Ballads of Peace in War [5]
from childhood up
Drank together friendship's cup:
Joe was glad with Bill at play,
Bill was home to Joe alway.
On their friendship came the blight
Of a little thoughtless fight;
Then, alas! each passing day
Farther bore these friends away.
There was grief in either heart,
Bleeding deep from sorrow's dart,
When in thoughtfulness again
Each beheld the other's pain.
But the shades of night are furled
When the morning takes the world,
And the Christmas days of peace
Make our little quarrels cease.
Bill and Joe on Christmas Day
Met as in the olden way;
Bill put out his hand to Joe,--
It was Christmas Day, you know.
Bill and Joe are friends again,
And to them long years remain;
Time may take them far away,
They keep Christmas every day.
25
BETHLEHEM
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;
Or seek Versailles, conceited as a bride,
With garish memories of kins strewn round;
Or lay your spirit's cheek on Forum ground,
For here a mighty Caesar lived and died:
To these and other stones, O ye who speed,
Since there, forsooth, a prince was passing great,
More zealous let your heart's adoring heed
The Child most Royal in a crib's estate.
No poor so poor, no king more king than He:
Come, better pilgrims, to this mystery.
26
A VOW-DAY FLOWER
(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.
And richer than rose or lily
Is the flower he wears today,
With triune bloom and fragrance
>From earth to heaven alway.
Poverty is the low leaf,
And one is chastely white,
And the red love of obedience
Goes up to God a light.
Grow, good flower, and keep him
Who wears your bloom today,
Shadow and sunshine bless him,
And the trefoil's heavenward way.
27
THE TREE IN THE TENEMENT YARD
(For T. A. Daly)
America, Ireland and Italy,
All have known this poor old tree.
* * *
A rickety fence goes round the yard
And the noisy streets stand high:
The grassless ground is brown and hard,
And the cinder pathways, lined with shard,
Sees but a bit of sky.
Once the yard was fertile and fair,
And lilac bushes near:
And a Yankee counted with fretful care,
Under the solacing shadows there,
The gain of every year.
The crowded walls of trade arose
And gloomed the avenue:
But a Munster man at each day's close
Built in the tree his hope's rainbows,
And saw his dreams come true.
The years have thickened the darkened air,
But the tree is still on guard:
It comforts the young Italian there,
Who sees the future blossoming fair
>From the tree in the tenement yard.
* * *
America, Ireland and Italy
All have loved this poor old tree.
28
OLD HUDSON ROVERS
(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,
Laughing in the sibilance of the silver spray.
Yea, and up the woodlands, staunch in moonlit weather,
Go the ghostly horsemen, adventuresome to ride,
White as mist the doublet-braize, bandolier and feather,
Fleet as gallant Robin Hood in an eventide.
Times are gone that knew the craft in the role of rovers,
Fellows of the open, care could never load:
Unalarmed for bed or board, they were leisure's lovers,
Summer bloomed in story on the Hyde Park Road.
Summer was a blossom, but the fruit was autumn,
Fragrant haylofts for a bed, cider-cakes in store,
Warmer was a cup they know, when the north wind caught 'em
Down at Benny Havens' by the West Point shore.
Idlers now-and loafers pass, joy is out of fashion,
Honest fun that fooled a dog or knew a friendly
Drank together friendship's cup:
Joe was glad with Bill at play,
Bill was home to Joe alway.
On their friendship came the blight
Of a little thoughtless fight;
Then, alas! each passing day
Farther bore these friends away.
There was grief in either heart,
Bleeding deep from sorrow's dart,
When in thoughtfulness again
Each beheld the other's pain.
But the shades of night are furled
When the morning takes the world,
And the Christmas days of peace
Make our little quarrels cease.
Bill and Joe on Christmas Day
Met as in the olden way;
Bill put out his hand to Joe,--
It was Christmas Day, you know.
Bill and Joe are friends again,
And to them long years remain;
Time may take them far away,
They keep Christmas every day.
25
BETHLEHEM
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;
Or seek Versailles, conceited as a bride,
With garish memories of kins strewn round;
Or lay your spirit's cheek on Forum ground,
For here a mighty Caesar lived and died:
To these and other stones, O ye who speed,
Since there, forsooth, a prince was passing great,
More zealous let your heart's adoring heed
The Child most Royal in a crib's estate.
No poor so poor, no king more king than He:
Come, better pilgrims, to this mystery.
26
A VOW-DAY FLOWER
(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.
And richer than rose or lily
Is the flower he wears today,
With triune bloom and fragrance
>From earth to heaven alway.
Poverty is the low leaf,
And one is chastely white,
And the red love of obedience
Goes up to God a light.
Grow, good flower, and keep him
Who wears your bloom today,
Shadow and sunshine bless him,
And the trefoil's heavenward way.
27
THE TREE IN THE TENEMENT YARD
(For T. A. Daly)
America, Ireland and Italy,
All have known this poor old tree.
* * *
A rickety fence goes round the yard
And the noisy streets stand high:
The grassless ground is brown and hard,
And the cinder pathways, lined with shard,
Sees but a bit of sky.
Once the yard was fertile and fair,
And lilac bushes near:
And a Yankee counted with fretful care,
Under the solacing shadows there,
The gain of every year.
The crowded walls of trade arose
And gloomed the avenue:
But a Munster man at each day's close
Built in the tree his hope's rainbows,
And saw his dreams come true.
The years have thickened the darkened air,
But the tree is still on guard:
It comforts the young Italian there,
Who sees the future blossoming fair
>From the tree in the tenement yard.
* * *
America, Ireland and Italy
All have loved this poor old tree.
28
OLD HUDSON ROVERS
(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,
Laughing in the sibilance of the silver spray.
Yea, and up the woodlands, staunch in moonlit weather,
Go the ghostly horsemen, adventuresome to ride,
White as mist the doublet-braize, bandolier and feather,
Fleet as gallant Robin Hood in an eventide.
Times are gone that knew the craft in the role of rovers,
Fellows of the open, care could never load:
Unalarmed for bed or board, they were leisure's lovers,
Summer bloomed in story on the Hyde Park Road.
Summer was a blossom, but the fruit was autumn,
Fragrant haylofts for a bed, cider-cakes in store,
Warmer was a cup they know, when the north wind caught 'em
Down at Benny Havens' by the West Point shore.
Idlers now-and loafers pass, joy is out of fashion,
Honest fun that fooled a dog or knew a friendly