Earth in a little while will disappear
From me; familiar sights I’ll see no more.
By Time’s stream swept along, I’m drawing near
The eternal shore.

Only a little while. Steep is the slope,
Grim is the fight, and distant seems the Dawn.
I fall, I rise; and still the star of hope
Beckons me on.

‘Tis but a little while ere I embark –
A little while before I cross the bar;
With all my records in my Noah’s Ark –
My astro-car.

MICHAEL MULLIN – ‘THE BARD OF FOREMASS’
Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone.

Won in “Sunday Poem”
Sunday Independent,
Mid. Abbey St.
Dublin

As October evenings darken
Harken Mother! to my prayer
Bid my gloomy bodings vanish
Banish doubt and dark despair.
Take an orphan neath Thy mantle
Gentle Mary! Queen Divine.
Make me Thine let nothing ever
Sever Thee from me and mine.

Mother! hear a soldier fallen
Calling from the battle ground
Mong the wounded and the dying
Lying scattered all around
Mother! I am weak and weary
Mary! Don’t from me depart
Mother, Mother don’t forsake me
Take me to Thy tender Heart.

MICHAEL MULLIN – ‘THE BARD OF FOREMASS’
Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone.

DUBLIN AND CORK – 10 OCT 55

Holy Mary! hear my sighing,
Crying in this vale of tears.
Bid my gloomy bodings vanish,
Banish all my doubts and fears.
Take an orphan ‘neath thy mantle,
Gentle Mary! Mother mild! –
And I’ll happy be for ever,
Never more an orphan child.

Make me worthy to be brother,
Mother, of Thy Blessed Son.
I am worthless, weak and lonely –
Only speak, and it is done.
Mother! hear a child appealing,
Kneeling, from the world apart.
Mother! Mother! don’t forsake me –
Take me, take me to Thy Heart.

Now when nature sends in showers
Flowers o’er the valleys green;
Now when birds set woodlands ringing,
Singing “Hail to Heaven’s Queen,”
I, who was an orphan lowly,
Holy Mary! sing with glee;
In Thy Son I find a Brother,
And a Mother fond in Thee.