Poems by Katharine Tynan

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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Flower of Youth

LEST Heaven be thronged with grey-beards hoary,

God, who made boys for His delight,

Stoops in a day of grief and glory

And calls them in, in from the night.

When they come trooping from the war

Our skies have many a new gold star.

Heaven's thronged with gay and careless faces,

New-waked from dreams of dreadful things,

116

Katharine Tynan

Immortality

So I have sunk my roots in earth

Since that my pretty boys had birth;

And fear no more the grave and gloom,

I, with the centuries to come.

As the tree blossoms so bloom I,

Flinging wild branches to the sky;

Renew each year my leafy suit,

Strike with the years a deeper root.

125

Katharine Tynan

Sheep and Lambs

All in the April evening,

April airs were abroad;

The sheep with their little lambs

Passed me by on the road.

The sheep with their little lambs

Passed me by on the road;

All in the April evening

I thought on the Lamb of God.

168

by Katharine Tynan

Nymphs

Where are ye now, O beautiful girls of the mountain,

Oreads all ?

Nothing at all stirs here save the drip of the fountain;

Answers our call

Only the heart-glad thrush, in the Vale of Thrushes;

Stirs in the brake

But the dew-bright ear of the hare in his couch of rushes

Listening, awake.

139

by Katharine Tynan

Adveniat Regnum Tuum

Thy kingdom come ! Yea, bid it come!

But when Thy kingdom first began

On earth, Thy kingdom was a home,

A child, a woman, and a man.

The child was in the midst thereof,

O, blessed Jesus, holiest One!

The centre and the fount of love

Mary and Joseph's little Son.

141

by Katharine Tynan

All Souls

THERE'S traffic in the worlds immortal,

For many souls are flying home,

Striving and pushing at the portal

For sight of glorious things to come.

What rout of wings against the sunset?

What rosy plumes the dawning bar?

Heaven's stormed with gay and happy onset

Of youngling things home from the War.

111

by Katharine Tynan

Emptiness

Where there is nothing God comes in:

The Very God has room enough

In the poor heart that's stripped so clean

Of earth and all the joys thereof.

I looked for shadow and the night

When Death had taken her Love away,

But for the darkness there was light,

And for the night clear floods of day.

104

by Katharine Tynan

A Prayer { For Those Who Shall Return}

LORD, when they come back again

From the dreadful battlefield

To the common ways of men,

Be Thy mercy, Lord, revealed!

Make them to forget the dread

Fields of dying and the dead!

Let them go unhaunted, Lord,

By the sights that they have seen:

160

by Katharine Tynan

Slow Spring

O year, grow slowly. Exquisite, holy,

The days go on

With almonds showing the pink stars blowing

And birds in the dawn.

Grow slowly, year, like a child that is dear,

Or a lamb that is mild,

By little steps, and by little skips,

Like a lamb or a child.

119

by Katharine Tynan

Mater Dei

She looked to east, she looked to west,

Her eyes, unfathomable, mild,

That saw both worlds, came home to rest,

Home to her own sweet child.

God's golden head was at her breast.

What need to look o'er land and sea?

What could the winged ships bring to her?

What gold or gems of price might be,

102

by Katharine Tynan

The Only Child

Lest he miss other children, lo!

His angel is his playfellow.

A riotous angel two years old,

With wings of rose and curls of gold.

There on the nursery floor together

They play when it is rainy weather,

Building brick castles with much pain,

Only to knock them down again.

123

by Katharine Tynan

A Lament

CLOUDS is under clouds and rain

For there will not come again

Two, the beloved sire and son

Whom all gifts were rained upon.

Kindness is all done, alas,

Courtesy and grace must pass,

Beauty, wit and charm lie dead,

Love no more may wreathe the head.

166

by Katharine Tynan