The Father

Ever his eyes are fixed on a glorious sight,

A boy is leading, calls his men to come on;

Light as a deer he leaps, slender and bright,

Up the hill, irresistible—it is won.

Ever he sees the boy against the sky,

A slender Victory, light on his golden head

Hardly the down on his lip, he hath leaped so high

His name is writ among the undying Dead.

Captain at two-and-twenty!  Much was to come.

Great things yet to be done, heights to be scaled.

Love and comradeship, all fruition of bloom

He has attained to the highest, not he who failed.

The mother weeps her boy, who comes not again,

The father sees him splendid and laughing still,

Leaping like a young deer, calling men.

The glory dazzles!  The boy is keeping the hill!

- Katharine Tynan[1]

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[1] Katharine Tynan was an Irish-born writer, known mainly for her novels and poetry. She was born in 1861 into a large farming family in Clondalkin, County Dublin, and educated at a convent school in Drogheda. Her poems were first published in 1878. She went on to play a major part in Dublin literary circles. For a while, Tynan was a close associate of William Butler Yeats (who may have proposed marriage and been rejected, around 1885), and later a correspondent of Francis Ledwidge.

In 1898, Tynan married writer and barrister Henry Albert Hinkson and moved to England. They had three children; one, Pamela Hinkson, would become a writer in her own right. In 1914, the family moved to Claremorris, County Mayo, in Ireland, where her husband had been made a magistrate. He died in 1919. Tynan is said to have written over 100 novels; there were some unsurprising comments about a lack of self-criticism in her output. Her Collected Poems appeared in 1930; she also wrote five autobiographical volumes. Tynan died in Wimbledon, London, in 1931 at the age of 70.  (Source: Wikipedia)