Peace to their shades! the pure Culdees
Were Albyn's earliest priests of God,
Ere yet an island of her seas

By foot of Saxon monk was trode,

Long ere her churchmen by bigotry
Were barr'd from holy wedlock's tie.

"Twas then that Aodh, famed afar,

In Iona preach'd the word with power,

And Reullura, beauty's star,

Was the partner of his bower.

they were not enemies to Episcopacy;-but that they were not slavishly subjected to Rome like the clergy of later periods, appears by their resisting the Papal ordonnances respecting the celibacy of religious men, on which account they were ultimately displaced by the Scottish sovereigns to make way for more Popish canons.

But, Aodh, the roof lies low,

And the thistle-down waves bleaching,

And the bat flits to and fro

Where the Gael once heard thy preaching;

And fall'n is each column'd isle

Where the chiefs and the people knelt.

'Twas near that temple's goodly pile

That honour'd of men they dwelt.

For Aodh was wise in the sacred law,

And bright Reullura's eyes oft saw

The veil of fate uplifted.

Alas, with what visions of awe

Her soul in that hour was gifted—

When pale in the temple and faint,

With Aodh she stood alone

By the statue of an aged Saint!

Fair sculptured was the stone, It bore a crucifix;

Fame said it once had graced

A Christian temple, which the Picts
In the Britons' land laid waste:

The Pictish men, by St. Columb taught,
Had hither the holy relic brought.

Reullura eyed the statue's face,

And cried," It is, he shall come,

"Even he in this very place,

"To avenge my martyrdom.

"For, woe to the Gael people!

"Ulvfagre is on the main,

"And Iona shall look from tower and steeple

"On the coming ships of the Dane;

"And, dames and daughters, shall all

"With the spoiler's grasp entwine?

your locks

"No! some shall have shelter in caves and rocks,

"And the deep sea shall be mine.

"Baffled by me shall the Dane return,

" And here shall his torch in the temple burn,

"Until that holy man shall plough

"Ah! knowest thou not, my bride,"

The holy Aodh said,

"That the Saint whose form we stand beside

Has for ages slept with the dead?”

"He liveth, he liveth," she said again,

"He sits by the graves of well-loved friends "That died ere thy grandsire's grandsire's birth; "The oak is decay'd with old age on earth, "Whose acorn-seed had been planted by him;

"And his parents remember the day of dread "When the sun on the cross look'd dim,

"And the graves gave up their dead.

"Yet preaching from clime to clime,

"He hath roam'd the earth for ages,

"And hither he shall come in time

"When the wrath of the heathen rages,