Where the wild sea-mew flocks and flees,
And neither winds nor skies beguile,
Foam-set amid the Irish seas
Is rugged Skellig Michael isle.
Up its escarpments, rough and grim,
To its bleak summit rimmed with moss,
The monks of old with prayer and hymn
Hewed out the weary “Way of the Cross.”
Gone are these holy toilers—gone;
They rest now in their long repose,