Bel Abbey Glen

The dear worn face of Ellan Vannin holds

For me an ever-growing loveliness.

Tender in leas and stern in wilderness,

I love it for its wrinkles and its folds.

Nature has here employed such fascinating moulds;

And little glens that shadow loneliness

Draw me, a nomad spirit, havenless,

Into their secret hollows in the wolds.

One such, concealed by Nature’s alchemy,

Threaded with but a rivulet, I saw,

And entered in to savour of its good.

It was a hallowed ground that knew no law

Save that of Nature in her gentlest mood,

Where hearts find peace and love no enemy.

 

Mona’s Herald     30.1.62