The following Poem is quoted from the popular book; Around the Boree Log and Other verses by: Patrick Joseph Hartigan (1878-1952), Priest and Poet, was born on 13 October 1878 at O’Connell Town, Yass, New South Wales, He was a Roman Catholic priest in the Goulburn diocese and later parish priest at Narrandera — also rural towns in New South Wales. He published Around the Boree Log and Other verses, under the pseudonym ‘John O’Brien’, © November 1921.
Trimmin’s of the Rosary
‘Ah, the memories that find me, now my hair is turning gray,
Drifting in like painted butterflies, from somewhere far away.
Flitting idly through my fancy, and the pictures fading fast,
Pass again in rose and purple, o’er the broad screen of the past,
There’s the old selected ‘dreaming ‘neath the wistful, watchful stars,
And the breeze is telling stories, to the list’ning “coolabahs”;
And the old home, looking welcome from Its big, bright, friendly eyes,
with the “Sugar-loaf” behind it, blackened in against the skies;
There’s the same dear, happy circle round the boxlog’s cheery blaze,
With a little Irish mother, telling tales of other days,
While the fountain, keeps a-singing on the hook besooted o’er,
And the youngsters on their hand and knees, play “horses” round the floor.
She had one sweet little custom, that I never can forget,
And a gentle benediction, crowns her memory for it yet;
I can see that little mother still, and hear her as she pleads:
“Now it’s getting on to bedtime; all you children get your beads.”
There were no steel-bound conventions, in that old selection free:
Only this — each night she lined us up, to say the Rosary;
E’en the traveler who, stayed the night, upon his journey knew,
He must join, the little circle, aye, and take his decade, too.
And I believe she darkly plotted, when a sinner hove in sight,
Who was known to say no prayer at all, to make him stay the night.
Then we’d softly, gather round her, and we’d speak in accents low,
As we prayed, as sainted Dominic prayed, so many years ago.
And the little Irish mother’s face, was radiant, for she knew
Thar, where “two or three are gathered,” He is gathered with them, too
O’er the Paters and the Aves, how her reverent head would bend,
How she’d kiss the cross devoutly, when she’s counted to the end;
And the visitor would rise at once—and brush his knees, and then,
He’d look very, very foolish as he took the floor again;
For she’d other prayers to keep him, they were long, long prayers in truth,
And we used to call them “trimmin’s, in my disrespectful youth,
She would pray for all our little needs, and every cloud of care,
That would darken o’er the “Sugar-loaf”, she’d meet them with a prayer
She would pray for this one’s“ sore complaint, “or that one’s hurted hand,
Or that someone else, “might make a deal, or get that bit of land.”
Yes and then again, to “make It rain,” or else to “make it dry,”
And a help for Mary Jane McShane, “who’s going to wed Matthi ;
And that, “dad might sell the cattle well” and seasons good, should rule,
So that little John, the clever boy, might go away to school
There were “trimmins” too, that came and went, but ne’er she closed without,
one for, Adding something special, none of you must know about,
Gentle was, that little mother, and her wit, would sparkle free,
But she’d ruin you, If you look about, when at the Rosary,
If, perchance you, couldn’t find your beads, disaster waited you,
For the only one she’d pardon, was dad, (and jus) because she knew,
He was hopeless, and ’twas sinful, what excuses he’d invent,
So she let his, use his fingers, and he “cracked” them as he went.
Aye! And every “sore complaint” got right, and every “hurted hand,”
And, we “made a deal”, from time to time, and got that “bit of land,
And we never failed, to get the rain, and as the years went by,
we could see that Mary Jane McShane, was fit for our Matthi;
Yes and, Dad did “sell the cattle well,” and little John, her pride,
It was he who said, the Mass In black, the morning that she died,
And her gentle spirit triumphed , for “twas this, beyond a doubt,
That, the “something very special” was, she kept so dark about,
But the years have crowded past us, and the fledglings, all have flown,
And the nest beneath, the “Sugar-loaf,” no longer Is their own;
For a hand, has written finish, and the book, Is closed for good;
There is a, stately red-tiled mansion, where the old slab dwelling stood;
There the stranger, has her “evenings”, and the formal supper spread,
But I wonder, has she “trimmins”, now? Or is the Rosary said?
Ah, those little Irish mothers, passing from us, one by one,
Who will write, the noble story, of the good that they have done?
All their children may be scattered, and their fortune, windwards hurled,
But the “trimmin’s” on the Rosary, shall bless them round the world