Gerard Manley Hopkins appears more and more to be one of the most interesting poets to read (says who? an ignorant amateur reader who don´t know about poetry… yes but also a host of poetry connoisseurs, poets and scholars!). Apart from him I haven´t heard of any major classical priest-poet apart from perhaps St. Robert Southwell, the English martyr who wrote one of the most wonderful poems I have ever read in The Burning Babe. Are there others as well, hidden in the shelves?
"Fall the shadows on the gullies, fades the purple from the mountains;
And the day that's passing outwards down the stairways of the sky,
With it's kindly deeds and sordid on it's golden page recorded,
Waves a friendly hand across the range to bid the world good-bye.
Comes a buoyant peal of laughter from the tall, white, slender timber,
Rugged mirth that floods the bushland with the joy of brotherhood,
With the rustic notes sonorous of a happy laughing chorus,
When the kookaburras bless the world because the world is good"
(cf The Kookaburras)
Australian-born of Irish parents Monsignor Patrick Joseph Hartigan (1878-1952)was known for writing verse under the pseudonym John O'Brien,mostly satirical,but respectful,images of the simple, everyday,outback Catholics,a sort of"Australian'Give Up Your Oul Sins'"
Climate change sceptics or semi-sceptics would probably like SAID HANRAHAN despite it being a century ago-
"' We'll all be rooned' said Hanrahan
In accents most forlorn
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn...
'It's dry, all right', said young O'Neil
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heal
And chewed a piece of bark.
And so around the chorus ran
'It's keepin' dry, no doubt'.
'We'll all be rooned', said Hanrahan
'Before the year is out.'
'The crops are done,ye'll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o'-Bourke
They're singin' for the rain.....
In God's good time down came the rain,
And all the afternoon,
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune....
And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
'We'll all be rooned', said Hanrahan
'If this rain doesn't stop'.....
And stop it did, in God's good time;
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o'er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold....
And, oh, the smiles on every face, As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep in Casey's place
Went riding down to Mass...
' They'll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We'll all be rooned,' said Hanrahan,
'Before the year is out'
