The Abbot M'Kinnon

M'Kinnon's tall mast salutes the day,
nd beckons the breeze in Iona bay;
Plays lightly np in the morning sky,
And nods to the green wave rolling bye ;
The anchor upheaves, the sails unfurl,
The pennons of silk in the breezes curl ;
But not one monk on holy ground
Knows whither the Abbot M'Kinnon is bound.

Well could that bark o'er the ocean glide,
Though monks and friars alone must guide ;
For never man of other degree
On board that sacred ship might be.
On deck M'Kinnon walked soft and slow ;
The haulers sung from the gilded prow ;
The helmsman turned his brow to the sky,
Upraised his cowl, and upraised his eye,
And away shot the bark on the wing of the wind,
Over billow and bay like an image of mind.

Aloft on the turret the monks appear,
To see where the bark of their Abbot would bear ;
They saw her sweep from Iona bay,
And turn her prow to the north away,
Still lessen to view in the hazy screen,
And vanish amid the islands green.
Then they turned their eyes to the female dome,
And thought of the nuns till the Abbot came home.

Three times the night with aspect dull
Came stealing o'er the moors of Mull ;
Three times the sea-gull left the deep.
To doze on the knob of the dizzy steep,
By the sound of the ocean lulled to sleep ;
And still the watch-lights sailors see
On the top of the spire, and the top of Dun-ye ;
And the laugh rings through the sacred dome,
For still the Abbot is not come home.

But the wolf that nightly swam the sound,
From Rosa's rude impervious bound,
On the ravenous burrowing race to feed,
That loved to haunt the home of the dead,
To him Saint Columb had left in trust
To guard the bones of the royal and just,
Of saints and of kings the sacred dust ;
The savage was scared from his charnel of death,
And swam to his home in hunger and wrath,
For he momently saw, through the night so dun,
The cowering monk, and the veiled nun,
Whispering, sighing, and stealing away
By cross dark alley, and portal gray.
O, wise was the founder, and well said he,
" Where there are women, mischief must be."

No more the watch-fires gleam to the blast,
M'Kinnon and friends arrive at last.
A stranger youth to the isle they brought.
Modest of mien and deep of thought,
In costly sacred robes bedight,
And he lodged with the Abbot by day and by night,
His breast was graceful, and round withal,
His leg was taper, his foot was small,
And his tread so light that it flung no sound
On listening ear or vault around.

His eye was the morning's brightest my,
And his neck like the swan's in Iona bay ;
His teeth the ivory polished new,
And his lip like the morel when glossed with dew,
While under his cowl's embroidered fold
Were seen the curls of waving gold.

This comely youth, of beauty so bright,
Abode with the Abbot by day and by night.

When arm in arm they walked the isle,
Young friars would beckon, and monks would smile ;
But sires, in dread of sins unshriven,
Would shake their heads and look up to heaven,
Afraid the frown of the saint to see,
Who reared their temple amid the sea,
And pledged his soul to guard the dome,
Till virtue should fly her western home.
But now a stranger of hidden degree,
Too fair, too gentle, a man to be,
This stranger of beauty and step so light
Abode with the Abbot by day and by night.

The months and the days flew lightly bye,
The monks were kind and the nuns were shy ;
But the gray-haired sires, in trembling mood,
Kneeled at the altar and kissed the rood.

M'Kinnon he dreamed that the saint of the isle
Stood by his side, and with courteous smile
Bade him arise from his guilty sleep,
And pay his respects to the God of the deep,
I i In temple that north in the main appeared,
Which fire from bowels of ocean had seared,
I Which the giant builders of heaven had reared,
I To rival in grandeur the stately pile
I Himself had upreared in Iona's isle ;
For round them rose the mountains of sand,
The fishes had left the coasts of the land,
i And so high ran the waves of the angry sea,
I They had drizzled the cross on the top of Dun-ye.
I The cycle was closed, and the period run
" He had vowed to the sea, he had vowed to the sun,
j If in that time rose trouble or pain,
I Their homage to pay to the God of the main.
I Then he bade him haste and the rites prepare,
Named all the monks should with him fare,
And promised again to see him there.

M'Kinnon awoke from his visioned sleep,
i He opened his casement and looked on the deep ;
S He looked to the mountains, he looked to the shore,
I The vision amazed him and troubled him sore,
He never had heard of the rite before ;
But all was so plain, he thought meet to obey,
He durst not decline, and he would not delay.

Uprose the Abbot, uprose the morn,
j Uprose the sun from the Bens of Lorn ;
And the bark her course to the northward framed,
With all on board whom the saint had named.

The clouds were journeying east the sky,
The wind was low and the swell was high,
And the glossy sea was heaving bright
Like ridges and hills of liquid light ;
While far on her lubric bosom were seen
The magic dyes of purple and green.

How joyed the bark her sides to lave !
She leaned to the lee, and she girdled the wave;
Aloft on the stayless verge she hung,
Light on the steep wave veered and swung,
And the crests of the billows before her flung.
Loud murmured the ocean with downward growl,
The seal swam aloof and the dark sea fowl ;
The pye-duck sought the depth of the main,
And rose in the wheel of her wake again ;
And behind her, far to the southward, shone
A pathway of snow on the waste alone.

But now the dreadful strand they gain,
Where rose the sacred dome of the main ;
Oft had they seen the place before
And kept aloof from the dismal shore,
But now it rose before their prow,
And what they beheld they did not know.
The tall gray forms, in close-set file,
Upholding the roof of that holy pile ;
The sheets of foam and the clouds of spray,
And the groans that rushed from the portals gray,
Appalled their hearts, and drove them away.

They wheeled their bark to the east around,
And moored in basin, by rocks unbound ;
Then, awed to silence, they trode the strand
Where furnaccd pillars in order stand,
All framed of the liquid burning levin,
And bent like the bow that spans the heaven,
Or upright ranged in horrid array,
With purfle of green o'er the darksome gray.

Their path was on wondrous pavement of old,
Its blocks all cast in some giant mould,
Fair hewn and grooved by no mortal hand,
With countermure guarded by sea and by land.
The watcher Bushella frowned over their way,
Enrobed in the sea-baize, and hooded with gray ;
The warder that stands by that dome of the deep,
With spray-shower and rainbow, the entrance to keep.
But when they drew nigh to the chancel of ocean,
And saw her waves rush to their raving devotion,
Astounded and awed to the antes they clung,
And listened the hymns in her temple she sung.
The song of the cliff, when the winter winds blow,
The thunder of heaven, the earthquake below,
Conjoined, like the voice of a maiden would be,
Compared with the anthem there sung by the sea.

The solemn rows in that darksome den,
Were dimly seen like the forms of men,
Like giant monks in ages agone,
Whom the God of the ocean had seared to stone,
And bound in his temple for ever to lean,
In sackcloth of gray and visors of green,
An everlasting worship to keep,
And the big salt tears eternally weep.

So rapid the motion, the whirl and the boil,
So loud was the tumult, so fierce the turmoil,
Appalled from those portals of terror they turn,
On pillar of marble their incense to burn.
Around the holy flame they pray,
Then turning their faces all west away,
On angel pavement each bent his knee,
And sung this hymn to the God of the sen.

Thou, who makest the ocean to flow,
Thou, who walkest the channels below ;
To thee, to thee, this incense we heap,
Thou, who knowest not slumber nor sleep,
Great Spirit that movest on the face of the deep I
To thee, to thee, we sing to thee,
God of the western wind, God of the sea !

To thee, who bringest with thy right hand
The little fishes around our land ;
To thee, who breathest in the bosomed sail,
Rulest the shark and the rolling whale,
Flingest the sinner to downward grave,
Lightest the gleam on the mane of the wave,
Bid'st the billows thy reign deform,
Laugh'st in the whirlwind, sing'st in the storm ;
Or risest like mountain amid the sea,
Where mountain was never, and never will be,
And rearest thy proud and thy pale chaperoon
'Mid walks of the angels and ways of the moon.
To thee, to thee, this wine we pour,
God of the western wind, God of the shower !

To thee, who bid'st those mountains of brine
Softly sink in the fair moonshine,
And spread'st thy couch of silver light,
To lure to thy bosom the queen of the night,
Who weavest the cloud of the ocean dew,
And the mist that sleeps on her breast so blue ;
When the murmurs die at the base of the hill,
And the shadows lie rocked and slumbering still,
And the Solan's young, and the lines of foam,
Are scarcely heaved on thy peaceful home,
I We pour this oil and this wine to thee,
God of the western wind, God of the sea !
" Greater yet must the offering be."

The monks gazed round, the Abbot grew wan,
" For the closing notes were not sung by man.
They came from the rock, or they came from the air
From voice they knew not, and knew not where ;
But it sung with a mournful melody,
" Greater yet must the offering be."

In holy dread they past away,
And they walked the ridge of that isle so gray,
I And saw the white waves toil and fret,
An hundred fathoms below their feet ;
j They looked to the countless isles that lie
From Barra to Mull, and from Jura to Skye ;
They looked to heaven, they looked to the main,
They looked at all with a silent pain,
As on places they were not to see again.

A little bay lies hid from sight,
O'erhung by cliffs of dreadful height ;
When they drew nigh that airy steep,
They heard a voice rise from the deep,
And that voice was sweet as voice could be,
And they feared it came from the Maid of the Sea.

M'Kinnon lay stretched on the verge of the hill,
And peeped from the height on the bay so still ;
And he saw her sit on a weedy stone,
Laving her fair breast, and singing alone ;
And aye she sank the wave within,
Till it gurgled around her lovely chin,
Then combed her locks of the pale sea-green.
And aye this song was heard between.

Matilda of Skye
Alone may lie,
And list to the wind that whistles by :
Sad may she be,
For deep in the sea,
Deep, deep, deep in the sea,
This night her lover shall sleep with me.
She may turn and hide
From the spirits that glide,
And the ghost that stands at her bed-side:
But never a kiss the vow shall seal,
Nor warm embrace her bosom feel ;
For far, far down in the floors below.
Moist as this rock- weed, cold as the snow,
With the eel, and the clam, and the pearl of the deep,
On soft sea-flowers her lover shall sleep ;
And long and sound shall his slumber be,
In the coral bowers of the deep, with me.

The trembling sun, far, far away,
j Shall pour on his couch a softened ray,
j And his mantle shall wave in the flowing tide,
And the little fishes shall turn aside ;
But the waves and the tides of the sea shall cease,
Ere wakes her love from his bed of peace.
I No home ! — no kiss ! — -No, never ! never !
His couch is spread for ever and ever.

The Abbot arose in dumb dismay,
They turned and fled from the height away,
i For dark and portentous was the day.

When they came in view of their rocking sail,
They saw an old man who sat on the wale ;
j His beard was long, and silver grey,
Like the rime that falls at the break of day ;
His locks like wool, and his colour wan,
And he scarcely looked like an earthly man.

They asked his errand, they asked his name,
I Whereunto bound, and whence he came ;
But a sullen thoughtful silence he kept,
And turned his face to the sea and wept.
Some gave him welcome, and some gave him scorn,
But the Abbot stood pale, with terror o'erborne ;
He tried to be jocund, but trembled the more,
For he thought he had seen the face before.

Away went the ship with her canvass all spread,
So glad to escape from that island of dread ;
And skimmed the blue wave like a streamer of light,
Till fell the dim veil 'twixt the day and the night.

Then the old man arose and stood up on the prow,
And fixed his dim eyes on the ocean below ;
And they heard him saying, " Oh, woe is me !
But great as the sin must the sacrifice be."
Oh, mild was his eye, and his manner sublime,
When he looked unto heaven, and said— " Now is I time."

He looked to the weather, he looked to the lee,
He looked as for something he dreaded to see,
Then stretched his pale hand, and pointed his eye
To a gleam on the verge of the eastern sky.

The monks soon beheld, on the lofty Ben- More,
A sight which they never had seen before,
A belt of blue lightning around it was driven,
And its crown was encircled by morion of heaven ;
And they heard a herald that loud did cry,
" Prepare the way for the Abbot of I !"

Then a sound arose, they knew not where,
It came from the sea, or it came from the air,
'Twas louder than tempest that ever blew,
And the sea-fowls screamed, and in terror flew ;
Some ran to the cords, some kneeled at the shrine,
But all the wild elements seemed to combine ;
'Twas just but one moment of stir and commotion,
And down went the ship like a bird of the ocean !

This moment she sailed all stately and fair,
The next, nor ship nor shadow was there,
But a boil that arose from the deep below.
A mountain gurgling column of snow ;
It sunk away with a murmuring moan —
The sea is calm, and the sinners are gone.