That Father Ryan would have been pre-eminent in poetry had he exercised his powers, seems clear. The vividness of expression, the subtle beauty inherent in his strains, and the deft touch given his thought are those of the genuine poet. He dwells apart from the ordinary drift of thought. The coloring of his thought was derived from numerous sources, and, emitted from the furnace of his heart, it was ever in transformed shape. The rattle and clatter of the rushing world fell on the ear of his soul with the element of melody. His emotions were pent up, and when they leaped their barriers, they gave to a responsive soul-world that which we call Father Ryan's poems. His own soul, subdued to softness and gentleness by his inner reflection, sang itself in musical cadence. His verse, always graceful and often brilliant, flowing melodious and limpid with the lilt of a landscape rill, borrowing delicate tints of beauty from the greensward and varied bloom which fringe its banks, and flashing back the light derived from heaven, makes an instinctive appeal to the soul of the reader, and has a sobering effect on his thought. From the source to the sea there is the same gentle flow with its occasional puddle and its subdued sound of ripple. That which our poet does is more indicative of possibility than of final actuality. His strains are merely soft touches of the fingers of the musician on the keys of the soul, and yet they evoke such melody that one wishes the reserved force of the soul, whence they come, might have fuller and freer expression, that the slight thrill experienced might rise to rhapsody. Most rare are many of the pithy passages to be met with in his productions. Did space permit, it would be a delight to enumerate many of these gems which glitter along his pages, but only one or two may here be indicated. On the occasion of a visit to Rome, he penned a fragment on "After Seeing Pius IX." The first four lines are here quoted to illustrate the power of the poet derived from a mere glance of a man's face, and in the last two of the lines quoted resides a power in metaphor rarely met with. Says the poet: "I saw his face today; he looks a chief Who fears not human rage, nor human guile; Upon his cheeks the twilight of a grief, But in that grief the starlight of a smile." The transference of the idea of the twilight and the gentle star meekly peeping through, to the struggle discerned in the features of one, is a picture that would occur to none other than a poet. Equally striking is the beauty of the figure contained in his "A Land Without Ruins," where he says: "Yes, give me the land where the battle's red blast Has flashed to the future the fame of the past."