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I. 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) | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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 praise. | |
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II.
Upon Landing
HOW sad a welcome! To each voyager | 15 |
| Some ragged child holds up for sale a 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. | |
| Yet is yon neat, trim church a grateful speck | 20 |
| Of novelty amid the sacred wreck | |
| Strewn far and wide. Think, proud 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, | 25 |
| A grace by thee unsought and unpossest, | |
| A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine, | |
| Shall gild their passage to eternal rest. | |
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