Our Lady’s Mantle !⠀
When I musing stray In leafy June along the mossy sward,⠀
No flower that blooms more fixes my regard⠀
Than thy green leaf, though simple its array;⠀
For thou to me art as some minstrel’s lay,⠀
Depicting manners of the olden time,⠀
When on Inch Cailliach’s isle the convent chime⠀
Summoned to Vespers at the close of day.⠀
Tis pleasant ‘mid the never-ending strife⠀
Of this too busy, mammon-loving age,⠀
When Nature’s gentler charms so few engage,⠀
To muse at leisure on the quiet life⠀
Of earlier days, when every humble flower⠀
Was known to all, and cherished as a dower.⠀