Purgatory, Mary Anne Madden Sadlier [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗

years her heart was hidden where
Nor moth, nor rust, nor craft of man could harm;
The blue eyes, seldom lifted, save in prayer,
Beamed with her wished-for heaven's celestial calm.

As innocent as childhood's was the face,
Though sorrow oft had touched that tender heart;
Each trouble came as winged by special grace,
And resignation saved the wound from smart.

On bead and crucifix her finger kept,
Until the last, their fond, accustomed hold;
"My Jesus," breathed the lips; the raised eyes slept,
The placid brow, the gentle hand grew cold.

The choicely ripening cluster, ling'ring late
Into October on its shrivelled vine,
Wins mellow juices, which in patience wait
Upon those long, long days of deep sunshine.

Then set it gently at the altar rail,
The faithful, aged dust, with honors meet;
How can we hope, if such as she can fail
Before th' Eternal God's high judgment-seat?


PURGATORY.

OLD BELLS.

Ring out merrily,
Loudly, cheerily,
Blithe old bells from the steeple tower.
Hopefully, fearfully,
Joyfully, tearfully,
Moveth the bride from her maiden bower.
Cloud there is none in the bright summer sky,
Sunshine flings benison down from on high;
Children sing loud as the train moves along,
"Happy the bride that the sun shineth on."

Knell out drearily,
Measured out wearily,
Sad old bells from the steeple gray.
Priests chanting slowly,
Solemnly, slowly,
Passeth the corpse from the portal to-day.
Drops from the leaden clouds heavily fall,
Drippingly over the plume and the pall;
Murmur old folk, as the train moves along,
"Happy the dead that the rain raineth on."

Toll at the hour of prime,
Matin and vesper chime,
Loved old bells from the steeple high;
Rolling, like holy waves,
Over the lowly graves,
Floating up, prayer-fraught, into the sky.
Solemn the lesson your lightest notes teach,
Stern is the preaching your iron tongues preach;
Ringing in life from the bud to the bloom;
Ringing the dead to their rest in the tomb.

Peal out evermore -
Peal as ye pealed of yore, Brave old bells, on each holy day.
In sunshine and gladness,
Through clouds and through sadness,
Bridal and burial have both passed away.
Tell us life's pleasures with death are still rife;
Tell us that death ever leadeth to life;
Life is our labor and death is our rest,
If happy the living, the dead are the blest.

- Popular Poetry .


O HOLY CHURCH!

HARRIET M. SKIDMORE.

O holy Church! thy mother-heart
Still clasps the child of grace;
And nought its links of love can part,
Or rend its fond embrace.

Thy potent prayer and sacred rite
Embalm the precious clay,
That waits the resurrection-light -
The fadeless Easter day.

And loving hearts, by faith entwined,
True to that faith shall be,
And keep the sister-soul enshrined
In tender memory;

Shall bid the ceaseless prayer ascend,
To win her guerdon blest;
The radiant day that hath no end,
The calm, eternal rest.


AN INCIDENT OF THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Again he faced the battle-field -
Wildly they fly, are slain, or yield.
"Now then," he said, and couch'd his spear,
"My course is run, the goal is near;
One effort more, one brave career,
Must close this race of mine."
Then, in his stirrups rising high,
He shouted loud his battle-cry,
"St. James for Argentine!"

* * * * *

Now toil'd the Bruce, the battle done,
To use his conquest boldly won:
And gave command for horse and spear
To press the Southern's scatter'd rear,
Nor let his broken force combine,
When the war-cry of Argentine
Fell faintly on his ear!
"Save, save his life," he cried. "O save
The kind, the noble, and the brave!"
The squadrons round free passage gave,
The wounded knight drew near.
He raised his red-cross shield no more,
Helm, cuish, and breast-plate stream'd with gore.
Yet, as he saw the King advance,
He strove even then to couch his lance -
The effort was in vain!
The spur-stroke fail'd to rouse the horse;
Wounded and weary, in 'mid course
He tumbled on the plain.
Then foremost was the generous Bruce
To raise his head, his helm to loose: -
"Lord Earl, the day is thine!
My sovereign's charge, and adverse fate,
Have made our meeting all too late;
Yet this may Argentine,
As boon from ancient comrade, crave -
A Christian's Mass, a soldier's grave."
Bruce pressed his dying hand - its grasp
Kindly replied; but, in his clasp
It stiffen'd and grew cold -
And, "O farewell!" the victor cried,
Of chivalry the flower and pride,
The arm in battle bold,
The courteous mien, the noble race,
The stainless faith, the manly face!
Bid Ninian's convent light their shrine,
For late-wake of De Argentine.
O'er better knight on death-bier laid,
Torch never gleamd, nor Mass was said! [1]

[Footnote 1: It is said that the body of Sir Giles de Argentine was brought to Edinburgh, and interred with the greatest pomp in St. Giles' Church. Thus did the royal Bruce respond to the dying knight's request.]

- From "The Lord of the Isles"


PRAY FOE THE MARTYRED DEAD.

Pray for the Dead! When, conscienceless, the nations

Rebellious rose to smite the thorn-crowned Head
Of Christendom, their proudest aspirations
Ambitioned but a place amongst the dead.

Pray for the Dead! The seeming fabled story
of early chivalry, in them renewed,
Shines out to-day with an ascendent glory
Above that field of parricidal feud.

The children of a persecuted mother,
When nations heard the drum of battle beat,
Through coward Europe, brother leagued with brother,
Rallied and perished at her sacred feet.

O Ireland, ever waiting the To-morrow,
Lift up thy widowed, venerable head,
Exultingly, through thy maternal sorrow,
Not comfortless, like Rachel, for thy dead.

For, where the crimson shock of battle thundered,
From hosts precipitated on a few,
Above thy sons, outnumbered, crushed and sundered,
Thy green flag through the smoke and glitter flew.

Lift up thy head! The hurricane that dashes
Its giant billows on the Rock of Time,
Divests thee, mother, of thy weeds and ashes,
Rendering, at least, thy grief sublime.

For nations, banded into conclaves solemn,
Thy name and spirit in the grave had cast,
And carved thy name upon the crumbling column
Which stands amid the unremembered Past.

Pray for the Dead! Cold, cold amid the splendor
Of the Italian South our brothers sleep;
The blue air broods above them warm and tender,
The mists glide o'er them from the barren deep.

Pray for the Dead! High-souled and lion-hearted,
Heroic martyrs to a glorious trust,
By them our scorned name is re-asserted,
By them our banner rescued from the dust.

- Kilkenny Journal .


IN WINTER

ELIZA ALLEN STARR.

How lonely on the hillside look the graves!
The summer green no longer o'er them waves;
No more, among the frosted boughs, are heard
The mournful whip-poor-will or singing bird.

The rose-bush, planted with such tearful care,
Stands in the winter sunshine stiff and bare;
Save here and there its lingering berries red
Make the cold sunbeams warm above the dead.

Through all the pines, and through the tall, dry grass,
The fitful breezes with a shiver pass,
While o'er the autumn's lately flowering weeds
The snow-birds flit and peck the shelling seeds.

Because those graves look lonely, bleak and bare,
Because they are not, as in summer, fair,
O turn from comforts, cheery friends, and home,
And 'mid their solemn desolation roam!

On each brown turf some fresh memorial lay;
O'er each dear hillock's dust a moment stay,
To breathe a "Rest in Peace" for those who lie
On lonely hillsides 'neath a wintry sky.


OSEMUS.

MARY E MANNIX

Welcome, ye sad dirges of November,
When Indian summer drops her brilliant crown
All withered, as in clinging mantle brown
She floats, away to die beneath the leaves;
Pressed are the grapes, gathered the latest sheaves;
O wailing winds! how can we but remember
The loved and lost? O ceaseless monotones!
Hearing your plaints, counting your weary moans
Like voices of the dead, like broken sighs
From stricken souls who long for Paradise,
We will not slight the message that ye bear,
Nor check a pitying thought, nor guide a prayer.
They have departed, we must still remember;
Welcome, ye sad, sad dirges of November!


FUNERAL HYMN.

From the French of Theodore Nisard

A. T. SADLIER