She sat on it as a gull sits on the ocean;
She slept the sleep of a captive mother,
Mourning after her absent child.

She suffered not much from evil tongues;
She held the blessed faith of the Trinity;
Bridget, the mother of my Lord of Heaven,
The best among the sons of the Lord.

She was not querulous, nor malevolent;
She loved not the fierce wrangling of women;
She was not a backbiting serpent, or a liar;
She sold not the Son of God for that which passes away.

She was not greedy of the goods of this life;
She gave away without gall, without slackness;
She was not rough to wayfaring men;
She handled gently the wretched lepers.

She built her a town in the plains (of Kildare);
And dead, she is the patroness of many peoples.'

* * *


I might comment much on this quotation. I might point out how St.
Bridget is called the mother of the Lord, and by others, the Mary of
the Irish, the 'Automata coeli regina,' and seems to have been
considered at times as an avatar or incarnation of the blessed
Virgin. I might more than hint how that appellation, as well as the