There is a humble garden where a gentle rose-tree grows.
To-night Our Lord remembers on the altar of repose
This rose-tree in the fields afar, the mother of the rose.
THE TRANSFIGURATION
BY JAMES M. HAYES
He seeks the mountains where the olives grow,
The Lord of Glory, veiled in humble guise;
His soul is shadowed with a coming woe,
The grief of all the world is in His eyes:
His spirit struggles in the dark caress
Of anguish, pain and utter loneliness.
He always loved the mountain tops, for there
Away from earth, He treads the mystic ways,
And sees the vision of the Fairest Fair,
As Heaven dawns upon His raptured gaze;
The loneliness, the pain, the grief depart;
Surpassing gladness fills His Sacred Heart.
That day He stood upon the olive hill,
And Peter, James and John in wonder saw
The burning glories of the God-head fill
His soul with grandeur, and in holy awe
They fell upon the ground and cried for grace,
Lest they should die beholding God’s own Face.
As minor chords that sob from strings of gold
The Master speaks in accents sweet and sad:
The vision past, the chosen three behold
No one but Jesus and their souls are glad.
The awe, the splendor and the glory gone,
How sweet the face of Christ to look upon!
BELOVED, IT IS MORN
BY EMILY H. HICKEY
Beloved, it is morn!
A redder berry on the thorn,
A deeper yellow on the corn,
For this good day new-born.
Pray, Sweet, for me
That I may be
Faithful to God and thee.
Beloved, it is day!
And lovers work, as children play,
With heart and brain untired alway:
Dear love, look up and pray.
Pray, Sweet, for me
That I may be
Faithful to God and thee.
Beloved, it is night!
Thy heart and mine are full of light,
Thy spirit shineth clear and white,
God keep thee in His sight!
Pray, Sweet, for me
That I may be
Faithful to God and thee.
A SEA STORY
BY EMILY H. HICKEY
Silence. A while ago
Shrieks went up piercingly;
But now is the ship gone down;
Good ship, well manned, was she.
There’s a raft that’s a chance of life for one,
This day upon the sea.
A chance for one of two;
Young, strong, are he and he,
Just in the manhood prime,
The comelier, verily,
For the wrestle with wind and weather and wave,
In the life upon the sea.
One of them has a wife
And little children three;
Two that can toddle and lisp,
And a suckling on the knee:
Naked they’ll go, and hunger sore,
If he be lost at sea.
One has a dream of home,
A dream that well may be:
He never has breathed it yet;
She never has known it, she.
But some one will be sick at heart
If he be lost at sea.
“Wife and kids at home!--
Wife, kids, nor home has he!--
Give us a chance, Bill!” Then,
“All right, Jem!” Quietly
A man gives up his life for a man,
This day upon the sea.
THE STARLIGHT NIGHT
BY GERARD HOPKINS, S.J.
Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the quivering citadels there!
The dim woods quick with diamond wells; the elf-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where quaking gold-dew lies!
Wind-beat white-beam; airy abeles all on flare!
Flake-doves sent floating out at a farmyard scare!--
Ah well! it is a purchase and a prize.
Buy then! Bid then!--What?--Prayer, patience, alms, vows,--
Look, look! a May-mess, like on orchard boughs;
Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows.--
These are indeed the barn: within-doors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling hides the Spouse
Christ, and the mother of Christ and all his hallows.
THE HABIT OF PERFECTION
BY GERARD HOPKINS, S.J.
Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorled ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.
Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only make you eloquent.
Be shelled, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light;
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!
Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street,
And you unhouse and house the Lord.
And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-colored clothes provide
Your spouse not labored-at, nor spun.
SPRING
BY GERARD HOPKINS, S.J.
Nothing is so beautiful as spring--
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush:
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy pear-tree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with shining,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
THE FRIAR OF GENOA
BY SCHARMEL IRIS
In Genoa a friar walked;
Of every sacred tale he talked;
Alone he dwelt, in prayer he knelt;
“Ave Maria, Ave Maria!”
From dawn till dusk he sang.
His bruised and blistered feet were bare;
His head burned in the sunlight’s glare.
On stones he slept, and worked and wept,
“Ave Maria, Ave Maria!”
In every blow or pang.
Out of his dole he clothed the poor,
And every hardship did endure;
He blessed the meek and nursed the weak
“Ave Maria, Ave Maria!”
With each succeeding day.
And begged for alms for those in need,
A kind word spoke with every deed,
With sinners dined and led the blind--
“Ave Maria, Ave Maria!”
Until he passed away.
And is his work done? Ah, surprise!
Out of the tomb where low he lies
A perfume blows, as of a rose:
“Ave Maria, Ave Maria!”
It sings in shade or sun.
And he who breathes it, him it feeds,
And stirs his heart to noble deeds;
And one has said, “He is not dead--
“Ave Maria, Ave Maria!”
His life has just begun!”
THE DARK ANGEL
BY LIONEL JOHNSON
Dark Angel, with thine aching lust
To rid the world of penitence:
Malicious Angel, who still dost
My soul such subtile violence!
Because of thee, no thought, no thing,
Abides for me undesecrate:
Dark Angel, ever on the wing,
Who never reachest me too late!
When music sounds, then changest thou
Its silvery to a sultry fire:
Nor will thine envious heart allow
Delight untortured by desire.
Through thee, the gracious Muses turn
To Furies, O mine Enemy!
And all the things of beauty burn
With flames of evil ecstasy.
Because of thee, the land of dreams
Becomes a gathering place of fears:
Until tormented slumber seems
One vehemence of useless tears.
When sunlight glows upon the flowers,
Or ripples down the dancing sea:
Thou, with thy troop of passionate powers,
Beleaguerest, bewilderest, me.
Within the breath of autumn woods,
Within the winter silences:
Thy venomous spirit stirs and broods,
O Master of impieties!
The ardour of red flame is thine,
And thine the steely soul of ice:
Thou poisonest the fair design
Of nature, with unfair device.
Apples of ashes, golden bright;
Waters of bitterness, how sweet!
O banquet of a foul delight,
Prepared by thee, dark Paraclete!
Thou art the whisper in the gloom,
The hinting tone, the haunting laugh:
Thou art the adorner of my tomb,
The minstrel of mine epitaph.
I fight thee, in the Holy Name!
Yet, what thou dost, is what God saith:
Tempter! should I escape thy flame,
Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death:
The second Death, that never dies,
That cannot die, when time is dead:
Live Death, wherein the lost soul cries,
Eternally uncomforted.
Dark Angel, with thine aching lust!
Of two defeats, of two despairs:
Less dread, a change to drifting dust,
Than thine eternity of cares.
Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not so,
Dark Angel! triumph over me:
_Lonely, unto the Lone I go;
Divine, to the Divinity._
TE MARTYRUM CANDIDATUS
BY LIONEL JOHNSON
Ah, see the fair chivalry come, the companions of Christ!
White Horsemen, who ride on white horses, the Knights of God!
They, for their Lord and their Lover who sacrificed
All, save the sweetness of treading, where He first trod!
These through the darkness of death, the dominion of night,
Swept, and they woke in white places at morning tide:
They saw with their eyes, and sang for joy of the sight,
They saw with their eyes the Eyes of the Crucified.
Now, whithersoever He goeth, with Him they go:
White Horsemen, who ride on white horses, oh fair to see!
They ride, where the Rivers of Paradise flash and flow,
White Horsemen, with Christ their Captain: forever He!
CHRISTMAS AND IRELAND
BY LIONEL JOHNSON
The golden stars give warmthless fire,
As weary Mary goes through night:
Her feet are torn by stone and briar;
She hath no rest, no strength, no light:
O Mary, weary in the snow,
Remember Ireland’s woe!
O Joseph, sad for Mary’s sake!
Look on our earthly Mother too:
Let not the heart of Ireland break
With agony the ages through:
For Mary’s love, love also thou
Ireland, and save her now!
Harsh were the folk, and bitter stern,
At Bethlehem, that night of nights.
_For you no cheering hearth shall burn:
We have no room here, you no rights._
O Mary and Joseph; hath not she,
Ireland, been even as ye?
The ancient David’s royal house
Was thine, Saint Joseph! wherefore she,
Mary, thine Ever Virgin Spouse,
To thine own city went with thee.
Behold! thy citizens disown
The heir of David’s throne!
Nay, more! The very King of Kings
Was with you, coming to His own:
They thrust Him forth to lowliest things;
The poor, meek beasts of toil alone
Stood by, when came to piteous birth
The God of all the earth.
And she, our Mother Ireland, knows
Insult, and infamies of wrong:
Her innocent children clad with woes,
Her weakness trampled by the strong:
And still upon her Holy Land
Her pitiless foemen stand.
From Manger unto Cross and Crown
Went Christ: and Mother Mary passed
Through Seven Sorrows, and sat down
Upon the Angel Throne at last.
Thence, Mary! to thine own Child pray,
For Ireland’s hope this day!
She wanders amid winter still,
The dew of tears is on her face:
Her wounded heart takes yet its fill
Of desolation and disgrace.
God still is God! And through God she
Foreknows her joy to be.
The snows shall perish at the spring,
The flowers pour fragrance round her feet:
Ah, Jesus! Mary! Joseph! bring
This mercy from the Mercy Seat!
Send it, sweet King of Glory, born
Humbly on Christmas Morn!
TO MY PATRONS
BY LIONEL JOHNSON
Thy spear rent Christ, when dead for me He lay:
My sin rends Christ, though never one save He
Perfectly loves me, comforts me. Then pray,
Longinus Saint! the Crucified, for me.
Hard is the holy war, and hard the way:
At rest with ancient victors would I be.
O faith’s first glory from our England! pray,
St. Alban! to the Lord of Hosts, for me.
Fain would I watch with thee, till morning gray,
Beneath the stars austere: so might I see
Sunrise, and light, and joy, at last. Then pray,
John Baptist Saint! unto the Christ, for me.
Remembering God’s coronation day;
Thorns for His crown; His throne, a Cross: to thee
Heaven’s kingdom dearer was than earth’s. Then pray
Saint Louis! to the King of kings, for me.
Thy love loved all things: thy love knew no stay,
But drew the very wild beasts round thy knee.
O lover of the least and lowest! pray,
Saint Francis! to the Son of Man, for me.
Bishop of souls in servitude astray,
Who didst for holy service set them free:
Use still thy discipline of love, and pray.
Saint Charles! unto the world’s High Priest, for me.
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
(Upon reading the poem of that name in the Underwoods of Mr. Stevenson)
BY LIONEL JOHNSON
Far from the world, far from delight,
Distinguishing not day from night;
Vowed to one sacrifice of all
The happy things, that men befall;
Pleading one sacrifice, before
Whom sun and sea and wind adore;
Far from earth’s comfort, far away,
We cry to God, we cry and pray
For men, who have the common day.
Dance, merry world! and sing: but we,
Hearing, remember Calvary:
Get gold, and thrive you! but the sun
Once paled; and the centurion
Said: _This dead man was God’s own Son_.
Think you, we shrink from common toil,
Works of the mart, works of the soil;
That, prisoners of strong despair,
We breathe this melancholy air;
Forgetting the dear calls of race,
And bonds of house, and ties of place;
That, cowards, from the field we turn,
And heavenward, in our weakness, yearn?
Unjust! unjust! while you despise
Our lonely years, our mournful cries:
You are the happier for our prayer;
The guerdon of our souls, you share.
Not in such feebleness of heart,
We play our solitary part;
Not fugitives of battle, we
Hide from the world, and let things be:
But rather, looking over earth,
Between the bounds of death and birth;
And sad at heart, for sorrow and sin,
We wondered, where might help begin.
And on our wonder came God’s choice,
A sudden light, a clarion voice,
Clearing the dark, and sounding clear:
And we obeyed: behold us, here!
In prison bound, but with your chains:
Sufferers, but of alien pains.
Merry the world, and thrives apace,
Each in his customary place:
Sailors upon the carrying sea,
Shepherds upon the pasture lea,
And merchants of the town; and they,
Who march to death, the fighting way;
And there are lovers in the spring,
With those, who dance, and those, who sing:
The commonwealth of every day,
Eastward and westward, far away,
Once the sun paled; once cried aloud
The Roman, from beneath the cloud:
_This day the Son of God is dead_!
Yet heed men, what the Roman said?
They heed not: we then heed for them,
The mindless of Jerusalem;
Careless, they live and die: but we
Care, in their stead, for Calvary.
O joyous men and women! strong,
To urge the wheel of life along,
With strenuous arm, and cheerful strain,
And wisdom of laborous brain:
We give our life, our heart, our breath,
That you may live to conquer death;
That, past your tomb, with souls in health,
Joy may be yours, and blessed wealth;
Through vigils of the painful night,
Our spirits with your tempters fight:
For you, for you, we live alone,
Where no joy comes, where cold winds moan:
Nor friends have we, nor have we foes;
Our Queen is of the lonely Snows.
Ah! and sometimes, our prayers between,
Come sudden thoughts of what hath been:
Dreams! And from dreams, once more we fall
To prayer: _God save, Christ keep, them all_.
And thou, who knowest not these things,
Hearken, what news our message brings!
Our toils, thy joy of life forgot:
Our lives of prayer forget thee not.
CADGWITH
BY LIONEL JOHNSON
My windows open to the autumn night,
In vain I watched for sleep to visit me:
How should sleep dull mine ears, and dim my sight,
Who saw the stars, and listened to the sea?
Ah, how the City of our God is fair!
If, without sea and starless though it be,
For joy of the majestic beauty there,
Men shall not miss the stars, nor mourn the sea.
A FRIEND
BY LIONEL JOHNSON
All, that he came to give,
He gave, and went again:
I have seen one man live,
I have seen one man reign,
With all the graces in his train.
As one of us, he wrought
Things of the common hour:
Whence was the charmed soul brought,
That gave each act such power;
The natural beauty of a flower?
Magnificence and grace,
Excellent courtesy:
A brightness on the face,
Airs of high memory:
Whence came all these, to such as he?
Like young Shakespearian kings,
He won the adoring throng:
And, as Apollo sings,
He triumphed with a song:
Triumphed, and sang, and passed along.
With a light word he took
The hearts of men in thrall:
And, with a golden look,
Welcomed them, at his call
Giving their love, their strength, their all.
No man less proud than he,
Nor cared for homage less;
Only, he could not be
Far off from happiness:
Nature was bound to his success.
Weary, the cares, the jars
The lets, of every day:
But the heavens filled with stars,
Chanced he upon the way:
And where he stayed, all joy would stay.
Now, when sad night draws down,
When the austere stars burn:
Roaming the vast stars burn:
My thoughts and memories yearn
Toward him, who never will return.
Yet I have seen him live,
And owned my friend, a king:
And that he came to give,
He gave, and I, who sing
His praise, bring all I have to bring.
BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS
BY LIONEL JOHNSON
Sombre and rich, the skies;
Great glooms and starry plains.
Gently the night wind sighs;
Else a vast silence reigns.
The splendid silence clings
Around me: and around
The saddest of all kings
Crowned, and again discrowned.
Comely and calm, he rides
Hard by his own Whitehall:
Only the night wind glides:
No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.
Gone, too, his Court: and yet,
The stars his courtiers are;
Stars in their stations set;
And every wandering star.
Alone he rides, alone,
The fair and fatal king:
Dark night is all his own,
That strange and solemn thing.
Which are more full of fate:
The stars; or those sad eyes?
Which are more still and great:
Those brows; or the dark skies?
Although his whole heart yearn
In passionate tragedy:
Never was face so stern
With sweet austerity.
Vanquished in life, his death
By beauty made amends:
The passing of his breath
Won his defeated ends.
Brief life, and hapless? Nay:
Through death, life grew sublime.
_Speak after sentence?_ Yea:
And to the end of time.
Armoured he rides, his head
Bare to the stars of doom:
He triumphs now, the dead,
Beholding London’s gloom.
Our wearier spirit faints,
Vexed in the world’s employ:
His soul was of the saints;
And art to him was joy.
King, tried in fires of woe!
Men hunger for thy grace:
And through the night I go,
Loving thy mournful face.
Yet, when the city sleeps;
When all the cries are still:
The stars and heavenly deeps
Work out a perfect will.
THE HOUSEWIFE’S PRAYER
BY BLANCHE MARY KELLY
Lady, who with tender word
Didst keep the house of Christ the Lord,
Who didst set forth the bread and wine
Before the Living Wheat and Vine,
Reverently didst make the bed
Whereon was laid the holy Head
That such a cruel pillow prest
For our behoof, on Calvary’s crest;
Be beside me while I go
About my labors to and fro.
Speed the wheel and speed the loom,
Guide the needle and the broom,
Make my bread rise sweet and light,
Make my cheese come foamy white,
Yellow may my butter be
As cowslips blowing on the lea.
Homely though my tasks and small,
Be beside me at them all.
Then when I shall stand to face
Jesu in the judgment place,
To me thy gracious help afford,
Who art the Handmaid of the Lord.
BROTHER JUNIPER
BY BLANCHE MARY KELLY
As unto Francis Poverty,
So Folly was a bride to thee.
Not the jade that fashions quips
For the smiles of mocking lips,
And in the face of stony Death
Capers till she’s out of breath,
But the maid that moves and sings
About divinely foolish things,
She that gives her substance all
For love, and laughs to find it small,
She that drew God’s Son to be
A butt, a jest on Calvary,
And ’neath the leper’s guise doth know
The King in his incognito.
The world is grown too wise, and we
Go our sad ways sensibly.
O, would that our lean souls might win
Some grace of thine, God’s harlequin,
Whose days were lavished like fool’s gold
Upon His pleasures manifold.
“Would God,” cried Francis, on his knees,
“I had a forest of such trees!”
THE THRONE OF THE KING
BY FRANCIS CLEMENT KELLEY
The sun was setting, and its golden glow
Deepened the shadows on the village street,
And reverent touched the beauty of the head
Of Him who sat, in thought, beside the well
Of Nazareth. Two women came to fill
Their earthen jars; and sent their burdens down
To where the water lay; then drew them up.
But still the Boy, unmoved, gazed steadily
Upon the distant hills, that girded round
Jerusalem, the City of the Soul.
His eyes were deep as some unfathomed sea,
That tosses wreckage on its billowed crest;
But hides its treasures ever in the caves,
That men shall never touch, or touching die.
“How strange the Boy,” one woman softly said
As back they went, their burdens on their heads.
“Yet He is Joseph’s Son,” the other spoke,
“And Joseph is my neighbor, a just man;
But not more lettered than the other men,
Your own and mine. He is not priest nor scribe
That he could teach such wisdom to his Son.
And it doth sometimes seem the Boy is wise
Beyond His years, with knowledge overmuch.”
“His mother, whom I know,” her friend replied,
“As Mary, sweeps the shavings from the floor,
Cooks the poor fare for Joseph and her Son,
Cares for the water, and her jar brings here
As we do every day, who know not much
Beyond the things we hear from holy men.
Yet strange is Mary too; I know not where
To match the peace that’s on her tranquil brow;
Though, through it all, I’ve seen the Shadow there
The dread of days to come, though all resigned.
So like His mother is this only Son
In beauty, in the peace that’s on His face;
But sometimes, deeper still, the Shadow falls
Across His features. Look! behold it now.
For it doth speak the dread of awful things,
More awful than the ruin of a world!”
A-down the street there rang a clatter loud
Of horses dashing in a maddened run,
And sounds of wheels swift rolling on the pave.
The women shrank affrighted to the wall,
And cowered there in trembling, mortal fear.
In view the charging horses passed along
Straight to the well, no driver grasped the reins,
For he had fallen to the stony street.
Yet never moved the Boy, nor turned His eyes
From off the hills that held them so intent.
But from a doorway rushed a stranger lad
Who grasped the bit of one, and held him fast.
The others, panting, stopped so near the Boy
That, on His face He must have felt the heat
Which steaming rose from their perspiring flanks,
As now they stood, foam-flecked and trembling by.
The driver came and meekly murmured thanks,
Before he led his charges back again
To where his master waited for the steeds.
“He gave me naught but words, and I did save
The steeds. The chariot, too, would have been dashed
All broken on the stones, had I not come.”
The lad was angered, but the Boy moved not,
Though from the distant hills His gaze was drawn.
“Dost thou not know,” the lad said, wonderingly,
“How near was Death to thee a moment since?”
The Boy, now fully aroused, smiled at the lad
All kindly, as a loving father smiles
Upon his child that waked him unaware,
Whose sleep nor storm nor clatter could affect,
Yet at the touch of little baby hands
Opens wide his eyes, that twinkle joyfully.
“No nearer to grim Death,” the Boy replied,
“Was I than thou, my friend, art near it now.
Thou seekest Joseph and hast wandered far
From distant Jaffa, where thy father died.
Thou’rt Fidus named. From Joseph thou wouldst learn
The craftsman’s art, and how to handle tools
To work with wood, that thou thyself may’st be
Like him, a craftsman skilled in his own trade.”
“A prophet Thou!” the lad in wonder cried.
“Come with me,” made He answer. “I am known
As Joseph’s Son; so I will speak for thee.”