Poems by Denis Florence MacCarthy
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Denis Florence MacCarthy >> Poems
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All are not priests, yet priestly duties may
And should be all men's: as a common sight
We view the brightness of a summer's day,
And think 'tis but its duty to be bright;
But should a genial beam of warming light
Suddenly break from out a wintry sky,
With gratitude we own a new delight,
Quick beats the heart and brighter beams the eye,
And as a boon we hail the splendour from on high.
'Tis so with men, with those of them at least
Whose hearts by icy doubts are chill'd and torn;
They think the virtues of a Christian Priest
Something professional, put on and worn
Even as the vestments of a Sabbath morn:
But should a friend or act or teach as he,
Then is the mind of all its doubting shorn,
The unexpected goodness that they see
Takes root, and bears its fruit, as uncoerced and free!
One I have known, and haply yet I know,
A youth by baser passions undefiled,
Lit by the light of genius and the glow
Which real feeling leaves where once it smiled;
Firm as a man, yet tender as a child;
Armed at all points by fantasy and thought,
To face the true or soar amid the wild;
By love and labour, as a good man ought,
Ready to pay the price by which dear truth is bought!
'Tis not with cold advice or stern rebuke,
With formal precept, or wit face demure,
But with the unconscious eloquence of look,
Where shines the heart so loving and so pure:
'Tis these, with constant goodness, that allure
All hearts to love and imitate his worth.
Beside him weaker natures feel secure,
Even as the flower beside the oak peeps forth,
Safe, though the rain descends, and blows the biting North!
Such is my friend, and such I fain would be,
Mild, thoughtful, modest, faithful, loving, gay,
Correct, not cold, nor uncontroll'd though free,
But proof to all the lures that round us play,
Even as the sun, that on his azure way
Moveth with steady pace and lofty mien,
Though blushing clouds, like syrens, woo his stay,
Higher and higher through the pure serene,
Till comes the calm of eve and wraps him from the scene.
THE SPIRIT OF THE IDEAL.
Sweet sister spirits, ye whose starlight tresses
Stream on the night-winds as ye float along,
Missioned with hope to man--and with caresses
To slumbering babes--refreshment to the strong--
And grace the sensuous soul that it's arrayed in:
As the light burden of melodious song
Weighs down a poet's words;--as an o'erladen
Lily doth bend beneath its own pure snow;
Or with its joy, the free heart of a maiden:--
Thus, I behold your outstretched pinions grow
Heavy with all the priceless gifts and graces
God through thy ministration doth bestow.
Do ye not plant the rose on youthful faces?
And rob the heavens of stars for Beauty's eyes?
Do ye not fold within love's pure embraces
All that Omnipotence doth yet devise
For human bliss, or rapture superhuman--
Heaven upon earth, and earth still in the skies?
Do ye not sow the fruitful heart of woman
With tenderest charities and faith sincere,
To feed man's sterile soul and to illumine
His duller eyes, that else might settle here,
With the bright promise of a purer region--
A starlight beacon to a starry sphere?
Are they not all thy children, that bright legion--
Of aspirations, and all hopeful sighs
That in the solemn train of grave Religion
Strew heavenly flowers before man's longing eyes,
And make him feel, as o'er life's sea he wendeth,
The far-off odorous airs of Paradise?--
Like to the breeze some flowery island sendeth
Unto the seaman, ere its bowers are seen,
Which tells him soon his weary wandering endeth--
Soon shall he rest, in bosky shades of green,
By daisied meadows prankt with dewy flowers,
With ever-running rivulets between.
These are thy tasks, my sisters--these the powers
God in his goodness gives into thy hands:--
'Tis from thy fingers fall the diamond showers
Of budding Spring, and o'er the expectant lands
June's odorous purple and rich Autumn's gold:
And even when needful Winter wide expands
His fallow wings, and winds blow sharp and cold
From the harsh east, 'tis thine, o'er all the plain,
The leafless woodlands and the unsheltered wold,
Gently to drop the flakes of feathery rain--
Heaven's warmest down--around the slumbering seeds,
And o'er the roots the frost-blanched counterpane.
What though man's careless eye but little heeds
Even the effects, much less the remoter cause,
Still, in the doing of beneficent deeds--
By God and his Vicegerent Nature's laws--
Ever a compensating joy is found.
Think ye the rain-drop heedeth if it draws
Rankness as well as Beauty from the ground?
Or that the sullen wind will deign to wake
Only Aeolian melodies of sound--
And not the stormy screams that make men quake
Thus do ye act, my sisters; thus ye do
Your cheerful duty for the doing's sake--
Not unrewarded surely--not when you
See the successful issue of your charms,
Bringing the absent back again to view--
Giving the loved one to the lover's arms--
Smoothing the grassy couch in weary age--
Hushing in death's great calm a world's alarms.
I, I alone upon the earth's vast stage
Am doomed to act an unrequited part--
I, the unseen preceptress of the sage--
I, whose ideal form doth win the heart
Of all whom God's vocation hath assigned
To wear the sacred vesture of high Art--
To pass along the electric sparks of mind
From age to age, from race to race, until
The expanding truth encircles all mankind.
What without me were all the poet's skill?--
Dead, sensuous form without the quickening soul.
What without me the instinctive aim of will?--
A useless magnet pointing to no pole.
What the fine ear and the creative hand?
Most potent spirits free from man's control.
I, THE IDEAL, by the poet stand
When all his soul o'erflows with holy fire,
When currents of the beautiful and grand
Run glittering down along each burning wire
Until the heart of the great world doth feel
The electric shock of his God-kindled lyre:--
Then rolls the thunderous music peal on peal,
Or in the breathless after-pause, a strain
Simpler and sweeter through the hush doth steal--
Like to the pattering drops of summer rain
Or rustling grass, when fragrance fills the air
And all the groves are vocal once again:
Whatever form, whatever shape I bear,
The Spirit of high Impulse, and the Soul
Of all conceptions beautiful and rare,
Am I; who now swift spurning all control,
On rapid wings--the Ariel of the Muse--
Dart from the dazzling centre to the pole;
Now in the magic mimicry of hues
Such as surround God's golden throne, descend
In Titian's skies the boundaries to confuse
Betwixt earth's heaven and heaven's own heaven to blend
In Raphael's forms the human and divine,
Where spirit dawns, and matter seems to end.
Again on wings of melody, so fine
They mock the sight, but fall upon the ear
Like tuneful rose-leaves at the day's decline--
And with the music of a happier sphere
Entrance some master of melodious sound,
Till startled men the hymns of angels hear.
Happy for me when, in the vacant round
Of barren ages, one great steadfast soul
Faithful to me and to his art is found.
But, ah! my sisters, with my grief condole;
Join in my sorrows and respond my sighs;
And let your sobs the funeral dirges toll;
Weep those who falter in the great emprise--
Who, turning off upon some poor pretence,
Some worthless guerdon or some paltry prize,
Down from the airy zenith through the immense
Sink to the low expedients of an hour,
And barter soul for all the slough of sense,--
Just when the mind had reached its regal power,
And fancy's wing its perfect plume unfurl'd,--
Just when the bud of promise in the flower
Of all completeness opened on the world--
When the pure fire that heaven itself outflung
Back to its native empyrean curled,
Like vocal incense from a censer swung:--
Ah, me! to be subdued when all seemed won--
That I should fly when I would fain have clung.
Yet so it is,--our radiant course is run;--
Here we must part, the deathless lay unsung,
And, more than all, the deathless deed undone.
RECOLLECTIONS.
Ah! summer time, sweet summer scene,
When all the golden days,
Linked hand-in-hand, like moonlit fays,
Danced o'er the deepening green.
When, from the top of Pelier[111] down
We saw the sun descend,
With smiles that blessings seemed to send
To our near native town.
And when we saw him rise again
High o'er the hills at morn--
God's glorious prophet daily born
To preach good will to men--
Good-will and peace to all between
The gates of night and day--
Join with me, love, and with me say--
Sweet summer time and scene.
Sweet summer time, true age of gold,
When hand-in-hand we went
Slow by the quickening shrubs, intent
To see the buds unfold:
To trace new wild flowers in the grass,
New blossoms on the bough,
And see the water-lilies now
Rise o'er the liquid glass.
When from the fond and folding gale
The scented briar I pulled,
Or for thy kindred bosom culled
The lily of the vale;--
Thou without whom were dark the green,
The golden turned to gray,
Join with me, love, and with me say--
Sweet summer time and scene.
Sweet summer time, delight's brief reign,
Thou hast one memory still,
Dearer than ever tree or hill
Yet stretched along life's plain.
Stranger than all the wond'rous whole,
Flowers, fields, and sunset skies--
To see within our infant's eyes
The awakening of the soul.
To see their dear bright depths first stirred
By the far breath of thought,
To feel our trembling hearts o'erfraught
With rapture when we heard
Her first clear laugh, which might have been
A cherub's laugh at play--
Ah! love, thou canst but join and say--
Sweet summer time and scene.
Sweet summer time, sweet summer days,
One day I must recall;
One day the brightest of them all,
Must mark with special praise.
'Twas when at length in genial showers
The spring attained its close;
And June with many a myriad rose
Incarnadined the bowers:
Led by the bright and sun-warm air,
We left our indoor nooks;
Thou with my paper and my books,
And I thy garden chair;
Crossed the broad, level garden-walks,
With countless roses lined;
And where the apple still inclined
Its blossoms o'er the box,
Near to the lilacs round the pond,
In its stone ring hard by
We took our seats, where save the sky,
And the few forest trees beyond
The garden wall, we nothing saw,
But flowers and blossoms, and we heard
Nought but the whirring of some bird,
Or the rooks' distant, clamorous caw.
And in the shade we saw the face
Of our dear infant sleeping near,
And thou wert by to smile and hear,
And speak with innate truth and grace.
There through the pleasant noontide hours
My task of echoed song I sung;
Turning the golden southern tongue
Into the iron ore of ours!
'Twas the great Spanish master's pride,
The story of the hero proved;
'Twas how the Moorish princess loved,
And how the firm Fernando died.[112]
O happiest season ever seen,
O day, indeed the happiest day;
Join with me, love, and with me say--
Sweet summer time and scene.
One picture more before I close
Fond Memory's fast dissolving views;
One picture more before I lose
The radiant outlines as they rose.
'Tis evening, and we leave the porch,
And for the hundredth time admire
The rhododendron's cones of fire
Rise round the tree, like torch o'er torch.
And for the hundredth time point out
Each favourite blossom and perfume--
If the white lilac still doth bloom,
Or the pink hawthorn fadeth out:
And by the laurell'd wall, and o'er
The fields of young green corn we've gone;
And by the outer gate, and on
To our dear friend's oft-trodden door.
And there in cheerful talk we stay,
Till deepening twilight warns us home;
Then once again we backward roam
Calmly and slow the well-known way--
And linger for the expected view--
Day's dying gleam upon the hill;
Or listen for the whip-poor-will,[113]
Or the too seldom shy cuckoo.
At home the historic page we glean,
And muse, and hope, and praise, and pray--
Join with me, love, as then, and say--
Sweet summer time and scene!
111. Mount Pelier, in the county of Dublin, overlooking Rathfarnham,
and more remotely Dundrum. To a brief residence near the latter village
the "Recollections" rendered in this poem are to be referred.
112. Calderon's "El Principe Constante," translated in the earlier
volumes of the author's Calderon. London, 1853.
113. I do not know the bird to which I have given this Indian name.
It, however, imitated its note quite distinctly.
DOLORES.
The moon of my soul is dark, Dolores,
Dead and dark in my breast it lies,
For I miss the heaven of thy smile, Dolores,
And the light of thy brown bright eyes.
The rose of my heart is gone, Dolores,
Bud or blossom in vain I seek;
For I miss the breath of thy lip, Dolores,
And the blush of thy pearl-pale cheek.
The pulse of my heart is still, Dolores,
Still and chill is its glowing tide;
For I miss the beating of thine, Dolores,
In the vacant space by my side.
But the moon shall revisit my soul, Dolores,
And the rose shall refresh my heart,
When I meet thee again in heaven, Dolores,
Never again to part.
LOST AND FOUND.
"Whither art thou gone, fair Una?
Una fair, the moon is gleaming;
Fear no mortal eye, fair Una,
For the very flowers are dreaming.
And the twinkling stars are closing
Up their weary watching glances,
Warders on heaven's walls reposing,
While the glittering foe advances.
"Una dear, my heart is throbbing,
Full of throbbings without number;
Come! the tired-out streams are sobbing
Like to children ere they slumber;
And the longing trees inclining,
Seek the earth's too distant bosom;
Sad fate! that keeps from intertwining
The earthly and the aerial blossom.
"Una dear, I've roamed the mountain,
Round the furze and o'er the heather;
Una, dear, I've sought the fountain
Where we rested oft together;
Ah! the mountain now looks dreary,
Dead and dark where no life liveth;
Ah! the fountain, to the weary,
Now, no more refreshment giveth.
"Una, darling, dearest daughter
Beauty ever gave to Fancy,
Spirit of the silver water,
Nymph of Nature's necromancy!
Fair enchantress, fond magician,
Is thine every spell-word spoken?
Hast thou closed thy fairy mission?
Is thy potent wand then broken?
"Una dearest, deign to hear me,
Fly no more my prayer resisting!"
Then a trembling voice came near me,
Like a maiden to the trysting,
Like a maiden's feet approaching
Where the lover doth attend her;
Half-forgiving, half-reproaching,
Came that voice so shy and tender.
"Must I blame thee, must I chide thee,
Change to scorn the love I bore thee?
And the fondest heart beside thee,
And the truest eyes before thee.
And the kindest hands to press thee,
And the instinctive sense to guide thee,
And the purest lips to bless thee,
What, O dreamer! is denied thee?
"Hast thou not the full fruition,
Hast thou not the full enjoyance
Of thy young heart's fond ambition,
Free from every feared annoyance
Thou hast sighed for truth and beauty,
Hast thou failed, then, in thy wooing?
Dreamed of some ideal duty,
Is there nought that waits thy doing?--
"Is the world less bright or beauteous,
That dear eyes behold it with thee?
Is the work of life less duteous,
That thou art helped to do it, prithee?
Is the near rapture non-existent,
Because thou dreamest an ideal?
And canst thou for a glimmering distant
Forget the blessings of the real?
"Down on thy knees, O doubting dreamer!
Down! and repent thy heart's misprision."
Scarce had I knelt in tears and tremor,
When the scales fell from off my vision.
There stood my human guardian angel,
Given me by God's benign foreseeing,
While from her lips came life's evangel,
"Live! that each day complete thy being!"
SPRING FLOWERS FROM IRELAND.
On receiving an early crocus and some violets in a letter from Ireland.
Within the letter's rustling fold
I find once more a glad surprise--
A little tiny cup of gold--
Two little lovely violet eyes;
A cup of gold with emeralds set,
Once filled with wine from happier spheres;
Two little eyes so lately wet
With spring's delicious dewy tears.
Oh! little eyes that wept and laughed,
Now bright with smiles, with tears now dim,
Oh! little cup that once was quaffed
By fay-queens fluttering round thy rim.
I press each silken fringe's fold,
Sweet little eyes once more ye shine;
I kiss thy lip, oh, cup of gold,
And find thee full of Memory's wine.
Within their violet depths I gaze,
And see as in the camera's gloom,
The island with its belt of bays,
Its chieftained heights all capped with broom,
Which as the living lens it fills,
Now seems a giant charmed to sleep--
Now a broad shield embossed with hills
Upon the bosom of the deep.
When will the slumbering giant wake?
When will the shield defend and guard?
Ah, me! prophetic gleams forsake
The once rapt eyes of seer or bard.
Enough, if shunning Samson's fate,
It doth not all its vigour yield;
Enough, if plenteous peace, though late,
May rest beneath the sheltering shield.
I see the long and lone defiles
Of Keimaneigh's bold rocks uphurled,
I see the golden fruited isles
That gem the queen-lakes of the world;
I see--a gladder sight to me--
By soft Shanganah's silver strand,
The breaking of a sapphire sea
Upon the golden-fretted sand.
Swiftly the tunnel's rock-hewn pass,
Swiftly the fiery train runs through;
Oh! what a glittering sheet of glass!
Oh! what enchantment meets my view!
With eyes insatiate I pursue,
Till Bray's bright headland bounds the scene.
'Tis Baiae, by a softer blue!
Gaeta, by a gladder green!
By tasseled groves, o'er meadows fair,
I'm carried in my blissful dream,
To where--a monarch in the air--
The pointed mountain reigns supreme;
There in a spot remote and wild,
I see once more the rustic seat,
Where Carrigoona, like a child,
Sits at the mightier mountain's feet.
There by the gentler mountain's slope,
That happiest year of many a year,
That first swift year of love and hope,
With her then dear and ever dear,
I sat upon the rustic seat,
The seat an aged bay-tree crowns,
And saw outspreading from our feet
The golden glory of the Downs.
The furze-crowned heights, the glorious glen,
The white-walled chapel glistening near,
The house of God, the homes of men,
The fragrant hay, the ripening ear;
There where there seemed nor sin nor crime,
There in God's sweet and wholesome air--
Strange book to read at such a time--
We read of Vanity's false Fair.
We read the painful pages through,
Perceived the skill, admired the art,
Felt them if true, not wholly true,
A truer truth was in our heart.
Save fear and love of One, hath proved
The sage how vain is all below;
And one was there who feared and loved,
And one who loved that she was so.
The vision spreads, the memories grow,
Fair phantoms crowd the more I gaze,
Oh! cup of gold, with wine o'erflow,
I'll drink to those departed days:
And when I drain the golden cup
To them, to those I ne'er can see,
With wine of hope I'll fill it up,
And drink to days that yet may be.
I've drunk the future and the past,
Now for a draught of warmer wine--
One draught, the sweetest and the last,
Lady, I'll drink to thee and thine.
These flowers that to my breast I fold,
Into my very heart have grown;
To thee I'll drain the cup of gold,
And think the violet eyes thine own.
Boulogne, March, 1865.
TO THE MEMORY OF FATHER PROUT.
In deep dejection, but with affection,
I often think of those pleasant times,
In the days of Fraser, ere I touched a razor,
How I read and revell'd in thy racy rhymes;
When in wine and wassail, we to thee were vassal,
Of Watergrass-hill, O renowned P.P.!
May the bells of Shandon
Toll blithe and bland on
The pleasant waters of thy memory!
Full many a ditty, both wise and witty,
In this social city have I heard since then
(With the glass before me, how the dream comes o'er me,
Of those Attic suppers, and those vanished men).
But no song hath woken, whether sung or spoken,
Or hath left a token of such joy in me
As "The Bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the river Lee."
The songs melodious, which--a new Harmodius--
"Young Ireland" wreathed round its rebel sword,
With their deep vibrations and aspirations,
Fling a glorious madness o'er the festive board!
But to me seems sweeter, with a tone completer,
The melodious metre that we owe to thee--
Of the bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the river Lee.
There's a grave that rises o'er thy sward, Devizes,
Where Moore lies sleeping from his land afar,
And a white stone flashes over Goldsmith's ashes
In quiet cloisters by Temple Bar;
So where'er thou sleepest, with a love that's deepest,
Shall thy land remember thy sweet song and thee,
While the Bells of Shandon
Shall sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the river Lee.
THOSE SHANDON BELLS.
[The remains of the Rev. Francis Mahony were laid in the family
burial-place in St. Anne Shandon Churchyard, the "Bells," which he has
rendered famous, tolling the knell of the poet, who sang of their sweet
chimes.]
Those Shandon bells, those Shandon bells!
Whose deep, sad tone now sobs, now swells--
Who comes to seek this hallowed ground,
And sleep within their sacred sound?
'Tis one who heard these chimes when young,
And who in age their praises sung,
Within whose breast their music made
A dream of home where'er he strayed.
And, oh! if bells have power to-day
To drive all evil things away,
Let doubt be dumb, and envy cease--
And round his grave reign holy peace.
True love doth love in turn beget,
And now these bells repay the debt;
Whene'er they sound, their music tells
Of him who sang sweet Shandon bells!
May 30, 1866.
YOUTH AND AGE.
To give the blossom and the fruit
The soft warm air that wraps them round,
Oh! think how long the toilsome root
Must live and labour 'neath the ground.
To send the river on its way,
With ever deepening strength and force,
Oh! think how long 'twas let to play,
A happy streamlet, near its source.
TO JUNE.
WRITTEN AFTER AN UNGENIAL MAY.
I'll heed no more the poet's lay--
His false-fond song shall charm no more--
My heart henceforth shall but adore
The real, not the misnamed May.
Too long I've knelt, and vainly hung
My offerings round an empty name;
O May! thou canst not be the same
As once thou wert when Earth was young.
Thou canst not be the same to-day--
The poet's dream--the lover's joy:--
The floral heaven of girl and boy
Were heaven no more, if thou wert May.
If thou wert May, then May is cold,
And, oh! how changed from what she has been--
Then barren boughs are bright with green,
And leaden skies are glad with gold.
And the dark clouds that veiled thy moon
Were silvery-threaded tissues bright,
Looping the locks of amber light
That float but on the airs of June.
O June! thou art the real May;
Thy name is soft and sweet as hers
But rich blood thy bosom stirs,
Her marble cheek cannot display.
She cometh like a haughty girl,
So conscious of her beauty's power,
She now will wear nor gem nor flower
Upon her pallid breast of pearl.
And her green silken summer dress,
So simply flower'd in white and gold,
She scorns to let our eyes behold,
But hides through very wilfulness:
Hides it 'neath ermined robes, which she
Hath borrowed from some wintry quean,
Instead of dancing on the green--
A village maiden fair and free.
Oh! we have spoiled her with our praise,
And made her froward, false, and vain;
So that her cold blue eyes disdain
To smile as in the earlier days.
Let her beware--the world full soon
Like me shall tearless turn away,
And woo, instead of thine, O May!
The brown, bright, joyous eyes of June.
O June! forgive the long delay,
My heart's deceptive dream is o'er--
Where I believe I will adore,
Nor worship June, yet kneel to May.
SUNNY DAYS IN WINTER.
Summer is a glorious season
Warm, and bright, and pleasant;
But the Past is not a reason
To despise the Present.
So while health can climb the mountain,
And the log lights up the hall,
There are sunny days in Winter, after all!
Spring, no doubt, hath faded from us,
Maiden-like in charms;
Summer, too, with all her promise,
Perished in our arms.
But the memory of the vanished,
Whom our hearts recall,
Maketh sunny days in Winter, after all!
True, there's scarce a flower that bloometh,
All the best are dead;
But the wall-flower still perfumeth
Yonder garden-bed.
And the arbutus pearl-blossom'd
Hangs its coral ball--
There are sunny days in Winter, after all!
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