Thomas O'Hagan
Thomas O'Hagan Poems
OF all old memories that cluster round my heart,
With their root in my boyhood days,
The quaintest is linked to the old brindle cow
With sly and mysterious ways.
...
I KNOW not what my heart hath lost;
I cannot strike the chords of old,
The breath that charmed my morning life
Hath chilled each leaf within the wold.
...
IN a little log house near the rim of the forest
With its windows of sunlight, its threshold of stone,
Lived Donald McDougall, the quaintest of Scotchmen,
And Janet his wife, in their shanty, alone:
...
SWEET unto my heart is the song my mother sings
As eventide is brooding on its dark and noiseless wings;
Every note is charged with memory–every memory bright with rays
Of the golden hours of promise in the lap of childhood's days;
...
IN the morn of the world, at the day break of time,
When kingdoms were few and empires unknown,
God searched for a Ruler to sceptre the land,
And gather the harvest from the seed He had sown.
...
DO you hear the call of our Mother
From over the sea, from over the sea?
The call to her children in every land;
To her sons on Afric's far-stretched veldt;
...
O THERE'S joy in every sphere of life from cottage unto throne,
But the sweetest smiles of nature beam upon the farm alone;
And in memory I go back to the days of long ago,
When the teamster shouted 'Haw, Buck! ' 'Gee! ' 'G'lang! ' and 'Whoa! '
...
Thomas O'Hagan Biography
Dr. Thomas O'Hagan (March 6, 1855 - March 1, 1939) was a Canadian poet, teacher, and academic. He was born in the Gore of Toronto (now part of Mississauga, Ontario), the youngest of five children of John and Bridget (O'Reilly) O'Hagan. When he was less than a year old, the family moved to rural Bruce Country, near the village of Paisley, where he grew up. He attended St. Michael's College in Toronto, and then the University of Ottawa, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1882 and Master of Arts in 1885., and Syracuse University in 1889, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in 1889.. He also did postgraduate work at Cornell, Columbia, Chicago, Louvain, Grenoble and Fribourg Universities. He alternated, and paid for, his studies with periods of teaching. From 1884 to 1888 he taught classics and history at Barrie, Pembroke, and Mitchell Collegiates. After graduating from Syracuse he taught at Walkerton High School, and then became principal of Waterdown Collegiate. He wrote both poetry and academic essays, and became known as a popular lecturer on many subjects. From 1910 to 1913 he was chief editor of The New World in Chicago. He was a regular contributor to the Catholic World magazine for over 30 years. He died, after a two-year illness, at Mercy Hospital in Toronto. He is buried at St. Mary Immaculate Church in Chepstow, Ontario. Writing O'Hagan's first book of poetry, A Gate of Flowers, was praised by John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Louis Fréchette, and Charles G.D. Roberts. Poet Nicholas Flood Davin wrote to him: "I cannot deny myself the pleasure of telling you what I think about these verses. They are instinct with true inspiration, and should have, for all time, a place in Irish literature." The Canadian Magazine called "The Song My Mother Sings" (from his second book, In Dreamland') "the finest poem of its kind ever published in Canada)
The Best Poem Of Thomas O'Hagan
The Old Brindle Cow
OF all old memories that cluster round my heart,
With their root in my boyhood days,
The quaintest is linked to the old brindle cow
With sly and mysterious ways.
She'd linger round the lot near the old potato patch,
A sentinel by night and by day,
Watching for the hour when all eyes were asleep,
To start on her predatory way.
The old brush fence she would scorn in her course,
With turnips and cabbage just beyond,
And corn that was blooming through the halo of the night–
What a banquet so choice and so fond!
But when the stars of morn were paling in the sky
The old brindle cow would take the cue,
And dressing up her line she'd retreat beyond the fence,
For the old cow knew just what to do.
What breed did you say? Why the very best blood
That could flow in a democratic cow;
No herd-book could tell of the glory in her horns
Or whence came her pedigree or how:
She was Jersey in her milk and Durham in her build,
And Ayrshire when she happened in a row,
But when it came to storming the old 'slash' fence
She was simply the old brindle cow.
It seems but a day since I drove her to the gate
To yield up her rich and creamy prize;
For her theft at midnight hour she would yield a double dower,
With peace of conscience lurking in her eyes.
But she's gone–disappeared with the ripened years of time,
Whose memories my heart enthrall e'en now;
And I never hear a bell tinkling through the forest dell
But I think of that old brindle cow.
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