Tell me who gave us the Book of Doves

Columba Columba Columba


Tell me who gave us the Book of Doves


Columba Columba Columba
What was the breadth of it?


A furlong or four

What was the depth of it?


A fathom or five


What was the heft of it?

The heft of the darkness behind every star

And where did he find it this Book of Doves?

All in the Candida Casa


And where did he find it the Book of Doves?


All in the Candida Casa
Made of the vellum and bound in the wolfskin


Encrusted with amethyst and topaz and beryl

By numberless scribes in the cells of Saint Cyril(Enscribed on the spine with the Sign of the Fisherman)


Written in Basque and Etruscan and Lydian


Left here by Gideon

Brought from the Bosphorus


Died on the Cross for us
Stolen by Mammon and enshrined in the canon


Forever abandoned in the Plains of Slamannan


"Guilders and florins" say the wells of Saint Lawrence

"Guilders and florins" say the bells of Saint Lawrence

Derry is down Stirling's away

Sicily's legion on the banks of the Tay


Anglesey's gone with the Angels of Mons


Foula and Kilda will die ere they're born