Father Ryan's devotion to the South was intense. He long refused to accept the results of the war. The wrongs of the so-called Reconstruction period aroused his ardent indignation, and found expression in his song. In The Land We Love he says, with evident reference to those days:—
"Land where the victor's flag waves,
Where only the dead are the free!
Each link of the chain that enslaves,
But binds us to them and to thee."
But during the epidemic of yellow fever in 1878, his heart was touched by the splendid generosity of the North; and, surrendering his sectional prejudice and animosity, he wrote Reunited:—
"Purer than thy own white snow,
Nobler than thy mountains' height;
Deeper than the ocean's flow,
Stronger than thy own proud might;
O Northland! to thy sister land,
Was late thy mercy's generous deed and grand."
After the close of the Civil War, the restless temperament of the poet- priest asserted itself in numerous changes of residence. He was successively in Biloxi, Mississippi, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Augusta, Georgia. In the latter place he published for some three years the Banner of the South, a periodical that exerted no small influence on the thought of the state. In 1870 he became pastor of St. Mary's church in Mobile. Two years later he made a trip to Europe, of which we find interesting reminiscences in his poems. His visit to Rome was the realization of a long-cherished desire. He was honored with an audience by Pope Pius IX, of whom he has given a graphic sketch:—
"I saw his face to-day; he looks a chief
Who fears nor human rage, nor human guile;
Upon his cheeks the twilight of a grief,
But in that grief the starlight of a smile.
Deep, gentle eyes, with drooping lids that tell
They are the homes where tears of sorrow dwell;
A low voice—strangely sweet—whose very tone
Tells how these lips speak oft with God alone."
In Milan he was seriously ill. In his poem, After Sickness, we find an expression of his world-weariness and his longing for death:—
"I nearly died, I almost touched the door
That swings between forever and no more;
I think I heard the awful hinges grate,
Hour after hour, while I did weary wait
Death's coming; but alas! 'twas all in vain:
The door half opened and then closed again."
As a priest Father Ryan was faithful to his duties. But whether ministering at the altar or making the rounds of his parish, his spirit frequently found utterance in song. In 1880 he published a volume of poems, to which only a few additions were subsequently made. The keynote of his poetry is struck in the opening piece, Song of the Mystic. He dwelt much in the "Valley of Silence."
"Do you ask me the place of the Valley,
Ye hearts that are harrowed by care?
It lieth afar between mountains,
And God and His angels are there:
And one is the dark mount of Sorrow,
And one the bright mountain of Prayer."