I draw the Holy Sign,
All good thoughts stir within me, and renew
Their slumbering strength divine;
Till there springs up a courage high and true
To suffer and to do.
And who shall say, but hateful spirits around,
For their brief hour unbound,
Shudder to see, and wail their overthrow?
While on far heathen ground
Some lonely Saint hails the fresh odour, though
Its source he cannot know?
THE SON OF GOD
BY CHARLES L. O’DONNELL, C.S.C.
The fount of Mary’s joy
Revealed now lies,
For, lo, has not the Boy
His Father’s eyes?
TO ST. JOSEPH
BY CHARLES L. O’DONNELL, C.S.C.
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 at 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.
THE DEAD MUSICIAN
In memory of Brother Basil,
Organist for half a century at Notre Dame
BY CHARLES L. O’DONNELL, C.S.C.
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,--
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--
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 pagentry.
Lo, this priest, and that an acolyte:
Ah, such we name aright
Creative art,
To body forth love slumbering at 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 reign.
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.
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.
GIOTTO’S CAMPANILE
BY THOMAS O’HAGAN
O pulsing heart with voice attuned
To all the soul builds high,
Framing in notes of love divine
A drama of the sky,
Across the Arno’s flowing tide
The notes chime on the air,
Deep as the mysteries of God
And tender as a prayer.
Here, where the Poet of Sorrows dwelt,
Whose altar Love had built,
And framed his morn in dreams so pure
That knew not stain nor guilt:
O _Vita Nuova_! Earthly Love
Then changed to love Divine;
Transfigured at the wedding-feast,
Earth’s grapes are heavenly wine.
Where cowled monk with soul of fire
Struck vice athwart the face,
With God’s anointed sword of truth
That flashed with beams of grace.
O bitter days of war and strife!
Heaven’s ardor was too great;
The Empire of the earth held sway
And sealed with saddest fate.
Methinks I hear from thy strong lips,
O century-dowered bell!
The story of the Whites and Blacks,
As banners rose or fell;
Methinks I hear an epic voice,
Full of God’s love and power,
With accent of an Exile sad
Speaking from out thy tower!
NAME OF MARY
BY JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY
Dear, honored name, beloved for human ties,
But loved and honored first that One was given
In living proof, to erring mortal eyes,
That our poor flesh is near akin to heaven.
Sweet word of dual meaning: one of grace,
And born of our kind Advocate above;
And one, by mercy linked to that dear face
That blessed my childhood with its mother-love,
And taught me first the simple prayer: “To thee,
Poor banished sons of Eve, we send our cries.”
Through mist of years, those words recall to me
A childish face upturned to loving eyes.
And yet, to some the name of Mary bears
No special meaning and no gracious power;
In that dear word they seek for hidden snares,
As wasps find poison in the sweetest flower.
But faithful hearts can see, o’er doubts and fears,
The Virgin-link that binds the Lord to earth;
Which, to the upturned trusting face, appears
Greater than angel, though of human birth.
The sweet-faced moon reflects, on cheerless night,
The rays of hidden sun that rise to-morrow;
So, unseen God still lets his promised light,
Through holy Mary, shine upon our sorrow.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
BY MARY A. O’REILLY
Night in the far Judean land,
The pregnant air is still,
The sky one blue unclouded band,
Seems drooping o’er each hill.
The hills then toward each other bend,
Some mighty secret to portend.
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
The sheep in near-by pastures browse,
Some bleat as if in pain;
The youthful shepherds watch and drowse,
Then drowse and watch again;
When lo! a light from Heaven appears
Which makes them huddle in their fears.
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
God’s glory shone around them there,
And then an angel cried--
“Fear not, for I good tidings bear
To you, and all beside.
For unto you is born this day
A Savior, Christ the Lord.” We pray--
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
Then swinging from the skies there came
Groups of the heavenly host,
Praising the Lord in sweet acclaim--
The burden of their toast--
“Glory to God on High,” again--
His “Peace on earth, good will to men.”
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
Within a stable sweet with hay,
And warm with breath of kine,
The Baby and His Mother lay,
O, mystery divine!
The bed of straw a cloud appears,
We hear the music of the spheres.
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
Dear maiden mother, let us now,
While to your breast He clings,
In humble adoration bow
With shepherds and with kings,
And at His feet our off’ring be
Praise, love, faith, hope and charity.
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
ROMA MATER SEMPAETERNA
BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL
The blue skies bend and are about her furled,
A maiden mantle; and with lilies bright
The sun daywhiles doth crown her, and at night
With stars her garment’s border is empearled.
Not a king’s favorite, perfumed and curled,
Is half so fair; no queen of martial might
So potent as the Mother of the Light,
The Mary of the Cities of the World!
Eternal Mother, at whose breasts of white
The infant Church was suckled and made strong
With the sweet milk of heavenly Truth and Love,
O thou that art all nations set above,
Strengthen us still because the way is long,
Mary of Cities, Mother of the Light!
MARY’S BABY
BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL
Joseph, mild and noble, bent above the straw:
A pale girl, a frail girl, suffering, he saw;
“O my Love, my Mary, my bride, I pity thee!”
“Nay, Dear,” said Mary, “All is well with me!”
“Baby, my Baby, O my Babe,” she sang.
Suddenly the golden night all with music rang.
Angels leading shepherds, shepherds leading sheep:
The silence of worship broke the mother’s sleep.
All the meek and lowly of the world were there;
Smiling she showed them that her Child was fair.
“Baby, my Baby,” kissing Him she said.
Suddenly a flaming star through the heavens sped.
Three old men and weary knelt them side by side,
The world’s wealth forswearing, majesty and pride;
Worldly might and wisdom before the Babe bent low:
Weeping, maid Mary said “I love Him so!”
“Baby, my Baby,” and the Baby slept.
Suddenly on Calvary all the olives wept.
THEY WENT FORTH TO BATTLE
BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL
They went forth to battle, but they always fell;
Their eyes were fixed above the sullen shields;
Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well,
And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell.
They knew not fear that to the foeman yields,
They were not weak, as one who vainly wields
A futile weapon, yet the sad scrolls tell
How on the hard-fought field they always fell.
It was a secret music that they heard,
A sad sweet plea for pity and for peace;
And that which pierced the heart was but a word,
Though the white breast was red-lipped where the sword
Pressed a fierce cruel kiss, to put surcease
On its hot thirst, but drank a hot increase.
Ah, then by some strange troubling doubt were stirred,
And died for hearing what no foeman heard.
They went forth to battle but they always fell;
Their might was not the might of lifted spears;
Over the battle-clamor came a spell
Of troubling music, and they fought not well.
Their wreaths are willows and their tribute, tears;
Their names are old sad stories in men’s ears;
Yet they will scatter the red hordes of Hell,
Who went to battle forth and always fell.
HE WHOM A DREAM HATH POSSESSED
BY SHAEMAS O. SHEEL
He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of doubting,
For mist and the blowing of winds and the mouthing of words he
scorns;
Not the sinuous speech of schools he hears, but a knightly shouting,
And never comes darkness down, yet he greeteth a million morns.
He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of roaming;
All roads and the flowing of waves and the speediest flight he
knows,
But wherever his feet are set, his soul is forever homing,
And going he comes, and coming he heareth a call and goes.
He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of sorrow,
At death and the dropping of leaves and the fading of suns he
smiles,
For a dream remembers no past and scorns the desire of a morrow,
And a dream in a sea of doom sets surely the ultimate isles.
He whom a dream hath possessed treads the impalpable marches,
From the dust of the day’s long road he leaps to a laughing star,
And the ruin of worlds that fall he views from eternal arches,
And rides God’s battle-field in a flashing and golden car.
MARIA IMMACULATA
BY CONDÉ BENOIST PALLEN
I
How may I sing, unworthy I,
Our Lady’s glorious sanctity?
She whose celestial shoon
Rest on the horned moon
In Heaven’s highest galaxy;
She whom the poet sang of old
In that rare vision told
In soft Tuscan speech of gold,
The spotless spouse and mother-maid
The goodliest sapphire in Heaven’s floor inlaid,
Around whom wheels the circling flame
Of the rapt seraph breathing Mary’s name,
While choir to choir replies
In growing harmonies
Through all the glowing spheres of Paradise,
Till universal Heaven’s glad estate
Rings jubilation to their queen immaculate.
II
Ah me! Unworthy I to sing
The stainless mother of my King,
My King and Lord,
The Incarnate Word,
Heaven itself comprest
Within her virgin breast!
How may my faltering rhyme
Sing of Eternity in time,
Omnipotence in human frailty exprest,
Our earthly garden fragrant with celestial thyme.
What Muse, though great Urania guide her flight,
May dare the sacrosanct and awful height
Of that mysterious sublime
Within the secret counsels of the Infinite!
Omniscence there supreme and sole
Clasps the beginning and the whole
Of Love beyond created sight,
Uncreate and quintessential light!
Before the splendor of that ray
Cherub and seraph fall away
Dazzled and broken by excess
Of everpowering blessedness,
Yet panting for the fulness of the bliss
That breathes consuming fire from Love’s unkenned abyss.
Not through that fiery sphere my way,
But here where shines the veiléd day,
The flames of mystery insteeped
In this our mortal clay;
For in her maiden breast asleep
Lies all the Love of Heaven’s deep,
The holy circle of her zone
Incarnate Love’s terrestrial throne.
III
The great archangel veils his face
Before her: “Hail, full of grace!”
And Heaven is clasped of earth;
While all the wheeling spheres with all their choirs
Around her wheel seraphic fires.
Eden rises to its second birth;
Again the prime estate
Of man is renovate,
And all the elder worth renewed in her immaculate;
Virgin and spouse of Him
Who breathes the virtue of the Seraphim,
Virgin and mother of the Eternal Son,
Daughter, Virgin, Spouse in one!
The spotless mate of spotless Dove,
The one great miracle of God’s love,
From all eternity the chosen bride,
Save only her none, none
Exempt from sin’s dominion;
Save only her of Adam’s race
Or heavenly line, none full of grace;
On her alone, on her alone
The torrent of His love poured down
The deep abundance of its flood
Into the pure channels of her maidenhood,
The fleckless mirror of her grace
Reflecting all the beauty of His Face.
IV
She looks with human eyes
Into the eyes of Paradise;
Upon her virgin breast the Babe Divine
Gazes again into her eyne;
O vanity of words to tell
The wonder of that spell,
The ravishment of bliss
Upwelling from the deep abyss
Of Love incarnate gazing in the eyes
Of his terrestrial paradise!
See Heaven within her arms,
Gathered against all harms,
Innocence by innocence addrest,
Virgin love by virgin love carest,
The sinless mother and the sinless Son
For Heaven and earth to gaze upon!
Her living image on her knee,
O the depths of her maternity!
Her God, her Infant at her breast,
O Love beyond all utterance exprest,
The Eternal Word in virgin flesh made manifest!
V
Ye sons of Adam rejoice
With exultant voice!
Shake off your chains! Arise!
The ancient dragon has no power
O’er Jesse’s virgin flower,
And stricken ’neath a maiden’s sandal lies.
Nor may his venomed breath so much
As her garment’s outer margin touch;
And sin’s torrential flood,
That whelmed all Adam’s flesh and blood,
Its loathsome stream turns back
Before her footsteps’ radiant track.
VI
Rejoice, children of men!
Behold again
Your flesh rejuvenate
In her immaculate!
Rejoice with exceeding joy,
For in her free from sin’s alloy
Your renovated race
In plentitude of grace
Dare look again unshamed upon its Maker’s Face!
Chosen to bear the Eternal Word,
In her your more than dignity restored;
In her the more than golden worth
Of Eden’s prime when Heaven was linked with earth;
Unstained by Adam’s guilty forfeiture,
In her your long corrupted flesh made pure;
For of her, flesh of flesh and bone of bone,
Eternal Love builds up His stainless throne!
VII
Rejoice and be glad this day!
In jubilation lay
Your tribute at her feet,
Spotless and most meet,
The mystic rose of Jesse’s root,
To bear the heavenly fruit;
Wisdom’s seat and Heaven’s gate,
Our surest advocate,
Mother of God immaculate!
Be glad, O Adam’s clay,
Be glad this happy day.
And with accordant voice acclaim
Our spotless Lady’s stainless fame;
Be ye exceeding glad and sing
The mother of our King.
And though unworthy be my strain,
She is too tender not to deign
To lend a gracious ear
To this her children’s humble prayer:
_Mother of Mercy, hear!
Mother whose face is likest His,
Who our Redeemer is,
Grant us one day to share
Thy happiness in gazing on His Face,
Who found thee without spot and full of grace!_
THE RAISING OF THE FLAG
BY CONDÉ BENOIST PALLEN
Lift up the banner of our love
To the kiss of the winds above,
The banner of the world’s fair hope,
Set with stars from the azure cope,
When liberty was young,
And yet unsung
Clarioned her voice among
The trodden peoples, and stirred
The pulses with her word,
Till the swift flood red
From the quick heart sped,
Flushing valour’s cheek with flame
At sounding of her august sacred name!
Lift up the banner of the stars,
The standard of the double bars,
Red with the holy tide
Of heroes’ blood, who died
At the feet of liberty,
Shouting her battle-cry
Triumphantly
As they fell like sickled corn
In that first resplendent morn
Of freedom, glad to die
In the dawn of her clear eye!
Lift up the flag of starry blue
Caught from the crystal hue
Of central heaven’s glowing dome,
Where the great winds largely roam
In unrestrainéd liberty;
Caught from the cerulean sea
Of midmost ocean tossing free,
Flecked with the racing foam
Of rushing waters, as they leap
Unbridled from the laughing deep
In the gulfs of liberty!
Lift up the banner red
With the blood of heroes shed
In victory!
Lift up the banner blue
As heaven, and as true
In constancy!
Lift up the banner white
As sea foam in the light
Of liberty;
The banner of the triple hue,
The banner of the red and white and blue,
Bright ensign of the free!
Lift up the banner of the days to come,
When cease the trumpet and the rolling drum;
When peace in the nest of love
Unfolds the wings of the dove,
Brooding o’er the days to-be,
Peace born of freedom’s might,
Peace sprung from the power of right,
The peace of liberty!
Lift up the flag of high surprise
To greet the gladdened eyes
Of peoples far and near,
The glorious harbinger
Of earth’s wide liberties,
Streaming pure and clear
In freedom’s lofty atmosphere!
Lift up our hearts to Him who made to shine
In Heaven’s arch the glorious sign
Of mercy’s heavenly birth
To all the peoples of the earth,
The pledge of peace divine!
And let our glorious banner, too,
The banner of the rainbow’s hue,
In heaven’s wide expanse unfurled,
Be for a promise to the world
Of peace to all mankind;
Banner of peace and light,
Banner of red and blue and white,
Red as the crimson blood
Of Christ’s wide brotherhood,
Blue with the unchanging hope
Of heaven’s steadfast sun,
White as the radiant sun
The whole earth shining on!
THE BABE OF BETHLEHEM
BY CONDÉ BENOIST PALLEN
O cruel manger, how bleak, how bleak!
For the limbs of the Babe, my God;
Soft little limbs on the cold, cold straw;
Weep, O eyes, for thy God!
Bitter ye winds in the frosty night
Upon the Babe, my God,
Piercing the torn and broken thatch;
Lament, O heart, for thy God!
Bare is the floor, how bare, how bare
For the Babe’s sweet mother, my God;
Only a stable for mother and Babe;
How cruel thy world, my God!
Cast out, cast out, by his brother men
Unknown the Babe, my God;
The ox and the ass alone are there;
Soften, O heart, for thy God!
Dear little arms and sweet little hands,
That stretch for thy mother, my God;
Soft baby eyes to the mother’s eyes;
Melt, O heart, for thy God!
Waxen touches on mother’s heart,
Fingers of the Babe, my God;
Dear baby lips to her virgin breast,
The virgin mother of God.
The shepherds have come from the hills to adore
The Babe in the manger, my God;
Mary and Joseph welcome them there;
Worship, O soul, thy God!
But I alone may not come near
The Babe in the manger, my God;
Weep for thy sins, O heart, and plead
With Mary the mother of God.
May I not come, oh, just to the door,
To see the Babe, my God;
There will I stop and kneel and adore,
And weep for my sins, O God!
But Mary smiles, and rising up,
In her arms the Babe, my God,
She comes to the door and bends her down,
With the Babe in her arms, my God!
Her sinless arms in my sinful arms
Place the Babe, my God;
“He has come to take thy sins away;”
Break, O heart, for thy God!
THE TOYS
BY COVENTRY PATMORE
My little son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
And mov’d and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,
I struck him, and dismiss’d
With hard words and unkiss’d,
His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then fearing lest his grief should hinder him sleep
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
Fie had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach,
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
To comfort his sad heart.
So when that night I pray’d
To God, I wept, and said:
Ah, when at last we lie with trancéd breath,
Not vexing Thee in death,
And Thou rememberest of what toys
We made our joys,
How weakly understood
Thy great commanded good,
Then, fatherly not less
Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,
Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
“I will be sorry for their childishness.”
“IF I WERE DEAD”
BY COVENTRY PATMORE
“If I were dead, you’d some time say, Poor Child!”
The dear lips quiver’d as they spake,
And the tears break
From eyes, which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled.
Poor Child, poor Child!
I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song.
It is not true that Love will do no wrong.
Poor Child!
And did you think, when you so cried and smiled,
How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake,
And of those words your full avengers make?
Poor Child, poor Child!
And now, unless it be
That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee,
O God, have Thou no mercy upon me!
Poor Child!
DEPARTURE
BY COVENTRY PATMORE
It was not like your great and gracious ways!
Do you, that have nought other to lament,
Never, my Love, repent
Of how, that July afternoon,
You went,
With sudden, unintelligible phrase,
And frightened eye,
Upon your journey of so many days
Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?
I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;
And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays,
You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,
Your harrowing praise.
Well, it was well
To hear you such things speak,
And I could tell
What made your eyes a growing gloom of love,
As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove.
And it was like your great and gracious ways
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash
To let the laughter flash,
Whilst I drew near,
Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.
But all at once to leave me at the last,
More at the wonder than the loss aghast,
With huddled, unintelligible phrase,
And frighten’d eye,
And go your journey of all days
With not one kiss, or a good-bye,
And the only loveless look the look with which you passed;
’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.
REGINA CŒLI
BY COVENTRY PATMORE
Say, did his sisters wonder what could Joseph see
In a mild, silent little Maid like thee?
And was it awful, in that narrow house,
With God for Babe and Spouse?
Nay, like thy simple, female sort, each one
Apt to find Him in Husband and in Son,
Nothing to thee came strange in this.
Thy wonder was but wondrous bliss:
Wondrous, for, though
True Virgin lives not but does know,
(Howbeit none ever yet confess’d,)
That God lies really in her breast,
Of thine He made His special nest!
And so
All mothers worship little feet,
And kiss the very ground they’ve trod;
But, ah, thy little Baby sweet
Who was indeed thy God!
IDEAL
BY P. H. PEARSE
(Translated from the Irish by Thomas MacDonagh)
Naked I saw thee,
O beauty of beauty!
And I blinded my eyes
For fear I should flinch.
I heard thy music,
O sweetness of sweetness!
And I shut my ears
For fear I should fail.
I kissed thy lips,
O sweetness of sweetness!
And I hardened my heart
For fear of my ruin.
I blinded my eyes,
And my ears I shut,
I hardened my heart
And my love I quenched.
I turned my back
On the dream I had shaped,
And to this road before me
My face I turned.