Page images
PDF
EPUB

In morning pale, or evening dun,

Was that of fair lamenting nun,

Who once, in cloistered home forlorn,

Languished for joys in youth forsworn ;
And oft himself had seen them glide
At dawning from his own bed-side.

Forth stepped he with uncourtly bow, The heron plume waved o'er his brow, His garb was blent with varied shade, And round him flowed his Highland plaid. But woe to Southland dame and knight In minstrel's tale who took delight. Though known the air, the song he sung Was in the barbarous Highland tongue : But tartaned chiefs in raptures hear The strains, the words, to them so dear.

Thus run the bold portentous lay,

As near as Southern tongue can say.

The Abbot M'Kinnon.

THE SEVENTEENTH BARD'S SONG.

McKinnon's tall mast salutes the day,
And beckons the breeze in Iona bay;
Plays lightly up in the morning sky,
And nods to the green wave rolling bye;
The anchor upheaves, the sails unfurl,

The pennons of silk in the breezes curl;

But not one monk on holy ground

Knows whither the Abbot M'Kinnon is bound.

Well could that bark o'er the ocean glide, Though monks and friars alone must guide; For never man of other degree

On board that sacred ship might be.

On deck M Kinnon walked soft and slow;

The haulers sung from the gilded prow;
The helmsman turned his brow to the sky,
Upraised his cowl, and upraised his eye,

And away shot the bark on the wing of the wind,

Over billow and bay like an image of mind.

Aloft on the turret the monks appear,

To see where the bark of their abbot would bear;
They saw her sweep from Iona bay,

And turn her prow to the north away,
Still lessen to view in the hazy screen,
And vanish amid the islands green.

Then they turned their eyes to the female dome,
And thought of the nuns till the abbot came home.

Three times the night with aspect dull
Came stealing o'er the moors of Mull;
Three times the sea-gull left the deep,
To doze on the knob of the dizzy steep,
By the sound of the ocean lull'd to sleep;
And still the watch-lights sailors see

On the top of the spire, and the top of Dun-ye;
And the laugh rings through the sacred dome,
For still the abbot is not come home.

But the wolf that nightly swam the sound,
From Ross's rude impervious bound,

On the ravenous burrowing race to feed,
That loved to haunt the home of the dead,
To him Saint Columb had left in trust,
To guard the bones of the royal and just,
Of saints and of kings the sacred dust;

The savage was scared from his charnel of death,
And swam to his home in hunger and wrath,
For he momently saw, through the night so dun,
The cowering monk, and the veiled nun,
Whispering, sighing, and stealing away
By cross dark alley, and portal gray.

O, wise was the founder, and well said he,
"Where there are women mischief must be."

No more the watch-fires gleam to the blast,
McKinnon and friends arrive at last.

A stranger youth to the isle they brought,
Modest of mien and deep of thought,

In costly sacred robes bedight,

And he lodged with the abbot by day and by night.

His breast was graceful, and round withal,

His leg was taper, his foot was small,

And his tread so light that it flung no sound

On listening ear or vault around.

His eye was the morning's brightest ray,

And his neck like the swan's in Iona bay;

His teeth the ivory polished knew,

And his lip like the morel when glossed with dew,

While under his cowl's embroidered fold

Were seen the curls of waving gold.

This comely youth, of beauty so bright,
Abode with the abbot by day and by night.

When arm in arm they walked the isle, Young friars would beckon, and monks would smile ; But sires, in dread of sins unshriven,

Would shake their heads and look up to heaven,

« PreviousContinue »