Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous

In preparing this electronic text of Father Ryan's poems, I was struck by the biased nature of the memoir included. While I will not gainsay anyone's right to their beliefs, I b...

Much has been said, and deservedly, in favor of the great poets of antiquity. Unmeasured praise has been bestowed upon the epic grandeur of Homer and the classical purity of Vir...

That starry night, A mile or so of shadows from the shore, Two faces bright With laughter light Shone on two souls like stars that shine on shrines; And -- we were four.

Sweet sang the stream as on it pressed, As sorrow sings a heart to sleep; As a mother sings one child to rest, And for the dead one still will weep.

A shadow slept folded in vestments, The dream of a smile on its face, Dim, soft as the gleam after sunset That hangs like a halo of grace Where the daylight hath died in the val...

And a silence came down for a while, And her lips they were moving in prayer, And her face it wore just such a smile As, perhaps, it was oft wont to wear, Ere the heart of the g...

He spoke of death as if it were a toy For thought to play with; and of life he spoke As of a toy not worth the play of thought; And of this world he spoke as captives speak Of p...

They come to ev'ry life -- sad, sunless days, With not a light all o'er their clouded skies; And thro' the dark we grope along our ways With hearts fear-filled, and lips low-bre...

And list! he begins That psalm for sins, The first of the mournful seven; Plaintive and soft It rises aloft, Begging the mercy of Heaven To pity and forgive, For the sake of tho...

Yea! fly as the sea-birds fly over the sea To rest on the far-off beach, And breathe forth the message I trust to thee, Tear toned on the shores of speech.

Yea! nature is His shadow, and how bright Must that face be which such a shadow casts? We walk within it, for "we live and move And have our being" in His ev'rywhere. Why is God...

He waited in the wide and humble room, The only room in that unworldly place This world could enter; and the pictures looked Upon his face and down into his soul, And strangely...

When the stately trees were bending O'er a simple, quiet home, That looked humble as an altar, Nestling 'neath a lofty dome; Thither went they gaily! gaily! Where their coming w...

A cloud hangs o'er Thy Erin's shore -- Ah! God, 'twas always so. Ah! virgin fair Thy heaven pray'r Will help thy people in their care, And save them from their woe.

To-day -- fifty years at the altar -- Thou art, as of old, at thy post! Tell us, O chasubled soldier! Art weary of watching the Host? Fifty years -- Christ's sacred sentry, To-d...