Father Malloy
You are over there, Father Malloy,
Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave,
Not here with us on the hill
Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision
And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins.
You were so human, Father Malloy,
Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us,
Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River
From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality.
You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand
From the wastes about the pyramids
And makes them real and Egypt real.
You were a part of and related to a great past,
And yet you were so close to many of us.
You believed in the joy of life.
You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh.
You faced life as it is,
And as it changes.
Some of us almost came to you, Father Malloy,
Seeing how your church had divined the heart,
And provided for it,
Through Peter the Flame,
Peter the Rock.
Related poetry:
- The Ballad Of Father Gilligan The old priest Peter Gilligan Was weary night and day; For half his flock were in their beds, Or under green sods lay. Once, while he nodded on a chair, At the moth-hour of eve, Another poor man sent for him, And he began to grieve. ‘I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace, For […]...
- Who were "the Father and the Son" Who were “the Father and the Son” We pondered when a child, And what had they to do with us And when portentous told With inference appalling By Childhood fortified We thought, at least they are no worse Than they have been described. Who are “the Father and the Son” Did we demand Today “The […]...
- Father Riley's Horse ‘Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog By the troopers of the upper Murray side, They had searched in every gully they had looked in every log, But never sight or track of him they spied, Till the priest at Kiley’s Crossing heard a knocking very late And a whisper […]...
- Boy and Father THE BOY Alexander understands his father to be a famous lawyer. The leather law books of Alexander’s father fill a room like hay in a barn. Alexander has asked his father to let him build a house like bricklayers build, a house with walls and roofs made of big leather law books. The rain beats […]...
- Father Explains “There where that ray touches the plain And the shadows escape as if they really ran, Warsaw stands, open from all sides, A city not very old but quite famous. “Farther, where strings of rain hang from a little cloud, Under the hills with an acacia grove Is Prague. Above it, a marvelous castle Shored […]...
- When First We Faced, And Touching Showed When first we faced, and touching showed How well we knew the early moves, Behind the moonlight and the frost, The excitement and the gratitude, There stood how much our meeting owed To other meetings, other loves. The decades of a different life That opened past your inch-close eyes Belonged to others, lavished, lost; Nor […]...
- You Are Old, Father William “You are old, Father william,” the young man said, “And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head Do you think, at your age, it is right? “In my youth,” Father William replied to his son, “I feared it might injure the brain; But now that I’m perfectly sure […]...
- The Child Is Father To The Man ‘The child is father to the man.’ How can he be? The words are wild. Suck any sense from that who can: ‘The child is father to the man.’ No; what the poet did write ran, ‘The man is father to the child.’ ‘The child is father to the man!’ How can he be? The […]...
- Father My father knows the proper way The nation should be run; He tells us children every day Just what should now be done. He knows the way to fix the trusts, He has a simple plan; But if the furnace needs repairs, We have to hire a man. My father, in a day or two […]...
- 25. My Father was a Farmer: A Ballad MY father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O, And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O; He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne’er a farthing, O; For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, O. Then out into the world my course I did […]...
- Father He never made a fortune, or a noise In the world where men are seeking after fame; But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys Who loved the very ground on which he trod. They thought him just little short of God; Oh you should have heard the way they said his name […]...
- Memory Of My Father Every old man I see Reminds me of my father When he had fallen in love with death One time when sheaves were gathered. That man I saw in Gardner Street Stumbled on the kerb was one, He stared at me half-eyed, I might have been his son. And I remember the musician Faltering over […]...
- MY FATHER I had a father once, the records say. He has gone away down the long avenue Of death, on the hand-held minor no mist Of his breath, his firm signature no more. No more holding down his hat in the wind, Running to catch the last post, he has gone Beyond the wind-shaped stones on […]...
- Father Death Blues (Don't Grow Old, Part V) Hey Father Death, I’m flying home Hey poor man, you’re all alone Hey old daddy, I know where I’m going Father Death, Don’t cry any more Mama’s there, underneath the floor Brother Death, please mind the store Old Aunty Death Don’t hide your bones Old Uncle Death I hear your groans O Sister Death how […]...
- Psalm 27 part 2 v.8,9,13,14 C. M. Prayer and hope. Soon as I heard my Father say, “Ye children, seek my grace,” My heart replied without delay, “I’ll seek my Father’s face.” Let not thy face be hid from me, Nor frown my soul away; God of my life, I fly to thee In a distressing day. Should friends […]...
- Elegy For My Father HLF, August 8, 1918-August 22, 1997 “Bequeath us to no earthly shore until Is answered in the vortex of our grave The seal’s wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.” -Hart Crane, “Voyages” “If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand it” -Ludwig Wittgenstein Under the ocean that stretches out wordlessly Past the long edge of the […]...
- Green Fields By this part of the century few are left who believe in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts Of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks are sounds of shadows that possess no future There is still game for the pleasure of killing and there are […]...
- The Ballad Of Father O'Hart Good Father John O’Hart In penal days rode out To a Shoneen who had free lands And his own snipe and trout. In trust took he John’s lands; Sleiveens were all his race; And he gave them as dowers to his daughters. And they married beyond their place. But Father John went up, And Father […]...
- To God the Father To the little, pitiful God I make my prayer, The God with the long grey beard And flowing robe fastened with a hempen girdle Who sits nodding and muttering on the all-too-big throne Of Heaven. What a long, long time, dear God, since you set the Stars in their places, Girded the earth with the […]...
- The Father Of Toads A man had just delivered a toad from his wife’s armpit. He Held it by its legs and spanked it. Do you love it? said his wife. It’s our child, isn’t it? Does that mean you can’t love it? she said. It’s hard enough to love a toad, but when it turns out to be […]...
- Holy Sonnet XVI: Father, Part Of His Double Interest Father, part of his double interest Unto thy kingdom, thy Son gives to me, His jointure in the knotty Trinity He keeps, and gives to me his death’s conquest. This Lamb, whose death with life the world hath blest, Was from the world’s beginning slain, and he Hath made two Wills which with the Legacy […]...
- He forgot and I remembered He forgot and I remembered ‘Twas an everyday affair Long ago as Christ and Peter “Warmed them” at the “Temple fire.” “Thou wert with him” quoth “the Damsel”? “No” said Peter, ’twasn’t me Jesus merely “looked” at Peter Could I do aught else to Thee?...
- Nicholas Bindle Were you not ashamed, fellow citizens, When my estate was probated and everyone knew How small a fortune I left? You who hounded me in life, To give, give, give to the churches, to the poor, To the village! me who had already given much. And think you not I did not know That the […]...
- My Father The memory of my father is wrapped up in White paper, like sandwiches taken for a day at work. Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits Out of his hat, he drew love from his small body, And the rivers of his hands Overflowed with good deeds....
- On The Death of a Father I was schooled well before he died, able at least To feel what others felt when their fathers Were deceased. Able but not willing And not without despair to glimpse the man Who’d hide the truth of just how much he cared. My argent truth was fulsome gloom, Moribund and drear, my face a patent […]...
- Come up from the Fields, Father 1 COME up from the fields, father, here’s a letter from our Pete; And come to the front door, mother-here’s a letter from thy dear son. 2 Lo, ’tis autumn; Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder, Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind; Where apples ripe in […]...
- Far from Love the Heavenly Father Far from Love the Heavenly Father Leads the Chosen Child, Oftener through Realm of Briar Than the Meadow mild. Oftener by the Claw of Dragon Than the Hand of Friend Guides the Little One predestined To the Native Land....
- An Ideal Father An ideal father: Doesn’t smoke Doesn’t scold Doesn’t fuss Doesn’t test Doesn’t punish Doesn’t upset Doesn’t bore Doesn’t forbid Doesn’t spoil Doesn’t mind Doesn’t compare Doesn’t label Doesn’t doubt Doesn’t neglect Doesn’t exist....
- A Song at Cock-Crow The first time that Peter denied his Lord He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the cord, But followed far off to see what they would do, Till the cock crew till the cock crew After Gethsemane, till the cock crew! The first time that Peter denied his Lord ‘Twas only a maid in […]...
- 'Tis One by One the Father counts ‘Tis One by One the Father counts And then a Tract between Set Cypherless to teach the Eye The Value of its Ten Until the peevish Student Acquire the Quick of Skill Then Numerals are dowered back Adorning all the Rule ‘Tis mostly Slate and Pencil And Darkness on the School Distracts the Children’s fingers […]...
- The Boy And the Angel Morning, evening, noon and night, ”Praise God!; sang Theocrite. Then to his poor trade he turned, Whereby the daily meal was earned. Hard he laboured, long and well; O’er his work the boy’s curls fell. But ever, at each period, He stopped and sang, ”Praise God!” Then back again his curls he threw, And cheerful […]...
- Another Acrostic ( In the style of Father William ) “Are you deaf, Father William!” the young man said, “Did you hear what I told you just now? “Excuse me for shouting! Don’t waggle your head “Like a blundering, sleepy old cow! “A little maid dwelling in Wallington Town, “Is my friend, so I beg to remark: “Do you think she’d be pleased if a […]...
- 38. Epitaph on my Ever Honoured Father O YE whose cheek the tear of pity stains, Draw near with pious rev’rence, and attend! Here lie the loving husband’s dear remains, The tender father, and the gen’rous friend; The pitying heart that felt for human woe, The dauntless heart that fear’d no human pride; The friend of man-to vice alone a foe; For […]...
- Dream Song 105: As a kid I believed in democracy: I As a kid I believed in democracy: I ‘saw no alternative’—teaching at The Big Place I ah Put it in practice: We’d time for one long novel: to a vote— Gone with the Wind they voted: I crunched ‘No’ And we sat down with War & Peace. As a man I believed in democracy (nobody […]...
- My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty; I Am joy, son of joy, son of joy, son of joy. Behold, the Marquis of Glee has attainted felicity; this city and Plain are filled with soldiers and drums and flags. If I encounter a wolf, he becomes moonfaced Joseph; if I go Down into […]...
- Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
- My Father’s Hats Sunday mornings I would reach High into his dark closet while standing on a chair and tiptoeing reach Higher, touching, sometimes fumbling the soft crowns and imagine I was in a forest, wind hymning through pines, where the musky scent Of rain clinging to damp earth was his scent I loved, lingering on Bands, leather, […]...
- Sonnet 37: As a decrepit father takes delight As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deeds of youth, So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite, Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth. For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, Or any of these all, or all, or more, Entitled in thy parts, do crownèd […]...
- Sonnet XII: That Learned Father To the Soul That learned Father, who so firmly proves The Soul of man immortal and divine, And doth the several offices define: Anima – Gives her that name, as she the Body moves; Amor – Then is she Love, embracing charity; Animus – Moving a Will in us, it is the Mind Mens – […]...
- Psalm 87 The church the birth-place of the saints. God in his earthly temple lays Foundations for his heav’nly praise: He likes the tents of Jacob well, But still in Zion loves to dwell. His mercy visits every house That pay their night and morning vows; But makes a more delightful stay Where churches meet to praise […]...