Patrick Augustine Sheehan
Sonnets of Travel
p.1801. A Thunderstorm at Bingen
From the drunk vine, whose long, dishevelled tress
Leaned as in maudlin madness to caress
The child-like waves of the great, haunted stream.
Then through the sudden darkness tore the scream
And snarl of thunder; and the choking stress
Made of the midnight all a wilderness,
Lit by the torches of the lightning's gleam.
Of shattered keeps, that in the magic flash
Assumed the might and mien of ancient power.
And from their walls by leaguering hosts opprest,
The mailed and vanquished knights did leap and dash
Into the Lethe of the storm and hour.
2. At the Rhine Falls (Schaffhausen)
Deep-bayed and solemn for the centuries,
That gaze upon thee with their dreaming eyes
From shattered keep and empty hostelry;
Here in thy riot of lusty infancy,
Heedless and unrebuked by the wise,
Who cast the dark, gray shadows of surmise
Of what a turbid future stores for thee,
That dare to thwart thy progress and thy pride;
Stately and slow and solemn shalt thou move,
Thy high song lowered to the dread monotones
Of war's loud clangour, or the rippling tide
Of music breathed from harps of wine and love.
3. An Organ Recital (Lucerne)
For on this summer eve the thunder pealed,
Where the Pilatus threat'ning raised his steeled
And crested helmet o'er the smoking bar,
That wreathed its rival column from afar,
And in its snowy crevices revealed
The glowing emulation, field on field,
Of thick mists, lighted by the lightning's star.
Under the organ's thunders that awoke
Beneath the fingers of the Silent One.
And the rain hissed, as we had fain believed,
And the pines crashed beneath the lightning's stroke,
And the fear-stricken hunters shriek and run.
4. The 'Vox Humana' (Lucerne)
That broke from loosened stop and fretted keys,
And poured their cadences without surcease,
And made the mountain thunders peal around.
When 'mid the hissing of the deluge drowned,
Lo! from the depths of Alpine crevices,
Came the faint cry of horror and distress,
Of lonely chamois-hunter, tempest-bound.
We woke, 'mid horrors of thy Erebus,
To that one cry that ever touches us.
In the vast organ music she has framed,
Her noblest stops for us are idly stirred,
Until she wakes the one great human chord.
P. A. SHEEHAN
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Title statement
Title (uniform): Sonnets of Travel
Author: Patrick Augustine Sheehan
Responsibility statement
Electronic edition compiled by: Benjamin Hazard
Funded by: School of History, University College, Cork and private donation
Edition statement
1. First draft
Extent: 1010 words
Publication statement
Publisher: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
Address: College Road, Cork, Ireland — http://www.ucc.ie/celt
Date: 2014
Distributor: CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
CELT document ID: E890000-021
Availability: Available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of academic research and teaching only.
Source description
Manuscript
- [Details to follow].
Canon Sheehan on the Internet
- http://www.canonsheehanremembered.com.
Edition
- Canon P.A. Sheehan, 'Sonnets of Travel,' The Irish Monthly, 26/298 (April 1898) 180–181.
Literature
- Herman Joseph Heuser, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile: the story of an Irish parish priest as told chiefly by himself in books, personal memoirs, and letters (New York 1917).
- Arthur Coussens, P.A. Sheehan, zijn leven en zijn werken (Brugge/Bruges 1923).
- Michael P. Linehan, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile: Priest, Novelist, Man of Letters (Dublin 1952).
- Patrick Maume, The Long Gestation: Irish Nationalist Life, 1891–1918 (Dublin 1999).
- Patrick Maume, 'Sheehan, (Canon) Patrick Augustine,' in: Dictionary of Irish Biography (9 vols, Cambridge 2009), vol. 8, 882–884.
- James O'Brien (ed.), The Collected Letters of Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, 1883–1913 (Wells 2013).
- James O'Brien, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile 1852–1913: Outlines for a Literary Biography (Wells 2013). [Bibliographical references 205–11].
The edition used in the digital edition
‘Sonnets of Travel’. In: The Irish Monthly: A Magazine of General Literature 26.298. Ed. by Matthew Russell SJ, pp. 180–181.
You can add this reference to your bibliographic database by copying or downloading the following:
@article{E890000-021,
title = {Sonnets of Travel},
journal = {The Irish Monthly: A Magazine of General Literature},
editor = {Matthew Russell SJ},
address = {Dublin},
publisher = {Irish Jesuit Province},
date = {April 1898},
volume = {26},
number = {298},
pages = {180–181}
}
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Project description: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts
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The electronic text represents the edited version.
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Profile description
Creation: By Patrick Augustine Sheehan (1852–1913)
Date: 1898
Language usage
- The text is in English. (en)
Keywords: poetry; 19c; Rhineland; Switzerland; religious
Revision description
(Most recent first)
- 2014-03-28: File parsed; minor modifications made to header; new SGML and HTML files created. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
- 2014-03-27: Further structural mark-up added. (ed. Benjamin Hazard)
- 2014-03-12: Header created; structural mark-up added; file proofed. (ed. Benjamin Hazard)
- 2014-02-07: Text scanned. (file capture Benjamin Hazard)