Poems (Tynan)/Brother Ronain of the Birds

by Katharine Tynan

BROTHER RONAIN OF THE BIRDS

Over the sea-mists and the foam,
 The birds had built their island steady,
With many a trove of leaf and loam,
 And sprays of coral, ripe and ruddy

They built it strong, they built it fair,
 Moored to the rocks and time-deriding;
Thither flocked citizens of air
 To make a city on land abiding.

And some there settled for life because
 Of sea and tempest they were weary.
The owl-folk made the equal laws
 For sparrow and eagle in his eyrie.

And there tom-tit and goshawk went
 In equal yoke, like brothers loving;
The vulture to the robin leant
 With his old tales of war and roving.

Never was such a simple land,
 With such a happy buzz of building,
And twigs and moss for lime and sand,
 And beaks for tools the masons wielding.

And each sang blithely at his task,
 From nightingale to husky starling,
At the dear house wherein should bask
That pearl of price, his bright-eyed darling.

So all went gaily till each nest
 Was built and ready for occupation;
And one Spring morn all sang their best
 At morning-song, as was their fashion.

Praising the Lord of sea and sky
 Who kept them all the night from peril,
And gave them love and wings to fly,
 And worms and grubs when earth was sterile.

When one who was a chief of birds
 Said: "Brothers, is it meet we marry
And die like any Pagan hordes,
 With never a priest to bless or bury?"

"It is not meet!" the birds replied:
 "And would some priest of God came fleetly
Over the sunset and the tide,
 And here would bide to bless us sweetly!"

Then spake a blackbird from the west:
 "In Erin dear that 's over the water,
There is a cleric loves birds best,
 Father and mother, son and daughter.

"When by the sands he walks at morn
 The flight of birds his meek head covers,
His pocket full of crumbs and corn
 He carries for his feathered lovers.

"How many a morn have I that speak
 Picked juicy tit-bits from his fingers;
And fed, his thanksgiving so meek
 To join the wildest blackbird lingers.

"He knows the bird-tongue, every word,
 Knows well our notes of joy and grieving;
And Ronain singing to the Lord
 Would melt the hardest bird-heart living."

Thereat they counsel took, and made
 A raft for human weight and feathered,
And sailed the wild seas undismayed,
 Till by St. Mel's the raft was tethered.

And Ronain, reading in his book,
 Was 'ware a cloud fell o'er the letter,
And heard the myriad wings that shook
 And sweet "tweet-tweet" of birdly chatter.

Then all the birds swept down on him,
 Fluttering in a wild commotion,
And prayed him for their island dim,
 Far away in the middle ocean.

What dream fell over Ronain then?
 Or did God's guiding whisper rather
Bid him go out from haunts of men,
 Apostle to the folk of feather?

Who knows? The last saw Ronain's face
 Was Brother Aiden, who beheld him
Down by the rocks, a lonely place
 Where the good brothers walked but seldom.

And Aiden said a cloud of birds
 Was circling round his head and habit,
Singing so sweet. "Perchance the Lord's
 Good will hath rapt him," said the Abbot.

They searched for him among the rocks,
 Parted the seaweed o'er the shallows,
And dived in water depths where flocks
 Of cormorants fished the ocean fallows.

But never a relic came to light
 Of him, so they at last desisted,
And prayed that his dear soul so white
 With Christ the Lord supped joy and rested.

And Ronain, he was with his flock.
 They built his house of shell and wattle
Against the brown lee of a rock,
 That sheltered him from the wind's battle.

There he abode: but when he died—
 I know not. You shall ask some other
Who hath more learning to decide;
 And if the birds found a new brother

To be their priest. It well may be,
 Ronain still lives, young and unfailing,
In that sweet island over the sea
 Whence never a mariner comes sailing.