Works

Better than grandeur, better than gold,
Than rank and titles a thousand fold,
Is a healthy body and a mind at ease,
And simple pleasures that always please
A heart that can feel for another's woe,...

Do we weep for the heroes who died for us,
Who living were true and tried for us,
And dying sleep side by side for us;
The Martyr-band
That hallowed our land
With the blood they shed in a tide for us?...

Out of the shadows of sadness,
Into the sunshine of gladness,
Into the light of the blest;
Out of a land very dreary,
Out of a world very weary,
Into the rapture of rest.
...

I love my mother, the wildwood,
I sleep upon her breast;
A day or two of childhood,
And then I sink to rest.

I had once a lovely sister --
She was cradled by my side;...

Waileth a woman, "O my God!"
A breaking heart in a broken breath,
A hopeless cry o'er her heart-hope's death!
Can words catch the chords of the winds that wail,
When love's last lily lies dead in the vale!...

Ah! days so dark with death's eclipse!
Woe are we! woe are we!
And the nights are ages long!
From breaking hearts, thro' pallid lips
O my God! woe are we!
Trembleth the mourner's song;...

The moan of a wintry soul
Melted into a summer song,
And the words, like the wavelet's roll,
Moved murmuringly along.

And the song flowed far and away,
Like the voice of a half-sleeping rill --...

Over the silent sea of sleep,
Far away! far away!
Over a strange and starlit deep
Where the beautiful shadows sway;
Dim in the dark,
Glideth a bark,
Where never the waves of a tempest roll --...

Go, words of mine! and if you live
Only for one brief, little day;
If peace, or joy, or calm you give
To any soul; or if you bring
A something higher to some heart,
I may come back again and sing...

Unroll Erin's flag! fling its folds to the breeze!
Let it float o'er the land, let it flash o'er the seas!
Lift it out of the dust -- let it wave as of yore,...

"Far Away!" what does it mean?
A change of heart with a change of place?
When footsteps pass from scene to scene,
Fades soul from soul with face from face?
Are hearts the slaves or lords of space?
...

They are so sad to say: no poem tells
The agony of hearts that dwells
In lone and last farewells.

They are like deaths: they bring a wintry chill
To summer's roses, and to summer's rill;...

Dark! Dark! Dark!
The sun is set; the day is dead:
Thy Feast has fled;
My eyes are wet with tears unshed;
I bow my head;
Where the star-fringed shadows softly sway
I bend my knee,...

The priests stood waiting in the holy place,
Impatient of delay
(Isaiah had been read),
When sudden up the aisle there came a face
Like a lost sun's ray;
And the child was led...

Two lights on a lowly altar;
Two snowy cloths for a Feast;
Two vases of dying roses;
The morning comes from the east,
With a gleam for the folds of the vestments
And a grace for the face of the priest....

"To Rev. Father E. Sourin, S.J., from A. J. Ryan; first, in memory of some happy hours passed in his company at Loyola College, Baltimore; next, in appreciation of a character of strange beautifulness, known of God, but hidden ...

The Master's voice was sweet:
"I gave My life for thee;
Bear thou this cross thro' pain and loss,
Arise and follow Me."
I clasped it in my hand --
O Thou! who diedst for me,...

Deep in the dark I hear the feet of God:
He walks the world; He puts His holy hand
On every sleeper -- only puts His hand --
Within it benedictions for each one --
Then passes on; but ah! whene'er He meets...

S. M. A.



Gone! and there's not a gleam of you,
Faces that float into far away;
Gone! and we can only dream of you
Each as you fade like a star away.
Fade as a star in the sky from us,...

O Heart of Three-in-the evening,
You nestled the thorn-crowned head;
He leaned on you in His sorrow,
And rested on you when dead.

Ah! Holy Three-in-the evening
He gave you His richest dower;...