Poets of the South Part 7

Their hearts just touched to separate and bleed; Their eyes were linked in look, while saddest tears Fell down, like rain, upon the cheeks of each: They were to meet no more. Their hands were clasped To tear the clasp in twain; and all the stars Looked proudly down on them, while shadows knelt, Or seemed to kneel, around them with the awe Evoked from any heart by sacrifice.

And in the heart of that last parting hour Eternity was beating. And he said: 'We part to go to Calvary and to G.o.d-- This is our garden of Gethsemane; And here we bow our heads and breathe His prayer Whose heart was bleeding, while the angels heard: Not my will, Father! but Thine be done!'"

The Roman Catholic training and faith of Father Ryan exerted a deep influence upon his poetry. His ardent studies in the ancient languages and in scholastic theology naturally withdrew his mind, to a greater or less degree, from intimate communion with Nature. His poetry is princ.i.p.ally subjective. Nature enters it only in a subordinate way; its forms and sounds and colors do not inspire in him the rapture found in Hayne and Lanier. He not only treats of Scripture themes, as in _St.

Stephen_, _The Masters Voice_, and _A Christmas Chant_, but he also finds subjects, not always happily, in distinctive Roman Catholic dogma. _The Feast of the a.s.sumption_ and _The Last of May_, both in honor of the Virgin Mary, are sufficiently poetic; but _The Feast of the Sacred Heart_ is, in parts, too prosaically literal in its treatment of transubstantiation for any but the most believing and devout of Roman Catholics.

On the breaking out of the Civil War, Father Ryan entered the Confederate army as a chaplain, though he sometimes served in the ranks. In 1863 he ministered to the inmates of a prison in New Orleans during an epidemic of smallpox. His martial songs, _The Sword of Robert Lee_, _The Conquered Banner_, and _March of the Deathless Dead_, have been dear to many Southern hearts. He reverenced Lee as a peerless leader.

"Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed That sword might victor be; And when our triumph was delayed, And many a heart grew sore afraid, We still hoped on while gleamed the blade Of n.o.ble Robert Lee.

"Forth from its scabbard all in vain Bright flashed the sword of Lee; 'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again, It sleeps the sleep of our n.o.ble slain, Defeated, yet without a stain, Proudly and peacefully."

After four years of brave, bitter sacrifice beneath the Confederate flag, words like the following appealed strongly to the men and women who loved _The Conquered Banner_:--

"Take that Banner down! 'tis tattered; Broken is its staff and shattered; And the valiant hosts are scattered Over whom it floated high.

Oh! 'tis hard for us to fold it; Hard to think there's none to hold it; Hard that those who once unrolled it Now must furl it with a sigh.

"Furl that Banner! True, 'tis gory, Yet 'tis wreathed around with glory.

And 'twill live in song and story, Though its folds are in the dust: For its fame on brightest pages, Penned by poets and by sages, Shall go sounding down the ages-- Furl its folds though now we must."

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, n.o.bler 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 a.s.serted 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d and His angels are there: And one is the dark mount of Sorrow, And one the bright mountain of Prayer."

The prevailing tone of Father Ryan's poems is one of sadness. His harp rarely vibrated to cheerful strains. What was the cause of this sadness?

It may have been his keen sense of the tragic side of human life; it may have been the enduring anguish that came from the crucified love of his youth. The poet himself refused to tell. In _Lines--1875_, he says:--

"Go list to the voices of air, earth, and sea, And the voices that sound in the sky; Their songs may be joyful to some, but to me There's a sigh in each chord and a sigh in each key, And thousands of sighs swell their grand melody.

Ask them what ails them: they will not reply.

They sigh--sigh forever--but never tell why.

Why does your poetry sound like a sigh?

Their lips will not answer you; neither shall I."

Yet, in spite of the prevailing tone of sorrow and weariness, Father Ryan was no pessimist. He held that life has "more of sweet than gall"--

"For every one: no matter who-- Or what their lot--or high or low; All hearts have clouds--but heaven's blue Wraps robes of bright around each woe; And this is truest of the true:

"That joy is stronger here than grief, Fills more of life, far more of years, And makes the reign of sorrow brief; Gives more of smiles for less of tears.

Joy is life's tree--grief but its leaves."

Father Ryan conceived of the poet's office as something seerlike or prophetic. With him, as with all great poets, the message counted for more than do rhythm and rhyme. Divorced from truth, art seemed to him but a skeleton masque. He preferred those melodies that rise on the wings of thought, and come to human hearts with an inspiration of faith and hope.

He regarded genuine poets as the high priests of Nature. Their sensitive spirits, holding themselves aloof from common things, habitually dwell upon the deeper mysteries of life in something of a morbid loneliness. In _Poets_ he says:--

"They are all dreamers; in the day and night Ever across their souls The wondrous mystery of the dark or bright In mystic rhythm rolls.

"They live within themselves--they may not tell What lieth deepest there; Within their breast a heaven or a h.e.l.l, Joy or tormenting care.

"They are the loneliest men that walk men's ways, No matter what they seem; The stars and sunlight of their nights and days Move over them in dream."

With Wordsworth, or rather with the great Apostle to the Gentiles, he held that Nature is but the vesture of G.o.d, beneath which may be discerned the divine glory and love. The visible seemed to him but an expression of the invisible.

"For G.o.d is everywhere--and he doth find In every atom which His hand hath made A shrine to hide His presence, and reveal His name, love, power, to those who kneel In holy faith upon this bright below, And lift their eyes, thro' all this mystery, To catch the vision of the great beyond."

With this view of Nature, it was but natural that its sounds and forms-- its birds and flowers--should inspire devotion. In _St. Mary's_, speaking of the songs and silences of Nature, he says:--

"G.o.d comes close to me here-- Back of ev'ry roseleaf there He is hiding--and the air Thrills with calls to holy prayer; Earth grows far, and heaven near.

"Every single flower is fraught With the very sweetest dreams, Under clouds or under gleams Changeful ever--yet meseems On each leaf I read G.o.d's thought."

It can hardly be said that Father Ryan ever reaches far poetic heights.

Neither in thought nor expression does he often rise above cultured commonplace. Fine artistic quality is supplanted by a sort of melodious fluency. Yet the form and tone of his poetry, nearly always in one pensive key, make a distinct impression, unlike that of any other American singer. "Religious feeling," it has been well said, "is dominant. The reader seems to be moving about in cathedral glooms, by dimly lighted altars, with sad procession of ghostly penitents and mourners fading into the darkness to the sad music of lamenting choirs.

But the light which falls upon the gloom is the light of heaven, and amid tears and sighs, over farewells and crushed happiness, hope sings a vigorous though subdued strain." Having once caught his distinctive note of weary melancholy, we can recognize it among a chorus of a thousand singers. It is to his honor that he has achieved a distinctive place in American poetry.

His poetic craftsmanship is far from perfect. His artistic sense did not aspire to exquisite achievements. He delighted unduly in alliteration, a.s.sonance, and rhyming effects, all which he sometimes carried to excess.

In the first stanza, for example, of _The Conquered Banner_, popular as it is, the rhyme effect seems somewhat overdone:--

"Furl that Banner, for 'tis weary; Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary; Furl it, fold it, it is best; For there's not a man to _wave it_, And there's not a sword to _save it_, And there's not one left to _lave it_ In the blood which heroes _gave it_; And its foes now scorn and _brave it_; Furl it, hide it--let it rest."

Here and there, too, are unmistakable echoes of Poe, as in the following stanza from _At Last:_--

"Into a temple vast and dim, _Solemn and vast and dim_, Just when the last sweet Vesper Hymn Was floating far away, With eyes that tabernacled tears-- _Her heart the home of tears_-- And cheeks wan with the woes of years, A woman went one day."

But in spite of these obvious defects, Father Ryan has been for years the most popular of Southern poets. His poems have pa.s.sed through many editions, and there is still a large demand for them. They have something that outweighs their faults, and appeals strongly to the popular mind and heart. What is it? Perhaps it is impossible to answer this question fully. But in addition to the merits already pointed out, the work of Father Ryan is for the most part simple, spontaneous, and clear. It generally consists of brief lyrics devoted to the expression of a single mood or reflection. There is nothing in thought or style beyond the ready comprehension of the average reader. It does not require, as does the poetry of Browning, repeated and careful reading to render its meaning clear. It does not offend sensible people with its empty, overdone refinement. From beginning to end Father Ryan's poetry is a transparent casket, into which he has poured the richest treasures of a deeply sorrowing but n.o.ble Christian spirit.

Again, the pensive, moral tone of his poetry renders it attractive to many persons. He gives expression to the sad, reflective moods that are apt, especially in time of suffering or disappointment, to come to most of us. The moral sense of the American people is strong; and sometimes a comforting though commonplace truth from Nature is more pleasing than the most exquisite but superficial description of her beauties. How many have found solace in poems like _A Thought:_--

"The waving rose, with every breath Scents carelessly the summer air; The wounded rose bleeds forth in death A sweetness far more rich and rare.

"It is a truth beyond our ken-- And yet a truth that all may read-- It is with roses as with men, The sweetest hearts are those that bleed.