Sanctuary

Neighbour! for pity a hound cries on your steps
        With pleading eyes, with sore and weary feet.
Neighbour! your pity a poor beast doth implore;
        Hunger and cold are busy in the street.
Then, neighbour! pause; tis no good work you do.
Off from my door!    I have no place for you.

Neighbour, your mercy!    A heart of love is here,
        Within this weary body-love is rare,
And seldom comes to cry before our door.
        Then open wide, and take your little share.
Love pleads to be your servant, leal and true.
Off from my step!    I have no place for you.

From step to step abused, from door to door,
        Whipped by the wind, and beaten by the rain,
With hunger at his throat, he passes on;
        Yet one who follows shares the creatures pain.
One follows.    Neighbour, stop! unless you rue.
Off from my step!    I have no place for you.

The gentle Christ had heard His crying hound,
        And left His throne to track the weary feet.
He follows, though unseen, with bleeding heart,
        Refused from door to door, from street to street.
Yes, one who follows had refusal too.
Off from my door!    I have no place for you.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Dora Sigerson Shorter was an Irish poet and sculptor born in Dublin in 1866. She was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival, a movement that aimed to promote Irish literature and culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was also a close friend of W.B. Yeats and married the writer and journalist Clement King Shorter. Dora's work often dealt with themes of Irish nationalism and folklore, and she published several volumes of poetry before her untimely death in 1918.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Wirastrua

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

When The Dark Comes

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

Vale

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A Little Dog

A little dog disturbed my trust in Heaven.
I praised most faithfully
All the great things that be,
Mans pain and pleasure even,
I said though hard this weighing
Of pains and tears and praying
He will reward most just.

I said your bitter weeping man or maid,
Your tears or laughter
Shall gain a just Hereafter;
Meet you the will of God then unafraid,
Gird you to your trials for Gods abode
Is open for all sorrow;
Live for the great to-morrow.
There passed me on the road

A little dog with hungry eyes, and sad
Thin flesh all shivering,
All sore and quivering,
Whining beneath the fell disease he had.
I hurried home and praised God as before
For thus affording
To man rewarding,
The dog was whining outside my door.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Ballad Of The Little Black Hound

Who knocks at the Geraldines door to-night
        In the black storm and the rain?
With the thunder crash and the shrieking wind
        Comes the moan of a creatures pain.

And once they knocked, yet never a stir
        To show that the Geraldine knew;
And twice they knocked, yet never a bolt
        The listening Geraldine drew.

And thrice they knocked ere he moved his chair,
        And said, Whoever it be,
I dare not open the door to-night
        For a fear that has come to me.

Three times he rises from out his chair,
        And three times he sits him down.
Now what has made faint this heart of mine?
        He says with a growing frown.

Now what has made me a coward to-night,
        Who never knew fear before?

Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Old Maid

She walks in a lonely garden
        On the path her feet have made,
With high-heeled shoes, gold-buckled,
        And gown of a flowered brocade;

The hair that falls on her shoulders,
        Half-held with a ribbon tie,
Once glowed like the wheat in autumn,
        Now grey as a winter sky.

Time on her brow with rough fingers
        Writes his record of smiles and tears;
And her mind, like a golden timepiece,
        He stopped in the long past years.

At the foot of the lonely garden,
        When she comes to the trysting place
She knew of old, there she lingers,
        With a blush on her withered face.

The children out on the common:
        They climb to the garden wall;
And laugh: He will come to-morrow!
      ...

Dora Sigerson Shorter

All Souls Eve

I cried all night to you,
        I called till day was here;
Perhaps you could not come,
        Or were too tirèd, dear.

Your chair I set by mine,
        I made the dim hearth glow,
I whispered, When he comes
        I shall not let him go.

I closed the shutters tight,
        I feared the dawn of day,
I stopped the busy clock
        That timed your hours away.

Loud howled my neighbours dog,
        O glad was I to hear.
The dead are going by,
        Now you will come, my dear,

To take the chair by mine-
        Until the cock would crow-
O, if it be you came
        And could not let me know,

For once a shadow passed
        Behind me in the room,
I thought your loving eyes
        Would...

Dora Sigerson Shorter

A Vagrant Heart

O to be a woman! to be left to pique and pine,
When the winds are out and calling to this vagrant heart of mine.
Whisht! it whistles at the windows, and how can I be still?
There! the last leaves of the beech-tree go dancing down the hill.
All the boats at anchor they are plunging to be free-
O to be a sailor, and away across the sea!
When the sky is black with thunder, and the sea is white with foam,
The gray-gulls whirl up shrieking and seek their rocky home,
Low his boat is lying leeward, how she runs upon the gale,
As she rises with the billows, nor shakes her dripping sail.
There is danger on the waters-there is joy where dangers be-
Alas! to be a woman and the nomads heart in me.

Ochone! to be a woman, only sighing on the shore-
With a soul that finds a passion ...

Dora Sigerson Shorter

One of the Least of These.

'Twas on a day of cold and sleet,
A little nomad of the street
With tattered garments, shoeless feet,
    And face with hunger wan,
Great wonder-eyes, though beautiful,
Hedged in by features pinched and dull,
Betraying lines so pitiful
    By sorrow sharply drawn;

Ere yet the service half was o'er,
Approached the great cathedral door
As choir and organ joined to pour
    Their sweetness on the air;
Then, sudden, bold, impelled to glide
With fleetness to the altar's side,
Her trembling form she sought to hide
    Amid the shadows there,

Half fearful lest some worshiper,
Enveloped close in robes of fur,
Had cast a scornful glance at her
    As she had stolen by,
But soon the swelling anthem, fraught
With reverence, her spirit...

Hattie Howard