41653: St Colm’s: Deserted in the noon-time’s shimmering, pouring sun
A poem by Derick Thomson, Professor Emeritus, Glasgow University, whose mother, (Tineag Aonghais Alasdair) came from Keose. It describes a visit to St. Colm’s Isle, probably in the 1960s. See also the Gaelic version.
Deserted in the noon-time’s shimmering, pouring sun,
Your hillsides stained with heather and with fern,
The moss and peat-mould of your glen, your meadow grass,
The rich bright field and comyard of the saints.
The nettles multiply beside your rain-washed stones,
Showering their autumn seeds over the slabs;
Where once upstanding lads joined in the song,
The never-bending iris now grows tall.
The grunting sheep have drowned the chanted psalms
Long since; the fiddler still, broken it’s bow;
The brown mare’s fodder eaten by the winds,
And Murchadh Mor a cypher in his kist.
The orchard starred, the green field fallow now,
A re-created desert in God’s place,
You were the seagulls land when time began,
And still the seagull hangs from its own wings.
Details
- Record Type:
- Gaelic Verse
- Date:
- 1960
- Record Maintained by:
- CEP
Related Media
St Colms, outbuildings