"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
-G.K. Chesterton
Today (or what's left of it) is the feast of St. Colmcille, a saint who, despite his quite interesting life story, and quite considerable accomplishments in evangelizing and monastery-building is largely represented in my imagination by the following wistful poem. One story goes that, having found himself the cause of an inter-clan battle in his homeland, now Northern Ireland, he condemned himself to exile in Scotland.
Though this poem, sometimes attributed to Colmcille, is thought to have been of a later composition than his death (yes, he died in Scotland), if he felt even a fraction of what the poet here expressed about Derry--or about any place he had left behind, he had indeed taken a most onerous penance on himself.
A similar composition starts here on Google Books:
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