THE DEAD MUSICIAN AND OTHER POEMS THE DEAD MUSICIAN OTHER POEMS By CHARLES L. O^DONNELL, C. S. C. NEW YORK LAURENCE J. GOMME I9l6 Copyright, 1916, by LAURENCE J. GOMME For permission to reprint these verses, the author makes grateful acknowledgment to the editors of Harper's Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, the Ave Maria, the New York Sun, Lippincotf's, the Catholic World, the In- dependent, the Smart Set, and Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY INCHAMTON AND NEW VOUK To MY MOTHER 2200423 CONTENTS PAGE THE DEAD MUSICIAN 3 A HIVE OF SONG IMMORTALITY n THE SIGN 12 THE EARTH-HOUR 13 THE POET'S BREAD 14 FORGIVENESS 15 A MARCH EVENING 16 O TWILIGHT HOUR! 17 HARVEST-FIELDS 19 VER 20 DROUGHT . . i A FAREWELL 22 THE EARTH MOTHER 23 ON A LITTLE BOY WHO DIED 24 DANTE TO BEATRICE ON EARTH 26 DREAMS OF DONEGAL INHERITANCE 3 1 LAMENT OF THE STOLEN BRIDE 33 THE SPELL OF DONEGAL 35 IN EXILE 37 A SHRINE OF DONEGAL 38 KILLYBEGS 4 THE BIRD OF GOD PACK PREVISION 45 RESTORATION 47 IN THE NIGHT 4 g THE WOOF OF LIFE 50 THE WINGS OF REST 51 REQUITAL 53 ANGELS AT BETHLEHEM 54 CHRISTMAS CAROL 56 AFTER CHRISTMAS 57 His FEET 58 THE SON OF MAN 60 THE POOR MAN OF GALILEE 61 THE VIRGIN PERFECT 63 To ST. JOSEPH 64 ON A PICTURE OF THE HOLY FAMILY ... 65 THE BAPTIST 67 GETHSEMANE 68 THE MOTHERS 69 AMONG His OWN 70 PARTUS VIRGINIS 73 QUATRAINS MARTHA AND MARY 77 IN WINTER 78 ELEVATION 79 THE SHAMROCK 80 RECEPTION 81 THE SON OF GOD 82 THE SPENDTHRIFT 83 Two CHILDREN 84 PAGE STARS 85 LIFE 86 REQUEST 87 " SCOURGED AND CROWNED " 88 RAIMENT 89 AT EMMAUS 90 THE NATIVITY: A MIRACLE PLAY 91 ODES A HOSTING OF THE GAEL 103 INDIANA DAY, PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION 109 PRELUDE To CALIFORNIA in ODE: PANAMA, THE MASTERY OF MAN . . .114 POSTLUDE: (To INDIANA'S POET, JAMES WHIT- COMB RILEY) 120 THE DEAD MUSICIAN THE DEAD MUSICIAN In memory of Brother Basil, organist for half a century at Notre Dame. HE was the player and the played upon, He was the actor and the acted on, Artist, and yet himself a substance wrought ; God played on him as he upon the keys, Moving his soul to mightiest melodies Of lowly serving, hid austerities, And holy thought that our high dream out- tops, He was an organ where God kept the stops. Naught, naught Of all he gave us came so wondrous clear As that he sounded to the Master's ear. Wedded he was to the immortal Three, Poverty, Obedience and Chastity, And in a fourth he found them all expressed, For him all gathered were in Music's breast, And in God's house He took her for his spouse, [3 ] THE DEAD MUSICIAN High union that the world's eye never scans Nor world's way knows. Not any penny of applauding hands He caught, nor would have caught, Not any thought Save to obey Obedience that bade him play, And for his bride To have none else beside, That both might keep unflecked their virgin snows. Yet by our God's great law Such marriage issue saw, As they who cast away may keep, Who sow not reap. In Chastity entombed His manhood bloomed, And children not of earth Had spotless birth. With might unmortal was he strong That he begot Of what was not, Within the barren womb of silence, song. Yea, many sons he had To make his sole heart glad [4] THE DEAD MUSICIAN Romping the boundless meadows of the air, Skipping the cloudy hills, and climbing bold The heavens' nightly stairs of starry gold, Nay winning heaven's door To mingle evermore With deathless troops of angel harmony. He filled the house of God With servants at his nod, A music-host of moving pageantry, Lo, this a priest, and that an acolyte : Ah, such we name aright Creative art, To body forth love slumbering in the heart . . . Fools, they who pity him, Imagine dim Days that the world's glare brightens not. Until the seraphim Shake from their flashing hair Lightnings, and weave serpents there, His days we reckon fair. . . . Yet more he had than this; Lord of the liberative kiss, To own, and yet refrain, To hold his hand in rein. [5 1 THE DEAD MUSICIAN High continence of his high power That turns from virtue's very flower, In loss of that elected pain A greater prize to gain. As one who long had put wine by Would now himself deny Water, and thirsting die. So, sometimes he was idle at the keys, Pale fingers on the aged ivories ; Then, like a prisoned bird, Music was seen, not heard, Then were his quivering hands most strong With blood of the repressed song, A fruitful barrenness. Oh, where, Out of angelic air, This side the heavens' spheres Such sight to start and hinder tears. Who knows, perhaps while silence throbbed He heard the De Profundis sobbed By his own organ at his bier to-day, It is the saints' anticipative way, He knew both hand and ear were clay. That was one thought Never is music wrought, For silence only could that truth convey. [6] THE DEAD MUSICIAN Widowed of him, his organ now is still, His music-children fled, their echoing feet yet fill The blue, far reaches of the vaulted nave, The heart that sired them, pulseless in the grave. Only the song he made is hushed, his soul, Responsive to God's touch, in His control Elsewhere shall tune the termless ecstasy Of one who all his life kept here An alien ear, Homesick for harpings of eternity. [7] A HIVE OF SONG IMMORTALITY I SHALL go down as the sun goes Over the rim of the world Will there be quiet around me, As of sunset banners furled? I shall take flight as a bird wings Into the infinite blue What if my song come ringing Down through the stars and the dew ? I shall mount, strong as the promise Forged in love's white, first fire A soul through the rustling darkness On pinions of desire. THE SIGN Blossom by blossom the spring begins. SWINBURNE. NOT leaf by leaf the altered woodlands lose The summer's glory, lingering overlong, But bird by bird whose flight the wood-way strews With silence, fallen foliage of song. And spring begins not thus, O singing mouth, Blossom by blossom, the trees yet being dumb, But rather say, when wings flash from the south Carol by carol the spring is come. THE EARTH-HOUR THE earth was made in twilight, and the hour Of blending dusk and dew is still her own, Soft as it comes with promise and with power Of folded heavens, lately sunset-blown. Then we who know the bitter breath of earth, Who hold her every rapture for a pain, Yet leave the travail of celestial birth To wipe our tears upon the dusk again. But vain; the spirit takes, in sovereign mood, A sure revenge, as in some tree apart A whippoorwill sets trembling all the wood, The silence mends more quickly than the heart. [ 13 1 THE POET'S BREAD MORN offers him her flasked light That he may slake his thirst of soul, And for his hungry heart will Night Her wonder-cloth of stars outroll. However fortune goes or comes He has his daily certain bread, Taking the heaven's starry crumbs, And with a crust of sunset fed. FORGIVENESS Now God be thanked that roads are long and wide, And four far havens in the scattered sky : It would be hard to meet and pass you by. And God be praised there is an end of pride, And pity only has a word to say, While memory grows dim as time grows gray. For, God His word, I gave my best to you, All that I had, the finer and the sweet, To make a path for your unquiet feet. Their track is on the life they trampled through ; Such evil steps to leave such hallowing. Now God be with them in their wandering. A MARCH EVENING FAIL from the field the shouts of play, While twilight falls like snow, And overheard on their westering way The silent swallows go. But songs are brooding in the hush, And green sleeps in the sod, Tomorrow you shall hear the rush Of life, come fresh from God. [ 16 1 O TWILIGHT HOUR! O TWILIGHT hour, you come and take my heart, With all your folded wings and colors flown From all your folded flowers, silver grown O twilight hour, you come and take my heart. Your feet have trod what alien, far ways, On all the battlefields of time you came, In many a bower you fell upon love's flame, Your feet have trod what wonderful sad ways. Egypt has met you, and the crest of Rome Has bowed you homage with a vassal smile, And shadowy kingdoms of the dreaming Nile; Egypt has kissed you, Greece and faded Rome. [ 17 1 O TWILIGHT HOUR! What prayers have fallen on your silver ear, Franconian fields and Frison fiords among; Bells have bespoke you, weeping queens have sung: The vespers of the world is in your ear. Contented eyes have closed in your embrace, Your seamless peace has covered wild alarms ; Nurse of deep sleep, the gray zone of your arms Shall fold the waiting worlds in last em- brace. O twilight hour, you come and take my heart And shake my soul with silent presagings ; I walk a lonely road, and no wind sings, But come, O twilight hour, and take my heart. HARVEST-FIELDS I WALKED today through a clover meadow, mown And sweet with dying bloom; Treading under my feet a glory fit to grace A king's way, or his tomb : Acres of loveliness laid low, and dying Of numberless lives, only the winds sighing. And I thought, as who does not, of other fields, Flowered with unnumbered dead, Wondering how those kings, the flowers of grass, Hold up a regal head, Plan of closer cutting, redder harvest-making, All the world sighing and its heart breaking. [ 19 1 VER SANDALLED with violets, adown the breaking way She cometh, misty-eyed with hopes of May; The changing splendor of the morning skies Holds less of promise than her waiting eyes. Across the black, ploughed fields her scarf of rain In floating folds enwraps the leaping grain, While 'neath the velvet press of her thin feet, Quickens to growth the yet unbladed wheat. And as she dreameth, down the blue, far rills Rise windy banks of unborn daffodils, Soft! is it growing grass or young birds' call Lisping to her, the Mother of them all? [20] DROUGHT THERE is no clover, and the frustrate bees, Abroad upon the fields and down the lane, Through all the forests of unflowered trees, Monotonously murmuring, complain. Murmuring monotonous, with wilding wings That bear no blossomy burden nightly home, For all their laboring, but idle things, But builders of a barren honeycomb. Thus is it now the summer of my dreams When falls no drop of rain or quickening dew; There are but sands where late were singing streams, And dusty bareness where the sweet thyme grew: The bees of all my thoughts are idle long, There is no honey in the hive of song. A FAREWELL FORGET me, and remember me, O heart ! Forget me for the dear delight of days We walked together down fair, fragrant ways ; Remember me for that I now depart. For that I give our one sure hour of bliss As venturing a distant promised peace, Give joy, for hope that joy may ne'er de- crease, Reluctant heart, forget me not for this. Nay, keep me in your fairest thoughts, my fair; Though all the sundering night be set to pain, It shall be day when we two meet again, In some far valley of the timeless air. THE EARTH MOTHER HER lap is full of dead ; the tears Wash down her graying cheek ; Unto her riven heart the years No comfort speak. She holds them close, the flowers, the leaves, Her yearly loved and dead ; The universal Rachel grieves Uncomforted. ON A LITTLE BOY WHO DIED You did not wait the spring For burgeoning, But ere the first flowers broke our sod You blossomed at the feet of God. I think there was that calling in your blood Long months, and we not understood. For I remember, now that you are dead, How often in the days that sped With shout and play about you, you Withdrew And for companion silence took With a still look. I noticed, standing by your side, Your eyes were wonder-wide And you seemed listening, though my ear No sound could hear. Once on your quietness I broke ; As one that woke From strange dreams, awed but mild, You caught my words and smiled ; [ 24] ON A LITTLE BOY WHO DIED And though with ready speech You spoke, I knew I could not reach By any art The late far-listening heart. You were wooed gently, little one, Into the sun. Death laid aside his aw T ful state Lest you should fear this new playmate, And led you off to playgrounds green Eye hath not seen. [25 1 DANTE TO BEATRICE ON EARTH IT is come home to me in secret hour O thou who sharest of the soul in me, And givest of thyself into my power The very essence of the heart of thee, We do in this commingling but rehearse, With weary awkwardness of hands and feet, And with what marrings of immortal verse, A life that love forsworn but makes com- plete. This being so, O one of all my heart, Witness what turn of iron consequence Upon us comes: the woven hands must part, And right and left must be an exit hence. Love shall withdraw to be love evermore, Ring down the curtain, and the play give o'er. For you and I are shadows of the Light, We are but echoes of a perfect Song; We hold dominion but as stars, in night, Our blended voices, are they ever strong? [ 26 ] DANTE TO BEATRICE ON EARTH What shall we say, whose struggle to pursue A valorous role but bare escapes the sting Of shamed surrender, would the words come true By Babylon's waters should we try to sing? Hush, hush, O heart! The other side of sky There is, believe it, love, a wondrous Hand Forever wiping eyes forever dry ; There are no willows growing in that land, And never shall the lips of love be mute, God making of our hearts a faultless lute. There have been lovers since the stars were young; We come upon a scene which time has worn; There have been who their souls away have flung And found them afterward, bruised all and torn. Matching their mortal with a deathless thing, The brave and beauteous spirit they have spurned, Risen unchanged, shall they have heart to sing, Burning forever as on earth they burned? [ 27 1 DANTE TO BEATRICE ON EARTH There in our heaven of unsundered bliss, If any tears were left us to bestow, Should not the thought of their triumphless kiss Cause the sweet currents of old grief to flow? Yet though tears burned the cheeks of their despair, The hand of God shall not be busy there. [ 28 1 DREAMS OF DONEGAL INHERITANCE IN Donegal, where old romance yet blows O'er hill and hearth, the children in the blast Of storm hear cries and clashing arms of those Whose dreams were deeds, in Eire's living past. And looking on the fields with clover spread They never stop to pick the wind-stirred bloom ; Those flowers might be the blood their fathers shed Now come to ruddy blossom on their tomb. They look upon the lifted sea that flows In mountains shoreward, breaks, and piles again ; The winds, they say, thus heap a cairn for those Who have God's acre in the unmarked main. INHERITANCE I never saw the fields those children see, The fog-scarfed mountains, nor the hilly deep, But share their every dream and memory, Only the age-long hates I can not keep. For there they lie, my fathers and their foes, As in one grave they wait the trumpet call ; O'er some the foam, o'er some the clover blows, The while they're sleeping long in Donegal. [ 32 1 LAMENT OF THE STOLEN BRIDE Faery Child: Come, newly married bride. W. B. YEATS, The Land of Heart's Desire. Go, thought of my heart, on the wings of the wind O'er the green on the meadows wide, By the deep dark woods, with the sea behind, Where the stars at anchor ride; Steal into the heart of my old true love As he turns from the shining plough, And tell with the voice of the home-come dove Of the hunger that's on me now. Ochone, for the land that is far away, And Shawn of the stout warm arms; Oh, better a world where the light is gray And night is thick with alarms, Than forever the music's maddening beat In the moonlit faery land, [ 33 ] LAMENT OF THE STOLEN BRIDE Than the ceaseless whir of the tripping feet And the clasp of the bloodless hand. E'en yet, when night is on fire with stars, Or dropping the silver day, I can hear the fall of the pasture bars And the lilt of his whistled lay. Then shaken from me are the dreamers' charms, My hand from the dancers' slips, And the mother stands lonely with empty arms, And the widow with hungering lips. [ 34 1 THE SPELL OF DONEGAL THE hills of Donegal are green, And blue the bending sky, For sky and hills I have not seen The holiest love have I. There was my father born, and there My mother's cheeks were red, And blessed with sacred rite and prayer Sleep all my kindred dead. Across the fields the storm clouds sweep, The screaming sea-birds call, And waiting mothers watch and weep On the coast of Donegal. Hundreds of leagues to west and more My own loved country lies, And I must seek its eastward shore With seaward straining eyes. [35] THE SPELL OF DONEGAL Is it the legends of that isle That hold my soul in thrall, Its awful splendor, mile on mile, Where thundering breakers fall? Is it a spell of water-wraith That thrills me through and through, Or spirit of my fathers' faith That springs in me anew? The hills of Donegal are green And blue the sky above, For sky and hills I have not seen I keep the holiest love. [36] IN EXILE A WIND comes over my heart, asthore, With a shaking of silver wings, From the green, far hills I shall see no more, Where your morning linnet sings. There comes to me now, like a flutter of leaves, The lilt of a tune and the tap of a shoe, My heart at the memory throbs and grieves, Oh, the voice and the looks of you ! Over the wind-vexed, sobbing seas My dream-faint eyes now stray; I am borne by a lilt on the evening breeze To a vanished Patrick's Day. [ 37 ] A SHRINE OF DONEGAL LOUGH DERG, Lough Derg, how chant the waves along Thy solemn shores, and in the flowing air Drift murmurs of an unforgotten song And of remembered prayer. A land of sainted soil and hallowed sea, Round no more sacred isle the broad tide rolls, Lough Derg, than where the waters compass thee, Crowned with thine aureoles. For thee the print of Patrick's holy bones Blesses; and echoes of the centuries' feet That moved along the penitential stones In all thy winds are sweet. [3M A SHRINE OF DONEGAL Here came my fathers in their life's high day In barefoot sorrow, but God knows the whole : Not for themselves they fasted, but to lay Up riches for my soul. Great waters are between thy shores and me, My feet upon thy strand may never stray, But, O Lough Derg, the prayers they said on thee Fall on my need today. [ 39 1 KILLYBEGS THE harbor lights of Killybegs Look out to an open sea, Where powder and wine in Spanish kegs Came over in 'ninety-three. Red Hugh he was the chieftain bold, And high his word in Spain, Where never a don his beads that told But cursed the English main. Grandee and Irish chief were one To hate the apostate foe, And all they did was justly done To answer woe with woe. For every Irish lass's eyes Downcast for English shame, Beneath the accusing Irish skies Goes down an English name. [40] KILLYBEGS For every bairn sadly born, For old men wanton killed, An English heart is fitly torn And the wild blood fairly spilled. A cross, I know, no sword was raised There by the man of God, But Patrick's dead eyes must have blazed Under the outraged sod. I am a man of peaceful palm, The leaves of a book I turn : Think you these old tales leave me calm ? I blush, I weep, I burn. My mother was born in Killybegs, Long after 'ninety-three; And I bless the bursting Spanish kegs, The harbor and the sea. THE BIRD OF GOD PREVISION I CAN not tell what way the years will lead, How hands may falter and how feet may bleed, What deep contentment I shall have or need, I can not tell. I do not know why the fleet early years Should shake me with surmise of future fears ; Why golden suns set in a gloom of tears I do not know. I must not ask of winter winds that come Across the ground where men sleep cold and dumb, If I shall rest there well, of my last home I must not ask. [45 ] PREVISION I shall not shrink, maybe I shall not dread, When time has slowed my step and bowed my head, To go away, to join the cloistered dead I shall not shrink. I shall have hope, in spite of heavy shame, Among God's pensioners to find my name, In Him who for the strayed and lost ones came I shall have hope. [46 1 RESTORATION FROM these dead leaves the winds have caught And on the brown earth fling, Yea, from their dust, new hosts shall rise At the trumpet call of Spring. Thus may the winds our ashes take, But in that far dusk dim, When God's eye hath burnt up the worlds, This flesh shall stand with Him. [ 47 1 IN THE NIGHT THE joyful heart is slow to sleep, Repose it does not crave; But weary are the eyes that weep By sick-bed or by grave. I lay awake the livelong night, By joy too much made glad; But with the coming of the light I found my heart more sad. The wings of joy are light and fleet, They pass and leave no trace; Deep prints are marked by sorrow's feet Upon the spirit's face. But God can fill the hollows up With undeparting peace, And they who drain their sorrow's cup Know pain at last will cease. [ 48 1 IN THE NIGHT The joyful heart, so slow to sleep, May find its morning night, The heavy eyes of those who weep May never lose the light. [49] THE WOOF OF LIFE IN the moth-hour's silver gloom The Weaver at His loom The quiet pattern of my life would trace. The grayness of the moth He wove into the cloth, And wrought thereon the red rose of your face. [so] THE WINGS OF REST THE marble door before Thy face What is it but a little dust ? The chalice, golden, rubied vase, Will drop away as all things must. Thus fleeting are the things of sense, Thyself alone eternal art; Not more the universe immense Thy home, than any human heart. In this dim room the tides of time Are changed and ever changing still ; Here while the hour-bells steady chime Works out serene Thy timeless will. I stand before Thee but a space, If faith be seeing, sight is dim, To sinners mercy show, Thy face For sunset eyes of seraphim. THE WINGS OF REST And they, my friends, who travel far, They do not leave me, for with Thee Distance is not, and every star Whirls round Thy finger ceaselessly. [5*3 REQUITAL IF lips with olden memories In heaven are sweet, Mine shall have burning ecstasies That kissed His feet. If lips grown gray with pain, In heaven are red, Then mine shall bloom again, Of life here bled. If souls earth-emptied here, In heaven are filled, O heart, then let thy fear Be stilled, be stilled. [53 1 ANGELS AT BETHLEHEM Now at length they look on Him, Unbeginning Awe, Cherubim and Seraphim, On the oaten straw. Dost thou know, who dost not speak, Woman all benign, They have come from far to seek Little Son of thine? They have stored their gold and myrrh Ages who shall tell, Frankincense, since Lucifer Quenched his name in hell. Thrones and Dominations, Powers, Trembling on that doom, Waited all the timeless hours On thy nine months' womb. [ S4l ANGELS AT BETHLEHEM Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, In the stable dim, Come with ox and ass to dwell, Serving Elohim. [ 55] CHRISTMAS CAROL LAMBS and little children, Gather two by two; Little Lamb and lowly Child Here is laid for you. Come to Mary's tender Son, Worship all, and one by one. Lights are on His forehead, Little children, see; Other stars shall burn there, Red as stars may be. Guileless children, for us plead, Us for whom the Lamb must bleed. Little lambs, all in a row, Lay your faces down Till the Lady Mary stoop And touch you with her gown. Little children, laugh and nod, Gamboling round the Lamb of God. [ 56] AFTER CHRISTMAS SNOWED over with the moonlight, Or turning back the noon-light, Down through the grooves of space Earth swung its old, slow way. But, thronging the rim of heaven, Angels from morn till even, Watched earth with reverent pace Silent its orbit trace, Cradle wherein God lay. [57] HIS FEET THE Babe is sleeping sweet, The Mother bending low Above the folded feet, The roads that they shall go! By lake and little town, By heading fields of corn, The city, up and down, Noon and night and morn. Dusk and dark and day, In ministering free, They walk the broad highway, They tread the very sea. Unfettered, tireless till With all their labor red They climb a weary hill, Their work consummated. [58] HIS FEET Consummated? Not so, Those shamed and shining feet The Way forever show, And make the going sweet. [ 59 1 THE SON OF MAN HE lit the lily's lamp of snow And fired the rose's sunset heart, He timed the light's long ebb and flow And drove the coursing winds apart. He gathered armfuls of the dew And shook it over earth again, He spread the heaven's cloth of blue And topped the fields with plenteous grain. He tuned the stars to minstrelsy As twilight soft, as bird song wild, Who learned beside His Mother's knee His prayers like any other child. [ 60] THE POOR MAN OF GALILEE Is He alone at birth Due garb denied, When all the looms of earth His power hath plied ? Must He go houseless, too? Birds are more blest; 'Neath all the nightly dew For Him no nest? Beg of the wayside corn His daily bread, The running stream not scorn With stooping head? Till at the last His tree Should yield Him all, Bed, drink, and garment free, The Blood, the gall. 6x THE POOR MAN OF GALILEE For us as if to save He is denied, Unto the last He gave, Lo, hands and side. THE VIRGIN PERFECT THE lowly things were sweet to her, The clover and the dew; Creation all seemed meet to her, Both violet and rue. A simple, busy day was hers Within her garden dell; The common, even way was hers, But walked uncommon well. Not that she heard, but kept the word, In this her virtue lay; She slept at night when slept the Word, To slumber was to pray. TO ST. JOSEPH ST. JOSEPH, when the day was done And all your work put by, You saw the stars come one by one Out in the violet sky. You did not know the stars by name, But there sat by your knee One who had made the light and flame And all things bright that be. You heard with Him birds in the tree Twitter " Good-night " o'erhead, The Maker of the world must see His little ones to bed. Then when the darkness settled round, To Him your prayers were said; No wonder that your sleep was ground The angels loved to tread. 1 64 ] ON A PICTURE OF THE HOLY FAMILY ONE, His very Mother, she Holds the Child upon her knee, Him, the Second of the Three. Unbegot ere time began, Truly God and truly Man, Infinite in finite span. One, with lilies in his hand, By the two is seen to stand, Was there ever aught so grand ! Thus, when Joseph's work was done, Sat the Mother and the Son, Unity and three in one. Joseph's house is surely blest, Harboring such wondrous Guest, Oh, but what of Mary's breast! [ 65 ] PICTURE OF THE HOLY FAMILY What of her whose heart supplied To His veins their crimson tide, Word made Flesh within her side ! Draw the veil of heaven and see Where in heaven's height is she, Nearest to the Trinity. And beside her very nigh, On the other side of sky, Joseph sure is standing by. Christ, as though the Trinity Were not home enough for Thee, Ye are still a family. [66] THE BAPTIST LEAPING for joy ere birth, Shalt have scant joy of earth ; A dying life soon dies, Thy head a strumpet's prize. And yet above thy bier An epitaph dost hear That makes thy dead heart leap With joy, all its long sleep. What was the Poet's word Thy lonely spirit stirred ? Hush, hymns of night and morn : "Holiest of woman born." GETHSEMANE HE entereth the Garden, lonely, Follow Him, O my soul! He falleth, and lieth pronely, Down on thy face, my soul ! Angels are all anear Him, Yet is He lone, my soul; Demons no longer fear Him, Lo, how the red streams roll! Only thy love can cheer Him: Tell Him I love Him, my soul. Into the deep hell with Him, Follow Him, O my soul ! Horrors no words tell, with Him Drink of them deep, my soul. Challenge the worlds for sorrow, Shoulder the weight, my soul ; Woes of the ages borrow, Take of all suffering toll: Think not of rest to-morrow; Bleed with Him, O my soul! [ 68 ] THE MOTHERS THREE mothers met that woeful day; One as her dead Son pale, one gray With grieving, and one red with shame: All called upon one blessed Name. One from the sorrow of the Cross, One by the woe of kindred loss, And one cried out in agony From shadow of a blacker tree. One gave the Nazarean birth, One brought the pardoned thief to earth, While of that hopeless one begot Was Judas the Iscariot. AMONG HIS OWN (In a Children's Chapel.) HE lives among His own, the children's God: Above and by and round Him hourly pass Their hurrying feet; down hall or stairs, a pause, And in the hush outside a knee is bent In silent adoration of the Guest. The Guest ? Ah, no ! The very Host is He, And they the dwellers in His mansioned Heart. For them the day is full of work and play, Of ringing sounds, of mirth and little griefs That brim a little soul ; and they forget The awful Presence, as the child forgets His mother, when the day is very full, Forgets her in the mind, not in the will. For though they come and go, and laugh and shout, At nightfall, when the spirit's eyes are wide, And conscience looks across the vanished hours, They find, what all the day contented Him, [ 70] AMONG HIS OfFN They have not left the path He'd have them tread ; His arms were 'neath them, and His voice was heard In all the secret councils of their deeds. And when they fall asleep they hold His hand. PARTUS VIRGINIS HIM whom, as mothers use, I bosomed full tide, I bore, King of the Jews, And God, beside. They speak of star and kings, Wondrous in Bethlehem, And angels with great wings,- Enough, of them. What should my thoughts do Since the March weather, And first God and I drew Breath together? What should I think upon, Day or night tide, Since Elizabeth's son Knew, in her side, [ 72] PARTUS VIRGINIS But the coming of Another, On His shoeless feet, I, the budding earth, His Mother, And my breast spring-sweet? Was it night or day breaking? Little I could spin, Who knew my veins making Robe He should die in. Nazareth, or David's town, It was equal to me ; Straw, or eiderdown, Shepherds, royalty. There were only He and I, Within, without me, All the still sky Folded about me. He came : we two apart ; And I thought Him dead Till He wailed, when my heart Broke, and joy bled. [73 QUATRAINS MARTHA AND MARY WHEN Light is dead, the busied Day Folds weary hands and glides away; While Night outspreads her starry hair Upon His grave, and worships there. [ 77 1 IN WINTER LIKE ghosts of birds, the flocking flakes Amid the leafless branches fly, But ah, the songs, what power remakes Of silence vanished minstrelsy? ELEVATION THRONED in His Mother's arms, Christ rests in slumber sweet ; Except at God's right hand, For Him no higher seat. [ 79 ] THE SHAMROCK SPRUNG from a vanished hour Of sun and shower, You bore a people's faith, A fadeless flower. [80] RECEPTION A MAGDALEN, the scarlet Day, Knocked at Eve's convent bars ; Comes Twilight, penitent in gray, Telling her beads, the stars. THE SON OF GOD THE fount of Mary's joy Revealed now lies, For, lo, has not the Boy His Father's eyes? [82] THE SPENDTHRIFT WITH grasping hand and heart of strife He seeks the fame that briefly lingers, And all the while the gold prize, life, Is slipping through his heedless fingers. TWO CHILDREN NAMES do but mock you while they greet; Sweetness and light you are The light beyond all saying sweet, The sweetness like a star. [ 84] STARS THE foolish virgins ye, your lamps Through all the waiting night ye trim, But when the bridegroom Morn is nigh Ye wither at the kiss of him. LIFE ONLY one springtime for the sowing, And one brief summer for the growing; Only one autumn for the reaping Of harvest for the winter's keeping. REQUEST LAY lilies on dead innocence, Strew roses on the bier of love, But let my grave of penitence Be sweet with violets above. [ 87] " SCOURGED AND CROWNED " A REGAL sequence see: Him whom His subjects loathed, Before He crowned should be They first with Purple clothed. RAIMENT THE seamless cloak He wore They kept, nor broke a thread: His garb of flesh they tore As if from shred to shred. AT EMMAUS THEY knew Him when He broke the bread: Was't by the accompanying word He said Which faith, though faltering, understands, Or wounded beauty of His hands? [ 90] THE NATIVITY A MIRACLE PLAY PERSONS THE HOLY FAMILY MATTHIAS REBECCA THEIR INFANT SON SHEPHERDS ANGELS SCENE I Bethlehem, the night of Christ's birth. Early evening, near the house of Matthias. Enter Joseph, leading an ass upon which the Virgin Mary is seated. JOSEPH. A wind hath blown the heavens into flame About us ; earth is silver to our feet. By night, by day, God's hand hath guided us, Pillar and cloud His firmament hath been To bring us hither ; this should be the town Of David, city of our sire. THE NATIVITY MARY. Even so. JOSEPH. Here where the unknowing workman left an arch In the broad wall we pass ; thus Israel's God Comes stooping to His own. MARY. Whereto He leads We can but follow now as ever, yet Methinks I hear, over the din of song That beat about our temples all the way, The night-song of a mother for her babe. Hark! (Crooning on the wind.) Baby, sleep, my child ; Deep the night hangs o'er thee. High the wind and wild; Dreaming is before thee. Come, come the happy slumber ; Bright dreams be thine in number. Ah, baby, on thy mother's breast Is sleep for thee, for thee is rest. [ 92 ] THE NATIVITY JOSEPH. Let us approach ; the inn mayhap is far And crowded by the mandates of our king. (He knocks at the door of the house.) MATTHIAS. (Within.) Who is it starts the peacefulness of night With clamorous knocking? JOSEPH. Two of David's house Come far, and weary; may we lodge to-night Beside thy hearth? MATTHIAS. Mine house is all too strait For mine own household. (Opens the door.) Beggars and their beast, Begone. REBECCA. Hush ; houseless, in the night, with child. Surely some room can still be made [93 1 THE NATIVITY MATTHIAS. But no, We are too poor. (To Joseph.} The inn is farther down The road. (Looks at Mary.) And yet and yet Good night. (Mary and Joseph turn sorrowfully away.) MARY. (Looks at Rebecca.) Good night. REBECCA. Houseless, with child O husband, call them back. MATTHIAS. Peace, they will elsewhere shelter find and rest. REBECCA. (Musing.) Her eyes were like the pools of Hesebon That mirrowed her sad soul. (Their infant begins to weep.) [94] THE NATIVITY MATTHIAS. Lo, here thy child Hath need of thee, and of thine every thought. REBECCA. He sickens, yea, his eyes begin to blur. MATTHIAS. His temples burn ; it is some malady Of sudden, unknown power. REBECCA. Give me the child ; Fetch thee yon herbs medicinal and oil. MATTHIAS. His eyes are fixed; how his bosom lifts! REBECCA. O God of Jacob, leave us still our son. (The infant dies. There is much lamenting.) [95 1 THE NATIVITY SCENE II The stable. Midnight. Mary and Joseph, with shepherds and angels, adoring at the crib. (Chorus of angels.) From heaven He came, The Eternal Flame, To fire men's hearts With Love's own darts, To conquer sin And mercy win Of God above. Lo, in the straw Near may ye draw, For God is weak That ye may speak, The God of peace ; Let earth's war cease Toward men good will. [961 THE NATIVITY REBECCA. (Without.} God knows, God knows, my heart is bleeding sore; My son had hardly come to months that knew His mother's lips, his mother's face and voice; Warm with my kisses slept he, in an hour Cold in mine arms. But she, that pilgrim spouse, With all the lights of mother in her eyes, In dewy deeps the trembling wistfulness Of hopes unfathomable, pleading eyes, Ye draw me from the shrouding of my babe, For she hath need of me. (Entering stable.) What wondrous light, What music is there here ! The Mother, ah, Her Babe. O God, stop all the clocks of time And never ring the passing of this hour ! JOSEPH. Woman, thou look'st upon the face of God. REBECCA. I saw Him in His Mother's waiting eyes, And I have come from mine own babe's stark form [97 1 THE NATIVITY With swaddling bands I never may need again. MARY. The heart of Abraham is in thy breast. (Giving her the cloths that were around Jesus.) Lay these upon thine infant's quiet side, Sister, that hast this night befriended God. SCENE III The flight. Night. Near the house of Mat- thias and Rebecca. Enter Joseph, leading an ass upon which is seated Mary with the Child. JOSEPH. Ye stars, that run before the winds of heaven, Hide in the frowning cliffs of mountainous cloud ; Thou, planet, wimpled as a maid, with light, Tell not our steps ; God's finger points us far ; The way is His who is the Way. (Lullaby on the air.) [ 98 1 THE NATIVITY MARY. Soft, listen! REBECCA. (Within, singing.} Baby, sleep, my babe; God's own night is o'er us. Jesse's rod hath flowered ; Heaven opes before us. God sleeps as thou art sleeping, While angels watch are keeping. Sleep, sleep, until the songful dawn ; God's day is here, sin's night is gone. MARY. Yet, ere another westering sun his way Hath crimsoned, earth shall lie in their blood washed, The sons that sleep this night on mother breasts. JOSEPH. This woman's child hath died that he may live, Romping forever in the fields of heaven. (They pass along. Singly the stars drop out. The moon meets a cloud. Rebecca's lullaby dies away in the darkness.} [ 99 1 ODES A HOSTING OF THE GAEL Written for the presentation of the sword of Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher to the University of Notre Dame, which already possessed the flag of the Irish Brigade. THIS is a marriage feast today, A wished anniversary Of union and reunion; Emmet, Meagher, all True sons of Irish blood for honor dead, With lifted head, Hearken to this most jocund muster call ; Their ships are on the sea, From ancient Donegal They come, from Kerry, Ah, and from Tipperary, Yea, rather, say From Dublin to Cathay, From Belgian battlefields, from Spain, From snowed Saskatchewan, from Afric sand, From Flodden Field, and Fontenoy, From every field and every land, Come man and boy [ 103 ] A HOSTING OF THE GAEL To keep with us this day a sacred trust, For the earth is starred with work of Irish brain And rich with Irish dust. Behold, of heroes hosting here today, In the farthest fore Stand men whose eyes Are blue and gray Like Irish skies And like the coats they wore. No party festival of North or South By us is kept, And on our mouth No vaunting of a single patriot name To envied fame; But in one man stands glorified the race. Their brow we grace With crown of laurel and with olive leaf, And in proud grief That has no tongue and keeps its tears unwept, We greet the splendid host of Irish dead, Leaving their age-old shroud, Gaunt witnesses, a cloud, By every wind increased, Ghostly battalions led by greater ghosts A HOSTING OF THE GAEL That round us troop, with measured, noiseless tread O God of Hosts, We bid them welcome to our marriage feast. Should any answer come Whence stand they ranked and dumb? A sudden thunder of a shout Their throats give out As if these long dead bones Yet kept remembrance of old trumpet tones; The dense, straight ranks are stirred And rises one great word " Fredericksburg " is heard, While comes this chorus forth : "We are the men that followed, followed after The sun-bright sword and the sea-bright flag, With a faith in our hearts that rose like laughter Most in the straits where the craven lag ; We are the men no danger daunted, Following Freedom like a star, Hot after glory, honor-haunted, [ 105 1 A HOSTING OF THE GAEL With our flag of green and our sworded Meagher. " We are the men and these our brothers Who held the heights and threw us back ; Over them, too, these thousand others, A green flag waved through the war cloud black. And Fredericksburg is an open story, It was Irish blood both sides outpoured, For they, too, followed honor and glory, A green flag theirs, but not our sword. " And we are come from the peace of slumber, Nor North, nor South, by division sharp, But Irish all, of that world-wide number In all times mighty with sword and harp; To lift once more, from the dust, our voices, In one last cheer that may echo far Fredericksburg in the grave rejoices, Now the Flag of Green weds the Sword of Meagher." So sang they, pale dead men, Risen from their cold dream To follow still the Gleam; [ 106 ] And in their hollowed eyes Were what with mortals pass for tears As after many years They saw again the frayed and faded fold That was their Cloth of the Field of Gold; And a flash as of a star When they saw the shining length Of the blade that in his strength Girt the dauntless Meagher. Lo! flag and sword together pressed, By all their eyes caressed. Then like a breath of prayer They melted on the air. Learn we from these our dead The meaning of this day, And be not lightly led From our fathers' way. Not what our hands may hold Few threads of green and gold And storied steel Not by these tokens may we feel Sons of our laurelled sires, Save that the same pure fires Burn all our souls within, [ 107 ] A HOSTING OF THE GAEL And heart to heart, the quick heart to the dead, be kin. Keep we the Faith sword-bright By day, by night, Our fathers' itieed shall never suffer loss But know increase. The sword itself is likened to the cross That is our peace. [ 108 ] ODE : FOR INDIANA DAY, PANAMA- PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION PRELUDE To CALIFORNIA WHO saw thy sunrise, Woman of the West ? For, Empress of the lands of dying day, With all time's sunsets buried in thy breast, Thou hadst such dawn as can not pass away: To sing of that fair hour is there not one, Mistress of the mansions of the sun ? Not all unwarranted I come this day Which sees far-sundered strands In their united waters joining hands, And cheek to cheek Atlantic to Pacific lay. 1 of a State that has for tide The coming and the going of the corn, Some borrowings of pride Bring to this jocund morn. When down thy washen flanks the daylight broke Through ancient night, a newer life and law, Barefooted men in brown And earlier the blackgown [ in ] PRELUDE TO CALIFORNIA The promise of a day that would not set For thee bespoke, And their life saw A glory that the world can not forget The flowering and the fruitage of a toil Whose harvest was of hearts not less than wine and oil. O Feet, that tread the purple grapes of day Until that wine Thy seas a thousand leagues incarnadine; Thou that hast kept, how many ages old, The tollgates of the sun, and toll and gate are gold; Arms that thou holdest, prophet-like, on high Till in thy daily sky A victory for the sun is writ in conquest flame, Seek not my passing name But know That even as those sons of long ago, Thine earliest-born, the vanward of thy sires, Who found and kept thy wilderness a rose, Far-blushing to Sierra's silvering snows, That so am I, Moulded and quickened by the selfsame fires, Minstrel and pilgrim of the sky, PRELUDE TO CALIFORNIA Whose singing were the night winds in the grass Which no one heeds, Except it were of more than mortal deeds, And memories that shall not pass, And men that can not die. [ 3 1 ODE : PANAMA, THE MASTERY OF MAN Text of the rolling years that who shall scan ! Handwriting of a day that knew no sun, Rich palimpsest, through whose full lines appear The records of an earlier day fordone : Writing in stone, a future deed God wrought And folded it away until the year When, counting all our yesterdays as naught, His creature, Man, partaking of His power, Should read that purpose, and set free the hour Which marks completion of His ancient plan. For there has been a Workman great and good: Fathom on fathom laid He in the slime The unbreached links that chain the world in one. ODE: PANAMA, MASTERY OF MAN He made, and swung the pendulum of time, White magic at His word grew gathered light; What golden jungle could have laired the sun? He saw the Day upon the brow of Night Lay the first kiss that trembled into stars : Here opening pleasances, there set- ting bars, The Worker in His power's plenitude. What lesser Being could have sired the sea Whose waters prove him nursling of the sky, Finding his cradle in the various earth, The ocean's hollow or the cowslip's eye, But ever passing up and down a stair Procession of continual rebirth The silken ladder of the sunbeams' hair: Behold the sea, how hath the mother- ing moon Some lullaby for him that she doth croon While slumbering his breast heaves peacefully. [ 5 1 ODE: PANAMA, MASTERY OF MAN Who zoned the worlds with greater worlds of air, A trackless footing where the lightnings run, The day's broad rampart and its rendez- vous Since chaos first was raided by the sun, Titanic battles that have left no scar On all the frontier of its quiet blue Where soar our winged ships: the sentry star That sees them sudden rise, then dis- appear, To all their challenging but answers, " Here Is empery that God may not forswear." Not from the star- veined heavens comes our gold, Nor in the flashing skies is struck our fire, Doth any field of sunset give us bread ? Swollen with pride and loud with vain desire, Of old men were who vowed assault on heaven, Threatening with trowelled hand the day- spring's head : ODE: PANAMA, MASTERY OF MAN And Babel's very tongue is perished even, The sun shines down a mockery of their pain And there is laughter of them in the rain, The earth is our inheritance, behold! The earth that is the sister of the sea, The earth that is the daughter of the stars, The mother of the myriad race of men : Gaze with Columbus over ocean bars, Drink with Balboa in thy thirsting eye The waters that he quaffed on Darien, With them turn homeward, loaded with new sky: Catch, if thou mayest, the lightning of the gleam That crowns their brow of continents a-dream, And thou hast neighbored immortality. Thy conquest is the taking of the world, The world that is and can not be but good Since God first looked upon His labors done. [ "7 1 ODE: PANAMA, MASTERY OF MAN Canst thou forget Whose awful Feet have stood Even as Man upon the strand of time? The Orient He, but till the West is won, The furthest footing of the utmost clime, His message has a meaning and His law Compulsion of obedience and awe In Whom the racial destiny is furled. Westward and farther west till west is east, The oar, the spur, the spade, the axe, the cross, Humanity and Christ move onward one. And be it counted to mankind for loss If on this day no word be said or sung For him who took the highways of the sun, A pilgrim scrip about his shoulders flung, Glad robber of the roads that lead to death, Who stole men's souls, unto his lat- est breath, Conquistador for God, the mission priest. Ye men for whom our bannered song is flung, Whose muscles have a magic that the sea [ 118 ] ODE: PANAMA, MASTERY OF MAN And earth obey, yours is the conqueror's mind. Ye are the sons of olden chivalry, Yea, ye are sons of that high lineage Whose records written in the rock ye find ; Ye are the sons of Him, the Primal Mage, Whose might in yours has wrought till Panama Outrolls the latest workings of the Law Whose earliest deeds the stars of morning sung. Then let the morning and the night as one, Let East and West and all the lands be- tween, North worlds and south together find a voice Acclaiming what this day our eyes have seen. Until the heavens are folded like a tent Will all the thoughts of coming time rejoice Our swords were into yeoman plowshares bent, And while this year on half the na- tions fell The lightnings and the cursing rains of hell, The last great wonder of the world was done. [ "9 ] POSTLUDE: (To INDIANA'S POET, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.) Lo, o'er the fields at home now sinks the sun, And with the crickets' hum The tinkling bells of cattle homeward come Familiar tell The dim, tired land another day is done. And my song pauses for a last fare- well To you, and greeting unto one Whose ears Have caught, how many happy years, The murmurs of the music of our speech, Whose tongue Our simple days with kindred art has sung, And kept a silence where no word could reach. Him by whose Brandywine First strayed in childhood days these feet of mine, Brother and friend, I hail him as our State's sufficient pride And give him part POSTLUDE Whose words, deep-springing from a people's heart, Home-gathered there abide In glories of a day that has its end, As has at length the lingering song of one Who brought his dreams to thee, O City of the Sun! THE END A 000 131 424