Page:Poetical works of Mathilde Blind.djvu/56

 30 of yore used to go in order to be healed of every kind of disease. An old fir-tree stands above it, and its bark is pierced with various coins which the people used to offer up to the spirit of the place (or rather to St. Maree, who dwelt there as an anchorite)."

Staffa and lona were the crowning-points of the authoress's pilgrimage, illustrations of the grandeur of nature and the pathos of humanity. She wrote a fine description of the sublimity of Staffa, but the spell of lona was more potent. "What a contrast are its low, grass-green shores and little coves of silver sand to the desolate grandeur of Staffa! After passing so many swart rocks and sullen shores, it is quite a relief to see the few homely fields smiling amid the ocean, these humble huts nestling by the seashore. And the cathedral that rears its grey towers on the island touches the heart with a deeper pathos than the grandest structures. Here every stone, every mouldering cross speaks of St. Columba and his devoted little band, and whatever of truth and beauty was contained in Christianity forces itself on the imagination in this lonely spot, with whose soil is mingled the dust of these ardent and heroic men. I should be inclined to call lona an Island of the Dead, for every inch of ground you tread upon almost is marked by a grave. Tombs of Scottish kings and chieftains lie in rows, with the green grass growing between them. Now and then you come upon a tall cross beautifully carved. The thick grey lichen with which they are covered enhances the solemnity of their appearance." The impressions received in this visit originated "St. Oran," a poem whose chief fascination, after all, is its suffusion with the "Celtic magic" that clings in Ireland and Scotland to lone glens and solitary isles dark with weeping skies, green with tender grass, and grey with ancient sepulchres.