Thursday 8 August 2013

Katharine Tynan - The Maker

The Irish poet Katharine Tynan contributed to the Peasant Art journal, The Vineyard.  In her collection Irish Poems (Tynan, K., Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1913), Tynan dedicates a poem to Maude Egerton King, fittingly a poem about the beauty of the country.

Title page extract from
Tynan, K., Irish Poems, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1913

To Maude Egerton King

God made the country,
  Man made the town.
God clad the country 
  In a green gown.

Clad her in a kirtle
  Of the green silk.
God made the country 
  Of honey and milk.

Poor folk from Eden
  Driven away,
God made the country
  For a holiday.

God gave the country
  A flower, a bird,
To comfort His children
  For the flaming sword.

For easing and pleasing
  He made a tree,
Many a sweet rivulet,
  Dew and the bee.

God made the country,
Man made the town.
  Is not God a maker
Of great renown!

extract from
Tynan, K., Irish PoemsSidgwick & Jackson, London, 1913

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