FLOWERS ON THE TOP OF THE PILLARS AT THE
HOPE smiled when your nativity was cast,
Children of Summer! 10 Ye fresh flowers that brave What Summer here escapes not, the fierce wave, And whole artillery of the western blast, Battering the Temple's front, its long-drawn nave Smiting, as if each moment were their last. But ye, bright flowers, on frieze and architrave Survive, and once again the Pile stands fast, Calm as the Universe, from specular Towers Of heaven contemplated by Spirits pure- Suns and their systems, diverse yet sustained In symmetry, and fashioned to endure, Unhurt, the assault of Time with all his hours, As the supreme Artificer ordained.
ON to Iona! - What can she afford
To us save matter for a thoughtful sigh, Heaved over ruin with stability
In urgent contrast? To diffuse the WORD
(Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's Lord) Her Temples rose, 'mid pagan gloom; but why, Even for a moment, has our verse deplored Their wrongs, since they fulfilled their destiny? And when, subjected to a common doom Of mutability, those far-famed Piles
Shall disappear from both the sister Isles, Iona's Saints, forgetting not past days,
Garlands shall wear of amaranthine bloom,
While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their
WITH earnest look, to every voyager, Some ragged child holds up for sale his store Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir, Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer. But see yon neat trim church, a grateful speck Of novelty amid this sacred wreck- Nay spare thy scorn, haughty Philosopher! Fallen though she be, this Glory of the west, Still on her sons the beams of mercy shine; And "hopes, perhaps more heavenly bright than thine, A grace by thee unsought and unpossest,
A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine Shall gild their passage to eternal rest." 11
THE BLACK STONES OF IONA.
[See Martin's Voyage among the Western Isles.]
HERE on their knees men swore: the stones were
Black in the People's minds and words, yet they Were at that time, as now, in colour grey.
But what is colour, if upon the rack
Of conscience souls are placed by deeds that lack Concord with oaths? What differ night and day Then, when before the Perjured on his way Hell opens, and the heavens in vengeance crack Above his head uplifted in vain prayer
To Saint, or Fiend, or to the Godhead whom He had insulted Peasant, King, or Thane. Fly where the culprit may, guilt meets a doom; And, from invisible worlds at need laid bare, Come links for social order's awful chain.
HOMEWARD We turn. Isle of Columba's Cell, Where Christian piety's soul-cheering spark (Kindled from Heaven between the light and dark Of time) shone like the morning-star, farewell! - Remote St. Kilda, art thou visible?
No- but farewell to thee, beloved sea-mark For many a voyage made in Fancy's bark, When, with more hues than in the rainbow dwell Thou a mysterious intercourse dost hold;
Extracting from clear skies and air serene,
And out of sun-bright waves, a lucid veil,
That thickens, spreads, and, mingling fold with fold Makes known, when thou no longer canst be seen, Thy whereabout, to warn the approaching sail.
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