Salutation
To you and you and you who have given
Two sons for England's sake,--what word?
Oh, there is weeping heard in Heaven
And Mary's heart has the Eighth Sword.
Henceforth as you go through the town
The folk who see you go and come
Will doff their hats to your renown,
With: Salvete flores Martyrum!
O chosen from all women and men
For that high lonely destiny!
Now that we look at you, 'tis plain
God set a mark to know you by.
Your cross was growing in the tree
Before the golden world was made;
[...] Read more
poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Resurrection
Now the golden daffodil
Lifts from earth his shining head
That was lately frozen still
In the gardens of the dead.
Sing to the Lord a new song!
Roundelays and virelays,
Who hath slain Death and is young
Master of your holidays.
Now from places underground
Gold and purple folk will go
Haled by the shrill trumpet sound
From their wormy beds below.
Now the stone is from the tomb!
Now 'tis Easter and the morn!
[...] Read more
poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Only Child
Lest he miss other children, lo!
His angel is his playfellow.
A riotous angel two years old,
With wings of rose and curls of gold.
There on the nursery floor together
They play when it is rainy weather,
Building brick castles with much pain,
Only to knock them down again.
Two golden heads together look
An hour long o'er a picture-book,
Or, tired of being good and still,
They play at horses with good will.
And when the boy laughs you shall hear
Another laughter silver-clear,
Sweeter than music of the skies,
Or harps, or birds of Paradise.
[...] Read more
poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Temple
WHAT of Louvain and of Rheims
Made for God by man? What then?
Here be temples more than man's
Wrought by God for His own men.
Scattered in the rain and frost,
Marred of beauty, there they be,
Temples of the Holy Ghost,
Broken, ruined piteously.
Bodies all so finely wrought,
Cunning deftness shaped them well;
These, God's ultimate, loving thought
For His Spirit's citadel.
Beautiful from head to foot,
Young, dear darlings all unflawed
[...] Read more
poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Menace
Oh, when the land is white as milk
With bloom that lets no leaf between,
When trees are clad in grass-green silk
And thrushes sing in a gold screen:
What is it ails Dark Rosaleen?
Why is the banshee in the night
Crying for all the young men gone?
Now when the world with bloom is white,
When the good sun's warm on the stone,
Why does the Woman of Death make moan?
As one who is not comforted,
I heard in every lonely glen
Dark Rosaleen cry for her dead
And for her dying race of men.
Dark Rosaleen, take heart again!
For, oh, there's God in His high place
And Patrick seated by His side
[...] Read more
poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Crown
She had twelve stars for diadem;
She had for footstool the full moon;
Her quiet eyes, outshining them,
Kept memories of the night and noon
And the still moms at Nazareth
When in her arms the Child drew breath.
So safe, so warm, He slept by her,
In her enfolding arms at peace,
Her milky babe, little and dear;
And yet the Tree that should be His
Grew in the forest, wide and high,
Whose branches should fill all the sky.
He made twelve stars into her crown
And set the moon below her feet.
He was King in Jerusalem Town,
With twelve spines for His Coronet
To pierce the brain and blood and bone,
Were made for Man's Redemption.
[...] Read more
poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
To The Others
This was the gleam then that lured from far
Your son and my son to the Holy War:
Your son and my son for the accolade
With the banner of Christ over them, in steel arrayed.
All quiet roads of life ran on to this;
When they were little for their mother's kiss.
Little feet hastening, so soft, unworn,
To the vows and the vigil and the road of thorn.
Your son and my son, the downy things,
Sheltered in mother's breast, by mother's wings,
Should they be broken in the Lord's wars-Peace!
He Who has given them-are they not His?
Dream of knight's armour and the battle-shout,
Fighting and falling at the last redoubt,
Dream of long dying on the field of slain;
This was the dream that lured, nor lured in vain.
[...] Read more
poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
After Ascension
Those twelve years from Ascension
Until the day of meeting broke,
She was not so much all alone
As it might seem to common folk,
Because no day passed without bliss:
He gives Himself back to her kiss.
He comes no more in human guise,
Yet He is in their midst again.
His wounds are there in all men's eyes,
So doubting Thomas sees them plain;
They pour the Wine and break the Bread,
And the heart's hunger's comforted.
The Apostle takes the Cup of Wine,
The white Bread on the paten bright,
O Food of angels dear, divine!
The Lord of Life comes down in light,
And sweeter than the honeycomb
Rests in the heart that was His home.
[...] Read more
poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Call
I hear an Army!
Millions of men coming up from the edge of the world,
The ring of unnumbered feet ever louder and louder
Comes on and an like a mighty untameable tide,
Steady, implacable, out of the North and the South,
Out of the East, and the West, they answer the call
Of her who stands, her eyes towards God and the stars,
Liberty, daughter of God, calling her men.
What manner of men are these? Like the desert sands
Uncounted, many as locusts, darkening the sky?
White men, black men, men of the tawny gold,
Golden-eyed like the lion, sons of the sun,
Men from the snow, their eyes like frost or a sword:
They have but one heart, one desire, they run one way.
Hurrying, hurrying to the shrill trumpet call.
Men from the ice-floes, men from the jungles come;
This from the arms of his bride, that from his dead.
Men from the plough, the mart, the mill and the street
[...] Read more
poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Palestine: 1917
How strange if it should fall to you,
To me, our boys should do the deed
The great Crusaders failed to do!
To win Christ's Sepulchre: to bleed,
So the immortal dream come true.
What ghosts now throng the Holy Ground,
With rusted armour, dinted sword,
Listening? The earth shakes with the sound;
The wind brings hither a fierce word:
To arms, to arms, Sons of Mahound!
In many a quiet cloister grey
Cross-legged Crusaders, men of stone,
Quiver and stir the Eastward way,
As they would spring up and be gone
To the Great Day, to the Great Day.
Godfrey and Lion-Heart and all
The splendours of the faithful years
[...] Read more
poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!