The Poems of Charles O'donnell, Csc

By George Klawitter

Charles ODonnell deserves to be better known than he is. Many of his lyrics are so finely crafted they can rank with the best verses of his time, and some are touchstones: a delicate scent of Keats in The Silver Birch, a gentle reminder of Villon in New Saints for Old. He spoke highly of Emily Dickinson before she was fashionable, and he brushed shoulders with important poets, hosting William Butler Yeats at the University of Notre Dame, spending days with good friend Joyce Kilmer. Some of his finest moments were reserved for tributes to the dead and musing on natural beauty. He celebrates the great and the not so great. He chronicles war, and he muses on triumphs. Everywhere ODonnell surprises a reader with fresh images and phrases: sandaled with violets, snowed over with the moonlight. These are the words of a significant voice who apprehends the world with new energy and can translate experience into language with easeful art. Some of his poems stun with such metaphysical splendor that a reader is forced to consider the lines repeatedly. Suspending disbelief will bring readers hours of joy feeling the world as ODonnell felt it a century ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450248433

George Klawitter

George Klawitter, CSC, retired in 2012 from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, where he taught for eighteen years and chaired the Department of English Literature for eight years. He now teaches at Holy Cross College, Notre Dame. He published a life of Brother Gatian (After Holy Cross, Only Notre Dame) and the lives of early religious Brothers (Early Men of Holy Cross). He has also published two books of Holy Cross missionary letters: Adapted to the Lake and Holy Cross in Algeria.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Introduction

Proem

I. The Dead Musician and Other Poems [1916]

The Dead Musician

Immortality

The Sign

The Earth-Hour

The Poet’s Bread

Forgiveness

A March Evening

O Twilight Hour

Harvest Fields

Ver

Drought

A Farewell

The Earth Mother

On a Little Boy Who Died

Dante to Beatrice on Earth

Inheritance

Lament of the Stolen Bride

The Spell of Donegal

In Exile

A Shrine of Donegal

Killybegs

Prevision

Restoration

In the Night

The Woof of Life

The Wings of Rest

Requital

Angels at Bethlehem

Christmas Carol

After Christmas

His Feet

The Son of Man

The Poor Man of Galilee

The Virgin Perfect

To St. Joseph

On a Picture of the Holy Family

The Baptist

Gethsemane

The Mothers

Among His Own

Partus Virginis

Martha and Mary

In Winter

Elevation

The Shamrock

Reception

The Son of God

The Spendthrift

Two Children

Stars

Life

Request

Scourged and Crowned

Raiment

At Emmaus

The Nativity: A Miracle Play

ODES

A Hosting of the Gael

Ode: For Indiana Day, Panama-Pacific International Exposition

Ode: Panama, the Mastery of Man

Postlude: To Indiana’s Poet, James Whitcomb Riley

II. Cloister and Other Poems [1922]

Cloister

Launcelot’s Song

Return

Transformation

In Late Spring

A Road of France

On Indian Lake

A Road of Ireland

The Porter

Martin of Tours

After Mass

The Cross

The Paten

Myrrh

A Rosary Molded of Rose Leaves

Advent

Prodigals

Orbit

Beati Mortui

Surrender

The Julian Alps

Magi

Sunset

The Watchers

Bread and Wine

Trelawney Lies by Shelley

Said Alan Seeger unto Rupert Brooke

The Mountain

The Desert

The Poet

Ballad of Saint Christopher

III. A Rime of the Rood and Other Poems [1928]

A Rime of the Rood

Design for a House

Questionnaire

In the Upper Room

In No Strange Land

Marginals

Conclusions

Vesperal

Wonder

On Meeting a Lady

The Charted Skies

Beatitude

Resolution

At Tivoli

Harvest

Out of the Idyls

Shalott

The Shed

Song

In Praesepio

Before a Crib

Le Repos en Egypte

Sentry

Remembrance

Compassion

To Her

Our Lady Passes

The Spinner

Natura Mirante

Saint Joseph

The Carpenter

Ecce Homo

Address to the Crown

Consequences

Security

Coram Sanctissimo

Raiment [II]

The Breviary

Subiaco

Saint Jerome

At Notre Dame

Super Candelabrum

Narcissus in Winter

Misnomer

To a Dweller of Galilee

Tribute

Ad Matrem, in Caelis

Assurance

The Nightingale

Joy

The Crown

A Worm and No Man

Magdalen

Autumn

Process

The Spanish Stairs—Rome

A Chance Bouquet

Sequence

At Shakespeare’s Tomb

The Presence of God (A Sonnet Sequence)

IV. Manuscripts [1942]

Waterfalls

Resurrection

Song [II]

Watchers

Ambassador

A Prayer Against Millstones

In Passiontide

It Was Said to Marpessa

The Immaculate

The Serpent

Waiting

Atonement

Apologia

Addolorata

The Uncreated Beauty

The Priest to his Hands

Prayer for a Traveler

The Passionate Lover

Mothers of Priests

Message from the Front

Londonderry in an Evil Day

Lineage

A Letter to a Lady

Joseph Speaks

Homily for Matins

Destiny

Confession

Commentary

The Promise

The Quest

Revision

Ruth

Saint Agnes

Sunset [II]

The Vineyard

For One Departed

The Traveler

Unregenerate

Somewhat a Lady Sings

Distinction

God in Man

Of Poets who Died in the War

The Prodigal

Declarations

The Daughter of Jairus

To Zachary

Envoy [II]

V. Published Poems [Added 2010]

A Visit to Crown Point

Notre Dame

God’s Poet

The Day of Days

The Blessed Barren

The Silver Birch

Fulfillment

Evening

Leaves

Summer’s Sacrament

Twilight

Treasures

The Underground Trolley

The Poets

The Poet’s Providence

Wheat Fields

The Immaculate Conception

St. John of the Apocalypse

Exiled Nuns

A Friend

The Stranger Hills

Encompassed

Fortitudo et Pax: The Bishop and His See

On Founder’s Day

Twilight [II]

A Child Prays for Me

Village Churches

VI. Manuscripts [Added 2010]

For Charles Phillips, His Father

The Visitation

Kostka

Hymn of Light

Word of Light

II Sword of Light

Reflections on My Mother’s State in Heaven

The Passion

The Death Angel Speaks at Heaven’s Gate

Vita

Dulcedo

Spes

In All His Glory

The King

New Saints for Old

The Bees

Ad Dexterem

Consummation

Mothers are Martyrs

Christ in the Eucharist

VII. Fragments [Added 2010]

Memories of Notre Dame

[Skyscrapers are but streets on end]

[The pool of poetry is calm]

Humor

[Merry Christmas to you]

[I should not care to see just now]

[High hills, the Alps, and after that the sun]

After Communion

Non horruisti uturo Virginis

[Now while we wait the ivory]

[I can conceive Thérèse will be forgotten]

Christ to the Soul

The Child

VIII. Dubia [Added 2010]

A Boy

The Crucifix

To Francis Thompson

Rain

Friendship

Battle

Paganism

Autumn’s Sacrament

Possession

The Changeling

The Celibate

Life [II]

Consummated

Ave Crux

Longinus

Dowry

The Poet’s Winter

Experience

The Pilgrim

O Jesus, by the Blood that Flowed

Christ in the Trenches

IX. Advice to the Poets

Introduction

Born two miles northwest of Greenfield, Indiana, on November 15, 1884, Charles Leo O’Donnell spent most of his life in the Midwest. His father Neil, a native of Donegal, Ireland, was a farmer who moved the family to Kokomo, Indiana, when Charles was two. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame at the age of 26, Charles O’Donnell took his doctorate four years later at Catholic University, returning then to teach literature courses at Notre Dame. Within six years he was beginning to be recognized as a promising poet when his first volume of verse appeared in 1916. With the outbreak of World War I, O’Donnell became an army chaplain serving in Europe. In 1920 he was elected American provincial of the Congregation of Holy Cross, and six years later was named Assistant General of the entire Community. In 1928 he was named president of the University of Notre Dame and served in that capacity until his death six years later at age 49. He is buried at Notre Dame in the Community cemetery overlooking St. Joseph Lake in a row reserved for Holy Cross provincials. His World War I doughboy helmet was fashioned into a light fixture and hangs in the alcove of the God, Country, Notre Dame east entrance to Sacred Heart Basilica on the campus. In his tenure as president, the university saw some enrollment decline as a result of the Great Depression, but O’Donnell was an excellent fund raiser, bringing the university through financial crisis at the same time as he expanded its academic prestige.

O’Donnell’s first book, The Dead Musician and Other Poems, published in 1916 by Laurence J. Gomme (New York) contains 121 pages divided into six sections: The Dead Musician (one poem), A Hive of Song (13 poems), Dreams of Donegal (26 poems), Quatrains (13 poems), The Nativity (a verse play), and Odes (5 poems). Some of these poems were reprinted in Cloister and Other Poems, published in 1922 by Macmillan. This later volume contains 31 new poems and 16 poems from the earlier volume. O’Donnell’s final book, A Rime of the Rood and other Poems, appeared in 1928 (Longmans, Green) and contains 60 new poems (no reprints). When Charles Carey, CSC, edited the corpus for his 1942 edition, he added 49 poems, none of which had been published in book form by his uncle. Thus 199 O’Donnell poems had been collected by 1942.

To Carey’s four sections of the O’Donnell poems, I have added four more sections. Section V contains poems that were published in various magazines (Ave Maria, Lippincott’s, Scribner’s) and newspapers but not included in Carey’s 1942 edition. My Section VI contains manuscript poems found in the archives of the University of Notre Dame and the archives of the Indiana Province of Holy Cross Priests. All of the poems labeled Fragments (Section VII) are from the Indiana Province Archives. Some of these fragment poems were pulled from publication by O’Donnell himself (The Bees, Ad Dexteram, Consummation); a few are in typescript signed and/or edited by O’Donnell; and a few are in his hand with variant lines and revisions. For this set I have chosen a preferred text and occasionally include variant lines so that readers may select alternate readings. O’Donnell clearly finalized none of these fragments. Finally, I have included Dubia (Section VIII), poems found among O’Donnell’s papers but which may or may not be by O’Donnell. They are printed here by way of inclusiveness. Poets often keep manuscript or typescript copies of poems by other poets, to make up a kind of private miscellany. Scholars of early twentieth century American poetry may recognize some of these poems as being by hands other than the hand of Charles O’Donnell. I have chosen to end this edition with a charming letter written by O’Donnell to a nephew, a budding poet. The letter is filled with good sense and affords an interesting look not only at O’Donnell’s aesthetic but also at his whimsical good humor. One is tempted to call the letter his Irish soul at work.

For the most part I have left O’Donnell’s punctuation untouched, except in the matter of his idiosyncratic use of a double pause effected with a comma followed by a dash. In all these instances (there are many), I have retained the dash and eliminated the comma, preferring to keep the more dramatic of the pauses. O’Donnell’s use of the comma elsewhere may at times seem suspect when he uses it instead of a full stop (period, semi-colon, colon), but I have left most of these commas untouched since their contexts seem to require a looser relationship between clauses than could be achieved with more conventional punctuation: O’Donnell wanted some ideas to be conjoined where today we would wish them more firmly separated. I have taken the liberty to remove capitals from beginnings of lines that do not start a sentence, in keeping with modern convention. I have added a line to Homily at Matins because a line is obviously missing in the 1942 text (its only printing) and no manuscript of the poem survives.

Reading these poems, one is apt to think of the lyrics of George Herbert rather than, for example, the religious lyrics of Alice Meynell, although the latter poet is more akin to O’Donnell’s Mariology than Herbert could ever have been. There is evident in both Herbert and O’Donnell a sweet, almost naïve, sense of divinity that brings to their styles an eminent child-like dependence. Both men, of course, were priests and sacerdotal imagery as well as Biblical themes and scenes infuses many of their lyrics. Neither poet avoided the long form, and both mastered the sonnet. O’Donnell’s sonnets are among his finest poems, the subjects handled deftly within the short form and his pacing often controlled by a fine sense of enjambment to keep his rhythm conversational.

O’Donnell deserves to be better known than he is. Many of his lyrics are so finely crafted they can rank with the best verses of his time. Some are touchstones: a delicate scent of Keats in The Silver Birch, a gentle reminder of Villon in cancelled lines of New Saints for Old. He spoke highly of Emily Dickinson before she was fashionable, and he brushed shoulders with important poets, hosting William Butler Yeats at Notre Dame, spending days with good friend Joyce Kilmer. He was at times an occasional poet, penning lyrics on the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition and the consecration of Bishop Joseph Sarsfield Glass at Salt Lake City that same year, but these poems retain beauty in spite of their dated topicality. Some of his finest moments were reserved for tributes to the dead ("Said