Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous

by Abram Joseph Ryan

Alan R. Light, May, 1996, Birmingham, Alabama.

[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are marked by tildes (~).
Some obvious errors have been corrected.]

Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous.

By Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan).

Containing his posthumous poems.

"All Rests with those who Read. A work or thought
Is what each makes it to himself, and may
Be full of great dark meanings, like the sea,
With shoals of life rushing; or like the air,
Benighted with the wing of the wild dove,
Sweeping miles broad o'er the far southwestern woods
With mighty glimpses of the central light —
Or may be nothing — bodiless, spiritless."
— Festus.

[Based on the 1880 edition, the 1896 edition (New York) from which this was transcribed also includes Ryan's posthumous poems.]

THESE SIMPLE RHYMES ARE LAID AS A GARLAND OF LOVE AT THE FEET OF HIS MOTHER BY HER CHILD THE AUTHOR

Preface

These verses (which some friends call by the higher title of Poems, to which appellation the author objects) were written at random — off and on, here, there, anywhere — just when the mood came, with little of study and less of art, and always in a hurry.