Vagrant Verses: 'Fast-bound for foreign seas''

By Rosa Mulholland

Rosa Mulholland was born in Belfast in 1841 although no exact date of her birth is known.

Mulholland originally wished to become a painter but turned to literary pursuits and attempted to publish her first book at 15. Charles Dickens, who took an early interest in her work, did much to encourage and help her during his life time including publishing many of her works in his magazine ‘All the Year Round’.

Her early years in the remote and mountainous west of Ireland helped her gather backdrops, landscapes and characters that would be of great use later in her life.

Mulholland was a keen poet and was published in magazines and journals as well as in book form. She was also a devout Catholic and prominent in literacy circles.

In May 1891 she married John Thomas Gilbert in Dublin. He was a Dublin antiquary and historian, who authored the ‘History of the City of Dublin’, and edited several other important standard works. With his knighthood in 1897 Rosa became Lady Gilbert.

Mulholland was a prolific and well-received writer during her career. Her early works tend to show women yearning for careers and lifestyles that at that point society would not accept and she was careful not to overstep the boundaries. In her later years much of her fiction was embedded with independent, strong-willed female heroines.

Rosa Mulholland died on 21st April 1921 in Dublin, Ireland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781839679353

Book preview

Vagrant Verses by Rosa Mulholland

Rosa Mulholland was born in Belfast in 1841 although no exact date of her birth is known.

Mulholland originally wished to become a painter but turned to literary pursuits and attempted to publish her first book at 15. Charles Dickens, who took an early interest in her work, did much to encourage and help her during his life time including publishing many of her works in his magazine ‘All the Year Round’.

Her early years in the remote and mountainous west of Ireland helped her gather backdrops, landscapes and characters that would be of great use later in her life.  

Mulholland was a keen poet and was published in magazines and journals as well as in book form. She was also a devout Catholic and prominent in literacy circles.

In May 1891 she married John Thomas Gilbert in Dublin.  He was a Dublin antiquary and historian, who authored the ‘History of the City of Dublin’, and edited several other important standard works. With his knighthood in 1897 Rosa became Lady Gilbert.

Mulholland was a prolific and well-received writer during her career. Her early works tend to show women yearning for careers and lifestyles that at that point society would not accept and she was careful not to overstep the boundaries.  In her later years much of her fiction was embedded with independent, strong-willed female heroines.

Rosa Mulholland died on 21st April 1921 in Dublin, Ireland.

Index of Contents

Emmet's Love 

One Day 

A Lullaby

Thither

Saint Barbara

Love and Death

Love

The Wild Geese 

If

Stowaways 

Two Strangers 

The Children of Lir

A Sleeping Homestead 

The Nightingales

Girlhood at Midnight 

A Dreaded Hour 

My Blackbird 

My Saint 

Autumn Song

Good-night 

After the War

The Builders

Cast Out! 

The Faithful Light 

Wilfulness and Patience 

Christ, the Gleaner 

Lament of the River

News to Tell

A Stolen Visit

A Secret

The Denial of Peter 

Snow and Famine

Lullaby 

Lent

Angels Everywhere 

Lilies and Roses

In the Dawn

Grandmother's Song 

Shamrocks 

Song

Irené

Mother and Son 

Among the Boughs

June

Hope Deferred 

Then and Now

May Ditty 

Perdita 

My Treasure 

A Fledgling

Kilfenora

A Rebuke

Night and Morning Dreams

The Heart of Rachel 

Perpetual Light

Saint Brigid

Poverty

After the Storm

Norah's Lilies

Gone from Earth

Failure

Sister Mary of the Love of God

Sun and Rain

Our Lily

A Dream's Lesson

Ave Maria!

In the Garden

An Outcast's Prayer 

A Prayer

Rosa Mulholland – A Concise Bibliography

EMMETS LOVE

In yon green garden, sweet with hawthorn-breath,

Knee-deep in flowers we talked of love and faith,

O year-dead Love, and, smiling, you and I,

We did not think of death.

The crimson rose, with rain-drops 'neath its hood,

I plucked for you reeked not with tears of blood.

Like these I gather now: we did not sigh

When past us from the wood

The night owl whirred, as silver-sandalled Eve,

With floating veils around her, 'gan to weave

Sad spells across the grass, and at our ears

Made the young pigeons grieve.

We had no sorrow: all that life we knew

Was like our summer walk 'neath skies as blue

As violet-drifts, and we could see our years

Before us in the dew,

Like miles of hawthorn bloom the lanes along,

That slant toward purple rain-mists out among

The sunlit hills, while all the perfumed air

Is sweet with thrushes' song.

I had no fear save that some nobler eyes

Might win my love from me, so little wise.

So weak and small, although you called me fair

With love that glorifies.

And I was jealous once. 'Twas thus it came:

I heard you say some other woman's name

I knew not, and my wits were all undone,

My heart was in a flame.

Till out you laughed, such laughter good, and cried,

"The land, my love! Are you or she my bride?

No other rival have you but this one,

Erin, the queen sad-eyed!"

And then you told me, for I had not known.

Pent in this garden, how the land made moan.

The lovely flower-faced land that gave us life,

A queen without a throne—

A beggar queen, with bare feet in the snows,

No crown upon her head, and no sweet rose

Within her breast, with soft hands scarred from strife.

Who weepeth as she goes,

A vagrant 'mid the kings and queens of time,

Yet ever lovely in the gracious prime

Of beauty nourished by her children's love:

Though monarchs fall and climb,

Still lives she 'mid the bramble and the thorn,

Her fair face lifted to eternal mom,

While nest with her the lark and the pale dove

In the shamrock grass unshorn.

Weeping I heard, and cried your heart, I knew,

Was Erin's more than mine. Love, it was true.

For her you died, and where so cold you lie.

Under the shamrock dew,

I am forgot, and she is mourning still.

But then you chid me, telling many an ill

Her children bore, like savage beasts at bay

In hunted wood and hill,

While all the thick-draped, wide-armed, friendly trees

That hid their woes were fired against the breeze.

And near the mounds of flame the slave-ship lay

Fast-bound for foreign seas:

How in the mountain cave the priest was snared.

The law-breaker who death and torture dared

With Christ's red wine-cup in his obstinate hand,

And crucifix all bared: