Poetry

Pilgrimage

WREN the far south glittered Beyond the grey beaded plains And cloudier ships were bitted Along the pale waves,

The showery breeze that plies A mile from Ara stood

And took our boat on sand : There, by dim wells the women tied. A wish on thorn, while rainfall Was quiet as the turning of books In the holy schools at dawn.

Grey holdings of rain Had grown lesi with the fields As we came to that blessed place Where hail and honey meet.

O Clonmacnoise was crossed.

With light : those cloistered scholars, Whose knowledge of the gospel Is cast as metal in pure voices, Were all rejoicing daily And cunning hands with cold and jewels Brought chalices to flame.

Loud above the grassland In Cashel of the towers

We heard with the yellow candles

The chanting of the hours, White clergy saying High Mass, A fasting crowd at prayer, A choir that sang before them, And in stained glass the holy day- Was sainted as we passed Beyond that chancel where the dragons Are carved upon the arch.

Treasured with chasuble, Sun-braided, rich-cloak'd wine-cup, We saw the iron handbells, Great annals in the shrine A high-king bore to battle : Where from the branch of Adam The noble forms of language— Brighter than green or blue enamels Burned in white bronze—embodied The wings and fiery animals Which veil the chair of God.

Beyond a rocky townland And that last tower where ocean Is dim as haze, a sound

Of wild confession- rose : '

Black congregations moved Around the booths of prayer To hear a saint reprove them, And from his boat he raised a blessing On souls that had come down The holy mountain of the west Or wailed still in the cloud.

Light in the tide of Shannon May ride at anchor half The day and high in spar top Or leather sails of their craft

Wine merchants will have sleep ;- -

But on a barren- isle Where Paradise is praised • At sunrise, smaller than the seagulls, We heard white Culdees pray - • Until our hollow ship .was kneeling Over the longer waves.

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