Welcome to the Irish Augustinian Poets!!

Here you will find work from some of the Irish Province which we hope you will enjoy.Work will be added as soon as we get it and we hope to keep the page as updated as we can.

Christmas 

Again it will happen

In the mid-silence of the night,

Like dew He will come down,

The Emmanuel of Isaiah,

Lit by the steadfast stars.

Again will angels sing,

And lanterns cast long shadows,

And kneeling shepherds

Peer in at a Lady-Mother

Radiant with her first-born Child.

In the wasterlands of our minds

The myrtle and acacia

Are ready to burst bud to new life,

The olive and the juniper are set

To blossom-deck the desert,

For God to come our way again

To wake the child within us.

But will we sense it so?

Below the season's tinsel sheen,

Will we note the littlest stirring:

The bent grass? The bowed leaf?

Or will we even faintly hearken

The distant angels sing of peace,

In land and home and heart to heart?

Or will they echo out unheard,

Out among the constant stars,

Back to the saints of God?

Lord, grant, this time of grace,

That miracles will happen;

That the hearts of all will sing

In tune with the angel song,

And that we hear, however faint,

The shepherds' joyful prayer,

And look to see a beckoning star,

Albeit from out a distant sky afar.

 By Fr John O'Connor, OSA

When We Are Old

When we are old, when you and I are old,

Shall we two feel the penury and stress

Of senses that grow hourly and less,

Till, sudden, eyes and ears and hands lose hold

On light and music as on food and gold;

Will friends fail us, and all the tenderness

Which makes life sweet forget, at last, to press

Itself against our hearts ere they grow cold?

Nay, I am fain to think in other wise,

To us, will come the sunset of our years;

Through the dark void of sense faith sees the skies,

And the dear thought of men and women fond

Will shoot light thro' the clouds of pain and tears,

And speed us glad to fuller life beyond.

By A. Walsh O.S.A.

A Prayer

Lord, hand pick a hundred people,

Only you can

To rescue the ship wrecked world,

And lost- memory man.

Lord, you have the knowing eagle - eye

To scan the desert land,

You have the mighty wings,

You have the sensitive hand,

To save all the wayward things.

By John O' Connor osa

Where Your Heart Is

Take off the weary shoes of care

That travel everywhere but home.

Approach the burning bush of love

Be drawn unsighted to the heart of it all

Whose name, unnamed, is mystery,

And like the youths in furnace fire

Converse with One amid the flames,

Return unharmed on fire with love.

Do not cling to him alone;

Like Magdalen go tell the news:

He is risen, gone on High

Yes close to you who dare to seek

In inner room of pilgrim hearts,

Where the spirit fire will lead you home.

By Jack Crean osa

Long Days of Summer

1.

The wonder is that there aren't ghosts

And that those walkers along Maoil a' Choirne,

On childhood Summer days

When dog daisies swept in abundant swathes

Through the verge,

Inhabit there no longer.

2.

Midsummer:

And we are above the sea

In flowerstudded meadows,

Talking easily,

Sucking the sweetness

From wisps of grass

In my heart

I am captured

By your symmetries,

Longing to build tabernacles

As if all this that you are

Were distilled from your own plenty.

3.

At every gap,

Sparrows lift from their games in the dust.

Farm- reared pheasants race in confusion

Across the path of oncoming trucks.

Someone young has died in one of the towns:

A vast silence holds the mourners.

Trees hem the roadway,

As sensuous day prolongs itself.

4.

Near the close of evening,

We are meandering towards the river,

Faces red from wine and sunshine.

Two dogs run before us.

Barley darkens a rising field.

God is surely in the whistling of our hearts.

By Padraig J. Daly osa

Summer Nocturne

The silver woods are sleeping now,

The rooks are home and quiet,

A hush has fallen on the fields,

The stillness folds the night.

The silent Moon moves through the sky,

The whole land holds its breath,

And now one senses all around

The timelessness of death.

But come the dawn of stirring things,

The new day will resound

With the joyful Resurrection theme

To waking hearts all around.

And leaf and wing will reach for light

And petals shake the dew,

And the sun will rise above the mists

And the waiting world renew.

By John O' Connor osa