Francis S. O’Mahony (Father Prout)

A Poem on the Death of the Venerable Father Prout

from An Apology for Lent

Contrary to his own better taste and sounder judgment, he was, however, on last Shrove Tuesday, at a wedding-feast of some of my tenantry, induced, from complacency to the newly-married couple, to eat of the profane aliment; and never'was the Attic derivation of the pancake more woefully accomplished than in the sad result—for his condescension cost him his life. The indigestible nature of the compost itself might not have been so destructive in an ordinary case; but it was quite a stranger and ill at ease in Father Prout's stomach: it eventually proved fatal in its effects, and hurried him away from this vale of tears, leaving the parish a widow, and making orphans of all his parishioners. My agent writes that his funeral (or berring, as the Irish call it) was thronged by dense multitudes from the whole county, and was as well attended as if it were a monster meeting. The whole body of his brother clergy, with the bishop as usual in full pontificals, were mourners on the occasion; and a Latin elegy was composed by the most learned of the order, Father Magrath, one, like Prout, of the old school, who had studied at Florence, and is still a correspondent of many learned Societies abroad. That elegy I have subjoined, as a record of Prout's genuine worth, and as a specimen of a kind of poetry called Leonine verse, little cultivated at the present day, but greatly in vogue at the revival of letters under Leo X.

IN MORTEM VENERABILIS ANDREÆ PROUT, CARMEN

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Quid juvat in pulchro Sanctos dormire sepulchro!

            Optimus usque bonos nonne manebit honos!

Plebs tenui fossa Pastoris condidit ossa,

            Splendida sed miri mens petit astra viri.

Porta patens esto! cœlum reseretur honesto,

            Neve sit a Petro jussus abire retro.

Tota malam sortem sibi flet vicinia mortem,

            Ut pro patre solent undique rura dolent;

Sed fures gaudent; securos hactenus audent

            Disturbare greges, nec mage tua seges.

Audio singultus, rixas, miserosque tumultus,

            Et pietas luget, sobrietasque fugit.

Namque furore brevi liquidaque ardentis aquæ vi

            Antiquus Nicholas perdidit agricolas.

Jam patre defuncto, meliores flumine cuncto

            Lætantur pisces obtinuisse vices.

Exultans almo, Lætare sub æquore salmo!

            Carpe, o carpe dies, nam tibi parta quies.

Gaudent anguillæ, quia tandem est mortuus ille.

            Presbyter Andreas, qui capiebat eas.

Petro piscator placuit pius artis amator,

            Cui, propter mores, pandit utrosque fores.

Cur lachryma funus justi comitabitur unus?

            Flendum est non tali, sed bene morte mali:

Munera nunc Floræ spargo. Sic flebile rore

            Florescat gramen. Pace quiescat. Amen.

Sweet upland! where, like hermit old, in peace sojourn'd

            This priest devout;

Mark where beneath thy verdant sod lie deep inurn'd

            The bones of Prout!

Nor deck with monumental shrine or tapering column

            His place of rest,

Whose soul, above earth's homage, meek yet solemn,

            Sits mid the blest.

Much was he prized, much loved; his stern rebuke

            O'erawed sheep-stealers;

And rogues fear'd more the good man's single look

            Than forty Peelers.

He's gone; and discord soon I ween will visit

            The land with quarrels;

And the foul demon vex with stills illicit

            The village morals.

No fatal chance could happen more to cross

            The public wishes;

And all the neighbourhood deplore his loss,

            Except the fishes;

For he kept Lent most strict, and pickled herring

            Preferred to gammon.

Grim Death has broke his angling-rod; his herring

            Delights the salmon.

No more can he hook up carp, eel, or trout,

            For fasting pittance,—

Arts which Saint Peter loved, whose gate to Prout

            Gave prompt admittance.

Mourn not, but verdantly let shamrocks keep

            His sainted dust;

The bad man's death it well becomes to weep,—

            Not so the just.