IRISH AIRES PAST COLUMNS

A CELEBRTION OF ST. PATRICK (Written for the Birmingham News) by Father James Coyle I. “Tis Easter morn. On Meath’s fair hills The sunlight softly falls. It flashes from her sparkling rills, It lightens Tara’s walls. Tis emblem of the heavenly light Now brought across the foam, By him who stands in garments white, The stranger priest from Rome. II. Stand all amazed the courtiers brave, As Patrick tells how Christ did save And wash men’s sins away. In deep amaze they crowd around, These chiefs of Inisfail, As Patrick, first on Irish ground, Proclaims the gospel tale. III. He tells them of the Man-God’s love, And then he leads them on To mysteries of the heavens above, Of Godhead, Three in One. But murmurs, questioning arise, These chieftains cannot see “How God,”- with anger flash their eyes- “How God is One and Three.” IV. The saint bends low, the trefoil spray, The shamrock, from the sod He holds aloft, by it that day He proved the Triune God. The king and all the court cry out, “Tis true, God’s wonderous powers Fore’er be praised. Lo” – loud they shout- “Let Patrick’s God be ours.” V. Thus Patrick, priest and late a slave, To Erin’s isle did bring The faith, the living faith to save Her people and her king And soon the pagan temples fall, And soon, o’er Erin’s sod Fair churches rise, and pillars tall, To point the way to God. VI. The saint has gone. His children, we, And scattered far away From that dear land beyond the sea, Where once he loved to pray. We love the plant that once did prove His faith, when o’er the foam He came. We, too, his children, love That faith he brought from Rome. VII. Our grand old faith: O, Patrick! Saint Of Ireland, pray that we May never in the trial faint, But like our fathers be, Our fathers, who through centuries slow, Through fair or stormy day, Unsullied kept, mild weal and woe The faith you preached that day. Fr. James Edwin Coyle Born March 23, 1877 Died for the Faith August 11, 1921