Works

France tells the story, make our hearts know well,
Christ His Figure stands against the gates of hell:
Flame and shot may rive the fortress walls apart,
Christ the Crucified will heal the breaking heart.
...

Ye who heed a nation's call
And speed to arms therefor,
Ye who fear your children's march
To perils of the war,--
Soldiers of the deck and camp
And mothers of our men,
Hearken to a tale of France...

Turn from Kerry crossroads and leave the wooded dells,
Take the mountain path and find where Tip O'Leary dwells;
Tip O'Leary is the name, I sing it all day long,...

Obedience to the seasons' marshall-rod,
That is a law of God,
Here beauty passes with her gorgeous train,
On paths that range from bud to grain.
O, here the searching eyes...

(for Gerry)


When May has spent its little song,
And richer comes the June,
Through former eyes the heart will long
For May again in tune;
Though large with promise hope may be,...

(For John McCormack)


June of the trees in glory,
June of the meadows gay!
O, and it works a story
To tell an October day.

Blooms of the apple and cherry...

Let me go back again. There is the road,
O memory! The humble garden lane
So young with me. Let me rebuild again
The start of faith and hope by that abode;
Amend with morning freshness all the code...

(POVERTY, CHASTITY, OBEDIENCE)


Three little leaves like shamrock,
And the trefoil's love-lit eyes,
Whether it takes the sunshine
Or the shadows from the skies.
...

(For Fr. C. L. O'Donnell)


The interlacing trees
Arise in Gothic traceries,
As if a vast cathedral deep and dim;
And through the solemn atmosphere
The low winds hymn...

O ye who sail Potomac's even tide
To Vernon's shades, our Chieftain's hallowed mound;
Or who at distant shrines high paeans sound
In Alfred's cult, old England's morning pride;...

Gray mist on the sea,
And the night coming down,
She stays with sorrow
In a far town.

He goes the sea-ways
By channel lights dim,
Her love, a true light,
Watches for him.
...

HOLY CROSS: MAY, 1917

(For Major Joseph W. O'Connor, '03)


Birds are merry and the buds
Come along with May:
Lonely is the linden land
For lads that went today.
...

My father had the gay good tunes, the like you'd seldom hear,
A whole day could he whistle them, an' thin he'd up an' sing,
The merry tunes an' twists o'them that suited all the year,...

(For Jack)


In a little ship and down the bay,
Out to the calling sea,
A young brave lad sailed off today,
To the one great war went he:
The one long war all men must know...

(For Joyce Kilmer)


When the dreamy night is on, up the Hudson river,
And the sheen of modern taste is dim and far away,
Ghostly men on phantom rafts make the waters shiver,...

But a fortnight later, by an autumn tree,
Aileen and her brother came my way,
And another, glad to tell the names of them and me,
And to hear how travellers can play.
...

(For Christine and Tom)


Oases are charming 'mid the Afric sands,
Beautiful is summer after rain;
But the sweetest blossoms may be eyes and hands,
And two playful children on a train.
...

The little green soldiers are here at last,
With their waving blades and spears;
And across the hills they are marching fast
With the drill of a thousand years:
And I wave afar, and I shout, Hurrah!...

Along the north a mountain crest,
A row of trees runs towards the west;
The south is all a field for play,
For work the east has marked a way;
The night shows all the stars above,...

Gray lonely rocks about thee stand,
Ignored of sun and dew,
Yet is thy breath upon the land,
To thy vocation true.

So come they character to me
That works in sunless ways,...