| HYMN BY ST. COLUMBA.
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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.
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To look on the heaving waves,
While in their Father's ear
Music forever they chant,
Hymning the world's career.
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The level and star-bright strand
No sorrow it were to see,
And to hear the wondrous birds,
Sailing on happily.
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The thunder of crowding waves
To hear on the rocky shore.
And down by the church to hear
The sounding surges roar.
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To see the swift-flying flocks
Over the watery plain,
And, greatest of wonders all,
The monsters of the main.
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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.
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And grief would come to my heart,
While gazing to her shore,
And all the many ills I've done
I weeping would deplore.
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The Godhead then would I bless,
Him who doth all things keep,
Heaven with its orders bright untold,
And earth and shore and deep.
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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.
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Heaven's high one, the holy Chief,
My thoughts would now employ,
Anon, to work without constraint
Would be to me a joy.
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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.
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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.
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