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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Charles L. O’Donnell

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Martin of Tours

Charles L. O’Donnell

“AS I today was wayfaring”—

Holy, Holy, Holy!—low

Said Christ in heaven’s evening—

The Holies yet more hushed and slow

“I met a knight upon the road;

A plumed charger he bestrode.

“He saw the beggar that was I—

Holy, Holy, Holy!—long

Head and foot one beggary—

Holy, Holy, Holy!—song

One that shivered in the cold

While his horse trailed cloth of gold.

“Down he leaped, his sword outdrawn—

Holy, Holy, Holy!—swells

Cleaved his cloak, laid half upon—

Holy! now a peal of bells

Shoulders that the cross had spanned;

And I think he kissed my hand.

“Then he passed the road along,

Holy, Holy, Holy!—laud

Caroling a knightly song—

Holy! in the face of God.

Yea, Father, by Thy sovereign name,

Begging is a goodly game.”