When brilliant summer casts once more
    Her cloak of colour o’er the fields,
  Sweet-tasting marjoram, pignut, leek,
    To all who seek, her verdure yields.

  Her bright red-breasted little men
    Their lovely music then outpour,
  The thrush exults, the cuckoos all
    Around her call and call once more.

  The bees, earth’s small musicians, hum,
    No longer dumb, in gentle chorus. 
  Like echoes faint of that long plaint
    The fleeing wild-fowl murmur o’er us.

  The wren, an active songster now,
    From off the hazel-bough pipes shrill,
  Woodpeckers flock in multitudes
    With beauteous hoods and beating bill.

  With fair white birds, the crane and gull
    The fields are full, while cuckoos cry—­
  No mournful music!  Heath-poults dun
    Through russet heather sunward fly.

  The heifers now with loud delight,
    Summer bright, salute thy reign! 
  Smooth delight for toilsome loss
    ’Tis now to cross the fertile plain.

  The warblings of the wind that sweep
    From branchy wood to beaming sky,
  The river-falls, the swan’s far note—­
    Delicious music floating by.

  Earth’s bravest band because unhired,
    All day, untired make cheer for me. 
  In Christ’s own eyes of endless youth
    Can this same truth be said of thee?

  What though in Kingly pleasures now
    Beyond all riches thou rejoice,
  Content am I my Saviour good
    Should on this wood have set my choice.

  Without one hour of war or strife
    Through all my life at peace I fare;
  Where better can I keep my tryst
    With our Lord Christ, O brother Guare?

  Guare

  My glorious Kingship, yea! and all
    My Sire’s estates that fall to me,
  My Marvan, I would gladly give,
    So I might live my life with thee.

ON AENGUS THE CULDEE

Author of the Felire AEngusa or Calendar of Church Festivals.  He was a Saint, his appellation Culdee [Ceile de] meaning “Servant of God.”  He lived at the end of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century.

  Delightful here at Disert Bethel,
    By cold, pure Nore at peace to rest,
  Where noisy raids have never sullied
    The beechen forest’s virgin vest.

  For here the Angel Host would visit
    Of yore with AEngus, Oivlen’s son,
  As in his cross-ringed cell he lauded
    The One in Three, the Three in One.

  To death he passed upon a Friday,
    The day they slew our Blessed Lord. 
  Here stands his tomb; unto the Assembly
    Of Holy Heaven his soul has soared.

  ’Twas in Cloneagh he had his rearing;
    ’Tis in Cloneagh he now lies dead,
  ’Twas in Cloneagh of many crosses
    That first his psalms he read.