Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 35, 16 September 1925, Page 32

Selected Poetry

IRISH RAIN. I would not speak one little word \ Though in the faintest whisper heard, If it could scare the rain away That showers on an Irish day. Nor would I do it with a thought That lasted but an instant's flash The sunshine would be dearly bought That hid this, mist-bora loveliness The dimpled waters smiling run Where raindrops glitter in the sun, . While ever-widening circles seem Like rings set with jewelled gleam. Here, black of brow and gold of bill, A swan is pluming the wet wings; White as the foam upon the rill Beneath the leaping waterfall. He stands upon the water's edge, His feet among the tangled sedge, His shadow in the stream below Where the reflected aspens grow. •■» A real and a mimic bridge Meets here to frame yon mountain ridge And the mute mill's ivied wall That crumbles by the waterfall. Like to the beat of fairy drums The patter of the falling rain, Or to the tap of fairy feet That trip to an enchanted strain. I take the harp that long ago Was listened to by Tara's lord, And strike in praise of Irish rain Though it be but a minor chord. —M. Barry O'Delaxy, in the Irish World. MM AFTER SUNSET. Gone, like, some captive sore afraid, Is the last poor ghost of sunset light, Clouds, that were tossed like froth On the gathering waves of darkness, fade. The town, in her lamps arrayed, On the dusky petal led flower of night Hangs like a jewelled moth. A.M.L., in the Morning Tost. me LIGHT. The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies ~ With the dying sun. The, mind has a thousand eyes, ■ v And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies . i When love is done. l i W. Bourdillox, in An Anthology o t „. Modern Verse/

CURUMALAN. Folded in the soft embrace of a deep silence, Wild, ragged, rocky, sear-browned, and majestic, Have I seen you, shooting high 'bove the homes of men; Soft pure breezes, fanning thy rock-crowned crest I've felt, Thy sullen grandeur woke a dormant chord of love Whose note rings clearer, deeper, sweeter now than then, Curumalan. How oft. some Indian Brave thy crags did dare, To view the streams, or lights and shades upon the plain. To rear a wigwam on thy brow and sentinel His own lovcU tribe against the guiles of pale-faced foe! You have seen him watching, lighting, falling, dying, Have drunk his life blood, and received him as he fell. Curumalau. You are the first at morn to welcome old King Sol, Tlit* last with whom he lingers ere he breathes farewell. In hours of brightest sunshine, or in clouded tears, Have I watched you, and you've wafted me in spirit To fairer bills in Banba where, a boy, I roamed, Unfettered then by thoughts or care —in long dead years. Curumalau. In silent dim cathedral aisles I've sought for aid To calm a storm-tossed, troubled soul, but vainly sought. The road grew dark and tiresome as I onward trod, Then darkness black enshrouded me, till standing there With tarnished, badly dented armor, on thy heights Alone, I heard the voice and felt the touch of God, Curumalan. —Aisuxx, in the Southern Cross (Buenos Aires). MM HOMECOMING OF THE PRIEST SON. *The joy of all the world shines in the eyes That mirror love like that beyond the skies. Heart leaps to heart, and soul to soul doth reach; Their lips scarce moveno room is there for speech. »/ He can do naught but gaze upon her face; And she but fold him in a fond embrace.

He thinks a man might well wade deep in 1 . woe , - V }/%, ; r To see in her dear eyes the lovelight glow*.yA world's weight of grief to her were bliss If at the-end it held one hour like this. The bitter chalice of the scalding tears, : ; The aching hunger of the lonely years, Are now requited with a rich reward — She gave him freely; freely gives the Lord. —Rev. D. A. Casey, Litt.l)., in the Irish Catholic. "% THE FORMER GLORY. , I would that I bad seen with my two eyes The steeples of the Gothic Kingdom rise, Ere London grew too wealthy and too wise. To adore the Mother Maiden and her Child, Ere greed and hate and frozen zeal defiled, And the great fire.returned all to the wild. When the Cathedral crashed down into flames, With all her multitude of carven names, Angels with harps and alabaster dames. I would that I had seen those buttressed walls Of that first towering splendid old Saint , Paul's, Rich with unnumbered crowding festivals. And all those chapels with proud"memories walled, And all those altars panoplied and palled, And in the midst the Shrine of Erkenwald. y. I would that I had seen the festal way, When Holy Church proclaimed glad holiday, And heard the bell-chimes swing on Easter Day. And watched the line of rose-crowned canons pass Beneath the windows live with fiery glass To some most glorious Sacring of the Mass, Then the great city like a rose uncurled Beheld her choirs emparadied and pearled Beneath the tallest spire in all the world. But gold has blocked up all the holy wells, And dumb is all that host of chrismed bells, And dust the bright sails of the caravels. That brought the spiceries from India; The Eucharistic God has gone away, Until the people learn to pray. Verily light went out in London Town, When Henry smote the white Carthusians down, And holy Fisher won bis martyr's crown. But still the lamp burns on in Ely Place, And England still has leave to beg for grace, For whom pleads still the patient Crowned Face. Wilfrid Childe, in G.K.'s ileekly. \