While The Billy BoilsSearchYes; there’s the hardest hand at all upon my frosted head—This telegram that brought the news that Father Pat is dead.I cannot grip its meaning yet; we were such cronies thatThe world is not a world to-night without poor Father Pat.
Nigh eighty years I’ve known him now: Since ever we were boys,In County Clare, God help us, each the other’s cares and joysHas shared as with their silent feet they strode across the mat—The staunchest heart that ever beat is stilled in Father Pat.
I see him in my mind to-night, a diamond in the rough;A kindly soul that hid the gold and showed the sterner stuff;The homely face, the wise old eye, the scant hairs pasted flatAcross the wide, wide baldness of the head of Father Pat.
The collar tied with honest tape when fleeting studs had gone;The suit that said good-bye to cut the day he put it on;The handsome stock the Sisters made, the tassels on the hat,The stout umbrella in the hand of manly Father Pat.
Before me stands the ordered room he’ll never enter more;The bead-crowned ivory crucifix, the font beside the door;The library books, the registers, and handy where he satThe brand-new office-book that broke the heart of Father Pat.
The calendar upon the wall, the pigeon-holes a-line,Some hundred keys upon a chain, his pockets filled with twine.His actions told the time of day, and oft excelled in thatThe solemn clock that ticked away the life of Father Pat.
He used to run the curate on the lines he ran himself;A list of parish duties stood upon the mantel-shelf,As binding as the decalogue, so iron-bounded thatHis Lordship would behave himself as guest of Father Pat.
He carried in that head of his statistics by the score,And every Act of Parliament, and every code of law;Decrees and statutes, too, were there, and railway guides and that—I never saw a head could hold like that of Father Pat.
He’d argue till the cows came home, and never feel a doubt,But when he showed the politeness, it was then, my boy, look out.He’d trap the high-fillutin’ lad, and shake him like a rat,He wasn’t worth a straw, bedad, when trimmed by Father Pat.
His sermons were tremendous things, and thunder-claps would drop—The trouble with poor Father Pat was where and how to stop.At conferences when he took a stand, he’d talk the Bishop flat—One-third was from some musty tome, the rest was Father Pat.
And if I didn’t visit him, the cause he’d want to know;He called it “down the road a bit”—a hundred miles or so.Oft when the world was drab with me, around his fire we sat,He’d bring the big sun through the mist. God bless you, Father Pat.
And then he’d come to me and tell, above a glass of wine,His troubles—grooms and shoneens, and the parish bound’ry line.But if it came to politics, I’d close the door thereat,Lest Josephine should overhear the views of Father Pat.
I’d quoted him so often to the young men round about,To show that we old fellows still were far from petered out—Could take a hand at ceremonies, could sing a Mass and that—So when we had a big day here, I called on Father Pat.
He came, but didn’t conquer, faith, though every ounce was strained—He’d waved his hand to rubrics on the day he was ordained;He went along his own sweet way, in broken notes and flat—To tell the truth, I felt ashamed for once of Father Pat.
These young men build their castles up, and fancy’s beacons glow.Ah, well; poor Father Pat and I went through that years ago.And some of those ideals are dead, and some we’ve jested at,And some are where the Failures wait for me and Father Pat.
More radiant though the morning be than is the setting sun,Still they but raise the structure high by such as we begun;We blazed the tracks they tread to-day, at least they’ll grant us that,The men who sailed in sixty-five along with Father Pat.
We left the friendly stars astern, the Irish lights a-gleam,We dared the seas in sailing-ships before the days of steam;We sought a wide, weird waste of world that brave men trembled at;No cheering welcome met the men who came with Father Pat.
We turned our horses’ heads out west, beyond the furthest track,With nothing but an alien star to light the journey back.The echoes mimicked as we went, and Silence startled sat,When out beyond the rim of things we marched with Father Pat.
We said our Mass in canvas tent, and ’neath the gnarled treesOf red gum slab and sheeted bark we built our sanctuaries.Our axes rang on timbered slopes above the mining flat,And church and school and convent mark the path of Father Pat.
We made our bow to Wild and Waste, and hardships worse than those;We leave a gracious golden land a-blossom like the rose;And defter hands may now adorn the work we laboured at—But granite base and buttressed wall were built by Father Pat.
Well may his arms drop idly down at eighty years of age;His history stands behind him, with no stain upon its page;I bet he saw the innings through, and carried out his bat,And none dare hint “retired hurt” in front of Father Pat.
And with him goes the little band that sailed in sixty-five;A dreamer by his lamp to-night alone is left alive;Poor Father James and Father Ned and jovial Father MatAre waiting out beyond the dark to welcome Father Pat.
I must attend the Requiem. Yes; I s’pose I’ll have to faceThem making fine arrangements as to who will get his place,And watch some doubtful candidate march up and ask me flat,“Now, tell me, Father John, aren’t you as old as Father Pat?”
They’d wonder if I was not there—the last of all the band—To take farewell of him that’s gone, but he would understand.I’ll say my Mass before I go, my own loved altar at,So that ourselves, alive and dead, may bless you, Father Pat.