From http://www.budgettravel.com

 

 

 

Re-reading my favorite 'fun' author, Jan Karon.  Her main character, Father Tim travels to Ireland to explore his family genealogy, and this poem is referenced in his travels.  This is the last poem written by Pádraic Pearse, the night before he was executed as a leader in the 1916 Easter Rising (an attempt to secede from the United Kingdom).  He wrote this sitting in Kilmainham Gaol- a young 36 year old man.  This poem speaks to me in a way few do.  There is just so much breathtaking beauty in this world.  We have been reading through the psalms, where so much of God's creation is celebrated.  Romans 1 says that God is revealed to everyone through his creation, so that they who reject Him are 'without excuse.'  I find it sad that all this beauty (both His creation and the thousands of years of human artistry) will someday pass away.  I know that's ridiculous, as we will be trading it for a perfect new earth, unscarred by sin.  This beauty is a "beauty that will pass," stepping off the stage to allow a superior and eternal beauty to come on the scene....

The Wayfarer – Pádraic Pearse

The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk,
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun,
Or some green hill where shadows drifted by
Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown
And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;
Or children with bare feet upon the sands
Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets
Of little towns in Connacht,
Things young and happy.
And then my heart hath told me:
These will pass,
Will pass and change, will die and be no more,
Things bright and green, things young and happy;
And I have gone upon my way
Sorrowful.