The Catholic World Volume I Part 68

Tell him I loved, and love for aye, That his I am though far away-- More his than on the marriage-day.

Tell him thy flowers for him I twine When first the slow sad mornings shine In thy dim gla.s.s; for he is mine.

Tell him when evening's tearful light Bathes those dark towers on Aughrim's height, There where he fought, in heart, I fight.

A freeman's banner o'er him waves!

So be it! I but tend the graves Where freemen sleep whose sons are slaves.

Tell him I nurse his n.o.ble race, Nor weep save o'er one sleeping face Wherein those looks of his I trace.

For him my beads I count when falls Moonbeam or shower at intervals Upon our burn'd and blacken'd walls:

And bless him! bless the bold brigade-- May G.o.d go with them, horse and blade, For faith's defense, and Ireland's aid!

Here the abrupt transition of tone in the last verse from the subdued melancholy of those which precede it is very fine and very Irish. One can fancy the widowed wife, in all her desolation, starting, even from her beads, as she thinks of Lord Clare's dragoons coming down on the enemy with their "_Viva la_ for Ireland's wrong!"

Twenty years have now pa.s.sed since "The Spirit of the _Nation_" gave some glimpses of the mine of poetry then latent in the Irish mind. In 1845 Mr. Gavan Duffy published his "Ballad Poetry of Ireland"--a book which had the largest sale of any published in Ireland since the union and probably the widest influence. Upon this common and neutral ground Orange-man and Ribbon-man, Tory, and Nationalist, were perforce brought into harmonious contact; and "The Boyne Water" lost half its virus as a political psalm when it was embalmed side by side with the "Wild Geese" or "w.i.l.l.y Reilly." Behind the produce of his own immediate period, Mr. Duffy, in arranging his materials, could only find a few ballads by Moore, a few by Gerald Griffin, a few by Banim, Callanan, Furlong, and Drennan, that could be accounted legitimate ballad poetry. The rest was fast cropping up while he was actually compiling his collection, under the hot breath of the National movement, in a lavish and luxuriant growth. This impulse seems to have spent itself some years ago. Anything of real merit in the way of Irish poetry does not now appear in periodical literature more than once or twice in a year; and Mr. Thomas Irwin is the only recent writer whose verse may fairly be named in the same breath with that which we have now noticed. A rich grace and finish of {481} expression, a most quaint and delicate humor, and a fine-poised aptness of phrase, distinguish his poetry, which is more according to the taste that Mr. Tennyson has established in England than that of any Irish writer of the day.

Irish poetry seems now, therefore, to have pa.s.sed into a new and more advanced stage of development. Here are four volumes, by four separate writers, of poems, old and new--all published within a year; and all, we believe, decidedly successful, and in satisfactory course of sale.

Mr. Florence MacCarthy's poems had previously gone through several editions, and won enduring fame--perhaps more widely spread in America than even at home, on account of a quality somewhat kindred to the peculiar genius of the best American poets, and especially Longfellow, Poe, and Irving, that the reader will readily recognize in his finely-finished and most melodious verse. Nor should we omit to mention, in cataloguing the library of recent Irish poets, "The Monks of Kilcrea," a long romantic poem in the style of "The Lady of the Lake," which contains many a pa.s.sage that Scott might own, but of which the writer remains unknown. Thus Irish national poetry is acc.u.mulating, as it were, in strata. Mr. Duffy set on the t.i.tle-page of his "Ballad Poetry" the Irish motto, _Bolg an dana_, which not all his readers clearly understood; but which, to all who did, seemed extremely appropriate at the time. "This man," say the Four Masters, speaking of a great bard of the fifteenth century, "was called the _Bolg an dana_, which signifies that he was a common budget of poetry."

And this was all that Mr. Duffy's Ballad Poetry professed to be. But what was only a budget of desultory jetsam and flotsam in 1845 is taking the shape of a solid literature in 1865; and those twenty golden years have at all events been well filled with ranks of rhyme.

{482}

From The Month.

CONSTANCE SHERWOOD.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.

CHAPTER VIII.

After I had been musing a little while, Mistress Bess ran into the room, and cried to some one behind her:

"Nan's friend is here, and she is mine too, for we all played in a garden with her when I was little. Prithee, come and see her." Then turning to me, but yet holding the handle of the door, she said: "Will is so unmannerly, I be ashamed of him. He will not so much as show himself."

"Then, prithee, come alone," I answered. Upon which she came and sat on my knee, with her arm round my neck, and whispered in mine ear:

"Moll is very sick to-day; will you not see her, Mistress Sherwood?"

"Yea, if so be I have license," I answered; and she, taking me by the hand, offered to lead me up the stairs to the room where she lay. I, following her, came to the door of the chamber, but would not enter till Bess fetched the nurse, who was the same had been at Sherwood Hall, and who, knowing my name, was glad to see me, and with a curtsey invited me in. White as a lily was the little face resting on a pillow, with its blue eyes half shut, and a store of golden hair about it, which minded me of the glories round angels' heads in my mother's missal.

"Sweet lamb!" quoth the nurse, as I stooped to kiss the pale forehead.

"She be too good for this world. Ofttimes she doth babble in her sleep of heaven, and angels, and saints, and a wreath of white roses wherewith a bright lady will crown her."

"Kiss my lips," the sick child softly whispered, as I bent over her bed. Which when I did, she asked, "What is your name? I mind your face." When I answered, "Constance Sherwood," she smiled, as if remembering where we had met. "I heard my grandam calling me last night," she said; "I be going to her soon." Then a fit of pain came on, and I had to leave her. She did go from this world a few days after; and the nurse then told me her last words had been "Jesu!

Mary!"

That day I did converse again alone with my Lady Surrey after dinner, and walked in the garden; and when we came in, before I left, she gave me a purse with some gold pieces in it, which the earl her husband willed to bestow on Catholics in prison for their faith. For she said he had so tender and compa.s.sionate a spirit, that if he did but hear of one in distress he would never rest until he had relieved him; and out of the affection he had for Mr. Martin, who was one while his tutor, he was favorably inclined toward Catholics, albeit himself resolved to conform to the queen's religion. When Mistress Ward came for me, the countess would have her shown into her chamber, and would not be contented without she ordered her coach to carry us back to Holborn, that we might take with us the clothes and cordials which she did bestow upon us for our poor clients. She begged Mrs. Ward's prayers for his grace, that he might soon be set at liberty; for she said in a pretty manner, "It must needs be that Almighty G.o.d takes most heed of the prayers of {483} such as visit him in his affliction in the person of poor prisoners; and she hoped one day to be free to do so herself." Then she questioned of the wants of those Mistress Ward had at that time knowledge of; and when she heard in what sore plight they stood, it did move her to so great compa.s.sion, that she declared it would be now one of her chiefest cares and pleasures in life to provide conveniences for them. And she besought Mistress Ward to be a good friend to her with mine aunt, and procure her to permit of my frequent visits to Howard House, as the Charter House is now often called: which would be the greatest good she could do her; and that she would be most glad also if she herself would likewise favor her sometimes with her company; which, "if it be not for mine own sake, Mistress Ward," she sweetly said, "let it be for his sake who, in the person of his afflicted priests, doth need a.s.sistance."

When we reached home, we hid what we had brought under our mantles, and then in Mistress Ward's chamber, where Muriel followed us. When the door was shut we displayed these jewelled stores before her pleased eyes, which did beam with joy at the sight.

"Ah, Muriel," cried Mistress Ward, "we have found an Esther in a palace; and I pray to G.o.d there may be other such in this town we ken not of, who in secret do yet bear affection to the ancient faith."

Muriel said in her slow way: "We must needs go to the Clink to-morrow; for there is there a priest whose flesh has fallen off his feet by reason of his long stay in a pestered and infected dungeon. Mr. Roper told my father of him, and he says the gaoler will let us in if he be reasonably dealt with."

"We will essay your ointment, Mistress Sherwood," said Mistress Ward, "if so be you can make it in time."

"I care not if I sit up all night," I cried, "if any one will buy me the herbs I have need of for the compounding thereof." Which Muriel said she would prevail on one of the servants to do.

The bell did then ring for supper; and when we were all seated, Kate was urgent with me for to tell her how my Lady Surrey was dressed; which I declared to her as follows: "She had on a brown juste au corps embroidered, with puffed sleeves, and petticoat braided of a deeper nuance; and on her head a lace cap, and a lace handkerchief on her bosom."

"And, prithee, what jewels had she on, sweet coz?"

"A long double chain of gold and a brooch of pearls," I answered.

"And his grace of Norfolk is once more removed to the Tower," said Mr.

Congleton sorrowfully. "'Tis like to kill him soon, and so save her majesty's ministers the pains to bring him to the block. His physician, Dr. Rhuenbeck, says he is afflicted with the dropsy."

Polly said she had been to visit the Countess of Northumberland, who was so grievously afflicted at her husband's death, that it was feared she would fall sick of grief if she had not company to divert her from her sad thoughts.

"Which I warrant none could effect so well as thee, wench," her father said; "for, beshrew me, if thou wouldst not make a man laugh on his way to the scaffold with thy mad talk. And was the poor lady of better cheer for thy company?"

"Yea, for mine," Polly answered; "or else for M. de la Motte's, who came in to pay his devoirs to her, for the first time, I take it, since her lord's death. And after his first speech, which caused her to weep a little, he did carry on so brisk a discourse as I never noticed any but a Frenchman able to do. And she was not the worst pleased with it that the cunning gentleman did interweave it with anecdotes of the queen's majesty; which, albeit he related them with gravity, did carry somewhat of ridicule in them. Such as of her grace's dancing on Sunday before last at Lord Northampton's wedding, and calling him to witness {484} her paces, so that he might let monsieur know how high and disposedly she danced; so that he would not have had cause to complain, in case he had married her, that she was a boiteuse, as had been maliciously reported of her by the friends of the Queen of Scots. And also how, some days since, she had flamed out in great choler when he went to visit her at Hampton Court; and told him, so loud that all her ladies and officers could hear her discourse, that Lord North had let her know the queen-mother and the Duke of Guise had dressed up a buffoon in an English fashion, and called him a Milor du Nord; and that two female dwarfs had been likewise dressed up in that queen's chamber, and invited to mimic her, the queen of England, with great derision and mockery. 'I did a.s.sure her,' M. de la Motte said, 'with my hand on my heart, and such an aggrieved visage, that she must needs have accepted my words as true, that Milor North had mistaken the whole intent of what he had witnessed, from his great ignorance of the French tongue, which did render him a bad interpreter between princes; for that the queen-mother did never cease to praise her English majesty's beauty to her son, and all her good qualities, which greatly appeased her grace, who desired to be excused if she, likewise out of ignorance of the French language, had said aught unbecoming touching the queen-mother.'

'Tis a rare dish of fun, fit to set before a king, to hear this Monsieur Amba.s.sador speak of the queen when none are present but such as make an idol of her, as some do."

"For my part," said her father, when she paused in her speech, "I mislike men with double visages and double tongues; and methinks this monseer hath both, and withal a rare art for what courtiers do call diplomacy, and plain men lying. His speeches to her majesty be so fulsome in her praise, as I have heard some say who are at court, and his flattery so palpable, that they have been ashamed to hear it; but behind her back he doth disclose her failings with an admirable slyness."

"If he be sly," answered Polly, "I'll warrant he finds his match in her majesty."

"Yea," cried Kate, "even as poor Madge Arundell experienced to her cost."

"Ay," quoth Polly, "she catcheth many poor fish, who little know what snare is laid for them."

"And how did her highness catch Mistress Arundell?" I asked.

"In this way, coz," quoth Polly: "she doth often ask the ladies round her chamber, 'If they love to think of marriage?' and the wise ones do conceal well their liking thereunto, knowing the queen's judgment in the matter. But pretty, simple Madge Arundell, not knowing so deeply as her fellows, was asked one day hereof, and said, 'She had thought much about marriage, if her father did consent to the man she loved.'

'You seem honest, i' fait said the queen; 'I will sue for you your father.' At which the dam was well pleased; and when father, Sir Robert Arundell, came court, the queen questioned him his daughter's marriage, and pressed him to give consent if the match were discreet.

Sir Robert, much astonished, said, 'He never had heard his daughter had liking to any man; but he would give his free consent to what was most pleasing to her highness's will and consent.' Then I will do the rest,' saith the queen. Poor Madge was called in, and told by the queen that her father had given his free consent. 'Then,' replied the simple one, 'I shall be happy, an' it please your grace.' 'So thou shalt; but not to be a fool and marry,' said the queen. 'I have his consent given to me, and I vow thou shalt never get it in thy possession. So go-to about thy business. I see thou art a bold one to own thy foolishness so readily.'"

"Ah me!" cried Kate, "I be glad not to be a maid to her majesty; for I would not know how to answer her {485} grace if she should ask me a like question; for if it be bold to say one hath a reasonable desire to be married, I must needs be bold then, for I would not for two thousand pounds break Mr. Lacy's heart; and he saith he will die if I do not marry him. But, Polly, thou wouldst never be at a loss to answer her majesty."