Good Friday, A.D. 33
Mother, why are people crowding now and staring?
Child, it is a malefactor goes to His doom,
To the high hill of Calvary He's faring,
And the people pressing and pushing to make room
Lest they miss the sight to come.
Oh, the poor malefactor, heavy is His load!
Now He falls beneath it and they goad Him on.
Sure the road to Calvary's a steep up-hill road --
Is there none to help Him with His Cross -- not one?
Must He bear it all alone?
Here is a country boy with business in the city,
Smelling of the cattle's breath and the sweet hay;
Now they bid him lift the Cross, so they have some pity:
Child, they fear the malefactor dies on the way
And robs them of their play.
Has He no friends then, no father nor mother,
None to wipe the sweat away nor pity His fate?
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poem by Katharine Tynan
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The Convent Garden
The Convent garden lies so near
The road the people go,
If it was quiet you might hear
The nuns' talk, merry and low.
Black London trees have made their screen
From folk who pry and peer,
The sooty sparrows now begin
Their talk of country cheer.
And round and round by twos and threes
The nuns walk, praying still
For fighting men across the seas
Who die to save them ill.
From the dear prison of her choice
The young nun's thoughts are far;
She muses on the golden boys
At all the Fronts of War.
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poem by Katharine Tynan
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When You Come Home
All will be right when you come home, dear lad,
But oh, 'tis long of coming that you are!
Everything's wrong with all the world and sad;
There are so many hurt in this long war,
So many missing, who will never come,
Lying out in the rain and in the cold.
I shall forget it all when you come home,
I shall forget the lonesome things they told.
There's something, something sad, that troubles me.
Beats like the rain upon my frightened heart;
A tale about a girl, the thing might be,
Whispered in corners, secret and apart
How he was killed and how she never knew
Because God put a small cloud on her mind,
And how she waited the black winters through
And the wet summers; surely God was kind!
I took a daisy from the garden-bed
And plucked the petals, one by one, to tell
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poem by Katharine Tynan
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The Deserted
Thou Who wert kindest of the kind --
Since out of sight is out of mind --
There's none to do Thee kindnesses
In Thy last anguish and distress.
Thou art left all alone, alone.
Where are Thy faithful lovers flown?
Where is the multitude that fed,
With loaves and fishes comfortèd?
The blind Thou mad'st to see? the lame
That walked? the one leper who came
Of nine made clean? The dumb that spoke?
Where are they -- all Thy loving folk?
How is it they have naught to say?
Where's Lazarus risen from the clay?
Where is the widow of Nain? where
Jairus's daughter, small and fair?
Judas has sold Thee to Thy foes,
And Peter weeps while the cock crows.
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poem by Katharine Tynan
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Of St. Francis and the Ass
Our father, ere he went
Out with his brother, Death,
Smiling and well-content
As a bridegroom goeth,
Sweetly forgiveness prayed
From man or beast whom he
Had ever injured
Or burdened needlessly.
'Verily,' then said he,
'I crave before I pass
Forgiveness full and free
Of my little brother, the ass.
Many a time and oft,
When winds and ways were hot,
He hath borne me cool and soft
And service grudged me not.
'And once did it betide
There was, unseen of me,
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poem by Katharine Tynan
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Shamrock Song
O, the red rose may be fair,
And the lily statelier;
But my shamrock, one in three,
Takes the very heart of me!
Many a lover hath the rose
When june's musk-wind breathes and blows:
And in many a bower is heard
Her sweet praise from bee and bird.
Through the gold hours dreameth she,
In her warm heart passionately,
Her fair face hung languid-wise:
O, her breath of honey and spice!
Like a fair saint virginal
Stands your lily, silver and tall;
Over all the flowers that be
Is my shamrock dear to me.
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poem by Katharine Tynan
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St. Francis and the Birds
Little sisters, the birds:
We must praise God, you and I
You, with songs that fill the sky,
I, with halting words.
All things tell His praise,
Woods and waters thereof sing,
Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring,
And the night and days.
Yea, and cold and heat,
And the sun and stars and moon,
Sea with her monotonous tune,
Rain and hail and sleet,
And the winds of heaven,
And the solemn hills of blue,
And the brown earth and the dew,
And the thunder even,
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poem by Katharine Tynan
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The Vision
An average man was Private Flynn,
Good stuff for soldiering, no doubt;
Troublesome when the drink was in,
A quiet lad when it was out.
Too fond of gaming and the girls,
And given to 'language' that would fright
His mother dreaming of his curls
And his soft boyish ways at night.
He had forgotten how to pray
The way she taught him at her knees.
Her prayers ran like a river all day,
And while she slept gave little ease.
The Calvary, by Souchez, holds
Wide arms to clasp the new-made beds,
Where lie, nor toss their browns and golds,
The precious, the beloved heads.
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poem by Katharine Tynan
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The Legend of St. Austin and the Child
St. Austin, going in thought
Along the sea-sands gray,
Into another world was caught,
And Carthage far away.
He saw the City of God
Hang in the saffron sky;
And this was holy ground he trod,
Where mortals come not nigh.
He saw pale spires aglow,
Houses of heavenly sheen;
All in a world of rose and snow,
A sea of gold and green.
There amid Paradise
The saint was rapt away
From unillumined sands and skies
And floor of muddy clay.
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poem by Katharine Tynan
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The Children of Lir
Out upon the sand-dunes thrive the coarse long grasses;
Herons standing knee-deep in the brackish pool;
Overhead the sunset fire and flame amasses
And the moon to eastward rises pale and cool.
Rose and green around her, silver-gray and pearly,
Chequered with the black rooks flying home to bed;
For, to wake at daybreak, birds must couch them early:
And the day's a long one since the dawn was red.
On the chilly lakelet, in that pleasant gloaming,
See the sad swans sailing: they shall have no rest:
Never a voice to greet them save the bittern's booming
Where the ghostly sallows sway against the West.
'Sister,' saith the gray swan, 'Sister, I am weary,'
Turning to the white swan wet, despairing eyes;
'O' she saith, 'my young one! O' she saith, 'my dearie !'
Casts her wings about him with a storm of cries.
Woe for Lir's sweet children whom their vile stepmother
Glamoured with her witch-spells for a thousand years;
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poem by Katharine Tynan
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