An Irish Blessing

At this past Monday's Celtic Spirituality meeting, one of its elderly members gave us copies of a beautiful Irish blessing, which she found in her family's records. I quite enjoyed it, so I thought I would share here.

An Irish Blessing

Refashioned, a little after the manner of Synge, from the original of Cornelia Rogers

May the blessing of Light be on you. May the splendour of the sun warm your spirit through and through until it glows like the heart of a great turf fire, where the stranger may draw up to warm himself, and also a friend..... And may the light that shines out of your two eyes be blessed in the sight of all, the like of the friendly candle shining from the glass of a cottage when the dark is down to bid the traveler below come in out of the night and the great loneliness.
And may the blessing of the Rain be on you - the warm, sweet rain. May it fall gently on your spirit, the way little flowers of happiness will be all the time budding from the earth beside your path, and they making sweet smells in the air..... And may the blessing of the Great Rains be on you. May the flood of them beat upon your spirit and make all fresh and clean, with here and there a shining pool left after to be catching the blue of the sky, and maybe a star.
And may the blessing of Earth be on you. May the two of you be great friends, like, the way you will always be minding its beauty and its wonderments, and wishing for yourself no joy at all above walking the woods and fields in the new of the year or ranging the ridges of the autumn hills..... May itself be soft under you when you lie out on it in blissful tiredness at the end of a long day's wandering. And may it rest easy over you when, tired out entirely, you will lie out under it in the end of all. May it rest so easy over you that your soul will be quickly through it, and up, and off, and on its way to God.