NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 26 May 1921, Page 26

NOT ES

The Glory of Ireland In an article in the Catholic World for April there in an interesting passage in a quotation from an American nun’s letter : “O blessed land of Erin, what would the world be without you after all? You are God’s missionary to the new countries of the globe., If you had been more comfortable, you would have been less austere; if you had a fuller natural existence you might have lost your curious nearness to the. supernatural; if you had rested in your own wilfulness you might have relinquished your strange and passionate adherence to the will of God ; if you had been better governed you might have stayed at home and would not have been driven by % famine and hardship to carry the Faith to other lands ! Where would be now the splendid, living Catholicity of the United States, of Enviish-speaking Canada, of Australia, of much of South Africa if it had not been for the Irish emigrants The . blood of the Spanish Franciscans and Dominicans and of French Jesuits had indeed first moistened the untilled soil of the Americas, but the solid establishment of the Church is ■ the work of the poor Irish toilers whose, tithes from scanty livelihoods built the thousand tabernacles which proclaim the life and fertility of their faith wherever they go they carry the Life of the Sacraments, the Truth of the Gospel, and the Wav of the Cross. It was not for nothing that their Celtic speech was absorbed into English ; that very misfortune as they now feel it to be has been the means of their world-wide apostolate. ” . Ireland has indeed been chosen for God’s choicest gift of suffering. She has carried her .Cross nobly, and surely she has won her Crown. And it is coming to her soon —very soon. r

The Patriotism of Coluracille Another writer in the same issue contributes a fine paper on Columcille. One.little poem will serve to show how clearly the exiled saint loved Ireland: 0 man that goeth westward to Erin, My heart in my side is broken; If' sudden death overtake me, It is for the greatness of the love of the Gael. $ To the Gaels myself, To the Gaels my honor, To the Gaels my learning, To the men of Erin my glory. My blessing on thee, western island, My heart in my bosom is swollen, i Lamenting the seed of great Eoghan, Lamenting . the children of Conall. And when death was near him he sang : They shall bury me first at Iona; But by the will of the living God, It is at Dun that 1 shall rest in my grave With Patrick and with Brigid, the immaculate, Three bodies in one grave. Surely, for the sake of Columcille, all true Scots ought to be with Ireland in her day of trial. Thank God many of them are. The half dozen dancing dervishes who performed in the Outlook recently do not represent Scotland.

Chesterton’s Poetry One is rattier inclined to forget that Chesterton is a poet as well as a brilliant pros© writer. He and Belloc and Maynard form fi school of poetry distinguished for virile thought and arresting music, invig- ' orating and refreshing as mountain air. Once upon a time our local editors used to give much , space space to Mr. Chesterton’s prose, but since his advocacy of truth and justice became such a scandal to jingoes they no longer insult him by filling their columns ; with his sound philosophy. In the same way, one finds but

/ little of his verse, quoted in papers which have much L ; room for P.P.A. ranters. He has written'poems in f various tones. In The Flying Inn he is uproariously v festive and humorous; in his book of collected verses you will find noble national strains and tender stanzas inspired by that Catholic charity which only needed the love of the woman who came to him out of the bosom of the Church of" old to quicken .it and to fan it to flame in his own naturally Christian soul. Of her he sings in the Dedication of the Ballad of The White Horse: Lady, by one light only We look-from Alfred’s eyes, We know he saw athwart the wreck The sign that hangs about your neck, Where One more than Melchisedek Is dead and never died. Therefore I bring those rhymes to you Who brought the Cross to me, Since on you flaming without flaw I saw the sign that Guthrum saw When he let break his ships of awe, And laid peace upon the sea. Do you remember when we went Under a dragon moon, And mid volcanic tints of night Walked where they fought the unknown fight And saw black trees on the battle-height, Black-thorn on Ethandune? And I thought. “I will go with you, As man with God has gone, And wander with a wandering star, The wandering heart of things that ar.e, The fiery cross of love and war That like yourself goes on.” O go you onward : whore you are Shall honor and laughter be. Past purple forest and uearled foam, [God’s winged pavilion free to roam. Your face, that is a wandering home, A flying home for me. Up through an emptv house of stars, Being what heart you are, Up the inhuman steeus of space As on a staircase go in grace, Carrying the firelight on your face Beyond the loneliest star.