"Oh! Father, send not hence my bark,
Thro' wintry winds and billows dark:
I come with humble heart to share
Thy morn and evening prayer;
Nor mine the feet, oh! holy Saint,
The brightness of thy sod to taint."
The Lady's prayer Senanus spurned;
The winds blew fresh, the bark returned;
But legends hint, that had the maid
Till morning's light delayed,
And given the saint one rosy smile,
She ne'er had left his lonely isle.
[1] In a metrical life of St. Senanus, which is taken from an old Kilkenny
MS., and may be found among the "_Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae_," we are told
of his flight to the island of Scattery, and his resolution not to admit
any woman of the party; he refused to receive even a sister saint, St.
Cannera, whom an angel had taken to the island for the express purpose of
introducing her to him.