Works

So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone,
I with my secret self held communing of mine own.
So in the southern city spake the tongue
Of one that somewhat overwildly sung,...

Hear me, Brother, gently met;
Just a little, turn not yet,
Thou shalt laugh, and soon forget:
Now the midnight draweth near.
I have little more to tell;
Soon with hollow stroke and knell,...

(Lyra Messianica, 1864.)


There is nothing more that they can do
For all their rage and boast;
Caiaphas with his blaspheming crew,
Herod with his host,
...

Darlings of June and brides of summer sun,
Chill pipes the stormy wind, the skies are drear;
Dull and despoiled the gardens every one:
What do you here?

We looked to see your gracious blooms arise...

A truth that has long lain buried
At Superstition's door,
I see, in the dawn uprising
In all its strength once more.

Hidden away in the darkness,
By Ignorance crucified,...

I have a life that did not become,
that turned aside and stopped,
astonished:
I hold it in me like a pregnancy or
as on my lap a child
not to grow old but dwell on

it is to his grave I most...

Too early, of course! How provoking!
I told Ma just how it would be.
I might as well have on a wrapper,
For there isn't a soul here to see.
There! Sue Delaplaine's pew is empty,...

All night had shout of men and cry
Of woeful women filled His way;
Until that noon of sombre sky
On Friday, clamour and display
Smote Him; no solitude had He,
No silence, since Gethsemane.
...

'Tis only the nightingale's warbled strain,
That floats through the evening sky:
With his note of love, he replies again,
To the muezzin's holy cry;
As it sweetly sounds on the rosy air,...

The sun shone white and fair,
This Eastertide,
Yet all its sweetness seemed but to deride
Our souls' despair;
For stricken hearts, and loss and pain,
Were everywhere.
We sang our Alleluias,--...

(Written for music to be sung at a parish industrial exhibition)

See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows....

(In memory of Joseph Mary Plunkett)


("Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.")
William Butler Yeats.



"Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,...

Last Easter Jim put on his blue
Frock cwoat, the vu'st time-vier new;
Wi' yollow buttons all o' brass,
That glitter'd in the zun lik' glass;
An' pok'd 'ithin the button-hole...

'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead
Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,
And the pale weaver, through his windows seen
In Spitalfields, looked thrice dispirited....

Ticonderoga to Lake George,
the classic invasion route
up the Richelieu valley
past Plattsburg,
Verdun,
' Montr'al
across the North Shore
reroute again

to savour Albany;...

Dour river
Jaded with monotony of lights
Diving off mast heads....
Lights mad with creating in a river... turning its sullen back...
Heave up, river......

Sunset smiles on sunrise: east and west are one,
Face to face in heaven before the sovereign sun.
From the springs of the dawn everlasting a glory renews and transfigures the west,...

Shouts, and the noise of war!
Far o'er the land hath been my flight,
O'er many a forest dark as night,
O'er champaigns where the Tartar speeds,
O'er Wolga's wild and giant reeds,...

How nice 'twould be if knowledge grew
On bushes, as the berries do!
Then we could plant our spelling seed,
And gather all the words we need.
The sums from off our slates we'd wipe,...

I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.