IONA

Calm as the Universe, from specular towers
Of heaven contemplated by Spirits pure
With mute astonishment, it stands sustained
Through every part in symmetry, to endure,1
Unhurt, the assault of Time with all his hours,
As the supreme Artificer ordained.2

XXXII

IONA

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 praise.

1 1840 and C.

Suns and their systems, diverse yet sustained
In symmetry, and fashioned to endure,

2 1835.

As the Supreme Geometer ordained.

* St. Columba took up his residence at Iona, in 563.-ED.

1835.

MS.

6

10

XXXIII

IONA

(UPON LANDING)

How sad a welcome! To each voyager 1

Some ragged child holds up for sale a store 2
Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore 3
Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir,
Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer.
Yet is 4 yon neat trim church a grateful speck
Of novelty amid the sacred wreck

*

6

Strewn far and wide. Think, proud Philosopher! 5
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.” †

5

ΙΟ

3 1835.

With outstretched hands, round every voyager
Press ragged children, each to supplicate
A price for wave-worn pebbles on his plate,

MS.

* This refers to the modern parish Church on the Island, not to St. Oran's Chapel, or the Cathedral Church of St. Mary.-ED.

The four last lines of this sonnet are adopted from a well-known sonnet

THE BLACK STONES OF IONA

381

XXXIV

THE BLACK STONES OF IONA

[See Martin's Voyage among the Western Isles.*]

HERE on their knees men swore; the stones were black,†
Black in the people's minds and words,1 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,2 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.

1 1835.

Here on their knees, they swore, the stones were black,
Black in men's minds and words,

MS.

5

10

2 1835.

To saints, to fiends,

MS.

of Russel, as conveying my feeling better than any words of my own 2 could do.-W. W. 1835.

These "last four lines" are taken from sonnet No. x. of Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems, by the late Thomas Russell, Fellow of New College Oxford, printed for D. Price and J. Cooke, 1789. The Rev. Thomas Russell, author of those Sonnets, was born 1762, died 1788. He was a Wykehamist, and is referred to in a letter by Wordsworth to Dyce in 1833.-ED. * Description of the Western Islands of Scotland; including an account of the Manners, Customs, Religion, Language, Dress, etc., of the Inhabitants, by M. Martin, 1703.-ED.

In Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland the following occurs in the section on "Icolmkill:"—"The place is said to be known

XXXV

"HOMEWARD WE TURN. ISLE OF
COLUMBA'S CELL"

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!—
And fare thee well, to Fancy visible,

Remote St. Kilda, lone and loved sea-mark *
For many a voyage made in her swift bark,1
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.

1 1837.

farewell!

Remote St. Kilda, art thou visible?
No-but farewell to thee, beloved sea-mark
From many a voyage made in Fancy's bark,

1835.

5

10

where the Black Stones lie concealed, on which the old Highland chiefs, when they made contracts and alliances, used to take the oath, which was considered more sacred than any other obligation, and which could not be violated without the blackest infamy. In these days of violence and rapine, it was of great importance to impose upon savage minds the sanctity of an oath, by some particular and extraordinary circumstances-they would not have recourse to the Black Stones upon small or common occasions; and when they had established their faith by this tremendous sanction, inconstancy and treachery were no longer feared."-ED.

* St. Kilda is sixty miles to the north-west of Harris, in the Outer Hebrides.-ED.

THERE! SAID A STRIPLING

383

XXXVI

GREENOCK

Per me si va nella Città dolente.*

:

We have not passed into a doleful City,
We who were led to-day down a grim dell,
By some too boldly named "the Jaws of Hell: "†
Where be the wretched ones, the sights for pity?
These crowded streets resound no plaintive ditty :-
As from the hive where bees in summer dwell,
Sorrow seems here excluded; and that knell,
It neither damps the gay, nor checks the witty.
Alas! too busy Rival of old Tyre,1

5

Whose merchants Princes were, whose decks were thrones; Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire

To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde

Whose nursling current brawls o'er mossy stones,
The poor, the lonely, herdsman's joy and pride.

II

XXXVII

"THERE!" SAID A STRIPLING, POINTING WITH MEET PRIDE

[Mosgiel was thus pointed out to me by a young man on the top of the coach on my way from Glasgow to Kilmarnock. It is remarkable that, though Burns lived some time here,

Too busy Mart! thus fared it with old Tyre,

* See Dante, Inferno, iii. 1.-ED.

1835.

They came down from Inveraray to Loch Goil by Hell's Glen.-ED. Above Elvanfoot, near the watershed, at "Summit' "" on the Caledonian Railway line, where the Clyde rises.--ED.