tle cell,
O living God that art in Heaven above,
Woe to him who violates it!

Beloved are Durrow and Derry,
Beloved is Raphoe with purity,
Beloved Drumhome with its sweet acorns,
Beloved are Swords and Kells!

Beloved also to my heart in the West
Drumcliff on Culcinne's strand:
To gaze upon fair Loch Foyle--
The shape of its shores is delightful.

Delightful it is,
The deep-red ocean where the sea-gulls cry,
As I come from Derry afar,
It is peaceful and it is delightful.

ON ANGUS THE CULDEE (+ ca. 830)

Delightful to sit here thus
By the side of the cold pure Nore:
Though it was frequented, it was never a path o raids
In glorious Disert Bethech.[27]

Disert Bethech, where dwelt the man
Whom hosts of angels were wont to visit;
A pious cloister behind a circle of crosses,
Where Angus son of Oivlen used to be.

Angus from the assembly of Heaven,
Here are his tomb and his grave:
'Tis hence he went to death,
On a Friday, to holy Heaven.

'Tis in Clonenagh he was reared,
In Clonenagh he was buried:
In Clonenagh of many crosses
He first read his psalms.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 27: 'Beechen Hermitage.']

COLUM CILLE THE SCRIBE

My hand is weary with writing,
My sharp quill is not steady,
My slender-beaked pen juts forth
A black draught of shining dark-blue ink.

A stream of the wisdom of blessed God
Springs from my fair-brown shapely hand:
On the page it squirts its draught
Of ink of the green-skinned holly.

My little dripping pen travels
Across the plain of shining books,
Without ceasing for the wealth of the great--
Whence my hand is weary with writing.

THE LAMENT OF THE OLD WOMAN OF BEARE

The reason why she was called the Old Woman of Beare was
that she had fifty foster-children in Beare. She had seven
periods of youth one after another, so that every man who
had lived with her came to die of old age, and her grandsons
and great-grandsons were tribes and races. For a hundred
years she wore the veil which Cummin had blessed upon her
head. Thereupon old age and infirmity came to her. 'Tis then
she said:

Ebb-tide to me as of the sea!
Old age causes me reproach.
Though I may grieve thereat--
Happiness comes out of fat.

I am the Old Woman of Beare,
An ever-new smock I