ST. SENANUS AND THE LADY.
Reading edition
ST. SENANUS.[1]
"Oh! haste and leave this sacred isle, Unholy bark, ere morning smile; For on thy deck, though dark it be, A female form I see; And I have sworn this sainted sod Shall ne'er by woman's feet be trod."
THE LADY.
"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.