IV. Sweet vale of AVOCA! how calm could I rest In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best, Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease, And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace! ST. SENANUS AND THE LADY. ST. SENANUS *. "OH! haste and leave this sacred isle, "For on thy deck, tho' dark it be, "And I have sworn this sainted sod "Shall ne'er by woman's feet be trod !" * In a metrical life of St. Senanus, which is taken from an old Kilkenny MS. and may be found among the Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ, 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. The following was the ungracious answer of Senanus, according to his poetical biographer: Cui Præsul, quid fœminis Commune est cum monachis ? Nec te nec ullam aliam Admittemus in insulam. See the ACTA SANCT. HIB. Page 610. According to Dr. Ledwich, St. Senanus was no less a personage than the River Shannon; but O'Connor, and other Antiquarians, deny this metamorphose indignantly. |