Katharine Tynan - The Maker

The Irish poet Katharine Tynan contributed to the Peasant Art journal, The Vineyard.  In her collection Irish Poems (Tynan, K., Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1913), Tynan dedicates a poem to Maude Egerton King, fittingly a poem about the beauty of the country.

Title page extract from
Tynan, K., Irish Poems, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1913

To Maude Egerton King

God made the country,

  Man made the town.

God clad the country 

  In a green gown.

Clad her in a kirtle

  Of the green silk.

God made the country 

  Of honey and milk.

Poor folk from Eden

  Driven away,

God made the country

  For a holiday.

God gave the country

  A flower, a bird,

To comfort His children

  For the flaming sword.

For easing and pleasing

  He made a tree,

Many a sweet rivulet,

  Dew and the bee.

God made the country,

Man made the town.

  Is not God a maker

Of great renown!

extract from
Tynan, K., Irish Poems, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1913