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IRISH SONGS AND LYRICS 247 |
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ELLEN MARY PATRICK DOWNING (1828-1869)
THE OLD CHURCH AT LISMORE
This poem, inscribed in the manuscript " My Last Verses," was the last written by " Mary " before entering on her novitiate in 1849.
O
LD Church, thou still art Catholic!—e'en dream they as they may That the new rites and worship have swept the old away; There is no form of beauty raised by Nature, or by
art, That preaches not God's saving truths to man's adoring heart!
In vain they tore the altar down; in vain they flung
aside The mournful emblem of the death which our sweet
Saviour died; In vain they left no single trace of saint or angel
here — Still angel-spirits haunt the ground, and to the soul
appear.
I marvel how, in scenes like these, so coldly they can
pray, Nor hold sweet commune with the dead who once
knelt down as they ; |
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