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