DARLUGDACHAA Little Schoolgirl of St. Brigid(Circa A.D. 490)
A Little Schoolgirl of St. Brigid
(Circa A.D. 490)
Across the plain, in the twilight, rode Flann with his noble guest-friends by his side, and his hunting train behind him. They had hunted all day in the woods to the south of the plain—on foot, as the old Irish custom was, while their horses grazed free in the forest glades, and the gillies guarded their masters’ trappings. Now, weary of limb themselves, they were astride their fresh steeds, and the miles that lay between them and the banqueting hall within the white Dún above the Liffey were miles of soft, springy turf. Even the trappers felt their heavy burdens light, as their feet touched it. They raced in time to thejoyous concert of the beagles, and the tinkling of the horse-bells—every man of them with his great wolf-dog at his side.
The red sunset filled the West, and, in the glow of it, splendid mantles—purple and yellow, and green, and red—were yet more splendid. Gleams of fire were struck from great jewelled brooches, from the gold on bits and bridles, from richly-wrought horse-cloths. Flann himself, a glowing splendid figure, rode at the head of that splendid company, the pride of life in his heart, and crowning his haughtily carried head.
They came to a point from which a great oak tree was visible. It seemed to Flann, all at once, as if another hand than his were laid on the bridle, and his horse were being urged out of its straight course for the home stable. He lifted his echlasc,[1]and with it tried to turn the horse’s head back again. But in vain. One way only the horse would go, and that was towards the great oak tree, which spread a wide dark net against the red background of the sunset.
“Let it thus be,” said Flann, yielding. “Let us lay the wolf’s head at the holy maiden’s feet, that she may know how her cattle may henceforth graze in peace.” He called out the word to his followers, andpresently they were all—horsemen, and runners, and dogs—thundering across the turf due westward.
They came to the door of the Lios, which surrounded the cells of the holy maiden, Brigid, and her companions. “Knock loudly,” cried Flann; and a gillie stooped and found the knocker in a niche by the door, and struck the wood heavily with it.
The sound of the sliding bolt followed speedily. The door opened, and a white figure stood framed in the door-porch.
“Prince Flann,” said a woman’s clear voice, with a note of wonder in it, “a blessing on thee and on thy company. Is it aught of ill befallen Etain, thy wife, which brings thee so late to the door of Brigid’s cell?”
Flann shouted a word back to the Cuchairi,[2]and one of them came forward, a tall man in a rough, frieze mantle, and laid a dead wolf at the nun’s feet.
“This is what brings us to Brigid’s cell, so far out of our way,” said Flann, pointing with jewelled “echlasc” to the gaunt, stark figure, stretched on the grass before the immdorus.[3]“Now, oh! Blathnata, may the flocks of Brigid, and you her sisters, graze in peace.”
He met the eyes of the little pale nun, and found them fixed on him with a strange compassion. The red of the sunset had suddenly faded from the sky, and a quick fear clutched his heart as the chill, grey shadows followed it. What word was that Blathnata had spoken of an ill that may have befallen Etain, his wife?
His gaze went past the slim, white figure in the immdorus. Behind her he could see, over the darkling lawn, the pale glimmer of the little lime-washed wattle cells, where Brigid and her sisters dwelt. The oak tree was stirring with a queer moaning sound, and the voice of the brook that ran past it, and out under the Lios into the plain, held a sob. Then suddenly the smell of wet grass and running water was lost in the acrid smell of blood. The spear-wound in the wolf’s heart was bleeding again.
Prince Flann could feel beneath him how his horse was trembling in every limb. From behind came the nervous neighing of steeds, the soothing words of the riders, the frightened yelp of a dog, suddenly silenced. Then a burst of music came floating out from over the Lios—and horses and dogs quieted. Flann looked again, and saw the windows of the little wooden church, where the holy virgins were gathered for thevesper hymn, streaming with a faint but steady light.
How was it that Flann could only hear in the vesper music wherewith the Church, the kind Mother, soothes and comforts her tired and frightened children, before the coming of the darkness, the echoes of the death-song of Cineal Cearbhail? How was it that the lights of the Church burned before him like corpse-candles? Not he alone of that splendid company felt the joy and pride of life yield to an eerie sense of inevitable death.
“Must we wait until her evening prayer is ended, before we may speak with Brigid?” said Flann at last, mastering himself with a strong effort.
It was too dark to see the expression of Blathnata’s face. But the tone of her voice made the fear that was clutching at Flann’s heart take a tighter grip. “Our Mother knew (by what means I may not say) that Etain, thy wife, had need of her. Nathfraich, the charioteer, drove her over the plain, to-day, to thy Dún by the Liffey, and there she yet bides.”
What a ride was that over the plain in the darkness when the sun had burned itself out of the sky, and the world was black with its ashes. Never a word had Flann spokensince he turned his horse away from the door of Brigid’s Lios. Never once did he lift his head from his breast, until the neighing of his horse made him conscious of the scent of river-water. Then he looked, as his habit was, for the lights of his Dún, and saw them laid like a crown of jewels on the brow of the hill.
But what lights were they? Small need to ask that question when the wailing of women came to him already over the glimmering white palisade, towards which he and his company were climbing.
He was off his horse before a gillie could come to him. He had no thought of his guests as he hurried past the banqueting-hall, where their shields hung in order above the spread tables. Their feet had hardly touched the ground, when he had climbed the outer staircase which led to the grianan—and saw what it held for him.
In the centre of it, on a rich couch of beaten bronze, lay the white form of a girl. The little golden head was pressed deep into the thick deerskin cushion. On the breast, beneath the delicate white hands, joined for the supreme prayer, the fold of the embroidered coverlet was ominously still. The light of tall wax candles, grouped aroundthe couch, fell on the chiselled beauty of a high-bred white, young face.
Around the circular, tapestry-covered walls women were seated, making lament for the passing away of so much beauty, and love, and youth. “It is low your yellow head lies to-night, oh, Etain of the golden locks, you that were wont to hold it high at the Feastings of Kings and Heroes, when poets sang the high deeds of Flann, your Lord. It is cold and still your hands are, that were wont to be stretched out for the relieving of the wants of the stranger, and the poor; for the pouring out of wine for guests; for the rewarding of learned men, and men of valour. No colder and stiller than your heart, that was once warm with the noble blood of the race of Con! Ochone! Ochone! for the cold, still heart that can never feel the warmth of the little child nestling against it.”
The “keeners” were suddenly silent—for a cry more heartrending than theirs was filling the death-chamber. It was the cry of a little motherless baby. A tall woman, dressed from head to foot in spotless white, with a white veil thrown over her long, dark hair, had entered the room, and, coming straight to where Flann knelt by the couchof his dead wife, she stooped and tried to lay in his empty arms, what she was carrying in the shelter of her white mantle.
“See, Prince Flann,” she said, “what Etain, thy wife, has left thee for thy consolation until the day comes when she may stretch out her hands to thee again—and welcome thee home for ever.”
But Flann would not lift his face. “Take it away, oh! Brigid!” he said, “and let me not look on that which has cost me the loss of my one treasure. Let the God you serve keep the child, and give me back Etain, my wife.”
There was a moment’s silence, for Brigid had the child anew in the folds of her mantle, and its cries had ceased. Then there came a deep groan, followed by a sudden, horrified cry from the women. Brigid knelt down quickly, the child in her arms, and lifted one of the hands, which Flann had flung in his passion of despair across the dead body of his wife. Heavy as lead it dropped from her grasp. It was the hand of a dead man.
She rose then, the sorrow of the world darkening her grey eyes. “Methinks the wish of Flann has been fulfilled,” she said. “Now he stands with Etain, his wife—and their little child shall be consecrate to God.”
So in the folds of Brigid’s white mantle, the little orphan maiden, Darlugdacha, found shelter; and the first home she knew was the white-washed hut of wattles and clay in the shadow of the great oak tree of the Plain of Kildare.
Very warm was the nest they made for her—the holy maidens, who were Brigid’s companions. Dear gentle Daria, the blind nun, wove a cradle of osiers, and Blathnata filled a deer-skin with downy feathers to lay in it. Kinnia spun fine linen for it; and Brigid, herself, took the wool of the whitest lamb in her flock, and spun and wove it into warm, soft coverlets. When the sisters were gathered with spindle, and distaff, and needle on the lawn, the little cradle stood in the midst of them, protected from the damp grass by the wolf-skin, which had been Flann’s last offering. But it was so contrived that it could be hung, also, from a branch of the tree. So, as the little green leaves began to peep out on the oak tree, they found among their green company something that they might well have taken for a beautiful, rosy blossom.And it was the little child in her cradle.
At night the cradle was hung from the feici[4]in Brigid’s cell, a dim lamp swaying from the opposite end. And when the dawn came, and Brigid set wide the door to let it in, there was always standing by the threshold her own snow-white pet doe, waiting to give her milk to feed her tiny nursling.
The months passed quickly, and at last the little maiden had climbed out of the cradle, and was learning to take her first faltering steps. Blind Daria, with her deft hands, had fashioned the quaintest garments for her. They were of undyed lambs’-wool, and made in the same fashion that the holy maidens, themselves, had chosen. There was a white mantle, too; and on the curly, baby head, was set a snow-white veil.
But not in dress alone was Darlugdacha a little nun. Very early, like all healthy little girls, she insisted on taking an active part in the life she saw around her. There was one beautiful night when Brigid and her companions were gathered in the Church for the Second Nocturn. The lamps were swaying from the ridge-pole, and in the dim light of them the nuns weresinging from psalters of their own copying the appointed psalms. All but blind Daria, who needed no psalter and no lamp-light.
All at once the blind nun’s quick ear caught a sound at the barred door. Very softly she stole from her place and set it open. There was Darlugdacha, with her white tunic all stained with mud, her rosy face all stained with tears, and her baby hands all hurt with beating at the door. Sightless Daria couldseethese things, as she stooped and gathered the forlorn little figure into her arms. Presently, she was back in her place again, with Darlugdacha’s head on her shoulder, and Darlugdacha singing her own version of the psalms after her, in the sweetest baby voice. But, long before the Office was ended, Darlugdacha was sound asleep.
After that night, Daria would always slip into the Abbess’ hut before she took her own place in the church, and, if the child seemed restless, she would wrap her up warmly in her own mantle and carry her with her. So Darlugdacha early took her part in the “Magnum Opus,” and the earliest words her tongue uttered were the praises of God. The music of the psaltery was her most frequent lullaby.
She was welcome everywhere, and in no place whithersoever her little pattering feet led her, did she find her help, however embarrassing to the recipient, disdained. Even when there were guests in the guest-house, and Blathnata, the cook, was very busy in the kitchen, Darlugdacha could enter that domain fearlessly, and, as Blathnata soon found out, could make herself astonishingly useful. The kitchen was a little round hut, which stood by itself behind the other cells. A fire of wood burned in the middle of it, the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. It was always a joy to Darlugdacha when Blathnata swung the beautiful shining cauldron over the flames, and the cheerful simmering of the meat within filled the little hut with sound. She was very proud of herself when she was, at last, permitted to go near enough to the fire to turn the fish, or joints, that were roasting on spits of pointed hazel rods round the fire, and proudest of all, when Blathnata showed her how to baste them with honey. She was very young, indeed, when she cooked her first dish of Craibhacan, chopping the meat fine, and flavouring it with leeks, and kale, and rowan berries. Nathfraich, the charioteer, won her heart by making for her a tinykneading trough, and a sieve with a whale-bone bottom, and he secured it for ever by manfully eating to the last crumb the first cake she baked with these utensils. Kinnia said, as she and Blathnata were carrying water one day from the covered well in the dairy to the kitchen, and Darlugdacha was trotting along by their side (her hand on one of the handles of the pail, as if she had the whole weight of it herself), that, for her part, she would rather eat a woman’s ration than a man’s ration of Darlugdacha’s baking. But when she saw Darlugdacha, presently, with one of Blathnata’s cooking-aprons on her (so as to save her white tunic), scrubbing away very busily at Blathnata’s wooden vessels, the little woman looked so sweet, that Kinnia told herself she would eat a whole cake, if it were necessary, to please her.
There was never such a busy little girl. When work was slack in the kitchen, there was the dairy to keep her in occupation. Brigid herself loved the dairy, and, mindful of her own young days, gave Darlugdacha the freedom of it early. In the delicious dawn-hour, when the sisters, one and all, went out to the milking, there was never a happier young thing, whether among the lambs, or the birds, or the flowers,than the tiny white maiden who trotted between Brigid and Daria, with each hand in one of theirs, laughing back at Kinnia and Blathnata, who carried the wooden milking vessels between them. She knew each of the cows by name, and she would call them out in her clear voice the moment she passed out of the door of the Lios, and came in sight of the “badhun” (bawn,lit.cow-fort), into which the cattle were driven each night for safety. And when the gate of the badhun was reached, there they were waiting for her—Bainidhe and Breacaidhe, and Sgead and Riabhac, and all the others, lowing in answer. And the sound of their bells put the birds on the tops of the apple-trees of the Lios, to shame.
It happened, however, one morning, that when Darlugdacha got to the gate of the badhun, she found among the waiting, lowing herd, no Bainidhe—the little white cow with the red ears, which was her special pet. It seemed that two lepers had come to Brigid the day before, and the sight of their miserable condition so prevailed with the compassionate Abbess that she promised to give them the best cow in her byre, leaving the choice to them. Of course, it naturally fell on Bainidhe.
Darlugdacha’s soft little heart was tornby two emotions when she heard the explanation of Bainidhe’s absence. She was dreadfully sorry, to be sure, for the poor lepers, whom she had learned to pray for night and morning. But, I fear me, she was far more sorry for Bainidhe, driven away from her nice, juicy pasturage, and the fragrant breath, and the lowing of her companions, and the warm shelter of the badhun—and the stroking of a little girl’s soft hand.
It was the turn of Brigid herself, that day, to drive the cows, after milking, from the badhun, and herd them in the Curragh. Usually, Darlugdacha would be out of herself with delight when it was proposed, as it was now, that she should go with her. But to-day it was clear that the delights of a day with the dear mother, all to herself, in the glorious plain, were overshadowed by the loss of Bainidhe. So Brigid told Kinnia to take Darlugdacha back with her to the dairy, and let her help to skim the cream, and stand as near as ever she liked to the cuinneog (churn), when the loinid (churn-dash) was beating the white milk-waves into flying froth—which, on ordinary occasions, was not considered a suitable place for a little girl, who had a white tunic to keep clean.
It took her some time before she was her cheerful little self again. Even the pat of butter Kinnia gave her to stamp failed to bring her consolation. But a good drenching in buttermilk froth helped her wonderfully; and when Kinnia (who, I am afraid, was not guiltless in the matter of that drenching) had wiped the small, rosy face dry again, she felt inclined to give credence to Kinnia’s expressed faith that she would see Bainidhe again before very long.
A greater number of poor came that day to the gate than usual. Darlugdacha was kept very busy helping Kinnia to attend to their wants. Here a poor woman wanted milk for her sick son; there a crippled girl had come for butter; for a poor man with a large family there was a great loaf of bread, with cheese and bacon, and a measure of milk. Now, as Darlugdacha flew from the kitchen to the dairy, and thence to the gate, she seemed to have in her ears all the time the lowing of Bainidhe. At last, towards evening, when all the other poor had departed, there came a great knocking with the “bas-chrannidhe” at the door; and when Kinnia and Darlugdacha went to open it, what should they find before them but the two lepers of the day before—and Bainidhe.
They had not been able to drive Bainidhe a single step beyond a certain point in the plain, well within sight of the Oak Tree. And so they had come back to ask Brigid to help them again.
Happy Darlugdacha, her small arms round Bainidhe’s white neck, her small hand alternately stroking Bainidhe’s nose, or pulling her red ear, was welcoming her restored darling, while Bainidhe was lowing with contentment, and trying to tell how clever she had been, and Kinnia was away with Blathnata in the kitchen, preparing a comfortable meal for the two poor lepers. At that moment the tinkling of cow-bells was heard, and Brigid came in sight, driving her cattle across the plain.
The lepers could not await her coming. They were off to meet her like two flashes of lightning. And presently, over the lowing of the cattle and the tinkling of the cow-bells, and the joyous barking of the “cubuachaill” (i.e., “dog-cowherd,” sheep-dog), Darlugdacha could hear their hoarse voices telling Brigid their story.
Then, quite suddenly, the tinkling of a cow-bell was heard from another direction, and a man was seen coming from the North driving a cow before him.
Darlugdacha left off stroking Bainidhefor a moment, and waited to see what would happen.
Brigid and the lepers andhercows came up with the stranger andhiscow just at the Lios gate.
“My Master has sent this cow to thee as a gift,” said the man, and put an end of the halter that was round the cow’s neck in Brigid’s hand. With that he was off again.
Brigid looked at the cow which she held haltered, and then at the one Darlugdacha was stroking. And Darlugdacha looked at the new cow, and then at Bainidhe, and then back again.The two cows were exactly alike.
“MethinksmyMaster has sent this cow to you, poor men,” said Brigid, “instead of the one that would not go with you.” She put the halter into the hands of the two lepers; and when Kinnia and Blathnata had given them food, they drove off their new cow contentedly.
Since they did not come back for a long long time, I feel sure that the second cow must have gone with them obediently. As for Bainidhe, she was driven with her other companions into the badhun, and Darlugdacha stood very close to her, while Brigid herself milked her.
In those days, when the ideal of education was the direct preparation of the child for the duties which his future station in life was likely to lay on him, the law itself took cognisance of the necessity of training girls in the arts of household management. “The use of the quern, and the kneading trough, and the use of the sieve are to be taught to their daughters” says theSenchus Mórto Foster Parents in one place; and, again, to those who foster the children of Chieftains, “sewing, and cutting-out, and embroidery are to be taught to their daughters.”
You may be sure then that Darlugdacha (whom Brigid held in fosterage for the High King of Heaven Himself) was early trained in the use of the spindle, and the distaff, and the needle. In the quiet evenings of the tender Irish summer-time, when the nuns sat on the lawn under the shadow of the great oak, and Brigid, her poet’s soul stirred to the depths by the beauty of the world around her, was thinking, with pity, of Daria’s blindness, a little girl could be seen making a very brave attempt to imitate whatever she saw Kinnia, and Daria, and Blathnata, and Brigid herself do. It was Daria’s task to comb the wool. She drew it out in handfuls from the bag at herfeet, and combed it with a pair of “cards” until it was fit for spinning. Then she turned it over to Blathnata, who wound it first loosely on the cuigeal (distaff), and then, dexterously, spun it on to the spindle. Kinnia was kept busy with her bronze needle and ball of wool, fashioning garments for the sisters themselves, or for the many poor who depended on them. And, while Brigid’s clever artist-fingers are copying on some beautiful ecclesiastical garment, with many coloured, precious threads, the design stamped on the leather pattern she holds before her, let us, whose fashionable pedagogy lays so much stress on “Object Lessons,” think how fortunate Darlugdacha is. There is not a process, from the sowing of the flax-seed to the making up of the linen altar-cloth, that she has not witnessed with her own eyes. She has been able to follow, step by step, the evolution of the woollen garment which Kinnia is fashioning—from the shearing of the sheep onward.
In the winter evenings the sisters sat in the loom-house, and wove the flaxen and woollen yarn they had prepared during the summer into linen and cloth. Darlugdacha loved to sit by, in the light of the rush candles, and watch the shuttle being flungback and forth. But something more precious was being woven during these hours than the web on the loom; and many a wonderful old story, many a gracious thought, many a poem, and many a prayer, were being patterned into the weaving of it. The old Irish, a people courteous and sociable, held no one cultured who could not “talk” well. Story-telling, as a great test of education and good breeding, was the accomplishment they valued most. Little Darlugdacha, who was set aside to be the bride of the King of Kings, was in the thought of those who fostered her to get the culture of a Princess. Can you picture her, a little white girl, sitting very close to her dear mother, telling, when the turn for a tale comes to her, some story she has been taught concerning the ancient days and ways in Erinn? Very sweetly and gravely the clear, treble voice carries the tale. Do you notice how pleasant is its “timbre,” how very expressive its inflections, how charming and musical its modulations? There is no instrument from which better effects can be obtained than the human “speaking” voice; and do they not do well, in this ancient Ireland, to which we have slipped back in search of our Darlugdacha, to devote great care to its cultivation? Itis true they are fortunate in having in this language they speak, rich in sounds, full of delicately-shaded endings, a marvellous exerciser. And have we nothing to learn from Darlugdacha’s teachers?
We have still other things to learn from Darlugdacha’s teachers. Those story-telling lessons held many lessons in one. In a highly inflected language, like Old Irish, to learn to tell a continuous tale was to undergo, among other things, a thorough drill in Grammar. The material of the tale was a storehouse of instruction in History and Geography. The Memory-training, which we try to combine with an awakening of the aesthetic faculties when we prescribe the memorising of poetry for our youngsters, was admirably acquired by the same means. As for “Education,” there was Character-training in those old tales that set the heart beating for noble deeds, nobly done. Character-training, too, in the reasoned patriotism they taught by showing why Ireland was a country to be loved, and how to love her. Courtesy and Dignity ever hovered before the apprentice story-teller as the ideal to be striven for. Courtesy demanded the best of him, that it might be offered to his neighbour for his neighbour’s pleasure. Dignity and Self-respectdemanded the best of him, that it might be worthy of himself.
You must not go away with the idea, however, that Darlugdacha’s “Instruction” was all gained by learning to re-tell the old tales. She had her reading and writing lessons, too. I like to think that the same method was adopted with her to make her learn her letters, as was found efficacious with Saint Columbkille. Perhaps Blathnata made a cake for her—a nice cake with plenty of honey in it—and traced the alphabet on the top of it. As Darlugdacha learned to know the letters, she could make her very own of them, you see, by eating them. It may have required more than one cake to make the process of instruction complete. No matter how many were needed, I am sure Blathnata did not spare them.
At last, Darlugdacha had got beyond her alphabet cakes, and was all afire to get helping the sisters to copy the psalter. Cilldara was a small place in those days, and had no “Teach Screptra.”[5]But the books hung in their leathern satchels from hooks along the walls of the Erdam (or Sacristy) that opened off the little Church. Hither came the nuns in turn to help to make the new copies, of which the Abbess had constant need tobestow in alms on poor churches. Two or three other virgins had joined the community since Darlugdacha’s coming; and one of them, the daughter of a scribe, was particularly skilful at the work. Darlugdacha was fascinated by it. She would stand for hours at a time watching the clever pen go delicately over the vellum—and longing for the day when she, too, would sit at a desk with a quill in her right hand, and a knife in her left to keep it pointed, with her conical ink-cup fastened to her chair-arm—a fully-equipped scribe. In the meantime, she was forced to content herself with her fan-shaped, waxed tablets, on which she practised copying with a metal “style.” When the wax surface was used up, she rubbed it smooth, and began over again. Thus the little hands grew sure and steady—and, at last, one day, on an old piece of vellum, they tried their skill with the pen.
Down across the ages, from those exquisite days, fresh and beautiful as the summer dawn, there has come to us a poem of Brigid’s. It sets us in the midst of the preparations for a great Church Festival, where the Guest of Honour was to be One Who, indeed, was never absent from the midst of the white band of women whom theOak Tree sheltered. For, was not every act of theirs a prayer? And were they not gathered together in His name? And hath He not made a promise? Nevertheless, it is fitting that, at Easter time His Resurrection be honoured, and the poor and the afflicted, His chosen representatives, be made joyful. So as the paschal moon gets nearer and nearer to its white perfecting in the East, the little hive beneath the Oak Tree grows busier. There is ale to be brewed for the faithful who shall attend the Celebration of the Passion in the neighbouring churches. There is corn to be ground in the querns, to be ready for baking into paschal cakes, or dealt out to the needy. There are candles for the altar to be made of virgin wax from the bee-hives in the nuns’ scented garden. There is store of meat to be salted and cooked for the banqueting table, spread for the poor. In the little wooden Church, blind Daria, the sacristan, is laying out her choicest vestments, taking from their places of safety the precious vessels. The altar linen, snowy from the brook, stands ready. Around His Throne are flowers and fragrant herbs.
And little Darlugdacha is flitting, like a white bird, in the midst of it all, singing Brigid’s hymn—finding, in all this preparation,its mystic significance, learning the reading of the Riddle of Life:—
I should like a great lake of aleFor the King of the Kings;I should like the family of HeavenTo be drinking it through time eternal.I should like the viandsOf belief and pure piety;I should like flailsOf penance at my house.I should like the men of HeavenIn my own house.I should like kievesOf peace to be at their disposal.I should like vesselsOf charity for distribution;I should like cavesOf mercy for their company.I should like cheerfulnessTo be in their drinking;I should like JesusHere to be among them.I should like the threeMarys of illustrious renown;I should like the peopleOf Heaven, there from all parts.I should like that I should beA rent-payer to the Lord;That should I suffer distress,He would bestow upon me a good blessing.
I should like a great lake of aleFor the King of the Kings;I should like the family of HeavenTo be drinking it through time eternal.I should like the viandsOf belief and pure piety;I should like flailsOf penance at my house.I should like the men of HeavenIn my own house.I should like kievesOf peace to be at their disposal.I should like vesselsOf charity for distribution;I should like cavesOf mercy for their company.I should like cheerfulnessTo be in their drinking;I should like JesusHere to be among them.I should like the threeMarys of illustrious renown;I should like the peopleOf Heaven, there from all parts.I should like that I should beA rent-payer to the Lord;That should I suffer distress,He would bestow upon me a good blessing.
I should like a great lake of aleFor the King of the Kings;I should like the family of HeavenTo be drinking it through time eternal.I should like the viandsOf belief and pure piety;I should like flailsOf penance at my house.I should like the men of HeavenIn my own house.I should like kievesOf peace to be at their disposal.I should like vesselsOf charity for distribution;I should like cavesOf mercy for their company.I should like cheerfulnessTo be in their drinking;I should like JesusHere to be among them.I should like the threeMarys of illustrious renown;I should like the peopleOf Heaven, there from all parts.I should like that I should beA rent-payer to the Lord;That should I suffer distress,He would bestow upon me a good blessing.
I should like a great lake of ale
For the King of the Kings;
I should like the family of Heaven
To be drinking it through time eternal.
I should like the viands
Of belief and pure piety;
I should like flails
Of penance at my house.
I should like the men of Heaven
In my own house.
I should like kieves
Of peace to be at their disposal.
I should like vessels
Of charity for distribution;
I should like caves
Of mercy for their company.
I should like cheerfulness
To be in their drinking;
I should like Jesus
Here to be among them.
I should like the three
Marys of illustrious renown;
I should like the people
Of Heaven, there from all parts.
I should like that I should be
A rent-payer to the Lord;
That should I suffer distress,
He would bestow upon me a good blessing.