THE WAY OF THE CROSS

Where the wild sea-mew flocks and flees,

And neither winds nor skies beguile,

Foam-set amid the Irish seas

Is rugged Skellig Michael isle.

Up its escarpments, rough and grim,

To its bleak summit rimmed with moss,

The monks of old with prayer and hymn

Hewed out the weary “Way of the Cross.”

Gone are these holy toilers — gone;

They rest now in their long repose,

From the red dusk to the red dawn,

‘ Neath the sea-pinks and tangled rose.

But sorrow bides with us and ill,

And stress and sacrifice and loss,

And we must strive to meet them still

Climbing the weary “Way of the Cross.”