“Oh give to me this darling child,
And take my purse of gold.”
“Nay, not by me,” her master said,
“Shall sweet Kathleen be sold.
“We loved her in the place of one
The Lord hath early ta’en;
But, since her heart’s in Ireland,
We give her back again!”
Oh, for that same the saints in heaven
For his poor soul shall pray,
And Mary Mother wash with tears
His heresies away.
Sure now they dwell in Ireland;
As you go up Claremore
Ye’ll see their castle looking down
The pleasant Galway shore.
And the old lord’s wife is dead and gone,
And a happy man is he,
For he sits beside his own Kathleen,
With her darling on his knee.
1849.
Pennant, in his Voyage to the Hebrides, describes
the holy well of Loch Maree, the waters of which were
supposed to effect a miraculous cure of melancholy,
trouble, and insanity.
Calm on the breast of Loch Maree
A little isle reposes;
A shadow woven of the oak
And willow o’er it closes.
Within, a Druid’s mound is seen,
Set round with stony warders;
A fountain, gushing through the turf,
Flows o’er its grassy borders.
And whoso bathes therein his brow,
With care or madness burning,
Feels once again his healthful thought
And sense of peace returning.
O restless heart and fevered brain,
Unquiet and unstable,
That holy well of Loch Maree
Is more than idle fable!
Life’s changes vex, its discords stun,
Its glaring sunshine blindeth,
And blest is he who on his way
That fount of healing findeth!
The shadows of a humbled will
And contrite heart are o’er it;
Go read its legend, “Trust in god,”
On Faith’s white stones before it.
1850.
The incident upon which this poem is based is related
in a note to Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre’s
Etudes de la Nature. “We arrived at the
habitation of the Hermits a little before they sat
down to their table, and while they were still at
church. J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to offer
up our devotions. The hermits were reciting the
Litanies of Providence, which are remarkably beautiful.
After we had addressed our prayers to God, and the
hermits were proceeding to the refectory, Rousseau
said to me, with his heart overflowing, ’At this
moment I experience what is said in the gospel:
Where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them. There is here
a feeling of peace and happiness which penetrates
the soul.’ I said, ’If Finelon had
lived, you would have been a Catholic.’
He exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, ’Oh, if
Finelon were alive, I would struggle to get into his
service, even as a lackey!’” In my sketch
