< Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 139.pdf
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514

HYMN BY ST. COLUMBA, ETC.

HYMN BY ST. COLUMBA.

i.

Sweet is to me in Uchả Alữinn?[1]
⁠On a peaked crag to be,
That I might often behold
⁠The face of the boundless sea.

ii.

To look on the heaving waves,
⁠While in their Father's ear
Music forever they chant,
⁠Hymning the world's career.

iii.

The level and star-bright strand
⁠No sorrow it were to see,
And to hear the wondrous birds,
⁠Sailing on happily.

iv.

The thunder of crowding waves
⁠To hear on the rocky shore.
And down by the church to hear
⁠The sounding surges roar.

v.

To see the swift-flying flocks
⁠Over the watery plain,
And, greatest of wonders all,
⁠The monsters of the main.

vi.

To see the ebb and the flood
⁠In power upon the sea,
And Cul-ri-Erin[2] there, I say,
⁠My secret name would be.

vii.

And grief would come to my heart,
⁠While gazing to her shore,
And all the many ills I've done
⁠I weeping would deplore.

viii.

The Godhead then would I bless,
⁠Him who doth all things keep,
Heaven with its orders bright untold,
⁠And earth and shore and deep.

ix.

I would search in all the books
⁠That good to my soul would bring,
Now to beloved Heaven ICd kneel,
⁠And now a psalm I'd sing.

x.

Heaven's high one, the holy Chief,
⁠My thoughts would now employ,
Anon, to work without constraint
⁠Would be to me a joy.

xi.

Dulse from the rocks I would pluck,
⁠At times I'd fishing go,
At times I would feed the poor,
⁠Now in the cell bend low.

xii.

Best counsel in the sight of God
⁠To me there hath been given,
From error he shall keep me free,
⁠My king, the Lord of Heaven!

Macmillan's Magazine.


LEITH HILL.

["Hereabouts is a thing remarkable, though but little
⁠taken notice of, — I mean that goodly prospect from
⁠the top of Leith Hill. . . . The like, I think, is not
⁠to be found in any part of England, or perhaps
⁠Europe besides; and the reason why it is not more
⁠observed is partly its lying quite out of any road,
⁠and partly its rising so gently, and making so little
⁠show till one is got to the very top of it." —
⁠Camden's Britannia.]

Yes, — thirty years ago
⁠Last Easter Day, two striplings topped thy height
⁠Leaping and singing, turned, in hushed delight
Gazed on the marvellous landscape spread below.

Twenty-four years ago,
⁠Three sauntering friends slowly strolled up: there sat
⁠Long summer hours of jest and tale and chat, —
The shimmering view in sunshine all aglow!

A dozen years ago,
⁠Again I climbed thy side: this time, alack!
⁠With wife, and eldest-born apickaback, —
How the young rascal made me sweat and blow!

I, a few weeks ago
⁠Toilsomely scale thy steep one autumn day,
⁠And land and sky look misty, sad, and grey, —
Or is the mist in me? I am changed so!

Old friends of long ago,
⁠Buffeted, scattered, world-worn and way-sore;
⁠Or, won that hill where Moses stood of yore, —
A goodlier prospect than this world can show!

But the great view below,
⁠These counties stretching to the far-off sea,
⁠With chessboard field, toy farm, and pigmy tree,
Are what old Camden saw, three hundred years ago.

Spectator.M.

  1. ↑ Lovely Breast — The rocky heights on the southwest of Iona are called Uchdachan at this day.
  2. ↑ Back turned to Ireland — Erin no more!
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