Alfred Perceval Graves

“ Serene skies delay till the young crops are older;
Anger burns on, when grief waxes colder;
Every man's mind some dread may unsolder;
Each bird wins the may that hath long been a scolder;
Each seed cleaves the clay, though for long months amoulder,
Yet the dead still must stay in the tomb, their strong holder.
Month of Augustus—the beach is a-spray;
Blithesome the bee and the hive full alway;
Better work than the bow hath the sickle to-day;
Fuller the stack than the House of the Play;
The Churl who cares neither to work nor to pray
Now why should he cumber the earth with his clay? ”

“ Berned the Saint, ripe Wisdom's mouth ever;
"In sleep shall God nod, Who hath sworn to deliver?"
Month of October—thin the shade is showing;
Yellow are the birch-trees; bothies empty growing;
Full of flesh, bird and fish to the market going;
Less and less the milk now of cow and goat is flowing,
Alas! for him who meriteth disgrace by evil-doing;
Death is better far than extravagance's strowing.
Three acts should follow crime, to true repentance owing—
Fasting and prayer and of alms abundance glowing. ”

“ No grief, no gloom, no death, no mortal sickness,
Nor any weakness our sure strength can bound;
These are the signs that grace the race of Evin.
Beneath what other heaven are they found?
A Hero fair, from out the dawn's bright blooming,
Rides forth, illuming level shore and flood;
The white and seaward plain he sets in motion,
He stirs the ocean into burning blood.
A host across the clear blue sea comes rowing,
Their prowess showing, till they touch the shore;
Thence seek the Shining Stone where Music's measure
Prolongs the pleasure of the pulsing oar. ”

“ I'd put my own sweet childie to sleep
in a silver boat on the beautiful river,
where a shoheen ho whisper the white cascades,
and a lulla lo the green flags shiver.
Sleep, baby dear.
Sleep, without fear.
Mother is here with you for ever.
Sleep, baby dear.
Sleep, without fear.
Mother is here with you for ever. ”

“ The little red lark, like a rosy spark
Of song, to his sun-burst flies;
But till you are risen, earth is a prison,
Full of my captive sighs. ”

“ When the folk of all the Earth,
For the weighing of their worth,
Promised by his Ancient Word,
Freely flock before The Lord—
And His Judgment-seat is set
High on mighty Olivet,
Forthright then shall be the tale
Of the Plougher of the Vale,
If so be his tithes were given
Justly to the King of Heaven;
If he freely shared his store
With the sick or homeless poor—
When his soul is at God's feet
Rich remembrance it shall meet.
He who turns and tills the sod
Leans by Nature on his God. ”

“ Heavy my heart out of Erin steering
And nearing Alba of the beetling brows.
My foot is fast in my chiming curragh,
Tears of sorrow my sad heart fill.
Who lean not on God are but feeble-minded,
Without His Love we go blinded still.
There is a grey eye that tears are thronging,
Fixed with longing on Erin's shore,
It shall never see o'er the waste of waters
The sons and daughters of Erin more. ”

“ Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest,
Till this remark set him off wid the rest:
"Is it lave gaiety
All to the laity?
Cannot the clargy be Irishmen too?" ”

“ Collins excites and fascinates our attention by an intense power of realism which carries us with unreasoning haste from cover to cover of his works, Le Fanu is an idealist, full of high imagination, and an artist who devotes deep attention to the most delicate detail in his portraiture of men and women, and his descriptions of the outdoor and indoor worlds—a writer, therefore, through whose pages it would be often an indignity to hasten. ”

“ THE TERCETS (After Llywarch Hen, a sixth-century prince and poet)
Set is the snare, the ash clusters glow,
Ducks plash in the pools; breakers whiten below;
More strong than a hundred is the heart's hidden woe.
Long is the night; resounding the shore,
Frequent in crowds a tumultuous roar,
The evil and good disagree evermore.
Long is the night; the hill full of cries;
O'er the tree-tops the wind whistles and sighs,
Ill nature deceives not the wit of the wise. ”

“ With sudden ravishing acclaim salute thee,
Yet everywhere Our Church's white-robed throng
Shall to thy first exultancy transmute thee.
Peace and Good Will again with holy mirth
Proclaiming to the Universal Earth.
Then, too, my soul, forth summoning all thy powers,
Thyself from worldly schemes and wishes sunder,
To worship and admire this hour of hours
That is all miracle and the height of wonder;
Infinity itself shrinks to a span,
Since God, remaining God, becometh Man.
Here is a mother with no mortal mate!
Here is a son that hath no earthly father! ”

“ Dudley's brutal encounter with Captain Oakley, and vile persecution of poor Maude till his love marriage comes to light, lead us on to the ghastly catastrophe, the hideous conspiracy of Silas and his son against the life of the innocent girl. ”

“ Follow Thee with holy hasting,
Led by Thy dear Hand
To the Blessed land.
Through despondence dread,
Still support our tread;
Though our heavy burdens bow us,
How to bear them bravely, show us!
Such adversity
Is but the path to Thee.
When our bosom's grief
Clamours for relief,
When we share another's sorrow,
May we Thy sweet patience borrow,
That to our Heavenly Father's Will
We may trust each issue still. ”

“ Collins is generally dramatic, and sometimes stagy, in his effects. Le Fanu, while less careful to arrange his plots, so as to admit of their being readily adapted for the stage, often surprises us by scenes of so much greater tragic intensity that we cannot but lament that he did not, as Mr. Collins has done, attempt the drama, and so furnish another ground of comparison with his fellow-countryman, Maturin (also, if we mistake not, of French origin) , whom, in his writings, Le Fanu far more closely resembles than Mr. Collins, as a master of the darker and stronger emotions of human character. ”

“ Therefore refresh you, faint hearts, take comfort, ye souls sorrow-stricken,
Winning from nature relief, courage and counsel in grief,
Judging that He, whose handmaid I am, out of death to requicken
Year after year His earth into more exquisite birth,
Shadows thereby to your souls through what drear and perilous places
Into what Paradise blest beacons His searching behest—
Even the Heaven of Heavens where fond, long-hungered-for faces
Into your own shall shine radiant with rapture divine. ”

“ And ye three fountains—
Two above wind,
And one above earth!
May light and darkness bless Thee!
Fine silk, green forest confess Thee!
Thus did Abraham father
Of faith with joy possess Thee.
Bird and bee-song bless Thee,
Among the lilies and roses!
All the old, all the young
Laud thee with joyful tongue,
As Thy praise was once sung
By Aaron and Moses.
Male and female,
The days that are seven,
The stars of heaven,
The air and the ether,
Every book and fair letter ”

“ With their sick and their stricken, in faith they flock round Him,
As sighing He looks up to Heaven for strength.
He has touched the deaf ears and the blind eyes anointed—
And straightway they hear Him and straightway they see;
Laid hands on the lame and they leap, supple-jointed,
The devils denounced and affrighted they flee.
Yea? for their faith, from each life-long affliction,
Yea, for their faith from their sins they are freed,
And therefore have earned His divine benediction—
Stretch forth Thy hand, for as sore is our need. ”

“ Wherefrom our noble George hath drawn his name;
Three centuries and a half gone by ere this;
By Shakespeare's birth it won a second fame.
A greater glory is its crown to-day
Since at its first and faintest uttered breath
A mighty angel rolled the stone away
That sealed His tomb Who captive now leads death,
And thereby did the great example give.
That they who die for others most shall live. ”

“ But fallen away from my haughty folk,
In Irluachair's field my heart lies broke.
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There is chanting in glorious Aidne's meadow
Under St. Colman's Church's shadow;
A hero flame sinks into the tomb—
Dinertach, alas, my love and my doom!
Chaste Christ! that unto my life's last breath
I trysted with Sorrow and mate with Death;
At every hour of the night's black deep,
These are the arrows that murder sleep! ”

“ BEHIND THE VEIL (After Islwyn, 1832-1878, the Welsh Wordsworth)
What say ye, can we charge a master soul
With error, when beyond all life's experience
Between the cradle and the grave, it rises,
Whispering of things unutterable, breaks its bond
With outward sense and sinks into itself,
As fades a star in space? ”

“ A charm that shall lift off sorrow's weight and to joyful hope restore you.
A charm to be said at sunrise when your hands your heart are crushing,
When the eyes are red with weeping and the madness of grief outrushing. ”

“ Opes, and a vision blest yields to the wondering West.
High on her crystal car she trembles in halycon tissues,
Gently with golden curb checking her coursers superb—
All her ethereal beauty elate with Love's infinite issues,
Whilst this enchantment slips forth from her sibylline lips:
"Herb and tree in your kinds, free lives of the mountain and forest,
Shoals of the stream and the flood, flights of the welkin and wood,
Herd and flock of the field, and ye, whose need is the sorest,
Suffering spirits of men, lo! I am with you again. ”

“ The word of Mercy free, the singing word of Joy,
The binding word of Love He gives us to employ.
O may the saving might of these three holy words
On Erin's men and women light, and keep them still the Lord's. ”

“ Delightful indeed, is the purple sea's glamour,
Where sea-gulls clamour in white-winged flight,
As you view it afar from Derry belovèd,
O the peace of it, the peace and delight!
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ST. COLUMBA IN IONA (From an Irish Manuscript in the Burgundian Library, Brussels)
Delightful would it be to me
From a rock pinnacle to trace
Continually
The Ocean's face:
That I might watch the heaving waves
Of noble force
To God the Father chant their staves
Of the earth's course. ”

“ Fear no more for the tyrant hoar as he rushes to battle
Armoured in ice, and darts lance after lance at your hearts,
Fear not his flaming bolts as they hurtle with horrible rattle
Out of the lurid inane fulminant over the plain.
Fear not his wizardry white that circles and circles and settles
Stealthily hour by hour, feathery flower upon flower,
Over the spell-bound sleeper, till last the pitiless petals
Darkly in icy death stifle his labouring breath. ”

“ II. Welsh Poems
THE ODES TO THE MONTHS (After Aneurin, a sixth-century warrior bard)
Month of Janus, the coom is smoke-fuming;
Weary the wine-bearer; minstrels far roaming;
Lean are the kine; the bees never humming;
Milking-folds void; to the kiln no meat coming;
Gaunt every steed; no pert sparrows strumming;
Long the night till the dawn; but a glimpse is the gloaming.
Sapient Cynfelyn, this was thy summing;
"Prudence is Man's surest guide, by my dooming."
Month of Mars; the birds become bolder ”