A Poem For St. Patrick’s Day, 1895

St. Patrick’s Day Without Shamrocks

Mother M. Augustine McKenna, R.S.M. (1819-1883)

We sought them ‘neath the snow-flakes

And o’er all the frosty ground.

But no leaflet like the Shamrock

On St. Patrick’s Day we found.

And our hearts went back to Erin,

To her dewy vales and hills,

Where the Shamrock twines and clusters

O’er the fields and by the rills.

Oh, no more, no more, my country!

Shall thy loving daughter lay

Down her head upon thy bosom

While she weeps her tears away.

There the primrose and the daisy

Bloom as in the days of old,

And the violet comes in purple

And the buttercup in gold.

Kildare’s broad fields are fragrant

With the Shamrock’s breath to-day.

Shamrocks bloom from Clare to Antrim,

From Killarney to Lough Neagh:

And they speak of Patrick’s preaching

With a quiet, voiceless lore,

And they breathe of faith and heaven

All the trefoiled island o’er.

Wandering listless by the Liffey,

Stoop and pluck the Shamrock green:

What an emblem plain and simple

Of the one true faith is seen!

Of the Father and the Spirit

Speaks the mystic triune leaf.

Of the Son in anguish crying

On the cross, in love and grief.

Well humility may choose it

For an emblem fair and sweet.

Close beside the poorest cabin

It is pouring fragrance sweet.

Modest is our darling Shamrock,

Useful, charitable, kind,

Clothing mean, deserted places

With its green leaves intertwined.

With the dew drops shining pearly

As bright gems within its heart,

Pure as purity it seemeth.

True as nature, fair as art.

Fortitude and perseverance

Hath the leaf we love so well.

For ‘tis green through all the winter

In some shady nook or dell.

Many a lesson thus it teaches,

Many a wholesome thought recalls,

Many a tear-drop all unbidden

To its cherished memory falls.

For the green of Erin’s banner

Still must stir the Irish heart,

Which in Erin’s many sorrows

Ever, ever must have part.

Oh be true, be true to Erin,

True to faith and true to God.

To St. Patrick, His Apostle,

Who redeemed your native sod!

Never more her mystic emblem

In green Erin may you see,

Let the faith it symbolizes

Be the dearer unto thee.

NOTE

This poem by Mother Augustine appeared in The Brooklyn Eagle on March 17, 1895. Born Ellen McKenna in County Monaghan, Ireland, she and her family fled the Great Famine, coming to America in 1848. In 1855, she joined the Sisters of Mercy. (Her sister Julia joined the Sisters of Mercy in Brooklyn. Their brother John served as a priest in Flushing, Queens.) She worked at the House of Mercy in Manhattan with poor immigrant women and girls.

In 1862, she led a group of seven Sisters to Beaufort, North Carolina, where they ran a military hospital. Ireland was one of the great loves of her life. From 1868 to 1877 she served as Superior of the New York Sisters of Mercy. One of the great loves of her life was working with the poor and homeless children of New York. Another was Ireland, and she commemorated both in the poetry she wrote.

The Sisters of Mercy were founded in Dublin, Ireland, in 1831 by Venerable Catherine McAuley (1778-1841). Her deep personal experience of God’s mercy led her to start a community dedicated to taking care of the poor, ministering to the sick, and teaching the young. The first Sisters of Mercy came to the United States in 1843, beginning their work in Pittsburgh. In 1846, at the request of Bishop John Hughes, they came to New York. They sponsor nineteen American colleges and universities, and a number of heatlthcare systems nationwide.

A Poem for St. Patrick’s Day, 1895