To the road here before me,
To the work that I see,
To the death that I shall meet.
MUSIC
BY CHARLES PHILLIPS
There is a hunger in my heart to-night,
A longing in my soul, to hear
The voice of heaven o’er the noise of earth
That doth assail mine ear.
For we are exiled children of the skies,
Lone and lost wanderers from home ...
The stars come out like lamps in windows lit
Far, far from where we roam;
Like candles lit to show the long late way,
Dear kindly beacons sure and bright;
But O, the heavy journeying, and O
The silence of the night!--
The dark and vasty silences that lie
Between the going and the goal!
Will not God reach a friendly hand to lift
And land my weary soul?
Will not God speak a friendly word to me
Above the tumult and the din
Of earthly things--one little word to hush
The voice of care and sin?...
He speaks! He answers my poor faltering prayer!
He opens heaven’s lattice wide;
He bids me bathe my brow in heavenly airs
Like to a flowing tide!
He calls; He gives unto my famished soul,
Unto my eager heart, its meed:
He breathes upon me with the breath of song,
And O, my soul is freed,
And I am lifted up and up, and held
A little while--a child, to see
The beauties of my Father’s house, which shall
No more be shut from me!
I SEE HIS BLOOD UPON THE ROSE
BY JOSEPH MARY PLUNKETT
I see His blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of His eyes,
His Body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see His face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but His voice--and carven by His power
Rocks are His written words.
All pathways by His feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.
THE STARS SANG IN GOD’S GARDEN
BY JOSEPH MARY PLUNKETT
The stars sang in God’s garden;
The stars are the birds of God;
The night-time is God’s harvest,
Its fruits are the words of God.
God ploughed His fields at morning,
God sowed His seed at noon,
God reaped and gathered in His corn
With the rising of the moon.
The sun rose up at midnight,
The sun rose red as blood,
It showed the Reaper, the dead Christ,
Upon His cross of wood.
For many live that one may die,
And one must die that many live--
The stars are silent in the sky
Lest my poor songs be fugitive.
“IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?”
BY MAY PROBYN
We were playing on the green together,
My sweetheart and I--
Oh, so heedless in the gay June weather,
When the word went forth that we must die.
Oh, so merrily the balls of amber
And of ivory tossed we to the sky,
While the word went forth in the King’s chamber,
That we both must die.
Oh, so idly, straying through the pleasaunce,
Plucked we here and there
Fruit and bud, while in the royal presence
The King’s son was casting from his hair
Glory of the wreathen gold that crowned it,
And, ungirding all his garment fair,
Flinging by the jewelled clasp that bound it,
With his feet made bare,
Down the myrtled stairway of the palace,
Ashes on his head,
Came he, through the rose and citron alleys,
In the rough sark of sackcloth habited,
And in a hempen halter--oh! we jested,
Lightly, and we laughed as he was led
To the torture, while the bloom we breasted
Where the grapes grew red.
Oh, so sweet the birds, when he was dying,
Piped to her and me--
Is no room this glad June day for sighing--
He is dead, and she and I go free!
When the sun shall set on all our pleasure
We will mourn him--What, so you decree
We are heartless?--Nay, but in what measure
Do you more than we?
THE BEES OF MYDDLETON MANOR
17th Century
BY MAY PROBYN
Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my golden-belted bees:
My little son was seven years old--the mint-flower touched his
knees;
Yellow were his curly locks;
Yellow were his stocking-clocks;
His plaything of a sword had a diamond in its hilt;
Where the garden beds lay sunny,
And the bees were making honey,
“For God and the king--to arms! to arms!” the day long would he
lilt.
Smock’d in lace and flowered brocade, my pretty son of seven
Wept sore because the kitten died, and left the charge uneven.
“I head one battalion, mother--
Kitty,” sobbed he, “led the other!
And when we reach’d the bee-hive bench
We used to halt and storm the trench:
If we could plant our standard here,
With all the bees a-buzzing near,
And fly the colors safe from sting,
The town was taken for the king!”
Flirting flitting over the thyme, by bees with yellow band--
My little son of seven came close, and clipp’d me by the hand;
A wreath of mourning cloth was wound
His small left arm and sword-hilt round,
And on the thatch of every hive a whisp of black was bound.
“Sweet mother, we must tell the bees, or they will swarm away:
Ye little bees!” he called, “draw nigh, and hark to what I say,
And make us golden honey still for our white wheaten bread,
Though never more
We rush on war
With Kitty at our head:
Who’ll give the toast
When swords are cross’d,
Now Kitty lieth dead?”
Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my bees of yellow girth:
My son of seven changed his mood, and clasp’d me in his mirth.
“Sweet mother, when I grow a man and fall on battlefield,”
He cried, and down in the daisied grass upon one knee he kneel’d,
“I charge thee, come and tell the bees how I for the king lie dead;
And thou shalt never lack fine honey for thy wheaten bread!”
* * * * *
Flitting, flitting, flitting, my busy bees, alas!
No footsteps of my soldier son came clinking through the grass.
Thrice he kiss’d me for farewell;
And far on the stone his shadow fell;
He buckled spurs and sword-belt on, as the sun began to stoop,
Set foot in stirrup, and sprang to horse, and rode to join his
troop.
To the west he rode, where the winds were at play,
And Monmouth’s army mustering lay;
Where Bridgewater flew her banner high,
And gave up her keys, when the Duke came by;
And the maids of Taunton paid him court
With colors their own white hands had wrought;
And red as a field, where blood doth run,
Sedgemoor blazed in the setting sun.
Broider’d sash and clasp of gold, my soldier son, alas!
The mint was all in flower, and the clover in the grass:
“With every bed
In bloom,” I said,
“What further lack the bees,
That they buzz so loud,
Like a restless cloud,
Among the orchard trees?”
No voice in the air, from Sedgemoor field,
Moan’d out how Grey and the horse had reel’d;
Met me no ghost, with haunting eyes,
That westward pointed ’mid its sighs,
And pull’d apart a bloody vest,
And show’d the sword-gash in his breast.
Empty hives, and flitting bees, and sunny morning hours;
I snipp’d the blossom’d lavender, and the pinks, and the
gillyflowers;
No petal trembled in my hold--
I saw not the dead stretched stark and cold
On the trampled turf at the shepherd’s door,
In the cloak and the doublet Monmouth wore,
With Monmouth’s scarf and headgear on,
And the eyes, not clos’d, of my soldier son;
I knew not how, ere the cocks did crow, the fight was fought in the
dark,
With naught for guide but the enemy’s guns, when the flint flash’d
out a spark,
Till, routed at first sound of fire, the cavalry broke and fled,
And the hoofs struck dumb, where they spurn’d the slain, and the
meadow stream ran red;
I saw not the handful of horsemen spur through the dusk, and out of
sight,
My soldier son at the Duke’s left hand, and Grey that rode on his
right.
Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my honey-making bees,
They left the musk, and the marigolds and the scented faint sweet
peas;
They gather’d in a darkening cloud, and sway’d, and rose to fly;
A blackness on the summer blue, they swept across the sky.
Gaunt and ghastly with gaping wounds--(my soldier son, alas!)
Footsore and faint, the messenger came halting through the grass.
The wind went by and shook the leaves--the mint-stalk shed its
flower--
And I miss’d the murmuring round the hives, and my boding heart beat
slower.
His soul we cheer’d with meat and wine;
With woman’s craft and balsam fine
We bathed his hurts, and bound them soft,
While west the wind played through the croft,
And the low sun dyed the pinks blood red,
And, straying near the mint-flower shed,
A wild bee wantoned o’er the bed.
He told how my son, at the shepherd’s door, kept watch in Monmouth’s
clothes,
While Monmouth donned the shepherd’s frock, in hope to cheat his
foes.
A couple of troopers spied him stand,
And bade him yield to the king’s command:
“Surrender, thou rebel as good as dead,
A price is set on thy traitor head!”
My soldier son, with secret smile,
Held both at bay for a little while,
Dealt them such death blow as he fell,
Neither was left the tale to tell;
With dying eyes that asked no grace,
They stared on him for a minute’s space,
And felt that it was not Monmouth’s face.
Crimsoned through was Monmouth’s cloak, when the soldier dropped at
their side--
“Those knaves will carry no word,” he said, and he smiled in his
pain, and died.
“Two days,” told the messenger, “did we lie
Hid in the fields of peas and rye,
Hid in the ditch of brake and sedge,
With the enemy’s scouts down every hedge,
Till Grey was seized, and Monmouth seized, that under the fern did
crouch,
Starved and haggard, and all unshaved, with a few raw peas in his
pouch.”
* * * * *
No music soundeth in my ears, but a passing bell that tolls
For gallant lords with head on block--sweet Heaven receive their
souls!
And a mound, unnamed, in Sedgemoor grass,
That laps my soldier son, alas!
The bloom is shed--
The bees are fled--
Middleton luck it’s done and dead.
A LEGEND
BY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER
I
The Monk was preaching: strong his earnest word,
From the abundance of his heart he spoke,
And the flame spread,--in every soul that heard
Sorrow and love and good resolve awoke:--
The poor lay Brother, ignorant and old,
Thanked God that he had heard such words of gold.
II
“Still let the glory, Lord, be thine alone,”--
So prayed the Monk, his heart absorbed in praise:
“Thine be the glory: if my hands have sown
The harvest ripened in Thy mercy’s rays,
It was Thy blessing, Lord, that made my word
Bring light and love to every soul that heard.”
III
“O Lord, I thank Thee that my feeble strength
Has been so blest; that sinful hearts and cold
Were melted at my pleading,--knew at length
How sweet Thy service and how safe Thy fold:
While souls that loved Thee saw before them rise
Still holier heights of loving sacrifice.”
IV
So prayed the Monk: when suddenly he heard
An Angel speaking thus: “Know, O my Son,
The words had all been vain, but hearts were stirred,
And saints were edified, and sinners won,
By his, the poor lay Brother’s humble aid
Who sat upon the pulpit stair and prayed.”
THE SACRED HEART
BY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER
What wouldst thou have, O soul,
Thou weary soul?
Lo! I have sought for rest
On the Earth’s heaving breast,
From pole to pole.
Sleep--I have been with her,
But she gave dreams;
Death--nay, the rest he gives
Rest only seems.
Fair nature knows it not--
The grass is growing;
The blue air knows it not--
The winds are blowing:
Not in the changing sky,
The stormy sea,
Yet somewhere in God’s wide world
Rest there must be.
Within thy Saviour’s Heart
Place all thy care,
And learn, O weary soul,
Thy Rest is there.
What wouldst thou, trembling soul?
Strength for the strife,--
Strength for this fiery war
That we call Life.
Fears gather thickly round;
Shadowy foes,
Like unto armed men,
Around me close.
What am I, frail and poor,
When griefs arise?
No help from the weak earth,
Or the cold skies.
Lo! I can find no guards,
No weapons borrow;
Shrinking, alone I stand,
With mighty sorrow.
Courage, thou trembling soul,
Grief thou must bear,
Yet thou canst find a strength
Will match despair;
Within thy Saviour’s Heart--
Seek for it there.
What wouldst thou have, sad soul,
Oppressed with grief?--
Comfort: I seek in vain,
Nor find relief.
Nature, all pitiless,
Smiles on my pain;
I ask my fellow-men,
They give disdain.
I asked the babbling streams,
But they flowed on;
I asked the wise and good,
But they gave none.
Though I have asked the stars,
Coldly they shine.
They are too bright to know
Grief such as mine.
I asked for comfort still,
And I found tears,
And I have sought in vain
Long, weary years.
Listen, thou mournful soul,
Thy pain shall cease;
Deep in His sacred Heart
Dwells joy and peace.
Yes, in that Heart divine
The Angels bright
Find, through eternal years,
Still new delight.
From thence his constancy
The martyr drew,
And there the virgin band
Their refuge knew.
There, racked by pain without,
And dread within,
How many souls have found
Heaven’s bliss begin.
Then leave thy vain attempts
To seek for peace;
The world can never give
One soul release;
But in thy Saviour’s Heart
Securely dwell,
No pain can harm thee, hid
In that sweet cell.
Then fly, O coward soul,
Delay no more:
What words can speak the joy
For thee in store?
What smiles of earth can tell
Of peace like thine?
Silence and tears are best
For things divine.
THE ANNUNCIATION
BY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER
How pure, and frail, and white,
The snowdrops shine!
Gather a garland bright
For Mary’s shrine.
For, born of winter snows,
These fragile flowers
Are gifts to our fair Queen
From Spring’s first hours.
For on this blessèd day
She knelt at prayer;
When, lo! before her shone
An Angel fair.
“Hail, Mary!” thus he cried,
With reverent fear:
She, with sweet wondering eyes,
Marvelled to hear.
Be still, ye clouds of Heaven!
Be silent, Earth!
And hear an Angel tell
Of Jesus’ birth,
While she, whom Gabriel hails
As full of grace,
Listens with humble faith
In her sweet face.
Be still,--Pride, War, and Pomp,
Vain Hopes, vain Fears,
For now an Angel speaks,
And Mary hears.
“Hail, Mary!” lo, it rings
Through ages on;
“Hail Mary!” it shall sound,
Till Time is done
“Hail, Mary!” infant lips
Lisp it to-day;
“Hail, Mary!” with faint smile
The dying say.
“Hail, Mary!” many a heart
Broken with grief,
In that angelic prayer
Has found relief.
And many a half-lost soul,
When turned at bay,
With those triumphant words
Has won the day.
“Hail, Mary, Queen of Heaven!”
Let us repeat,
And place our snowdrop wreath
Here at her feet.
OUR DAILY BREAD
BY ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER
Give us our daily Bread,
O God, the bread of strength!
For we have learnt to know
How weak we are at length.
As children we are weak,
As children must be fed;--
Give us Thy Grace, O Lord,
To be our daily Bread.
Give us our daily Bread:--
The bitter bread of grief.
We sought earth’s poisoned feasts
For pleasure and relief;
We sought her deadly fruits,
But now, O God, instead,
We ask thy healing grief
To be our daily Bread.
Give us our daily Bread
To cheer our fainting soul;
The feast of comfort, Lord,
And peace, to make us whole:
For we are sick of tears,
The useless tears we shed;--
Now give us comfort, Lord,
To be our daily Bread.
Give us our daily Bread,
The Bread of Angels, Lord,
For us, so many times,
Broken, betrayed, adored:
His Body and His Blood;--
The feast that Jesus spread:
Give Him--our life, our all--
To be our daily Bread!
MY MARYLAND
BY JAMES RYDER RANDALL
The despot’s heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle-queen of yore,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Hark to an exiled son’s appeal,
Maryland!
My Mother State, to thee I kneel,
Maryland!
For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
Maryland!
Thy beaming sword shall never rust,
Maryland!
Remember Carroll’s sacred trust,
Remember Howard’s warlike thrust,
And all thy slumberers with the just,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Come! ’tis the red dawn of the day,
Maryland!
Come with thy panoplied array,
Maryland!
With Ringgold’s spirit for the fray,
With Watson’s blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Dear Mother, burst the tyrant’s chain,
Maryland!
Virginia should not call in vain,
Maryland!
She meets her sisters on the plain,--
“_Sic semper!_” ’tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back amain,
Maryland!
Arise in majesty again,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
Maryland!
Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
Maryland!
Come to thine own heroic throng
Stalking with Liberty along,
And chant thy dauntless slogan-song,
Maryland, my Maryland!
I see the blush upon thy cheek,
Maryland!
For thou wast ever bravely meek,
Maryland!
But lo! there surges forth a shriek,
From hill to hill, from creek to creek,
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,
Maryland!
Thou wilt not crook to his control,
Maryland!
Better the fire upon thee roll,
Better the shot, the blade, the bowl,
Than crucifixion of the soul,
Maryland, my Maryland!
I hear the distant thunder hum,
Maryland!
The Old Line’s bugle, fife and drum,
Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb;
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! She burns! She’ll come! She’ll come!
Maryland, my Maryland!
MAGDALEN
BY JAMES RYDER RANDALL
The Hebrew girl, with flaming brow,
The banner-blush of shame,
Sinks at the sinless Saviour’s Knees
And dares to breathe His name.
From the full fountain of her eyes
The lava-globes are roll’d--
They wash His feet; she spurns them off
With her ringlet-scarf of gold.
The Meek One feels the eloquence
Of agonizing prayer,
The burning tears, the suppliant face,
The penitential hair;
And when, to crown her brimming woe,
The ointment box is riven--
“Rise, daughter, rise! Much hast thou loved,
Be all thy sins forgiven!”
Dear God! The prayer of good and pure,
The canticles of light,
Enrobe Thy throne with gorgeous skies,
As incense in Thy sight;
May the shivered vase of Magdalen
Soothe many an outcast’s smart,
Teaching what fragrant pleas may spring
From out a _broken heart_!
WHY THE ROBIN’S BREAST WAS RED
BY JAMES RYDER RANDALL
The Saviour, bowed beneath His Cross, climbed up the dreary hill,
And from the agonizing wreath ran many a crimson rill;
The cruel Roman thrust Him on with unrelenting hand,
Till, staggering slowly ’mid the crowd, He fell upon the sand.
A little bird that warbled near, that memorable day,
Flitted around and strove to wrench one single thorn away;
The cruel spike impaled his breast,--and thus ’tis sweetly said,
The robin has his silver vest incarnadined with red.
Ah, Jesu! Jesu! Son of man! my dolor and my sighs
Reveal the lesson taught by this winged Ishmael of the skies.
I, in the palace of delight or cavern of despair,
Have plucked no thorns from Thy dear brow, but planted thousands
there!
LE REPOS IN EGYPTE: THE SPHINX
BY AGNES REPPLIER
All day I watch the stretch of burning sand;
All night I brood beneath the golden stars;
Amid the silence of a desolate land,
No touch of bitterness my reverie mars.
Built by the proudest of a kingly line,
Over my head the centuries fly fast;
The secrets of the mighty dead are mine;
I hold the key of a forgotten past.
Yet, ever hushed into a rapturous dream,
I see again that night. A halo mild
Shone from the liquid moon. Beneath her beam
Traveled a tired young Mother and the Child.
Within mine arms she slumbered, and alone
I watched the Infant. At my feet her guide
Lay stretched o’er-wearied. On my breast of stone
Rested the Crucified.
ANDROMEDA
BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
They chained her fair young body to the cold and cruel stone;
The beast begot of sea and slime had marked her for his own;
The callous world beheld the wrong, and left her there alone.
Base caitiffs who belied her, false kinsmen who denied her,
Ye left her there alone!
My Beautiful, they left thee in thy peril and thy pain;
The night that hath no morrow was brooding on the main:
But, lo! a light is breaking of hope for thee again;
’T is Perseus’s sword a-flaming, thy dawn of day proclaiming
Across the western main.
O Ireland! O my country! he comes to break thy chain!
NATURE THE FALSE GODDESS
BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
The vilest work of vilest man,
The cup that drugs, the sword that slays,
The purchased kiss of courtesan,
The lying tongue of blame of praise,
The cobra’s fang, the tiger’s tongue,
The python’s murderous embrace--
The wrath of any living thing
A man may fear but bravely face.
But thou, cold Mother, knowest naught
Of love, of hate, or joy, or woe;
Thy bounties come to man unsought,
Thy curses fall on friend and foe.
Thou bearest balm upon thy breath,
Or sowest poison in the air;
And if man reapeth life or death,
Thou dost not know, thou dost not care.
Thou art God’s instrument of fate,
Obedient, mighty, soulless, blind,
No demon to propitiate,
No deity in love enshrined.
Let him who turns from God away
To Bel or Moloch bend the knee;
Defile his soul to wood or clay,
Or thrill with Voodoo’s ecstasy.
Seek any fetich undivine,
Be any superstition’s thrall,
From Heaven or Hell will come a sign;
But thou alone art deaf to all.
THREE DOVES
BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
Seaward, at morn, my doves flew free;
At eve they circled back to me.
The first was Faith; the second, Hope;
The third, the whitest, Charity.
Above the plunging surges play
Dream-like they hovered, day by day.
At last they turned, and bore to me
Green signs of peace thro’ nightfall gray,
No shore forlorn, no loveliest land
Their gentle eye had left unscanned,
’Mid hues of twilight-heliotrope
Or daybreak fires by heaven-breath fanned
Quick visions of celestial grace,--
Hither they waft, from earth’s broad space,
Kind thoughts for all humanity,
They shine with radiance from God’s face.
Ah, since my heart they choose for home,
Why loose them,--forth again to roam?
Yet look; they rise with loftier scope
They wheel in flight toward Heaven’s pure dome.
Fly, messengers that find no rest
Save in such toil as makes man blest!
Your home is God’s immensity;
We hold you but at His behest.
THE WAY OF THE WORLD
BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
The hands of the King are soft and fair
They never knew labor’s strain
The hands of the Robber redly wear
The bloody brand of Cain.
But the hands of the Man are hard and scarred
With the scars of toil and pain.
The slaves of Pilate have washed his hands
As white as a kings might be.
Barrabas with wrists unfettered stands
For the world has made him free.
But Thy palms toil-worn by nails are torn,
O Christ, on Calvary.
AVE MARIA
BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY
Lady, thy soldier I would be,
This day I choose thy shield,
And go, thrice-armored for the fight,
Forth to the world’s wide field.
There I shall meet the dark allies,
The Flesh, the Fiend, the World,
And fiercely shall their darts of fire
Upon my heart be hurled.
But I will raise my buckler strong
Betwixt me and the foe,
And, with the spirit’s flaming sword,
Shall give them blow for blow.
Lady, thy sailor I would be,
This day I sign my name
To sail the high seas of the earth
For glory of thy fame.
The tempest may besiege my bark,
The pirate lie in wait:
The perils of the monstrous deep
May tempt o’erwhelming fate:
Yet, wheresoe’er my ship may steer
Upon the waters wide,
Thy name shall be my compass sure,
Thy star my midnight guide.
Thy poet, Lady, I would be
To sing thy peerless praise;
Thy loyal bard, I’d bring to thee
Heart-music from all lays.
Soft melody, outpoured in June
By God’s dear feathered throng,
Would mingle with the organ’s roll
To glorify my song;
And Dante’s voice and Petrarch’s strain
And Milton’s matchless line
Would lend to my poor minstrel note
A harmony divine.
Lady, I choose to be thy son;
For Mother thee I choose;
O, for thy sweet and holy Child,
Do not my claim refuse!
Alone and motherless am I:
Tho’ strong, I long for rest--
The thunder of the world’s applause
Is not a mother’s breast.
Ave Maria! Shield us all.
Thy sons we choose to be.
Mother of grace, we raise our hearts,
Our hearts, our love to thee!
REVELATION
“_And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away_.”--Revelation XXI:1
BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY
The Lord God said to His angel: “Let the old things pass away.
They have heaped the earth with slaughter their sin obscures the
day.
Roll up the night on a curtain: let the stars fade one by one:
Out of the face of the heavens my anger shall blot the sun.
For the man I made and breathed on, filled with my breath of breath,
Hath sown the seas with hatred, his skies are dark with death.
The babe is slain at the bosom, the babe who beholds my face;
A welter of woe he leaves it,--the dream of my love and grace.