Wanderings in Ireland

by Michael Myers Shoemaker

This is evidently the haven where we would be, this holy Isle of Innisfallen, but it is some time before I am willing to break the brooding silence by any movement. The long drooping boughs of the trees trail gently to and fro across the boat and parting now and then give glimpses of the chapel of St. Finian the leper, but it is so in ruins, and it and its saint belongs so to the very long ago, that to-day it is like a thought in a dream.

As I wander off through the underwood shaded by giant ash the spirits of the dead monks seem all around me. The path leads to the grave of the abbot, so long dead that a huge tree growing from his ashes has encircled his tombstone with its very roots. He lived—but let this poem tell his story.

"Augustine, Abbot of Innisfallen, stood
In the abbey gardens at eventide,
And prayed in the hush and solitude
That his spirit might be more sanctified.
He blessed the hills, and fields, and river,
He blessed the shamrock sod;
While he asked the great and glorious giver
For a closer walk with God.
In that twilight hour came tumbling down
The song of a bird, so sweet and clear
That away from the abbey of Innisfallen and town,
The abbot followed, that he might hear;
Followed until, in a dim old wood,
Where the sweetness of song filled all the place
It paused and made glad the solitude,
With its joyous notes of strength and grace,

And the heart of the holy abbot plead
That the world might hear it and understand,
And he turned to the cloister near at hand.
Strange were the voices of prayer and praise,
And the faces were all unknown;
Gone were the monks of the older days,
Augustine, the abbot, stood alone.
'Where is Sacristan Michael, my son?'
In a faltering voice, the abbot asked;
'Is Malachi's pater noster done,
Has his strength been overtasked?'
The monks drew near to the aged man,
And told their beads with trembling hands,
As they heard that the stranger worn and wan
Was Augustine head of their house and lands.
'Two hundred years have gone,' they cried,
'Since rent was his temple's veil
Two hundred years since the good man died
And the Saxon rules over Innisfail;
No harp now of his countrie's weal
Sings loud in the house of O'Conner,
Gone is Tara's hall to the great O'Neill;
There is nothing left but honour.'
'Absolve me,' Augustine softly said,
'For mine hour is close at hand,
To rejoin the brethren who have fled
To the refuge found in a better land.
I soon shall hear the singing
That is clearer and sweeter still
Than the echo of heaven ringing
In the woods beyond the hill.
I shall soon be where a thousand years
Are as a day to the pure and true
To whom life was long with its cares and pains

Though its numbered years were few.'
They tell that legend far and wide
From Clonmines to Loch Neagh,
From Holy Cross to Dundalk Tide
From Antrim to Galway."

It is said that Innisfallen may not be put to profane uses, that early in the last century its owner commanded that it be cultivated, but when the work was begun the air at once became filled with millions of white birds, whose beating wings drove the men forth and away, leaving the isle sacred and unprofaned, and the abbot and his brethren to their dreamless slumbers, and so the years glide by.

As I pause to-day by the abbot's grave, its great tree rises above with arms extended, as though in final benediction, the grasses are spangled with millions of daisies, and the warm air is again, as in his day, full of the song of birds, and unless I desire a sleep of centuries it may be as well to return to the world of to-day.

The boy in the boat awakes with a yawn, and smilingly moves the boat off and away farther and farther until the Holy Isle seems to detach itself from the shimmering waters and to float cloudlike slowly heavenward.

How little the casual tourist ever sees of any land, especially of Ireland,—a day or two at Killarney, an hour at Blarney, some time waiting to hear Shandon bells, then a rush to Dublin and the Causeway, and they leave the island with a shrug of the shoulders and a belief that there is little to see. But wander into the byways, linger in the lost corners and talk to these people, and every moment will be of some sort of interest,—the tears and sadness will pull your very heartstrings one moment and laughter and fun will bubble all around you in a mad frolic an hour later. You may hear the wild songs of the mountains, or the wilder wailing for the dead, and the clouds will drift far overhead, as though in mourning for their sorrows, then the sunlight will follow after, sparkling, as though in laughter. Some of the inns will be neat and comfortable, whilst others will turn out like that horror of a hotel in Galway.