Warm with a welcome for each,
Where mouths, free of boasting and ribaldry, vent
But modest and innocent speech.
These aids to support us my husbandry seeks,
I name them now without hiding--
Salmon and trout and hens and leeks,
And the honey-bees' sweet providing.
Raiment and food enow will be mine
From the King of all gifts and all graces;
And I to be kneeling, in rain or shine,
Praying to God in all places.





CRINOG

A.D. 900-1000

This poem relates "to one who lived like a sister or spiritual wife with
a priest, monk, or hermit, a practice which, while early suppressed and
abandoned everywhere else, seems to have survived in the Irish Church
till the tenth century."


Crinog of melodious song,
No longer young, but bashful-eyed,
As when we roved Niall's Northern Land,
Hand in hand, or side by side.