In the waters o’er whose white swell rolling
Come the boats when wintry breezes lull,
There be islands by whose shores the steersman
Passing, seeks the rocky Sound of Mull.

Jura, with a majesty of darkness
Round her three sublime, defiant cones,
Save, when flashed behind them, red the sunset
Lights a fiery way to golden thrones.

Skye, that frowns upon the struggling morning,
Darkened with the strife of clouds and waves;
Bute with all her vassal rocks, and Islay—
Staffa with her dim cathedral caves,

Where the fluted pillars watched in order,
And the solemn arches curved in grace,
While as yet no thought of Him who made it
Had illumined that grandly-shadowed place;

For the wailing sea made music only
Where men bowed before a block of stone,
And the mournful rocks heard many a sorrow,
But gave back no soothing for its moan.

’Mid the isles one lonelier islet nestled
In its gold-girt robe of green and gray;
Unto it a little bark at evening
Came and anchored in the moonlit bay.

Who is he that stands on far Iona
With a prophet’s message on his soul,
That hath urged him on through winds and waters
Where the tempests are the bells that toll?

Who is he with spirit like his Master,
That when Death mowed down could not be still?
Ah! ’tis one of Erin’s great apostles—
’Tis the saintly-hearted Columbkill!

From the headlands of their own green Erin,
One of those that made the nations bright—
One of those that o’er the wide world’s darkness
Flung the gleam of everlasting light.

As he told the tidings of salvation—
Spake of Him who led our war, and won—
Till they turned in faith to God the father,
By the Eternal Spirit, through the Son.

Then he died; but dying left behind him
For the living Church no stately dome.
High souled Aidan, holy Vigilantius,
’Neath a wooden shed spake words of Home.

Hath he died, while yet his work is living?
Can the soul of Erin ever die?
Hath it not the life that gains in giving,
Making rich for all its poverty?

Hath it not the passionate burst of Peter?
Hath it not the eagle love of John?
Are its voices not the Boanerges
That with Christ’s own words go sounding on?

Shallow thinker! linger in the sunset,
On a little mound of this lone isle,
Where the old man sat and mused at evening,
But in gazing check that scornful smile.

That wilt see an ancient fane in ruins,
Thou wilt only hear the waves plash low,
Yet thou needst not say, An idle story,
Dead and gone a thousand years ago.

No more dead than is the hidden treasure
Opened after many years at need.
No more false than is the broken calyx,
That hath strewed and sown its precious seed.

O’er the distant isles and Alpine mountains,
Far o’er vales by stranger seldom trod,
Words of his the changing years have wafted
To men’s souls, and won them back to God.

I will tell thee more! Perchance thou deemest
Erin’s Church a dying captive now;
But she lighteth as of yore her beacon,
And its gleam falls glorious on her brow.

And, as round the bay of far Iona,
Men have raised their cairns to mark the place
Where her pilgrim brought his boat to anchor
When he came to tell them of Christ’s grace;

So shall millions bless her sons hereafter,
When these hearts are still, these lips are dumb.
They will wave her torch above the tempest,
O’er the darkness, till her Monarch come!

Alessie Bond Faus­sett
The Cairns of Io­na, and Other Po­ems, 1873