Patrick Augustine Sheehan
Whole text
- p.72
- 'Mother! is this the storm-fiend, swooping down to seize me?
He bath slain all my autumn leaves with his lightning sword.'
Nay, nay, my little one, 'tis angels' fingers straying
In some wild midnight voluntary on the organ of the Lord!
'Mother! stars are hidden, and the great cloud-billows
Pile their big battalions o'er the flying moon;
Will she be o'erwhelmed, and rise no more to cheer us?
Nay, nay, my little one, 'tis moon-dance to storm-rune.
'Mother, list! the death-watch, tapping, tapping, tapping;
Is this my little coffin that they're nailing, plank to plank?'
Mother's tears are falling, pitifully falling;
Mother's heart is sinking in the midnight, drear and blank.
But she whispered: Nay, my child 'tis angels' fingers swaying
The woodbine's long, lithe tendrils against the window pane;
Sleep, my child, thy little couch is canopied and fringed
By the locked wings of angels against the storm and rain.
Slept the weary elf-child; slept the mother weary;
Angels folded ermine wings, like cope of kneeling priest;
Then upwards through the storm-blast, on their white breasts cradled,
Passed the sleeping elf-child to the Child-God's natal Feast.
The Elf-Child
P.A. SHEEHAN
Document details
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File description
Title statement
Title (uniform): The Elf-Child
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: 660 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: E890000-016
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, 'The Elf-Child,' The Irish Monthly, 26/296 (February 1898) 72.
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).
- 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
‘The Elf-Child’. In: The Irish Monthly: A Magazine of General Literature. Ed. by Matthew Russell SJ, p. 72.
You can add this reference to your bibliographic database by copying or downloading the following:
@article{E890000-016,
editor = {},
title = {The Elf-Child},
journal = {The Irish Monthly: A Magazine of General Literature},
editor = {Matthew Russell SJ},
address = {Dublin},
publisher = {Irish Jesuit Province},
date = {February 1898},
pages = {72}
}
Encoding description
Project description: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts
Sampling declarations
The electronic text represents the edited version.
Editorial declarations
Correction: Text has been checked and proof-read once.
Normalization: The electronic text represents the edited text.
Quotation: There are no quotations.
Hyphenation: Soft hyphens are silently removed. When a hyphenated word (hard or soft) crosses a page-break or line-break, the page-break and line-break are marked after the completion of the hyphenated word.
Segmentation: div0 = the poem. Metrical lines, line-breaks and stanzas are marked and numbered.
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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; religious
Revision description
(Most recent first)
- 2014-02-10: File parsed and validated; wordcount made; SGML and HTML versions created. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
- 2014-01-31: Header created; structural mark-up added; file proofed. (ed. Benjamin Hazard)
- 2014-01-24: Text scanned. (file capture Benjamin Hazard)