Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous

by Abram Joseph Ryan

Firm as the firmest, where duty led,
He hurried without a falter;
Bold as the boldest he fought and bled,
And the day was won — but the field was red —
And the blood of his fresh young heart was shed
On his country's hallowed altar.

On the trampled breast of the battle plain
Where the foremost ranks had wrestled,
On his pale, pure face not a mark of pain,
(His mother dreams they will meet again)
The fairest form amid all the slain,
Like a child asleep he nestled.

In the solemn shades of the wood that swept
The field where his comrades found him,
They buried him there — and the big tears crept
Into strong men's eyes that had seldom wept.
(His mother — God pity her — smiled and slept,
Dreaming her arms were around him.)

A grave in the woods with the grass o'ergrown,
A grave in the heart of his mother —
His clay in the one lies lifeless and lone;
There is not a name, there is not a stone,
And only the voice of the winds maketh moan
O'er the grave where never a flower is strewn
But — his memory lives in the other.

"Out of the Depths"

Lost! Lost! Lost!
The cry went up from a sea —
The waves were wild with an awful wrath,
Not a light shone down on the lone ship's path;
The clouds hung low:
Lost! Lost! Lost!
Rose wild from the hearts of the tempest-tossed.

Lost! Lost! Lost!
The cry floated over the waves —
Far over the pitiless waves;
It smote on the dark and it rended the clouds;
The billows below them were weaving white shrouds
Out of the foam of the surge,
And the wind-voices chanted a dirge:
Lost! Lost! Lost!
Wailed wilder the lips of the tempest-tossed.

Lost! Lost! Lost!
Not the sign of a hope was nigh,
In the sea, in the air, or the sky;
And the lifted faces were wan and white,
There was nothing without them but storm and night
And nothing within but fear.
But far to a Father's ear:
Lost! Lost! Lost!
Floated the wail of the tempest-tossed.

Lost! Lost! Lost!
Out of the depths of the sea —
Out of the night and the sea;
And the waves and the winds of the storm were hushed,
And the sky with the gleams of the stars was flushed.
Saved! Saved! Saved!
And a calm and a joyous cry
Floated up through the starry sky,
In the dark — in the storm — "Our Father" is nigh.

A Thought