DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61904#0062
50 IONA, OR ICOLMKILL.
feeds of the great truth have been fown wide over the earth,
now producing a hundred and a thoufand-fold in the reftored
church, under its modern name of Proteftantifm.
Poetry has delighted to hang its wreaths on the fhattered
columns of Iona. Collins fays :—
Where beneath the ihowery weft,
The mighty kings of three fair realms were laid :
Once foes, perhaps, together now they reft ;
No Haves revere them, and no woes invade.
Yet frequent now, at midnight’s folemn hour,
The rifled mounds their yawning cells unfold,
And forth the monarchs ftalk with fovereign power,
In pageant robes and wreathed in Ihining gold,
And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold.
But Campbell has fung a nobler ftrain in honour of “ the
dark-attired Culdee,” for fo were the clergy of Iona called.
He reprefents an invafion of Iona by a band of favage Danes,
who ravage the place, but are furprifed by the apparition of
St. Columbkille, who deftroys .their leader by caufing the fall
of his ftatue upon him, and fends them aftonilhed away. All
this Reullura, the wife of the Culdee Aodh, had foretold; but
fne herfelf has, during the onfet of the Danes, plunged into the
fea and perifhed.
Star of the morn and eve
Reullura fhone like thee,
And well for her might Aodh grieve,
The dark-attired Culdee.
Peace to their fliades ! the pure Culdees
Were Albyn’s earliest priefts of God,
Ere yet an ifland of her feas
By foot of Saxon monk was trode ;
Long ere her churchmen by bigotry
Were barred from holy wedlock’s tie.
’Twas then that Aodh, famed afar,
In Iona preached the word with power;
And Reullura, beauty’s ftar,
Was the partner of his bower.
feeds of the great truth have been fown wide over the earth,
now producing a hundred and a thoufand-fold in the reftored
church, under its modern name of Proteftantifm.
Poetry has delighted to hang its wreaths on the fhattered
columns of Iona. Collins fays :—
Where beneath the ihowery weft,
The mighty kings of three fair realms were laid :
Once foes, perhaps, together now they reft ;
No Haves revere them, and no woes invade.
Yet frequent now, at midnight’s folemn hour,
The rifled mounds their yawning cells unfold,
And forth the monarchs ftalk with fovereign power,
In pageant robes and wreathed in Ihining gold,
And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold.
But Campbell has fung a nobler ftrain in honour of “ the
dark-attired Culdee,” for fo were the clergy of Iona called.
He reprefents an invafion of Iona by a band of favage Danes,
who ravage the place, but are furprifed by the apparition of
St. Columbkille, who deftroys .their leader by caufing the fall
of his ftatue upon him, and fends them aftonilhed away. All
this Reullura, the wife of the Culdee Aodh, had foretold; but
fne herfelf has, during the onfet of the Danes, plunged into the
fea and perifhed.
Star of the morn and eve
Reullura fhone like thee,
And well for her might Aodh grieve,
The dark-attired Culdee.
Peace to their fliades ! the pure Culdees
Were Albyn’s earliest priefts of God,
Ere yet an ifland of her feas
By foot of Saxon monk was trode ;
Long ere her churchmen by bigotry
Were barred from holy wedlock’s tie.
’Twas then that Aodh, famed afar,
In Iona preached the word with power;
And Reullura, beauty’s ftar,
Was the partner of his bower.