The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere :: :: University of Virginia Library

VIII. THE ISLAND OF IONA.

Not for the tombs of old Norwegian Kings
Or Scottish, iron-mailed, and crowned at Scone:
Not for those ‘Island-Lords’ the Minstrel sings
As sang his sires in centuries past and flown;
Not for yon grassy terrace breeze-o'erblown,
Yon crags to which the storm-wrecked shepherd clings
Eying far lights on isle and mountain thrown
As though from onward-sailing Angels' wings;—
Iona! 'Tis not these that yearly draw
Thy Pilgrims hither o'er the Northern sea
And hold them there spell-bound in loving awe:
That spell, Columba, is the thought of thee!
They gaze; they muse; ‘these shores that Exile trod—
That Exile's sons gave England to her God!’

Columba, though a priest, had joined in an Irish battle. The penance imposed on him was perpetual exile from Ireland. He made Iona his abode till death, preaching on the adjacent shores. Montalembert affirms that later his Irish monks converted nearly three-quarters of Anglo-Saxon England.

The ‘Lords of the Isles.’