When I am tired of earnest men,
Intense and keen and sharp and clever,
Pursuing fame with brush or pen
Or counting metal disks forever,
Then from the halls of shadowland
Beyond the trackless purple sea
Old Martin’s ghost comes back to stand
Beside my desk and talk to me.
Still on his delicate pale face
A quizzical thin smile is showing,
His cheeks are wrinkled like fine lace,
His kind blue eyes are gay and glowing.
He wears a brilliant-hued cravat,
A suit to match his soft gray hair,
A rakish stick, a knowing hat,
A manner blithe and debonair.
How good, that he who always knew
That being lovely was a duty,
Should have gold halls to wander through
And should himself inhabit beauty.
How like his old unselfish way
To leave those halls of splendid mirth
And comfort those condemned to stay
Upon the bleak and sombre earth.
Some people ask: What cruel chance
Made Martin’s life so sad a story?
Martin? Why, he exhaled romance
And wore an overcoat of glory.
A fleck of sunlight in the street,
A horse, a book, a girl who smiled,—
Such visions made each moment sweet
For this receptive, ancient child.
Because it was old Martin’s lot
To be, not make, a decoration,
Shall we then scorn him, having not
His genius of appreciation?
Rich joy and love he got and gave;
His heart was merry as his dress.
Pile laurel wreaths upon his grave
Who did not gain, but was, success.
_Shaemas O Sheel_
Shaemas O Sheel (Shields) was born September 19, 1886, in New York
City. After graduating from high school, he revived the ancient
Gaelic form of his family name and identified himself with the cause
of Ireland in America.
O Sheel’s two volumes, _The Blossomy Bough_ (1911) and _The Light
Feet of Goats_ (1915), owe their chief impetus to the Celtic
renascence and to W. B. Yeats in particular. But O Sheel’s poetry,
although influenced, is not merely derivative. His ancestry speaks
through him with unmistakable accents; he is typically the Irish
bard of whom Chesterton has written:
For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad;
For all their wars are merry
And all their songs are sad.
A recurring if sometimes too determined mysticism and a muffled
heroism individualize the best of his work.