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Title: To Icolmcill
Author: George Borrow [
More Titles by Borrow]
From the Gaelic of Mac-Intyre.
On Icolmcill may blessings pour!
It is the island blest of yore;
Mull's sister-twin in the wild main,
Owning the sway of high Mac-Lean;
The sacred spot, whose fair renown
To many a distant land has flown,
And which receives in courteous way
All, all who thither chance to stray.
There in the grave are many a King
And duine-wassel {1} slumbering;
And bodies, once of giant strength,
Beneath the earth are stretch'd at length;
It is the fate of mortals all
To ashes fine and dust to fall;
I've hope in Christ, for sins who died,
He has their souls beatified.
Now full twelve hundred years, and more,
On dusky wing have flitted o'er,
Since that high morn when Columb grey
Its wall's foundation-stone did lay;
Images still therein remain
And death-memorials carv'd with pain;
Of good hewn stone from top to base,
It shows to Time a dauntless face.
A man this day the pulpit fill'd,
Whose sermon brain and bosom thrill'd,
And all the listening crowd I heard
Praising the mouth which it proferr'd:
Since death has seiz'd on Columb Cill,
And Mull may not possess him still,
There's joy throughout its heathery lands,
In Columb's place that Dougal stands.
Footnote: {1} The Gaelic word for nobleman.
[The end]
George Borrow's poem: To Icolmcill
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