems 
 
 Far over Genius over Talent s height 
 
 The higher, holier height of Goodness gleams. 
 
 Tis well on heights of Mind and Heart to bide, 
 To seek the highest height, divinest goal, 
 
 The Mount where Christ our Love was crucified, 
 Summit supreme of man s adoring soul. 
 
 74
 
 SONNETS.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 CLOISTERED. 
 
 An Angel in a far off Springtime hour 
 Sped earthward from the radiant realms above, 
 To place a seal supreme of Heaven s love 
 
 On Heaven s chosen, best beloved flower. 
 
 He saw the flower of passion and of power, 
 The queenly Rose, so fair, so wondrous fair, 
 Spurning the shade and wooing the ardent glare, 
 
 And saddened passed the Rose s royal bower. 
 
 Fain would he find some vestal votaress 
 
 Gracing the Spring with chastened beauty blow r n, 
 Some fairer flower to mark for Heaven s own. 
 
 The mission of the Angel was not missed ; 
 
 In cloistered spotlessness he saw and kissed 
 
 And crowned the Lily in its loveliness. 
 
 79
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 RIGHT REV. P. N. LYNCH, D. D. 
 
 BISHOP OF CHARLESTON. 
 
 A slow sad year has winged its shadowed fligh 
 Green are the grasses over him who dwelt 
 Far upward on the heights of Thought, and spelt 
 
 The wording of God s wisdom, love and might 
 
 On Time and Space, and in the sun-like light 
 Of Faith, there, on the utmost summits knelt. 
 Kingly he was in thought saintlier, he felt 
 
 His great heart bowed upon the higher height 
 Of Christian charity. He viewed alone 
 
 The good in men and spoke it only. Thus 
 With God and man he lived, and by his own, 
 
 To higher, better lives he guided us ; 
 
 And so our years shall hold, as this has held, 
 
 His memory by prayer sentineled.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES . 
 
 THE LAB ARUM. 
 
 Peter alone, along the Appian Way ! 
 A few poor Fishermen Apostles are 
 To win to Christ the nations near and far. 
 
 Speak, Catacombs and Colosseum, say 
 
 How many million martyrs passed away. 
 
 The warring world the march of Christ would bar, 
 But Constantine beholds the crosslike star, 
 
 The noonday presage of the Saviour s sway. 
 
 Golden our age and yet the Church owns grief. 
 
 The tyrants of our time are vandal Might, 
 Mammon adored and deadly Unbelief, 
 
 Blighting our better day with baneful night. 
 But lo! illuminating Christendom, 
 in Coelo, L,eo s L,abarum. 
 
 81
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 LEO XIII. 
 
 The mourning millions in their love enfold 
 
 The Great White Shepherd who so loved his sheep, 
 Leo, Christ s Vicar, great and good, asleep ; 
 
 Cold in St. Peter s lies his heart of gold, 
 
 His saintly brow in Heaven aureoled. 
 
 Priests at the altars prayerful vigils keep ; 
 Peace for her firmest friend comes here to weep. 
 
 But hark, a Voice, a truth divine foretold 
 
 Christ s "Tu es Petrus." Rock-like He would raise 
 
 His Church. "Docete omnes gentes," He 
 Declared. "Ecce vobiscum sum," all days 
 
 "Ad consummationem saeculi." 
 
 Come darkest night, come tempest, earthquake shock, 
 
 Lumen in Coelo lights the steadfast Rock. 
 
 82
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 A SILVER CYCLE. 
 
 AN EPISCOPAL JUBILEE. 
 
 What hallowed visions on this day have met ! 
 The Saviour saunters by the sunlit sea 
 And Peter hears his call : "Follow Thou Me"- 
 The call that through the ages echoes yet 
 Thrilling the Levite s soul where Christ will set 
 The seal of Eucharistic sovereignty : 
 Lo ! looms the Cenacle, Love s Mystery. 
 And words divine descend from Olivet : 
 "The Father sendeth Me, so I send you, 
 Go teach all nations" the Episcopate 
 God s priesthood to ordain, direct, renew 
 
 Through plenitude of the Apostolate. 
 Great gift of God, these consecrated years 
 Of him whom every grateful heart reveres. 
 
 83
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 NOON AT NAPLES. 
 
 (NAPLES, JULY 26, 1905.) 
 
 I stand imparadised by sea and sky 
 
 And crescent coast whose terraces caress 
 Olive and vine ; by isles of loveliness. 
 
 These in their peerless beauty Time defy. 
 Not so thy glories of an age gone by ; 
 
 Time with thy palaces was pitiless ; 
 Marbles broidering this Bay blue waves possess, 
 
 And in their depths triremes and galleons lie. 
 
 So through the noonday splendor shadows pass 
 Decay and death to kingdoms and to kings, 
 
 To Art, to yonder Mantuan bard, alas ! 
 
 But lo, there stands Saint Paul and tidings brings 
 
 Of Christ whose light divine no shadow mars, 
 Light of the World outlasting suns and stars. 
 
 84
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 NIGHT IN VENICE. 
 
 (VENICE, AUGUST 9, 1905.) 
 
 Once glorious Queen and fair Enchantress yet. 
 
 Greek, Ottoman before thy Lions cowed, 
 
 And Saracens to thy Crusaders bowed. 
 Here argosies from Orient oceans met ; 
 And can we Titian, Veronese, forget ? 
 
 Queen of a radiant past, puissant, proud, 
 
 In Bucentaur to Adriatic vowed, 
 Starshine for thee ; thy splendid sun has set. 
 
 Queenly Enchantress still, thy coronal 
 
 Men s love, thine own, and those who cross the sea, 
 Pilgrims whose hearts will hold high festival, 
 
 Dreaming of beauty and remembering thee. 
 "Ave Maria" Oh ! the dulcet bars 
 Upon thy waters and beneath thy stars. 
 
 85
 
 A WRKATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 ON LISTED FIELD. 
 
 All hail ! Sir Knight all hail, but not as when 
 
 In joust or tourney of the olden days 
 
 When lance was leveled for Fair Ladyes praise ; 
 But in the arena of the Press, we men 
 Salute the nobler knighthood of the Pen, 
 
 And hail the pure white banner they upraise 
 
 Amid the fiercer civic battle blaze 
 The righteous knight nerved with the strength of ten. 
 
 A silver cycle of untarnished years 
 
 Of service for the whiteness of men s souls, 
 
 Where love of all things clean and high appears 
 Hallows your pen, your knighthood aureoles. 
 
 God grant you golden years, love-panoplied, 
 
 To serve us still, with golden word and deed. 
 
 86
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 A GOLDEN JUBILEE. 
 
 Hail holy Priest, a name almost divine. 
 
 Over Christ s body real and mystical, 
 
 Sovereign ! When from the Altar thou dost call, 
 Comes Christ in consecrated bread and wine, 
 Thy God obedient to word of thine. 
 
 Thou Alter Christus, sinners pardoning, 
 Changing the sin -cursed soul into a shrine 
 
 Wherein is throned our Eucharistic King. 
 
 Thou Other Christ, to heal the bruised of heart, 
 To wipe from eyes bereaved the streaming tears, 
 
 The peace of God to sinners to impart, 
 
 Thy heart God s own through all these golden years 
 
 A half a hundred ! Younger brothers we 
 
 Salute thee on thy Golden Jubilee. 
 
 87
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THE COLOSSEUM. 
 
 (ROME, AUGUST l, 1905.) 
 
 Mighty memorial of Rome s mighty sway 
 And of her ruin. Silence and solitude 
 Brood where cruel emperors and vestals viewed 
 
 Lean lions leap upon their Christian prey 
 
 On this ensanguined, consecrated clay ; 
 
 Thousands on yonder towering tiers imbued 
 
 Their souls in sainted blood. No stain to-day 
 Upon these sacred sands once crimson hued. 
 
 With captives from destroyed Jerusalem 
 
 Vespasian, Titus wrought this wondrous pile, 
 
 Colossal monument to Rome and them. 
 
 How vast the ruin of splendor vast, erstwhile. 
 
 Thus trophies perish, laurels fade ; not thus 
 
 Crowns of Ignatius and Telemachus. 
 
 fig
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THE CATACOMBS. 
 
 (CATACOMBS OF ST. CALYXTUS, ROME, AUGUST 2, 1905.) 
 
 Darkness and silence and centurial gloom 
 Shrouding this city of the martyred dead, 
 Its sunless graves unflowered, ungarlanded : 
 
 Yea, here each caverned and embedded tomb 
 
 Itself is sepulchred, a double doom 
 To deep oblivion of saints who bled 
 
 For Christ. Nay, nay, these tombs illume 
 
 High souls and higher paths they fain would tread. 
 
 Gloom there is here unto the casual eye 
 
 Untrained to look beyond the mill and mart, 
 
 And see the triumph when the martyrs die 
 Crowning their immolation of the heart. 
 
 Gloom in the Catacombs ; but elsewhere find 
 
 Diviner radiance glorifying mankind. 
 
 89
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 MORNING AT MONTMARTRE. 
 
 (PARIS, AUGUST 21, 1905.) 
 
 Where are thy Lilies, France, among these weeds, 
 Thou Eldest Daughter of the Church ? How long 
 O Lord, how long shall Godless rulers wrong 
 
 Her hallowed name, the while her bruised heart bleeds ? 
 
 Here on this Mount of Martyrs intercedes 
 All day, and all the year, a changing throng, 
 Their love of God and France though wounded, strong ; 
 
 And La Belle France for thee a pilgrim pleads. 
 
 Even the glamour of thy glory fades 
 
 Upon thy brow bowed in the deepening dark. 
 
 Ring out the "Deus Vult" of thy Crusades ; 
 
 Rise, France! France of Saint Louis and Jeanne D Arc 
 
 Republic, yes, but call back Christ to thee, 
 
 And golden memories of thy Fleur de Lis. 
 
 90
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 CENTENARY 
 MOUNT ST. MARY S COLLEGE. 
 
 Hail Mother ! on thy beauteous brow unite 
 The glories of a Century a Crown, 
 A golden crown fitting thy fair renown, 
 
 Throned in our hearts and on this classic height. 
 
 The Mind finds here its Palace of Delight, 
 The Heart a Home from other home apart ; 
 Sweet Sanctuary of the Soul thou art, 
 
 Hallowed with radiance of the Kindly Light. 
 
 God bless our Alma Mater aureoled 
 With sanctity of sons her terrace trod 
 
 From priest to Cardinal, whose hearts of gold 
 She formed and consecrated unto God. 
 
 We thank Thee, Lord, for all these glorious years, 
 
 We, loving sons and loyal Mountaineers. 
 
 91
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 A LEAF AND A LIFE. 
 
 This Autumn leaf wilted and wind-blown lies, 
 Dead in its russet shroud, its velvet green 
 Of Springtime faded, gone its glistening sheen. 
 
 Minister of the Sun that vivifies, 
 
 Friend of all living beings beneath the skies, 
 Inhaling poison of the ambient air 
 And breathing vital breath for all things fair; 
 
 Yea, dead, nourishing seeds, in sheaves, to rise. 
 
 So I would live, grace sunlike in my soul, 
 Servant of Christ and men His brotherhood, 
 
 My heart alembic-like dissolving dole, 
 Transmuting evil it may meet to good; 
 
 Then leave this love for men to think upon 
 
 And nurture grains of good when I am gone. 
 
 92
 
 VISION.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 VISION. 
 
 What is thy Vision, Bard, demand 
 
 The lords of literature, the critics, when 
 
 The poet would sing within their castled halls. 
 
 Is it the vision of a voiceless void, 
 
 Dim vision of a fathomless abyss 
 
 Beyond the senses near phenomena ? 
 
 Despairing vision of a grave and then 
 
 Of dust and ultimate oblivion ; 
 
 Chantest thou anthems to insensate Chance, 
 
 To Beauty born of mindless molecules, 
 
 To Virtue child of nerve and ganglion, 
 
 Laudest thou Nescience to Omnipotence ? 
 
 Is thine the vision of our ghastly God, 
 
 The blind and deaf and dumb Unknowable ? 
 
 Then enter in these lordly critics cry ; 
 
 Come, Poet, sing in our sepulchral halls. 
 
 And such there are, alas, in this our age 
 Who fain would dim the vision of our God 
 And dwarf and darken man s high destiny. 
 Would they blot out the vitalizing Sun 
 That quickens seeds to sheaves, reddens the rose, 
 Because they cannot solve its processes ? 
 They seek Life s secret in a blade of grass 
 But even there stand baffled, blind and dumb, 
 While high in solar splendor shines its source. 
 
 97
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Sun of my Soul ! Thou Lord of Light and Life ! 
 
 Anoint my eager eyes that worshipful 
 
 They may behold the Vision of thy Might, 
 
 Lustrous with Love, on subject Time and Space, 
 
 On cell and star and all the rhythmic laws 
 
 That hymn in perfect harmony to Thee ; 
 
 To see thy finger prints on radiant rose 
 
 On lucent lily and on azure skies, 
 
 And thy Almighty hand upon the laws, 
 
 The keys that make the music of the spheres ; 
 
 For law in man or nature is not force 
 
 But its expression shadow of the Hand 
 
 That steadies suns and systems, swings the stars. 
 
 Grant us the Vision in that other world, 
 
 The higher, holier world that shrines the soul, 
 
 Sun of my soul, to see thy living Light, 
 
 Its rays the grace and glory of the saint. 
 
 The halo of the cloistered bride of Christ, 
 
 The flame in the unquailing martyr s breast, 
 
 The light and life of human holiness ; 
 
 Vision of greater beauty in the tear 
 
 That pity sheds, than in the sunset skies ; 
 
 Of Art not only grace of face and form 
 
 Marking the Milo and the Medici, 
 
 But Vision of the soul that lives enshrined 
 
 Within the Pieta of Michael Angelo, 
 
 Or Raphael s Madonnas faith-inspired, 
 
 And his Transfiguration s shining Christ. 
 
 98
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Vision of beauty crowning charity, 
 Denial, duty, virtue, sacrifice, 
 Flowers of the soul abloom on Calvary ; 
 Vision of God s design in making man 
 Godlike in image, with a deathless soul, 
 With dignity and destiny divine, 
 All high ideals crystallized in Christ ; 
 Incarnate Light and Life, Light of the World, 
 Lighting with Pentecostal light the minds 
 That pray to leave the dark morass of doubt ; 
 Lighting the ways of penance leading out 
 From dungeoned slavery of souls in sin 
 To light and freedom of the sons of God. 
 Lighting the chambers in the shadowed heart 
 Dark for the smiling eyes that smile no more, 
 Lighting the night of Death with gleams of dawn, 
 The glory of the Resurrection morn. 
 
 Ours be the Vision of these altar stairs 
 
 That mount through light, not darkness, up to God, 
 
 Then nearer steps of Faith and Hope and Love ; 
 
 And ours, forevermore, the last step trod, 
 
 The Beatific Vision of our God.
 
 PASSION.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 PASSION. 
 
 The Arbiters of Art, reflex of Life, 
 Of Art on canvas, marble, stage or page, 
 For literature is complex lettered Art, 
 Decree that Passion must be pictured there, 
 And that the Poet, Nature s own High Priest, 
 Must render homage to this Eidolon. 
 
 Is it a demon or the Deity 
 
 To whom the hymning High Priest of the Heart, 
 
 Vested with reverence, must minister? 
 
 To whom is offered this heart-holocaust ? 
 
 What the consuming fires of sacrifice? 
 
 Come they from Heaven to cleanse and consecrate, 
 
 Or from below to balefully destroy ? 
 
 Where is the Altar ? Must the poet seek 
 
 A pagan night and Paphian paths half-lit 
 
 With sensuous fires from some Cvtherean shrine ? 
 
 Passion that unmanned Antony and changed 
 
 The Sorceress to Spectre of Old Nile, 
 
 That golden glamour gone to gruesome gloom, 
 
 Splendor of Egypt, passion -changed to shame 
 
 Enduring as her desert pyramids. 
 
 Passion is it the flame of martyrdom 
 
 Upon the altar of the maiden s heart 
 
 There in the Colosseum, or the blaze 
 
 Of savagery in the Emperor s eyes 
 
 Gloating with beasts, on virgin flesh and blood ; 
 
 1C4
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 The fire that raged in demon hearts around 
 
 The worshipped wanton throned in Notre Dame, 
 
 Or the white flame that canonized Jean D Arc 
 
 Halo, forever, on thy Lilies France ! 
 
 Is it the pagan fire or purer flame 
 
 That fused the dross in great Augustine s heart ; 
 
 Passion of Lancelot or Galahad, 
 
 The quest of erring Queen or Holy Grail ; 
 
 That blighted knighthood and the Table Round 
 
 Or blent with whiteness of King Arthur s soul ; 
 
 And in the priestly heart of Damien 
 
 Lit the lone way to leprous Molokai. 
 
 Yea, Poet, this it is, transmuting fire, 
 Aflame in crucibles of human hearts, 
 Refining crude affections, earthen aims 
 And changing love of self to love of Christ 
 And men for whom He died upon the Cross. 
 It is the grace-lit cleansing, chastening fire 
 Consuming dross and rust and all alloy 
 And leaving love most pure in golden hearts ; 
 The burning love of Christ, the fire divine, 
 That made of Magdalen the sinner-saint. 
 
 Poet of Passion, lo ! thy altar gleams 
 Where passion pure flames in the heart most pure, 
 Shrined in this Temple of the Holy Ghost. 
 Minister there to consecrated love ; 
 And God is Love ; and on that altar glows 
 Passion of Patience, when the soul is torn 
 Some night forlorn in some Gethsemine ; 
 Passion of Silence, test supreme of strength, 
 When deadly Wrong assails the soul serene ; 
 Passion of Resignation when the soul 
 Bereft of all can pray "Thy will be done ;" 
 105
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Passion of Sacrifice, when on some Cross 
 The soul leans lovingly to Christ nailed there ; 
 Passion of Adoration when the heart 
 Aflame with love is fused in Love divine 
 And worshipful the soul to Heaven ascends ; 
 When earth with all its fierce, unhallowed fires, 
 Even their smouldering embers quenched and cold 
 Earth with its ashen roses, dead desires, 
 Its shrivelled idols and its cindered sins, 
 Slips from our feet of clay that stand unshod 
 There in the Temple of the Triune God. 
 
 This rose-like flame of Passion, Poet sing 
 Whether a rod or wreath the critics bring. 
 Sing Love, the Sacramental of the soul 
 Its light thy Christian Muse will aureole. 
 
 106
 
 IN COLLEGE DAYS.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THE ROBINS SONG. 
 
 Away, away with the icicles, 
 
 With the grasses snowy cover ; 
 Come again the green to the russet hills 
 Come again to the valleys the clover. 
 Away, away with the cloud and the gloom 
 With the skeleton branches that sadden ; 
 Come again to the forest and field the bloom 
 Come again the skies that gladden. 
 
 "Cheer up ! cheer up" the robins sing 
 
 Sing in the valley cheerily ; 
 "Cheer up ! cheer up" the robins sing 
 Sing on the mountain cheerily 
 Sing in our hearts so cheerily. 
 
 Old eyes, young eyes, like the meadows and skies 
 
 Let your smiles be brighter and brighter ; 
 Hearts, echo the songs that joyously rise, 
 
 Let your cares be lighter and lighter ; 
 Depart, depart from the shadowed heart 
 
 Grim ghost of the days that were cheerless; 
 Hasten thy coming glad Spring for thou art 
 The soul of the days that are tearless. 
 
 "Cheer up ! cheer up" the robins sing. 
 
 Sing in the valley cheerily ; 
 "Cheer up ! cheer up" the robins sing 
 Sing on the mountain cheerily 
 Sing in our hearts so cheerily. 
 
 Ill
 
 A WKEATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 SINGING ON THE TERRACE. 
 
 The day is done, the setting sun 
 
 No longer lends its golden splendor 
 To college walls, where moonlight falls 
 
 A silvery veil with witchery tender. 
 Where players sprang and laughter rang, 
 
 We pace the terrace pensively ; 
 Books are forgot, each college spot 
 
 Is hallowed in our reverie, 
 
 While singing on the Terrace. 
 
 The head grows still, the heart athrill, 
 
 Is with the loved of other years, 
 And sounding seas and sighing trees 
 
 Are undertones the spirit hears. 
 We sing our song and faces throng 
 
 The terrace and the mountain height. 
 Through moonlit skies come lovelit eyes, 
 
 That wistful make our own to-night, 
 While singing on the Terrace. 
 
 112
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 That sweetest tone, our mother s own, 
 Comes back along the years, and makes 
 
 ^flp, 
 
 That song we sing a sacred thing, 
 In which the heart to love awakes. 
 
 Yes, loved ye are, O voices far, 
 
 That made our moments music then; 
 
 O sunny days, we sing your praise, 
 And call you back to life again, 
 While singing on the Terrace. 
 
 Sing on, sing on; when days are gone, 
 
 Melodious as the songs we sing, 
 When clouded years bring flowing tears, 
 
 The echoes of our songs shall ring 
 Through songless days and darkened ways, 
 
 And Alma Mater s peace impart, 
 And memory to melody 
 
 Attune again the weary heart, 
 Once singing on the Terrace. 
 
 113
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 THE CHURCH UPON THK HILL. 
 
 The current of my youthful thoughts 
 
 So wont to seek the glow 
 That radiates from Lotos Lauds 
 
 Now glides in deeper flow, 
 And straight it swiftly speeds to thee, 
 
 Thou haven safe and still, 
 Of tempest-tossed and weary souls, 
 
 Old Church upon the Hill. 
 
 The toilers in the teeming fields 
 
 Look up with love and hail 
 Thy form upon the Mountain side, 
 
 Throned warden of the vale: 
 Morning s first rays dart up to thee, 
 
 And setting sunbeams fill 
 Thy chancel with a splendor then, 
 
 Old Church upon the Hill.
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES, 
 
 No Raphael s genius put a soul 
 
 In thy old hallowed walls; 
 No arch or pillar, wondrous fair, 
 
 An Angelo recalls: 
 But glories greater far are thine 
 
 And all thy being fill, 
 Shrining our Eucharistic Christ, 
 
 Old Church upon the Hill. 
 
 Fond hearts can paint where Art has not 
 
 And Beauty s spell infuse; 
 And ours transfigure thee, Old Church, 
 
 With love s surpassing hues. 
 And come what will of smiles or tears, 
 
 These hearts will love thee still 
 Through all the unforgetting years, 
 
 Old Church upon the Hill. 
 
 115
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 OUT TO THE HARBOR BAR. 
 
 Away, far away, on the crested waves > 
 In the Summer breeze s embraces, 
 
 Our yacht flies on through the spray that laves 
 Our sunlit and shadowless faces; 
 
 (rlad as the gleaming gulls and as free 
 A day from the deep we borrow, 
 
 Happy with sunshine, breeze and sea- 
 To-day, who recks of to-morrow? 
 
 With never a qualm for the drenching we get. 
 
 Or the bronze that our faces are taking, 
 We seaward head her, all canvas set, 
 
 Out where the billows are breaking, 
 And cheer as we rock on the foaming tide, 
 
 Glowing in the day-god s glances, 
 To see, as if with the sunbeams she vied, 
 
 How our Ocean Queen daintily dances. 
 
 116
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 The breakers that bound, as if but to crush, 
 
 Bow and their homage render; 
 The sun in his parting and purple flush 
 
 Enfolds her in tenderer splendor; 
 Mellower the voice of the sounding deep, 
 
 The surf on the shingle sending; 
 ^Eolian the winds through her cordage sweep, 
 
 Their tones with our chorus blending. 
 
 From the blue afar, the evening star 
 
 Beams on the drowsy ocean, 
 As back from our run to the harbor bar 
 
 We glide with a dreamy motion. 
 Oh! joy, to be askings as free, 
 
 The billows beneath, the skies above us; 
 Loved best are we when the sun and the sea 
 
 And the Summer breezes love us. 
 
 Summer Vacation. 
 
 117
 
 A WREATH OF ILKX LEAVES. 
 
 NIGHT PRAYKRS ON THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 Above in moonless skies no stars are gleaming 
 
 To light the night; 
 
 But clown the mountain from the Church comes streaming 
 The chastened light. 
 
 Our upward way in silence w r e are wending 
 
 To evening prayers, 
 While with our higher, lower thoughts are blending- 
 
 Youth s fleeting cares. 
 
 Toilsome we climb, but comes the olden story 
 
 To urge our zest, 
 That arduous summits won own greater glory, 
 
 Sweeter rest. 
 
 We kneel. The Stabat Mater s notes are filling 
 
 The Church and tell 
 Of tears; and yet with bliss our hearts are thrilling 
 
 Beneath a spell. 
 
 118
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 Sweet peace abides; all holy things grow dearer; 
 
 Here God controls 
 Each thought and Heaven comes a little nearer 
 
 Our wayward souls. 
 
 Our prayers are said and in our hearts is glowing 
 
 The Kindly Light, 
 And lingers still the spell on students going 
 
 Into the night. 
 
 How changed! The moonbeams up the vale have darted; 
 
 Far down the West 
 The darkness flees. Tired toilers happy-hearted 
 
 Are blest with rest. 
 
 For echoes of our hymn hushed winds are listening; 
 
 O er mount and dell 
 Resigns Peace. I,o! pictured in the moon s calm glistening 
 
 Behold our spell. 
 
 119
 
 A WKKATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 CREED. 
 
 I believe that weak hearts die 
 Who, loving self, their idol deify; 
 
 Poor Hedonists with Lotos filleted 
 And poppy -perfumed through ignoble hours. 
 So sacrifice, denial, Calvary s flowers, 
 
 Mid weedy thoughts of self fall withered, dead, 
 
 I believe though years shall die 
 
 And Time the gladness of like days deny, 
 
 Those days that left their summer in the heart, 
 Still over intervening pines or seas 
 Old songs shall echo, sweetest melodies 
 
 Within my songless heart where er thou art. 
 
 I believe if you should die 
 
 And lie by moaning waves or pines that sigh, 
 
 The radiant memories of those Mountain days 
 Would not lie dead, but risen beautified, 
 Would be like white-robed Angels by my side, 
 
 To guide me upward through unsunny ways. 
 
 120
 
 A WREATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 I believe if I should die 
 
 And lie forgot beneath some far-off sky, 
 
 Above, the while, I should look down on you, 
 On happy hearts your own would render so, 
 And pray as in those dear, dead days below 
 
 The songful summer days on Earth we knew. 
 
 I believe when we shall die 
 
 And other hearts shall pass unheeding by 
 
 The dear old Mountain paths we erstwhile trod, 
 We two upon the "everlasting hills" 
 Shall know no death, but life that thrills 
 
 The raptured soul forevermore with God. 
 
 I believe that strong hearts live 
 
 Blest with the deepest bliss the years may give, 
 
 Who love, but loving tremblingly adore; 
 Who see the higher beauty from above 
 In beauteous beings, and leaving love, still love 
 
 God s creatures not the less but God the more. 
 
 121
 
 A WRKATH OF ILEX LEAVES. 
 
 GOOD FRIDAY. 
 
 We knelt upon the hill to-day, 
 
 Knelt in the dear old Church with hearts bowed low 
 On Cavalry, far, far away, 
 That saw the Saviour s woe. 
 
 Ah me! what hearts low bowed, 
 What tenderer hearts upon that day far off, 
 Kneeling amid the maddened crowd, 
 Were bruised by jeer and scoff. 
 
 More deeply bruised those hearts athrill 
 With love and pain, long centuries ago, 
 To view upon that other hill 
 God s utterness of woe. 
 
 A woe was there beyond the lance, 
 Beyond the nails, the thorns, the bitter wood, 
 The woe of Christ s pained, pitying glance 
 At our ingratitude. 
 
 Ah yes, for me Death swept 
 
 Athwart that hill, the great Heart bleeding broke; 
 Earth darkling shuddered, Heaven wept, 
 A world redeemed awoke. 
 
 Lord, lift me to some hill 
 Of prayer, of pain if so Thy will should be, 
 My heart upon some Cross until 
 Bruised, it bleeds for Thee. 
 
 122
 
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