CATHOLIC POEMS

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Locksley Hall Sixty Years After

Late, my grandson! half the morning have I paced these sandy tracts,
Watch'd again the hollow ridges roaring into cataracts,

Wander'd back to living boyhood while I heard the curlews call,
.....
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson
Heretics All

Heretics all, whoever you may be,
In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea,
You never shall have good words from me.
Caritas non conturbat me.
.....
Hilaire Belloc

Hilaire Belloc
For The King

Northern Mexico, 1640


As you look from the plaza at Leon west
.....
Bret Harte

Bret Harte
A Song To David

I
O Thou, that sit'st upon a throne,
With harp of high majestic tone,
To praise the King of kings;
.....
Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart
The Irish Avatar

'And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant,
kneeling to receive the paltry rider.'~Curran.


.....

George Gordon Byron
Duluth's Departure

To bid the brave White Chief adieu,
on the shady shore gathered the warriors;
His glad boatmen manned the canoe,
and the oars in their hands were impatient.
.....

Hanford Lennox Gordon
The Rock Cries Out To Us Today

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
.....
Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou
Columbus

Chains, my good lord: in your raised brows I read
Some wonder at our chamber ornaments.
We brought this iron from our isles of gold.
Does the king know you deign to visit him
.....
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Knight Of Malta - Prose

To the Editor of the Knickerbocker

Sir: In the course of a tour which I made in Sicily, in the days of my juvenility, I passed some little time at the ancient city of Catania, at the foot of Mount Ætna. Here I became acquainted with the Chevalier L--, an old Knight of Malta. It was not many years after the time that Napoleon had dislodged the knights from their island, and he still wore the insignia of his order. He was not, however, one of those reliques of that once chivalrous body, who had been described was "a few worn-out old men, creeping about certain parts of Europe, with the Maltese cross on their breasts;" on the contrary, though advanced in life, his form was still light and vigorous; he had a pale, thin, intellectual visage, with a high forehead, and a bright, visionary eye. He seemed to take a fancy to me, as I certainly did to him, and we soon became intimate, I visited him occasionally, at his apartments, in the wing of an old palace, looking toward Mount Ætna. He was an antiquary, a virtuoso, and a connoisseur. His rooms were decorated with mutilated statues, dug up from Grecian and Roman ruins; old vases, lachrymals, and sepulchral lamps. He had astronomical and chemical instruments, and black-letter books, in various languages. I found that he had dipped a little in chimerical studies and had a hankering after astrology and alchymy. He affected to believe in dreams and visions, and delighted in the fanciful Rosicrucian doctrines. I cannot persuade myself, however, that he really believed in all these: I rather think he loved to let his imagination carry him away into the boundless fairy land which they unfolded.

.....

Washington Irving
The Bothie Of Tober-na-vuolich

A Long-Vacation Pastoral

Nunc formosissimus annus
Ite meæ felix quondam pecus, ite camenæ.
.....
Arthur Hugh Clough

Arthur Hugh Clough
Waking In The Blue

The night attendant, a B.U. sophomore,
rouses from the mare's-nest of his drowsy head
propped on The Meaning of Meaning.
He catwalks down our corridor.
.....

Robert Lowell
The Catholic Sun

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
Thereâ??s always laughter and good red wine.
At least Iâ??ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
.....
Hilaire Belloc

Hilaire Belloc
A Brisbane Reverie

As I sit beside my little study window, looking down
From the heights of contemplation (attic front) upon the town
(Attic front, per week â?? with board, of course â?? a sov'reign and a crown);â??

.....

James Brunton Stephens
The Armada

I

I
England, mother born of seamen, daughter fostered of the sea,
.....
Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne
The Wakan Wacepee, Or Sacred Dance (ii)

Lo the lights in the “Teepee Wakan!”
'tis the night of the Wakan-Wacepee.
Round and round walks the chief of the clan,
as he rattles the sacred Ta-sha-kay;
.....

Hanford Lennox Gordon
The Wreck

Hide me, Mother! my Fathers belong'd to the church of old,
I am driven by storm and sin and death to the ancient fold,
I cling to the Catholic Cross once more, to the Faith that saves,
My brain is full of the crash of wrecks, and the roar of waves,
.....
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Black Mousquetaire: A Legend Of France

Francois Xavier Auguste was a gay Mousquetaire,
The Pride of the Camp, the delight of the Fair:
He'd a mien so distingu and so dbonnaire,
And shrugg'd with a grace so recherch and rare,
.....

Richard Harris Barham
Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - Xiv. - Composed In One Of The Catholic Cantons

Doomed as we are our native dust
To wet with many a bitter shower,
It ill befits us to disdain
The altar, to deride the fane,
.....
William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth
Song (sylvia The Fair, In The Bloom Of Fifteen)

Sylvia the fair, in the bloom of fifteen,
Felt an innocent warmth as she lay on the green:
She had heard of a pleasure, and something she guessed
By the towsing and tumbling and touching her breast:
.....
John Dryden

John Dryden
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part Iii. - Xxxvi - Emigrant French Clergy

Even while I speak, the sacred roofs of France
Are shattered into dust; and self-exiled
From altars threatened, leveled, or defiled,
Wander the Ministers of God, as chance
.....
William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth
To The Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, D.d., Master Of Harrow School

Enlightened Teacher, gladly from thy hand
Have I received this proof of pains bestowed
By Thee to guide thy Pupils on the road
That, in our native isle, and every land,
.....
William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth
Amours De Voyage.

Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio,
And taste with a distempered appetite!
SHAKSPEARE.

.....
Arthur Hugh Clough

Arthur Hugh Clough
Don Juan - Canto The Tenth.

When Newton saw an apple fall, he found
In that slight startle from his contemplation -
'T is said (for I 'll not answer above ground
For any sage's creed or calculation) -
.....

George Gordon Byron
Wendell P. Bloyd

They first charged me with disorderly conduct,
There being no statute on blasphemy.
Later they locked me up as insane
Where I was beaten to death by a Catholic guard.
.....
Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters
The Higher Unity

The Rev. Isaiah Bunter has disappeared into the interior of
the Solomon Islands, and it is feared that he may have been
devoured by the natives, as there has been a considerable
revival of religious customs among the Polynesians.-A
.....
G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton
On The Death Of Mr. Crashaw

Poet and saint! to thee alone are given
The two most sacred names of earth and heaven;
The hard and rarest union which can be,
Next that of Godhead with humanity.
.....
Abraham Cowley

Abraham Cowley
Francesca Da Rimini

They say I loved
but that's untrue,
matters of state
bound me;
.....

Roland John
The Marshes Of Glynn

Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs,-
Emerald twilights,-
.....
Sidney Lanier

Sidney Lanier
The Creeds Of The Bells

How sweet the chime of the Sabbath bells!
Each one its creed in music tells
In tones that float upon the air
As soft as song, as sweet as prayer,
.....

Anonymous Americas
Jolly Jack

When fierce political debate
Throughout the isle was storming,
And Rads attacked the throne and state,
And Tories the reforming,
.....
William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray
The M'camley Mixture

Jack M'Camley,
Lank and long,
Ox-persuader,
Billabong.
.....

William Thomas Goodge
Childhood

I

The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood
Put me out of love with God.
.....

Richard Aldington
Two Gentlemen That Broke Their Promise

There is no faith in claret, and it shall
Henceforth with me be held apocryphal.
I'll trust a small-beer promise, nay, a troth
Washed in the Thames, before a French wine oath.
.....
James Shirley

James Shirley
The Higher Unity

The Rev. Isaiah Bunter has disappeared into the interior of the Solomon Islands, and it is feared that he may have been devoured by the natives, as there has been a considerable revival of religious customs among the Polynesians.--A real paragraph from a real Paper; only the names altered.

It was Isaiah Bunter
Who sailed to the world's end,
.....

Gilbert Keith Chesterton
I Sleep A Lot

I sleep a lot and read St. Thomas Aquinas
Or The Death of God (that's a Protestant book).
To the right the bay as if molten tin,
Beyond the bay, city, beyond the city, ocean,
.....

Czeslaw Milosz
Essay On Psychiatrists

I. Invocation

Itâ??s crazy to think one could describe themâ??
Calling on reason, fantasy, memory, eves and earsâ??
.....

Robert Pinsky
To The Film Industry In Crisis

Not you, lean quarterlies and swarthy periodicals
with your studious incursions toward the pomposity of ants,
nor you, experimental theatre in which Emotive Fruition
is wedding Poetic Insight perpetually, nor you,
.....

Frank O'hara
Lydd

For the Reunion of the Bates Family at Quincy, August 3, 1916
FAR away on the sunny levels
Where Kent lies drowsing beside the sea,
Where over the foxglove as over the foam
.....

Katharine Lee Bates
Evangeline: Part The First. V.

FOUR times the sun had risen and set; and now on the fifth day
Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the farm-house.
Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful procession,
Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the Acadian women,
.....
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Fuchsia Hedges In Connacht

I THINK some saint of Eirinn wandering far
Found you and brought you here Demoiselles!
For so I greet you in this alien air!

.....
Padraic Colum

Padraic Colum
Part 9 Of Trout Fishing In America

SANDBOX MINUS JOHN

DILLINGER EQUALS WHAT?

.....

Richard Brautigan
Jealousy

'The Roman Catholic Church has never forgiven us for converting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from his Agnosticism; and when Men like Mr. Dennis Bradley can no longer be Content with the old Faith, a Spirit of Jealousy is naturally roused.'
-A Spiritualist Paper

She sat upon her Seven Hills
.....

Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Elegy Xi: The Bracelet

Upon the Loss of His Mistressâ??s Chain, for Which He Made Satisfaction

NOT that in colour it was like thy hair,
For armlets of that thou mayst let me wear;
.....
John Donne

John Donne
Resignation

I love you
because the Earth turns round the sun
because the North wind blows north
sometimes
.....

Nikki Giovanni
On The Pulse Of Morning

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
.....
Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou
The Bothie Of Tober-na-vuolich - V

A Long-Vacation Pastoral


V
.....
Arthur Hugh Clough

Arthur Hugh Clough
For The King

As you look from the plaza at Leon west
You can see her house, but the view is best
From the porch of the church where she lies at rest;

.....

Bret Harte (francis)
The Divine Comedy By Dante: The Vision Of Paradise: Canto Xii

Soon as its final word the blessed flame
Had rais'd for utterance, straight the holy mill
Began to wheel, nor yet had once revolv'd,
Or ere another, circling, compass'd it,
.....

Dante Alighieri
The Fudges In England. Letter Vi. From Miss Biddy Fudge, To Mrs. Elizabeth ----

How I grieve you're not with us!--pray, come, if you can,
Ere we're robbed of this dear, oratorical man,
Who combines in himself all the multiple glory
Of, Orangeman, Saint, quondam Papist and Tory;--
.....
Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore