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BY LEONARD FEENEY, S. J. NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1935 Causa
nostrae laetitiae, ora
pro nobis. CONTENTS Stanzas For The Unastonishable Refusal To Cast The First Stone Boundaries
Over us and under Is a world of wonder: In between we blunder, Blunder in between The unseen and unseen, And on someone’s word Hear of the unheard. From our faiths and hopes In prophets and in popes, And in microscopes, Mites and sprites we know Are above, below, And vice versa so. Amoebas and archangels Send us their evangels: In between the ropes Where we stand and stare At the empty air; Seeing only sights That are lit by lights, Hearing only sounds That are kept in bounds By celestial sheriffs On their ghostly rounds In between the seraphs And the fleas on hounds. ADVICE TO VERSE-MAKERS
It is not information That causes inspiration. There are no lambs and Marys In any dictionaries; And no beanstalks and Jacks In any almanacs. Beauty’s a thing to earn More than a thing to learn. It comes from simply seeing The sharp bright point of
being, Whose vein of gold is struck By labor linked with luck. And when a rapture fills The auricles and ventricles And gives the mouth through
art Connection with the heart, One can assign the season, But never knows the reason. DIAGRAM
Elbows and knees are
mysteries Of which I
become aware, Dwindled at night to half my
height And folded
up in prayer. Where do they go? I do not
know, When on my
bed I’ve laid me; Crooked or straight may I
give great Glory to
God Who made me. REFLECTION ON A FLEA
Let not my little Muse Deceive you or confuse. Not in the pose of art Do I disclose my heart; Nor do I use to pray with The poems that I play with. Rhyme is my little toy To make-believe with and
enjoy. Not listening in shells For the booming of beaches No tide ever swells, No ship ever reaches, Do I pretend to find Foundation for my mind. I loathe the aesthetic
attitude, The literary languish, The anguish after anguish, The hunger for hunger, not
for food, — The joy that is not jolly, The making tears a trade, The professional melancholy, The fear of being afraid. I hide my whole head under The sheets when I hear
thunder. Things and not theories Frighten and make me freeze. And, by the way, Speaking of how to pray, Dogmas come first, not
liturgies. The dilettante hand That took art seriously, That outlawed fairyland And stripped the Christmas
tree, Now tries another trick And has revived Our Lord To go with the candle-stick It has so long adored. Of Faith it finds a clue In hyphenated points of view, Whose novelty is never new, And whose waste-land has got A penny watering-pot Filled up with drops of dew. A doubt is still a doubt, Even turned inside out. Truer tonight to me Is one small factual flea, Whose stinging certainty Impressed upon my nose Is not a poem, or a pose. STANZAS FOR THE UNASTONISHABLE
Their noses are assailed with
smells, Their ears are beat upon by
bells, They see the outward
coverings And watch the surfaces of
things, And relish to a slight degree The savory and unsavory, And knock their knuckles
lightly on A door or two, and then are
gone. Explore a clue or think it
through — They find it too fatiguing
to. Their yearnings all in
yawnings end Who never to one fact extend The simple courtesy of
wonder, That rends more reverently
asunder The lips, and makes the mouth
let go A less unpleasant “Ah!” and
“Oh!” If Beauty be but bubble-fair, A breath of soap-surrounded
air That bounces briefly like a
ball And makes a moisture on a
wall, Then must we leave them to
their senses And save our own
intelligences. Though Christ Himself be
whelmed in wheat, They could not taste, so
would not eat. REGINA COELI
Our single entrant in the
race Of getting hailed as full of
grace Outscored the angels, took
the prize, And won all honors in the
skies. From Revelation one infers She had no close competitors:
— So Gabriel declared when he Announced the news upon his
knee. No grudged encomium did he
give, And spared no wild
superlative Acclaiming her whose blood
and breath Was native to our Nazareth. Beyond the level and the line Where stars explode and suns
decline, Where moons and meteors cease
to whirl, Our little globe enthroned a
girl. Were there no Mary, this
would be A jungle poem probably, Writ by a Zulu babbling
rhymes To snakes in sultry
summertimes. THE WHISTLER
Seldom the soaring
rocket-light will rise Up from the flaming heart and
reach the eyes. Often the song of ecstasy,
half-sung, Will find no footing and fall
back in the lung. But one sweet bird
up-warbling from the south Will never miss the mouth. The whistler’s way is best,
the school-boy’s scheme: The simple O that pipes away
the steam Lightly escaping from a
lonely dream. THE MOTH
The little muslin moth, Whose food is flame and
cloth, Flitting in rapid flight From linen-chest to light, In its intense desire To be dissolved in fire, Many manoeuvres made Around by red lamp-shade That so enchanted me — To it I faithfully Promise appropriate praise In my verse, one of these
days, As soon as I can get And put on paper down, Some nimble epithet And little noiseless noun. THE DONKEY
I saw a donkey at a fair When sounds and songs were in
the air; But he no note interpreted Of what the people sang or
said. Hitched by a halter to a rail He twitched his ears and
twirled his tail; In every lineament and line He was completely asinine. Though I had heard in local
halls Some eulogies on animals, I thought it would be utter
blindness To show him any sort of
kindness. It seemed to me that God had
meant To make him unintelligent, And wanted us to keep our
places, I in my clothes, he in his
traces. And so I turned my mind to
things Like banners, balls, balloons
and rings, For which I had to pay my
share And went on purpose to a
fair. But down the midways while I
went On all the pageantry intent, I stopped, and started to
remember A little stable in December, Battered by wind and swathed
in snow, Nearly two thousand years
ago, When one poor creature like
to this Saw Mary give her Child a
kiss. So back I sauntered to the
rail, And stared at him from head
to tail, And gave his cheek a little
pat, Or two, — and let it go at
that. THE ROSE
Perfume and petal Are
qualities That test love’s mettle With too
much ease. Bramble and briar Will soon
discover Who is the liar And who
the lover. THE WHALE
Out in the bay arose a whale; And in a flash from surf to
sight, From far-off wave to
steamer-rail, A whale a millionth of its
size Was matrixed in a beam of
light, And wriggled nimbly through
my eyes — Then plunging wildly in my
brain Became enormous once again. Somewhere a whale is still in
motion, Lashing an ocean in a motion; He dives through breaker,
brine and billow, Locked in a skull upon my
pillow. How such a wondrous whale can
be Remains a mammoth mystery; But I must let him splash and
spout Till deep sleep dries his
image out. THE BEE
God to some Sticky stuff Not yet alive In a hive, Said, “Come! Hum! Glorify Me! Be My bee And buzz. As I bid!” And sure enough, It was! And it did! RABBIT
Rabbit’s eyes are pink, And they are, I think, Less to watch with than to
wink With: they are ornamental: Sight in them is incidental. All sensation goes In through rabbit’s ears and
nose. Rabbit runs around With jump and rebound, Sniffing every sound, Listening to the light Falling on the clover. Rabbit wants to be
afraid: He delights in fright, And is soft all over. He is lovable and white, Unmistakably was made Out of man some tenderness to
take, Just for pity’s sake. IN THE BARNYARD
On my way to the coops, On my way from the pens, As I was going over From the pigs to the hens, I met a small object Of not any use, A poor little pin-feathered Baby-girl goose, Who was on her way back From the hens to the pigs, And was paddling in puddles And treading on twigs, And who left me enchanted From then till I die With the pretty gold picture She put in my eye. SNAILS
Snails obey the Holy Will of God slowly. A RIDDLE
A shower of silver, A shower
of gold: But you cannot guess why Till the
riddle is told. In a yard in New Hampshire In a
shower of rain, I chucked at some chickens A shower
of grain. ORTHOGRAPH
In my figurative furbelow,
figurative frill, I was sitting one evening, as
old poets will, And unrolling a parchment and
inking a quill, When a lightning-bug dropped
on my window-sill. And this cheap little modern-American
blighter Kept flicking the flint in
his cigarette-lighter; But because by a trifle my
room became brighter, I tapped him this tune on my
tin typewriter. THE FEATURE FEATURE
The owl is meant to emphasize Especially the art of eyes. The elephant’s long rubber
hose Insists upon the art of nose. The ostrich runs around and
begs Attention for the art of
legs. The art of neck belongs to
the Giraffe quite unmistakably. The pretty peacock will
prevail In making known the art of
tail. The elk extends its
chandeliers To crown the lovely art of
ears. The art of mouth is obvious, Due to the hippopotamus. The art of chin is left to
man, Assisted by the pelican. ADMIRING MAURA
The metaphysics of a dimple Is rather more involved than
simple. But when she smiles, at seven
weeks, Two pretty nothings in her
cheeks Make Maura most admired where
she Is Maura most reluctantly. For nature capers most with
grace Through unfulfillments in her
face; And one sees most to rave
about By looking at what God left
out. MEASURING A CRIB
Two feet long and one foot
wide: But no more Maura on either
side! No more Maura above, below — Maura begins at that downy
hair, Maura extends to that tiny
toe! No more Maura wherever you
go: Round and round in the
fathomy air, England or China or anywhere; No more Maura in any place Save in this limited little
space! But oh, what infinite
condescenscions Heaven has made to this
crib’s dimensions! Satan has measured a hole in
Hell; But Mother Mary is watching
well, Jesus remembered the day He
died, The Holy Spirit has
sanctified: Two feet long and one foot
wide. SONG OF INDIA
Maura has come to the rubber
age: Turned, so to put it, a rubber
page; Wants to be rolling a rubber
ball, Wants to be squeezing a rubber
doll; Floats in her bath-tub a
rubber fish: All of her playthings are
rubberish; Chews on a red rubber
teething-ring; And when she goes out for a
ride in spring, A noiseless nurse-maid on
rubber heels Perambulates her on rubber
wheels. And lately a cut rubber cold
she took, And sneezed — God bless us! —
like this: “Caoutchouc!” EXPERIMENT
All one needs to say Is, “Where’s the little
kitty? . . . The one you loved so well, That wore a silver bell?
. . . And did it run away?
. . . Well, isn’t that a pity!” And shut will go the eyes Till memory supplies The pleasure of the purr, The rhythm of the fur, The tinkle in the ears, — The trickle of the tears. COMPUTATION
Betty tried hard to do All that God asked her to, Which, being such and such, Was not so very much, Nor would be much again, Seeing she died at ten. And of that half a score, Three years or little more Were all she really spent Being intelligent — By which I mean to say, In an authentic way. From that three take a third For sleep: upon my word, This leaves but two years out Of ten to talk about! Divide that two in half To let her play and laugh, Run errands for her mother, And mind her little brother: Then cut from that schedule Almost a year for school, — How long a period Have we got left for God? Allow this little maid, When she knelt down and
prayed, Some suitable subtractions For her small mind’s
distractions: — Maybe one day is all One could compose and call Strictly devotional. Peace, darling!, do not frown Looking from Heaven down At my crude computation Of your sweet soul’s
salvation! One day was quite enough; Blow out your candle — puff!
— That burnt so pure and bright One morning, noon and night, And gave for God’s delight Twenty-four hours’ worth Of perfect praise on Earth! HILARION
Bath-robed, slippered,
collar-less, Face unshaven, feet on
fender, Groggy now for good I guess, Bent in body, spent in
splendor: O my poor Hilarion, Where has all your glory
gone? Prim and proper in your
prime, Handsome once upon a time, Rollicking, but never rude, Proud, but not a prig or
prude, Somewhere in your day a dude,
— Now you sit in solitude, Curled up by the kitchen
fire, Dressed in dowdiest attire, Dead in dreams and in desire. Come, my gay Hilarion, Put your silken top-hat on! Do not let untidiness Desecrate your last distress. Pin another sweet-to-smell Rosebud on your coat lapel! Polish up those Sunday-best Silver buttons on your vest! Go and get your cuffs and cane; Wear your goat-skin gloves
again; Make a flourish till you die With your spats and spotted
tie! Stand up and unfurl your
banners! Meet your death with your
nicest manners! Be a dandy, live or dead; Send your calling card ahead: Let the anxious angels know They will soon behold a beau, Slick and sleek at
sixty-seven, Strutting down the streets of
Heaven! AFTER THE SHOWER
After the shower I went
abroad: All the wells in the world
were full; Lightning elapsed in the
goldenrod, Thunder subsided inside the
bull. Worms were soaking above the
sod; Lambs regamboled and birds
resang. God flung a violet boomerang, Arched the ocean from coast
to cape, And, oh, it was gorgeous
again to gape At Hope set up in a
horse-shoe shape! PROMENADE
It is not wise to dally with
despair. It should be promptly taken
out to air — Follow the route from here to
Railroad Square. A corner constable is there
to view Gesticulating gorgeously in
blue. A muscular mechanic may be
seen Inflating tires or pumping gasoline. A pencil-seller will intrigue
the mind To guess if he be bogus or be
blind. A splendid shiner of
unpolished shoes Will block your hat and fill
your head with news. And when you pass her papa’s
peanut-stand Where small Maria, lollipop
in hand, Sticks out her sticky tongue
at peevish faces, Your grudges, grumpinesses,
griefs, grimaces, Will melt like butterscotch,
and be beguiled By the sure, sharp, sweet
satire of a child. MELODY IN A MEAT MARKET
When Billy, the butcher-boy’s
meat-chopping instrument Chipped off
the tip of his thumb, At that very moment did Lily,
the pantry-maid, In for a
cutlet come; And stanching the wound with
her clean linen handkerchief, Skilfully
bandaged and bound it, And tearing a strip from her
pretty white pinafore Wrapped it
around and around it; And stoutly refusing to
cheapen her charity, Paid for
the chop she was buying. And if this little incident
isn’t poetical, Maybe I
ought to stop trying. IN THE ANTIQUE SHOP
There was a lady made of
gold, And at an auction she was
sold. She was a little lady wrought In metal molded by a thought, And had a faultless face, a
form, A gesture, an extended arm, And in a mirror on a shelf She pointed proudly at
herself As if to say to someone:
“See, What a man’s mind has made of
me!” “Take her away!”, the
auctioneer Bawled to a bidder in the
rear, A grand dame in a gaudy gown Who paid a hundred dollars
down, And called her limousine and
rolled Off with the lady made of
gold. And oh, I wonder after that What in the world she pointed
at! THE LILY
While candles on the
altar-shelf Between
the ferns and flowers Were burning, and the
Carmelites Chanted
the Little Hours: — Putting her holy woolens on, Her
sandals and her veil, Young Sister Mary of the
Snows Knelt at
the altar-rail, And ceased forevermore to be The
harbor-dredger’s daughter — The man who digs the murky
mud From
underneath the water. CINEMA ANATHEMA
I cannot go it — go it you
who can: The celluloid survival of a
man; The play that is acted With the actor extracted; The counterfeited rapture
rolling on; The surface saved and all the
substance gone; The passion still preserved
that no one feels; The fruit in lemon skins and
orange peels. NOËL
(a Christmas card by a
British playwright) A stupid horse and cow, they
say, Called for
convenience, ox and ass, Stood in a stable munching
hay: A rather
stupid sort of grass. It seems a village girl was
there: A rather
stupid sort of maid, Whose husband was a carpenter: A rather
stupid sort of trade. Her child was lying in a
stall: A rather
stupid place to sleep; And stupid shepherds came to
call With
stupid lambs and stupid sheep. The angels sang, et
cetera, Some songs
of this world and the next, And so fulfilled from Isaiah A rather
stupid sort of text. HAIR RIBBONS
When we were young, we looked
on them as creatures Inalterable in nature, as in
form and features; Diffidently to be approached,
and shyly to be attended, Extravagantly to be admired, and
valiantly to be defended. We needed no vile diagrams,
being not such fools; Innocence was not yet outlawed
in primary schools. With swift clean flashes of
thought we were able to sense What was their similarity, and
what their difference. And in order to make this
clear distinction clearer, And preserve those distances
that keep the genders dearer, They wore bright symbols of
their strict inalterability: Hair ribbons they wore, who
were, yet who were not as we. Manners have gone to the dogs
since the hair ribbons departed; Song is not sweet, nor verse
versatile, nor folks open-hearted. There is a blur in the eye,
and the mind is annoyed By a mania, and the ear by a
monosyllable inaccurately employed. THE KING’S DAUGHTER
Now what’s the good looking
like good-looking lasses Who are just as good-looking
in looking-glasses, Or caring for curls that can
be cultivated Electrically, or voices that
can be duplicated On discs? . . . LIKE AND LOVE
I know that God is infinite, But like Him not that way a
bit; I love Him, yes, but like Him
less; God is too big for me, I
guess. But not too little, no
siree!, In Mary’s arms, on Mary’s
knee; For then I like Him even more Than I had loved Him
heretofore. INDIGNATION
The inn that would not bed
and board The Blessed Mother of Our
Lord, That night when it had ought,
when she Was most in need of hostelry
— I think I would not pay a pin To stop at such a stupid inn. I think it was a dive, a den; I hereby scourge it with my
pen. EPIPHANY
Now the King-less Jews, I
guess, Are
check-mated, And their little game of
chess Terminated. Two white kings and one black The Gentiles used in their
attack. APOLOGY
God give me strength In making
a rhyme To limit the length, To stop it
in time. I could not absorb it, Suppose it
a star, If out of its orbit It
wandered too far. I could not console it, Suppose it
a grief, I could not control it Unless it
be brief. COWARDINATION
In little tasks of daily life Which
every man must do, Like climbing up and down a
hill, Or
counting two and two, There are so many ins and
outs In one’s
anatomy, So many wires to be pulled And levers
to set free, If I did not have faith in
God To
regulate me right, I think I’d jump from
Brooklyn Bridge And finish
me in fright. RETORT TO A PHILOSOPHER
If in future I my lyre Ever from
its rack remove, And go plucking with my
plectrum Anything I
cannot prove, May God lodge me with
logicians Ranting
rhymes and writing reams Of sweet ratiocinations In romantic
enthymemes. DILEMMA
My prayers for you, alas, are
all Somewhat anthropological. I cannot separate a whole, Dissect a substance and see a
soul; For when I try, to my dismay Your anxious eyes get in the
way. I pray you, pray for me when
I pray — Lest I, endeavoring to
exclude Distractions from my
solicitude, Disintegrate you far too
well, Halve you and leave you half
in Hell. Before you vanish into air, May memory salvage one bright
hair Entangled always in my
prayer. THE FAIRYLAND
All that enters through my
eye My intellect must simplify; For nothing in my mind can be
a Guest unless it’s an idea: A spiritual accident That has no weight and no
extent. For I am half an angel and Must alter what I understand, And rid it of the stubborn
stuff That makes it hard or makes
it tough, And turn its essence into
air, And hoard it underneath my
hair. But if some night my
intellect Should fail its function and
neglect To give some object, as it
ought, The proper lightness of a
thought, — Oh, how I’d toss around in
bed With moons and mountains in
my head! Oh, how I’d yell aloud in
pain With bulls and boulders in my
brain! REFUSAL TO CAST THE FIRST STONE
If in the sin you now confess There was one tithe of
tenderness; If some sweet charity lay hid Between your purpose and what
you did; If in this sad iniquity Childlike you were, or
sisterly, Caught by some subtlety of
chance, Victim of merciless
circumstance; If Jesus may plead at the
Judgment Seat: You were less wicked than
indiscreet, Compassing more than your
heart intended; If you were lonely or
undefended; If one small rampart of your
will Fought against Hell and
resisted still, And one white atom of your
soul Was left unsullied and clean
and whole: — Over that atom, you
understand, I lift up no absolving hand. IN PRAISE OF ELECTRONS
Lest I should ever be mistaken
for a mad Manichaean, Who am
enamored of realities maybe not three-dimensioned enough, I hereby praise God loudly for
all measurements and materials, Foliage,
flesh, fabric and fiber, substance and stuff. I praise Him for the volatile
violets in little convent conservatories, For the
innocent odors of lilies and the pure aromas of roses, Which even the most ethereal
Port Royalists may inhale without scruples, May sniff
with their delicate nostrils and enjoy with their noses, And then go back to the
molding and minding of their nuns and their novices, Undaunted,
unsullied, unruffled, unshriven, unabashed and unblamed, Knowing they have done nothing
to violate any one of the Commandments, Knowing
they have done absolutely nothing of which to be ashamed. PIANISSIMO
My meager brightness must I
dim: Curtail my
scanty skill; My little well, below the
brim, In mercy
must I fill; Lest in their folly my sweet
friends Should
think it might be so, That anything I say portends Which way
the wind will blow. GOOD NEWS
The night before Our Lord was
born Saint Joseph went about
forlorn, Knocking at doors from left
to right, Knocking at every door in
sight, Asking if anybody would, Oh please, would anyone be so
good As to invite the Virgin Mary In somebody’s house that
night to tarry — And had they a room to spare
where she Could wait for Our Lord’s
Nativity? But poor Saint Joseph was quite
unable To find a lodging, except in
a stable; And it was stuffy and cold
and damp, It had no window, it had no
lamp, It had no table, no bed, no
chairs, It had no up-stairs and no
down-stairs; A very unsuitable place it
was, Inhabited by an ox and an ass; But they were polite to Our
Blessed Mother, They stood beside her and
made no bother, And did not utter a bray or a
moo Until the time it was proper
to, When the moon went down at
the break of morn, And Christmas began, and Our
Lord was born. And Our Lord was beautiful to
behold The minute He was one minute
old. And He smiled, but of course
He did not speak, He was too little, He was too
weak; But He did do all that He was
required: He lay in the manger and was
admired, And was most worthy to be
adored, For really and truly He was
Our Lord! A PRAYER FOR PROTESTANTS
May God be kind to captive
fish Who dwell in little bowls and
wish To swim, and can’t, and have
no notion Of what has happened to the
ocean. And may He bless in aviaries Continually caged canaries, Who wonder, when they try to
fly, What can have happened to the
sky. TO ONE CREATED
There are three persons I
admire tremendously and love the most, And these are God, The Father,
The Son and The Holy Ghost. I admire them the most because
beyond all others they are Most personable and permanent
and admirable, — much more admirable by far Than you, or than me, or than
what-you-may-call-him, or so-and-so. We all are technically
persons, we are persons of sorts, I know: But we have no names, save
arbitrary tags; and so little are we needed That our loss to existence, if
we were to vanish, would hardly be heeded. I agree, to be sure, we are
not to blame for it: I grant you that, — Any more than the Earth can be
blamed for being round instead of being flat. But, not to deserve to be
blamed for not having a thing, is not A very good measure of what we
are lacking and what we have got. I admit, furthermore, there is
indubitably something to revere In many of your attractive and
temporal qualities, my contingent dear. But if you and your glories
are mutable and mortal, then it cannot be odd That I do not allow you to
shine in my eyes like the glory of God: Whose triune, personal
splendor my mind by the favor of Faith has conceived; And Who lived and was lovable before any of
us loved Him, or before He ever needed to be believed. MEMENTO FOR MY MOURNER
Think
you, if this were I, |