Poems - Denis Florence MacCarthy (good books to read .txt) 📗

dragon guards, but smiles, The bounteous mother, as she yields.

And then the king grew old like Lear- His blood waxed chill, his beard grew gray; He changed his sceptre for a staff: And as the thoughtless children laugh To see him totter on his way, He knew his destined hour was near.

And soon it came; and here he strives, Outstretched upon his snow-white bier, To reconcile the dread account- How stands the balance, what the amount; As we shall do with trembling fear When our last hour arrives.

Come, let us kneel around his bed, And pray unto his God and ours For mercy on his servant here: Oh, God be with the dying year! And God be with the happy hours That died before their sire lay dead!

And as the bells commingling ring The New Year in, the Old Year out, Muffled and sad, and now in peals With which the quivering belfry reels, Grateful and hopeful be the shout, The King is dead!-Long live the King!


THE AWAKING.

A lady came to a snow-white bier,
Where a youth lay pale and dead:
She took the veil from her widowed head,
And, bending low, in his ear she said:
"Awaken! for I am here."

She pass'd with a smile to a wild wood near,
Where the boughs were barren and bare;
She tapp'd on the bark with her fingers fair,
And call'd to the leaves that were buried there:
"Awaken! for I am here."

The birds beheld her without a fear,
As she walk'd through the dank-moss'd dells;
She breathed on their downy citadels,
And whisper'd the young in their ivory shells:
"Awaken! for I am here."

On the graves of the flowers she dropp'd a tear,
But with hope and with joy, like us;
And even as the Lord to Lazarus,
She call'd to the slumbering sweet flowers thus:
"Awaken! for I am here."

To the lilies that lay in the silver mere,
To the reeds by the golden pond;
To the moss by the rounded marge beyond,
She spoke with her voice so soft and fond:
"Awaken! for I am here."

The violet peep'd, with its blue eye clear,
From under its own gravestone;
For the blessed tidings around had flown,
And before she spoke the impulse was known:
"Awaken! for I am here."

The pale grass lay with its long looks sere
On the breast of the open plain;
She loosened the matted hair of the slain,
And cried, as she filled each juicy vein:
"Awaken! for I am here."

The rush rose up with its pointed spear
The flag, with its falchion broad;
The dock uplifted its shield unawed,
As her voice rung over the quickening sod:
"Awaken! for I am here."

The red blood ran through the clover near,
And the heath on the hills o'erhead;
The daisy's fingers were tipp'd with red,
As she started to life, when the lady said:
"Awaken! for I am here."

And the young Year rose from his snow-white bier,
And the flowers from their green retreat;
And they came and knelt at the lady's feet,
Saying all, with their mingled voices sweet:
"O lady! behold us here."


THE RESURRECTION.

The day of wintry wrath is o'er, The whirlwind and the storm have pass'd, The whiten'd ashes of the snow Enwrap the ruined world no more; Nor keenly from the orient blow The venom'd hissings of the blast.

The frozen tear-drops of despair Have melted from the trembling thorn; Hope plumes unseen her radiant wing, And lo! amid the expectant air, The trumpet of the angel Spring Proclaims the resurrection morn.

Oh! what a wave of gladsome sound Runs rippling round the shores of space, As the requicken'd earth upheaves The swelling bosom of the ground, And Death's cold pallor, startled, leaves The deepening roses of her face.

Up from their graves the dead arise- The dead and buried flowers of spring;- Up from their graves in glad amaze, Once more to view the long-lost skies, Resplendent with the dazzling rays Of their great coming Lord and King.

And lo! even like that mightiest one, In the world's last and awful hour, Surrounded by the starry seven, So comes God's greatest work, the sun, Upborne upon the clouds of heaven, In pomp, and majesty, and power.

The virgin snowdrop bends its head Above its grave in grateful prayer; The daisy lifts its radiant brow, With a saint's glory round it shed; The violet's worth, unhidden now, Is wafted wide by every air.

The parent stem reclasps once more Its long-lost severed buds and leaves; Once more the tender tendrils twine Around the forms they clasped of yore The very rain is now a sign Great Nature's heart no longer grieves.

And now the judgment-hour arrives, And now their final doom they know; No dreadful doom is theirs whose birth Was not more stainless than their lives; 'Tis Goodness calls them from the earth, And Mercy tells them where to go.

Some of them fly with glad accord, Obedient to the high behest, To worship with their fragrant breath Around the altars of the Lord; And some, from nothingness and death, Pass to the heaven of beauty's breast.

Oh, let the simple fancy be Prophetic of our final doom; Grant us, O Lord, when from the sod Thou deign'st to call us too, that we Pass to the bosom of our God From the dark nothing of the tomb!


THE FIRST OF THE ANGELS.

Hush! hush! through the azure expanse of the sky Comes a low, gentle sound, 'twixt a laugh and a sigh; And I rise from my writing, and look up on high, And I kneel, for the first of God's angels is nigh!

Oh, how to describe what my rapt eyes descry! For the blue of the sky is the blue of his eye; And the white clouds, whose whiteness the snowflakes outvie, Are the luminous pinions on which he doth fly!

And his garments of gold gleam at times like the pyre Of the west, when the sun in a blaze doth expire; Now tinged like the orange, now flaming with fire! Half the crimson of roses and purple of Tyre.

And his voice, on whose accents the angels have hung, He himself a bright angel, immortal and young, Scatters melody sweeter the green buds among Than the poet e'er wrote, or the nightingale sung.

It comes on the balm-bearing breath of the breeze, And the odours that later will gladden the bees, With a life and a freshness united to these, From the rippling of waters and rustling of trees.

Like a swan to its young o'er the glass of a pond, So to earth comes the angel, as graceful and fond; While a bright beam of sunshine-his magical wand, Strikes the fields at my feet, and the mountains beyond.

They waken-they start into life at a bound- Flowers climb the tall hillocks, and cover the ground With a nimbus of glory the mountains are crown'd, As the rivulets rush to the ocean profound.

There is life on the earth, there is calm on the sea, And the rough waves are smoothed, and the frozen are free; And they gambol and ramble like boys, in their glee, Round the shell-shining strand or the grass-bearing lea.

There is love for the young, there is life for the old, And wealth for the needy, and heat for the cold; For the dew scatters, nightly, its diamonds untold, And the snowdrop its silver, the crocus its gold!

God!-whose goodness and greatness we bless and adore- Be Thou praised for this angel-the first of the four- To whose charge Thou has given the world's uttermost shore, To guide it, and guard it, till time is no more!


SPIRIT VOICES.

There are voices, spirit voices,
Sweetly sounding everywhere, At whose coming earth rejoices,
And the echoing realms of air, And their joy and jubilation
Pierce the near and reach the far, From the rapid world's gyration
To the twinkling of the star.

One, a potent voice uplifting,
Stops the white cloud on its way, As it drives with driftless drifting
O'er the vacant vault of day, And in sounds of soft upbraiding
Calls it down the void inane To the gilding and the shading
Of the mountain and the plain.

Airy offspring of the fountains,
To thy destined duty sail, Seek it on the proudest mountains,
Seek it in the humblest vale; Howsoever high thou fliest,
How so deep it bids thee go, Be a beacon to the highest
And a blessing to the low.

When the sad earth, broken-hearted,
Hath not even a tear to shed, And her very soul seems parted
For her children lying dead, Send the streams with warmer pulses
Through that frozen fount of fears, And the sorrow that convulses,
Soothe and soften down to tears.

Bear the sunshine and the shadow,
Bear the rain-drop and the snow, Bear the night-dew to the meadow,
And to hope the promised bow, Bear the moon, a moving mirror
For her angel face and form, Bear to guilt the flashing terror
Of the lightning and the storm.

When thou thus hast done thy duty
On the earth and o'er the sea, Bearing many a beam of beauty,
Ever bettering what must be, Thus reflecting heaven's pure splendour
And concealing ruined clay, Up to God thy spirit render,
And dissolving pass away.

And with fond solicitation,
Speaks another to the streams- Leave your airy isolation,
Quit the cloudy land of dreams, Break the lonely peak's attraction,
Burst the solemn, silent glen, Seek the living world of action
And the busy haunts of men.

Turn the mill-wheel with thy fingers,
Turn the steam-wheel with thy breath, With thy tide that never lingers
Save the dying fields from death; Let the swiftness of thy currents
Bear to man the freight-fill'd ship, And the crystal of thy torrents
Bring refreshment to his lip.

And when thou, O rapid river,
Thy eternal home dost seek, When no more the willows quiver
But to touch thy passing cheek, When the groves no longer greet thee
And the shore no longer kiss, Let infinitude come meet thee
On the verge of the abyss.

Other voices seek to win us-
Low, suggestive, like the rest- But the sweetest is within us
In the stillness