Iona: The Graves of the Kings
I wish not to lie here.
There’s hardly a plot of earth not blessed for burial, but here
One might dream badly.
In beautiful seas a beautiful
And sainted island, but the dark earth so shallow on the rock
Gorged with bad meat.
Kings buried in the lee of the saint,
Kings of fierce Norway, blood-boltered Scotland, bitterly dreaming
Treacherous Ireland.
Imagine what delusions of grandeur,
What suspicion-agonized eyes, what jellies of arrogance and terror
This earth has absorbed.
