Thy poet, Lady, I would be To sing thy peerless praise; Thy loyal bard, I’d bring to thee Heart-music from all lays. Soft melody, outpoured in June By God’s dear feathered throng, Would mingle with the organ’s roll To glorify my song; And Dante’s voice and Petrarch’s strain And Milton’s matchless line Would lend to my poor minstrel note A harmony divine. Lady, I choose to be thy son; For Mother thee I choose; O, for thy sweet and holy Child, Do not my claim refuse! Alone and motherless am I: Tho’ strong, I long for rest-- The thunder of the world’s applause Is not a mother’s breast. Ave Maria! Shield us all. Thy sons we choose to be. Mother of grace, we raise our hearts, Our hearts, our love to thee! REVELATION “_And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away_.”--Revelation XXI:1 BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY The Lord God said to His angel: “Let the old things pass away. They have heaped the earth with slaughter their sin obscures the day. Roll up the night on a curtain: let the stars fade one by one: Out of the face of the heavens my anger shall blot the sun. For the man I made and breathed on, filled with my breath of breath, Hath sown the seas with hatred, his skies are dark with death. The babe is slain at the bosom, the babe who beholds my face; A welter of woe he leaves it,--the dream of my love and grace. “Love was the dower I gave him, love the light of his days, Love the core of his being, love, and the upward gaze. Hate is the meat he feeds on, hate is his daily bread: His drink is the blood of his brother, whom Cain hath stricken dead. I said to the man in the Garden: ‘Where is thy brother, Cain?’ ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ now comes the answer again.” The Lord God said to His angel: “This Thing is accursed and a lie: It hath sinned from the Law I gave it, and surely it shall die.” “The Beasts of the field are patient, the birds rejoice in song,-- But what is this Thing of blood-lust, and where does it belong? Lo, I shall establish a judgment: Let the old things pass away: They have heaped the fields with slaughter: their sin defiles the day. They have laid on the weak sore burdens, on the just, their whips and ban: For a handful of crimsoned silver they have kissed the Son of Man. Roll back the scroll of the heavens; from out of the womb of birth Come forth new heavens untainted; come forth, renewed, the Earth!” MARQUETTE ON THE SHORES OF THE MISSISSIPPI On seeing the original manuscript map of the Mississippi River by its discoverer, Father Marquette BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY