Soon the troop of monks came hurrying,
Each man with a wandering light,

For great fear had come upon them,
And a sense of strange affright.

"Diarmid! Diarmid is the father

With thee? Art thou here alone?"

And they turn'd their lights and found him
On the pavement lying prone.

And with gentle hands they raised him,
And he mildly look'd around,

And he raised his arm to bless them,
But it dropped upon the ground;

And his breathless body rested

On the arms that held him dear, And his dead face look'd upon them

With a light serene and clear;

And they said that holy angels
Surely hover'd round his head,

For alive no loveliest ever

Look'd so lovely as this dead.

Stranger, thou hast heard my story,

Thank thee for thy patient ear;

We are pleased to stir the sleeping

Memory of old greatness here.

I have used no gloss, no varnish,
To make fair things fairer look;
As the record stands, I give it,

In the old monks' Latin book.

Keep it in thy heart, and love it,

Where a good thing loves to dwell;

It may help thee in thy dying,

If thou care to use it well.

SONNETS.

I.

THE TOURISTS.

WHAT brought them here across the briny pool,
A motley train of high and low degree,

Grave seniors, girls whose blue eyes flash with glee,
White-collar'd priests, and boys uncaged from school?
I know not happy if themselves can tell;
No sights are here to trap the vulgar eye,
No dome whose gilded cross invades the sky,
No palace where wide-sceptred Cæsars dwell.
An old grey chapel on an old grey beach,
Grey waste of rocks unpictured by a tree,
And far as hungry vision's range can reach,
The old grey mist upon the old grey sea:
These shows for sense; but the deep truth behind

They only know who read the mind with mind.

II.

THE ROYAL SAINT.

PRAISE me no Cæsars, Alexanders, all

Who whet sharp swords to reap great names in story, Napoleons, Fredericks, men who fill the hall

Of fame with echoes which the French call glory! True glory he reap'd with his saintly band

Who fled from pomp of courts and flash of spears, To win lost souls on this storm-batter'd strand,

With loving venture, prayers, and precious tears. No herald shrill'd sharp fear his path before,

No wasteful fire made deserts where he came, No trail of victories sign'd his march with gore,

No dinsome triumph peal'd his dreaded name; But shod with peace, and wing'd with fervour, he

Unlock'd all hearts; for Love gave him the key.

III.

THE LORD'S DAY IN IONA.

PURE worshipper, who on this holy day

Would'st shake thee free from soul-encrusting cares,

And to the great Creator homage pay

In some high fane most worthy of thy prayers, Go not where sculptured tower or pictured dome Invites the reeking city's jaded throngs,

Some hoar old shrine of Rhine-land or of Rome, Where the dim aisle the languid hymn prolongs; Here rather follow me, and take thy stand

By the grey cairn that crowns the lone Dun Ee, And let thy breezy worship be the grand

Old Bens, and old grey knolls that compass thee, The sky-blue waters, and the snow-white sand,

And the quaint aisles far-sown upon the sea.