Mayflower
THUNDER our thanks to her—guns, hearts and lips!
Cheer from the ranks to her,
Shout from the banks to her—
Mayflower! Foremost and best of our ships.
Mayflower! Twice in the national story
Thy dear name in letters of gold—
Woven in texture that never grows old-
Winning a home and winning glory!
Sailing the years to us, welcomed for aye;
Cherished for centuries, dearest to-day.
Every heart throbs for her, every flag dips—
Mayflower! First and last—best of our ships!
White as a seagull, she swept the long passage,
True as the homing-bird flies with its message.
Love her? O, richer than silk every sail of her.
Trust her? More precious than gold every nail of her.
Write we down faithfully every man's part in her;
Greet we all gratefully every true heart in her.
More than a name to us, sailing the fleetest,
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poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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The Old School Clock
'Twas a quaint old clock with a quaint old face,
and great iron weights and chain.
It stopped when it liked, and before it struck
it creaked as if 'twere in pain.
It had seen many years, and it seemed to say,
'I'm one of the real old stock',
To the youthful fry, who with reverence looked
on the face of the old school clock.
What a terrible frown did the old clock wear
to the truant who timidly cast
An anxious eye on those merciless hands,
that for him had been moving too fast!
But its frown soon changed, for it loved to smile
on the thoughtless, noisy flock,
And it creaked and whirred, and struck with glee,
Did that genial, good humoured old clock.
Well, years had passed, and my mind was filled
with the world, its cares and ways,
When again I stood in that little school
where I passed my boyhood days.
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poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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Hidden Sins
FOR every sin that comes before the light,
And leaves an outward blemish on the soul,
How many, darker, cower out of sight,
And burrow, blind and silent, like the mole.
And like the mole, too, with its busy feet
That dig and dig a never-ending cave,
Our hidden sins gnaw through the soul, and meet
And feast upon each other in its grave.
A buried sin is like a covered sore
That spreads and festers 'neath a painted face;
And no man's art can heal it evermore,
But only His—the Surgeon's—promised grace.
Who hides a sin is like the hunter who
Once warmed a frozen adder with his breath,
And when he placed it near his heart it flew
With poisoned fangs and stung that heart to death.
A sculptor once a granite statue made,
One-sided only, just to fit its place:
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poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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The King’s Evil
They brought them up from their huts in the fens,
The woeful sufferers gaunt and grim;
They flocked from the city's noisome dens
To the Monarch's throne to be touched by him.
'For his touch,' they whisper, 'is sovereign balm,
The anointed King has a power to heal.'
Oh, the piteous prayers as the royal palm
Is laid on their necks while they humbly kneel!
Blind hope! But the cruel and cold deceit
A rich reward to the palace brings;
A snare for the untaught People's feet,
And a courtier's lie for the good of Kings.
But the years are sands, and they slip away
Till the baseless wall in the sun lies bare;
The touch of the King has no balm to-day,
And the Right Divine is the People's share.
The word remains: but the Evil now
Is caused, not cured, by imperial hands,—
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poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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A Lost Friend
MY friend he was; my friend from all the rest;
With childlike faith he oped to me his breast;
No door was locked on altar, grave or grief;
No weakness veiled, concealed no disbelief;
The hope, the sorrow and the wrong were bare,
And ah, the shadow only showed the fair!
I gave him love for love; but, deep within,
I magnified each frailty into sin:
Each hill-topped foible in the sunset glowed,
Obscuring vales where rivered virtttes flowed.
Reproof became reproach, till common grew
The captious word at every fault I knew.
He smiled upon the censorship, and bore
With patient love the touch that wounded sore;
Until at length, so had my blindness grown,
He knew I judged him by his faults alone.
Alone, of all men, I who knew him best,
Refused the gold, to take the dross for test!
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poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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Dying in Harness
ONLY a fallen horse, stretched out there on the road.
Stretched in the broken shafts, and crushed by the heavy load;
Only a fallen horse, and a circle of wondering eyes
Watching the 'frighted teamster goading the beast to rise.
Hold! for his toil is over—no more labor for him;
See the poor neck outstretched, and the patient eyes grow dim;
See on the friendly stones how peacefully rests the head
Thinking, if dumb beasts think, how good it is to be dead;
After the weary journey, how restful it is to lie
With the broken shafts and the cruel load—waiting only to die.
Watchers, he died in harness—died in the shafts and straps—
Fell, and the burden killed him: one of the day's mishaps—
One of the passing wonders marking the city road—
A toiler dying in harness, heedless of call or goad.
Passers, crowding the pathway, staying your steps awhile,
What is the symbol ? Only death—why should we cease to smile
At death for a beast of burden? On, through the busy street
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Unspoken Words
THE kindly words that rise within the heart,
And thrill it with their sympathetic tone,
But die ere spoken, fail to play their part,
And claim a merit that is not their own.
The kindly word unspoken is a sin,—
A sin that wraps itself in purest guise,
And tells the heart that, doubting, looks within,
That not in speech, but thought, the virtue lies.
But 'tis not so: another heart may thirst
For that kind word, as Hagar in the wild—
Poor banished Hagar!—prayed a well might burst
From out the sand to save her parching child.
And loving eyes that cannot see the mind
Will watch the expected movement of the lip:
Ah! can ye let its cutting silence wind
Around that heart, and scathe it like a whip?
Unspoken words, like treasures in the mine,
Are valueless until we give them birth:
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poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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Western Australia
O Beauteous Southland! Land of yellow air
That hangeth o've thee slumbering, and doth hold
The moveless foliage of thy valleys fair,
And wooded hills, like aureole of gold.
Oh thou, discovered ere the fitting time,
Ere Nature in completion turned thee forth!
Ere aught was finished but thy peerless clime,
Thy virgin breath allured the amorous North.
O Land, God made thee wondrous to the eye!
But His sweet singers thou hast never heard;
He left thee, meaning to come bye-and-bye,
And give rich voice to every bright-winged bird.
He painted with fresh hues thy myriad flowers,
But left them scentless; ah! their woeful dole,
Like sad reproach of their creator's powers,
To make so sweet fair bodies, void of soul.
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poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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Love's Sacrifice
LOVE'S Herald flew o'er all the fields of Greece,
Crying: '
Love's altar waits for sacrifice!'
And all folk answered, like a wave of peace,
With treasured offerings and gifts of price.
Toward high Olympus every white road filled
With pilgrims streaming to the blest abode;
Each bore rich tribute, some for joys fulfilled,
And some for blisses lingering on the road.
The pious peasant drives his laden car;
The fisher youth bears treasure from the sea;
A wife brings honey for the sweets that are;
A maid brings roses for the sweets to be.
Here strides the soldier with his wreathed sword,
No more to glitter in his country's wars;
There walks the poet with his mystic word,
And smiles at Eros' mild recruit from Mars.
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The Value of Gold
There may be standard weight for precious metal,
But deeper meaning it must ever hold;
Thank God, there are some things no law can settle,
And one of these—the real worth of gold.
The stamp of king or crown has common power
To hold the traffic-value in control;
Our coarser senses note this worth—the lower;
The higher comes from senses of the soul.
This truth we find not in mere warehouse learning—
The value varies with the hands that hold;
The worth depends upon the mode of earning;
And this man's copper equals that man's gold.
With empty heart, and forehead lined with scheming,
Men's sin and sorrow have been that man's gain;
But this man's heart, with rich emotions teeming,
Makes fine the gold for which he coins his brain.
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