The Land We Love

Land of the gentle and brave!
Our love is as wide as thy woe;
It deepens beside every grave
Where the heart of a hero lies low.

Land of the sunniest skies!
Our love glows the more for thy gloom;
Our hearts, by the saddest of ties,
Cling closest to thee in thy doom.

Land where the desolate weep
In a sorrow no voice may console!
Our tears are but streams, making deep
The ocean of love in our soul.

Land where the victor's flag waves,
Where only the dead are free!
Each link of the chain that enslaves
But binds us to them and to thee.

Land where the Sign of the Cross
Its shadow hath everywhere shed!
We measure our love by thy loss,
Thy loss by the graves of our dead!

Abram Joseph Ryan

Abram Joseph Ryan was an American poet, Catholic priest, and former Confederate chaplain. Known as the 'Poet-Priest of the South,' his most famous work is 'The Conquered Banner.' Ryan wrote many poems that reflected his Southern heritage and the American Civil War. His works often possess a spiritual and melancholic tone, inspired by the losses of the war and his religious faith. In addition to poetry, he also wrote essays and gave public speeches.

Abram Joseph Ryan

In Memory of Very Rev. J. B. Etienne

Abram Joseph Ryan, Simple Poetry

In Memoriam

Abram Joseph Ryan, Simple Poetry

C.S.A.

Abram Joseph Ryan, Simple Poetry

Sunless Days

Abram Joseph Ryan, Simple Poetry

English

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A Land without Ruins

    "A land without ruins is a land without memories --
    a land without memories is a land without history.
    A land that wears a laurel crown may be fair to see;
    but twine a few sad cypress leaves around the brow of any land,
    and be that land barren, beautiless and bleak, it becomes lovely
    in its consecrated coronet of sorrow, and it wins the sympathy of the heart
    and of history.    Crowns of roses fade -- crowns of thorns endure.
    Calvaries and crucifixions take deepest hold of humanity --
    the triumphs of might are transient -- they pass and are forgotten --
    the sufferings of right are graven deepest on the chronicle of nations."



Yes give me the land where the ruins are spread,
And the living tread light on the hearts of the dead;

Abram Joseph Ryan

In Memoriam (David J. Ryan, C.S.A.)

Thou art sleeping, brother, sleeping
    In thy lonely battle grave;
Shadows o'er the past are creeping,
Death, the reaper, still is reaping,
Years have swept, and years are sweeping
Many a memory from my keeping,
But I'm waiting still, and weeping
    For my beautiful and brave.

When the battle songs were chanted,
    And war's stirring tocsin pealed,
By those songs thy heart was haunted,
And thy spirit, proud, undaunted,
Clamored wildly -- wildly panted:
"Mother! let my wish be granted;
I will ne'er be mocked and taunted
That I fear to meet our vaunted
    Foemen on the bloody field.

"They are thronging, mother! thronging,
    To a thousand fields of fame;
Let me go -- 'tis wrong, and wronging
God and thee to crush this longin...

Abram Joseph Ryan

Death

Out of the shadows of sadness,
Into the sunshine of gladness,
Into the light of the blest;
Out of a land very dreary,
Out of a world very weary,
Into the rapture of rest.

Out of to-day's sin and sorrow,
Into a blissful to-morrow,
Into a day without gloom;
Out of a land filled with sighing,
Land of the dead and the dying,
Into a land without tomb.

Out of a life of commotion,
Tempest-swept oft as the ocean,
Dark with the wrecks drifting o'er;
Into a land calm and quiet,
Never a storm cometh nigh it,
Never a wreck on its shore.

Out of a land in whose bowers
Perish and fade all the flowers:
Out of the land of decay,
Into the Eden where fairest
Of flowerets, and sweetest and rarest,
Never shall wither away.
...

Abram Joseph Ryan

Reunited

[Written after the yellow fever epidemic of 1878.]



Purer than thy own white snow,
Nobler than thy mountains' height;
Deeper than the ocean's flow,
Stronger than thy own proud might;
O Northland! to thy sister land,
Was late thy mercy's generous deed and grand.

Nigh twice ten years the sword was sheathed:
Its mist of green o'er battle plain
For nigh two decades Spring had breathed;
And yet the crimson life-blood stain
From passive swards had never paled,
Nor fields, where all were brave and some had failed.

Between the Northland, bride of snow,
And Southland, brightest sun's fair bride,
Swept, deepening ever in its flow,
The stormy wake, in war's dark tide:
No hand might clasp across the tears
And blood and anguish of fou...

Abram Joseph Ryan

C.S.A.

Do we weep for the heroes who died for us,
Who living were true and tried for us,
And dying sleep side by side for us;
    The Martyr-band
    That hallowed our land
With the blood they shed in a tide for us?

Ah! fearless on many a day for us
They stood in front of the fray for us,
And held the foeman at bay for us;
    And tears should fall
    Fore'er o'er all
Who fell while wearing the gray for us.

How many a glorious name for us,
How many a story of fame for us
They left: Would it not be a blame for us
    If their memories part
    From our land and heart,
And a wrong to them, and shame for us?

No, no, no, they were brave for us,
And bright were the lives they gave for us;
The land they struggled to save for us
 ...

Abram Joseph Ryan

In Memory of My Brother

Young as the youngest who donned the Gray,
    True as the truest that wore it,
Brave as the bravest he marched away,
(Hot tears on the cheeks of his mother lay)
Triumphant waved our flag one day --
    He fell in the front before it.

Firm as the firmest, where duty led,
    He hurried without a falter;
Bold as the boldest he fought and bled,
And the day was won -- but the field was red --
And the blood of his fresh young heart was shed
    On his country's hallowed altar.

On the trampled breast of the battle plain
    Where the foremost ranks had wrestled,
On his pale, pure face not a mark of pain,
(His mother dreams they will meet again)
The fairest form amid all the slain,
    Like a child asleep he nestled.

In the solemn shades ...

Abram Joseph Ryan