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diff --git a/7165-h/7165-h.htm b/7165-h/7165-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e438e77 --- /dev/null +++ b/7165-h/7165-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6659 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Legends of Saint Patrick, by Aubrey De Vere</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Legends of Saint Patrick, by Aubrey De +Vere, Edited by Henry Morley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Legends of Saint Patrick + + +Author: Aubrey De Vere + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: July 28, 2014 [eBook #7165] +[This file was first posted on March 18, 2003] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEGENDS OF SAINT PATRICK*** +</pre> +<p>This eBook was prepared by Les Bowler.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY.</span></p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<h1><span class="smcap">The Legends</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">of</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Saint Patrick</span></h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +AUBREY DE VERE, LL.D.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" +src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL & COMPANY, <span +class="smcap">Limited</span>:<br /> +<span class="GutSmall"><i>LONDON</i></span><span +class="GutSmall">, </span><span class="GutSmall"><i>PARIS & +MELBOURNE</i></span><span class="GutSmall">.</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">1892</span></p> +<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Once</span> more our readers are indebted +to a living poet for wide circulation of a volume of delightful +verse. The name of Aubrey de Vere is the more pleasantly +familiar because its association with our highest literature has +descended from father to son. In 1822, sixty-seven years +ago, Sir Aubrey de Vere, of Curragh Chase, by Adare, in the +county of Limerick—then thirty-four years old—first +made his mark with a dramatic poem upon “Julian the +Apostate.” In 1842 Sir Aubrey published Sonnets, +which his friend Wordsworth described as “the most perfect +of our age;” and in the year of his death he completed a +dramatic poem upon “Mary Tudor,” published in the +next year, 1847, with the “Lamentation of Ireland, and +other Poems.” Sir Aubrey de Vere’s “Mary +Tudor” should be read by all who have read Tennyson’s +play on the same subject.</p> +<p>The gift of genius passed from Sir Aubrey to his third son, +Aubrey Thomas de Vere, who was born in 1814, and through a long +life has put into music only noble thoughts associated with the +love of God and man, and of his native land. His first +work, published forty-seven years ago, was a lyrical piece, in +which he gave his sympathy to devout and persecuted men whose +ways of thought were not his own. Aubrey de Vere’s +poems have been from time to time revised by himself, and they +were in 1884 finally collected into three volumes, published by +Messrs. Kegan Paul. Left free to choose from among their +various contents, I have taken this little book of “Legends +of St. Patrick,” first published in 1872, but in so doing I +have unwillingly left many a piece that would please many a +reader.</p> +<p>They are not, however, inaccessible. Of the three +volumes of collected works, each may be had separately, and is +complete in itself. The first contains “The Search +after Proserpine, and other Poems—Classical and +Meditative.” The second contains the “Legends +of St. Patrick, and Legends of Ireland’s Heroic Age,” +including a version of the “Tain Bo.” The third +contains two plays, “Alexander the Great,” “St. +Thomas of Canterbury,” and other Poems.</p> +<p>For the convenience of some readers, the following extract +from the second volume of my “English Writers,” may +serve as a prosaic summary of what is actually known about St. +Patrick.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">H. M.</p> +<h2>ST. PATRICK.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall"><i>FROM</i></span><span class="GutSmall"> +“</span><span class="GutSmall"><i>ENGLISH +WRITERS</i></span><span class="GutSmall">.”</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> birth of St. Patrick, Apostle +and Saint of Ireland, has been generally placed in the latter +half of the fourth century; and he is said to have died at the +age of a hundred and twenty. As he died in the year +493—and we may admit that he was then a very old +man—if we may say that he reached the age of eighty-eight, +we place his birth in the year 405. We may reasonably +believe, therefore, that he was born in the early part of the +fifth century. His birthplace, now known as Kilpatrick, was +at the junction of the Levin with the Clyde, in what is now the +county of Dumbarton. His baptismal name was Succath. +His father was Calphurnius, a deacon, son of Potitus, who was a +priest. His mother’s name was Conchessa, whose family +may have belonged to Gaul, and who may thus have been, as it is +said she was, of the kindred of St. Martin of Tours; for there is +a tradition that she was with Calphurnius as a slave before he +married her. Since Eusebius spoke of three bishops from +Britain at the Council of Arles, Succath, known afterwards in +missionary life by his name in religion, Patricius (<i>pater +civium</i>), might very reasonably be a deacon’s son.</p> +<p>In his early years Succath was at home by the Clyde, and he +speaks of himself as not having been obedient to the teaching of +the clergy. When he was sixteen years old he, with two of +his sisters and other of his countrymen, was seized by a band of +Irish pirates that made descent on the shore of the Clyde and +carried him off to slavery. His sisters were taken to +another part of the island, and he was sold to Milcho MacCuboin +in the north, whom he served for six or seven years, so learning +to speak the language of the country, while keeping his +master’s sheep by the Mountain of Slieve Miss. +Thoughts of home and of its Christian life made the youth feel +the heathenism that was about him; his exile seemed to him a +punishment for boyish indifference; and during the years when +young enthusiasm looks out upon life with new sense of a +man’s power—growing for man’s work that is to +do—Succath became filled with religious zeal.</p> +<p>Three Latin pieces are ascribed to St. Patrick: a +“Confession,” which is in the Book of Armagh, and in +three other manuscripts; <a name="citation10a"></a><a +href="#footnote10a" class="citation">[10a]</a> a letter to +Coroticus, and a few “Dieta Patricii,” which are also +in the Book of Armagh. <a name="citation10b"></a><a +href="#footnote10b" class="citation">[10b]</a> There is no +strong reason for questioning the authenticity of the +“Confession,” which is in unpolished Latin, the +writer calling himself “indoctus, rusticissimus, +imperitus,” and it is full of a deep religious +feeling. It is concerned rather with the inner than the +outer life, but includes references to the early days of trial by +which Succath’s whole heart was turned to God. He +says, “After I came into Ireland I pastured sheep daily, +and prayed many times a day. The love and fear of God, and +faith and spirit, wrought in me more and more, so that in one day +I reached to a hundred prayers, and in the night almost as many, +and stayed in the woods and on the mountains, and was urged to +prayer before the dawn, in snow, in frost, in rain, and took no +harm, nor, I think, was there any sloth in me. And there +one night I heard a voice in a dream saying to me, ‘Thou +hast well fasted; thou shalt go back soon to thine own +land;’ and again after a little while, ‘Behold! thy +ship is ready.’” In all this there is the +passionate longing of an ardent mind for home and Heaven.</p> +<p>At the age of twenty-two Succath fled from his slavery to a +vessel of which the master first refused and finally consented to +take him on board. He and the sailors were then cast by a +storm upon a desert shore of Britain, possibly upon some region +laid waste by ravages from over sea. Having at last made +his way back, by a sea passage, to his home on the Clyde, Succath +was after a time captured again, but remained captive only for +two months, and went back home. Then the zeal for his +Master’s service made him feel like the Seafarer in the +Anglo-Saxon poem; and all the traditions of his home would have +accorded with the rise of the resolve to cross the sea, and to +spread Christ’s teaching in what had been the land of his +captivity.</p> +<p>There were already centres of Christian work in Ireland, where +devoted men were labouring and drew a few into their +fellowship. Succath aimed at the gathering of all these +scattered forces, by a movement that should carry with it the +whole people. He first prepared himself by giving about +four years to study of the Scriptures at Auxerre, under Germanus, +and then went to Rome, under the conduct of a priest, Segetius, +and probably with letters from Germanus to Pope Celestine. +Whether he received his orders from the Pope seems doubtful; but +the evidence is strong that Celestine sent him on his Irish +mission. Succath left Rome, passed through North Italy and +Gaul, till he met on his way two followers of Palladius, +Augustinus and Benedictus, who told him of their master’s +failure, and of his death at Fordun. Succath then obtained +consecration from Amathus, a neighbouring bishop, and as +Patricius, went straight to Ireland. He landed near the +town of Wicklow, by the estuary of the River Varty, which had +been the landing-place of Palladius. In that region he was, +like Palladius, opposed; but he made some conversions, and +advanced with his work northward that he might reach the home of +his old master, Milcho, and pay him the purchase-money of his +stolen freedom. But Milcho, it is said, burnt himself and +his goods rather than bear the shame of submission to the growing +power of his former slave.</p> +<p>St. Patrick addressed the ruling classes, who could bring with +them their followers, and he joined tact with his zeal; +respecting ancient prejudices, opposing nothing that was not +directly hostile to the spirit of Christianity, and handling +skilfully the chiefs with whom he had to deal. An early +convert—Dichu MacTrighim—was a chief with influential +connections, who gave the ground for the religious house now +known as Saul. This chief satisfied so well the inquiries +of Laeghaire, son of Niall, King of Erin, concerning the +stranger’s movements, that St. Patrick took ship for the +mouth of the Boyne, and made his way straight to the king +himself. The result of his energy was that he met +successfully all the opposition of those who were concerned in +the maintenance of old heathen worship, and brought King +Laeghaire to his side.</p> +<p>Then Laeghaire resolved that the old laws of the country as +established by the judges, whose order was named Brehon, should +be revised, and brought into accord with the new teaching. +So the Brehon laws of Ireland were revised, with St. +Patrick’s assistance, and there were no ancient customs +broken or altered, except those that could not be harmonised with +Christian teaching. The good sense of St. Patrick enabled +this great work to be done without offence to the people. +The collection of laws thus made by the chief lawyers of the +time, with the assistance of St. Patrick, is known as the +“Senchus Mor,” and, says an old poem—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Laeghaire, Corc Dairi, the brave;<br /> +Patrick, Beuen, Cairnech, the just;<br /> +Rossa, Dubtach, Fergus, the wise;<br /> +These are the nine pillars of the Senchus Mor.”</p> +<p>This body of laws, traditions, and treatises on law is found +in no manuscript of a date earlier than the fourteenth +century. It includes, therefore, much that is of later date +than the fifth century.</p> +<p>St. Patrick’s greatest energies are said to have been +put forth in Ulster and Leinster. Among the churches or +religious communities founded by him in Ulster was that of +Armagh. If he was born about the year 405, when he was +carried to Ireland as a prisoner at the age of sixteen the date +would have been 421. His age would have been twenty-two +when he escaped, after six or seven years of captivity, and the +date 427. A year at home, and four years with Germanus at +Auxerre, would bring him to the age of twenty-seven, and the year +432, when he began his great endeavour to put Christianity into +the main body of the Irish people. That work filled all the +rest of his life, which was long. If we accept the +statement, in which all the old records agree, that the time of +Patrick’s labour in Ireland was not less than sixty years; +sixty years bring him to the age of eighty-eight in the year +493. And in that year he died.</p> +<p>The “Letter to Coroticus,” ascribed to St. +Patrick, is addressed to a petty king of Brittany who persecuted +Christians, and was meant for the encouragement of Christian +soldiers who served under him. It may, probably, be +regarded as authentic. The mass of legend woven into the +life of the great missionary lies outside this piece and the +“Confession.” The “Confession” only +expresses heights and depths of religious feeling haunted by +impressions and dreams, through which, to the fervid nature out +of which they sprang heaven seemed to speak. St. Patrick +did not attack heresies among the Christians; he preached to +those who were not Christians the Christian faith and +practice. His great influence was not that of a writer, but +of a speaker. He must have been an orator, profoundly +earnest, who could put his soul into his voice; and, when his +words bred deeds, conquered all difficulties in the way of action +with right feeling and good sense.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Henry +Morley</span>.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">TO THE +MEMORY</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OF</span><br /> +WORDSWORTH.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2>AUTHOR’S PREFACE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">“THE LEGENDS OF SAINT +PATRICK.”</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> ancient records of Ireland +abound in legends respecting the greatest man and the greatest +benefactor that ever trod her soil; and of these the earlier are +at once the more authentic and the nobler. Not a few have a +character of the sublime; many are pathetic; some have a profound +meaning under a strange disguise; but their predominant character +is their brightness and gladsomeness. A large tract of +Irish history is dark: but the time of Saint Patrick, and the +three centuries which succeeded it, were her time of joy. +That chronicle is a song of gratitude and hope, as befits the +story of a nation’s conversion to Christianity, and in it +the bird and the brook blend their carols with those of angels +and of men. It was otherwise with the later legends +connecting Ossian with Saint Patrick. A poet once remarked, +while studying the frescoes of Michael Angelo in the Sistine +Chapel, that the Sibyls are always sad, while the Prophets +alternated with them are joyous. In the legends of the +Patrician Cycle the chief-loving old Bard is ever mournful, for +his face is turned to the past glories of his country; while the +Saint is always bright, because his eyes are set on to the glory +that has no end.</p> +<p>These legends are to be found chiefly in several very ancient +lives of Saint Patrick, the most valuable of which is the +“Tripartite Life,” ascribed by Colgan to the century +after the Saint’s death, though it has not escaped later +interpolations. The work was long lost, but two copies of +it were re-discovered, one of which has been recently translated +by that eminent Irish scholar, Mr. Hennessy. Whether +regarded from the religious or the philosophic point of view, few +things can be more instructive than the picture which it +delineates of human nature at a period of critical transition, +and the dawning of the Religion of Peace upon a race barbaric, +but far indeed from savage. That wild race regarded it +doubtless as a notable cruelty when the new Faith discouraged an +amusement so popular as battle; but in many respects they were in +sympathy with that Faith. It was one in which the nobler +affections, as well as the passions, retained an unblunted +ardour; and where Nature is strongest and least corrupted it most +feels the need of something higher than itself, its interpreter +and its supplement. It prized the family ties, like the +Germans recorded by Tacitus; and it could not but have been drawn +to Christianity, which consecrated them. Its morals were +pure, and it had not lost that simplicity to which so much of +spiritual insight belongs. Admiration and wonder were among +its chief habits; and it would not have been repelled by +Mysteries in what professed to belong to the Infinite. +Lawless as it was, it abounded also in loyalty, generosity, and +self-sacrifice; it was not, therefore, untouched by the records +of martyrs, examples of self-sacrifice, or the doctrine of a +great Sacrifice. It loved children and the poor; and +Christianity made the former the exemplars of faith, and the +latter the eminent inheritors of the Kingdom. On the other +hand, all the vices of the race ranged themselves against the new +religion.</p> +<p>In the main the institutions and traditions of Ireland were +favourable to Christianity. She had preserved in a large +measure the patriarchal system of the East. Her clans were +families, and her chiefs were patriarchs who led their households +to battle, and seized or recovered the spoil. To such a +people the Christian Church announced herself as a great +family—the family of man. Her genealogies went up to +the first parent, and her rule was parental rule. The +kingdom of Christ was the household of Christ; and its children +in all lands formed the tribes of a larger Israel. Its laws +were living traditions; and for traditions the Irish had ever +retained the Eastern reverence.</p> +<p>In the Druids no formidable enemy was found; it was the Bards +who wielded the predominant social influence. As in Greece, +where the sacerdotal power was small, the Bards were the priests +of the national Imagination, and round them all moral influences +had gathered themselves. They were jealous of their rivals; +but those rivals won them by degrees. Secknall and Fiacc +were Christian Bards, trained by St. Patrick, who is said to have +also brought a bard with him from Italy. The beautiful +legend in which the Saint loosened the tongue of the dumb child +was an apt emblem of Christianity imparting to the Irish race the +highest use of its natural faculties. The Christian clergy +turned to account the Irish traditions, as they had made use of +the Pagan temples, purifying them first. The Christian +religion looked with a genuine kindness on whatever was human, +except so far as the stain was on it; and while it resisted to +the face what was unchristian in spirit, it also, in the +Apostolic sense, “made itself all things to all +men.” As legislator, Saint Patrick waged no needless +war against the ancient laws of Ireland. He purified them, +and he amplified them, discarding only what was unfit for a +nation made Christian. Thus was produced the great +“Book of the Law,” or “Senchus Mohr,” +compiled <span class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 439.</p> +<p>The Irish received the Gospel gladly. The great and the +learned, in other nations the last to believe, among them +commonly set the example. With the natural disposition of +the race an appropriate culture had concurred. It was one +which at least did not fail to develop the imagination, the +affections, and a great part of the moral being, and which thus +indirectly prepared ardent natures, and not less the heroic than +the tender, to seek their rest in spiritual things, rather than +in material or conventional. That culture, without removing +the barbaric, had blended it with the refined. It had +created among the people an appreciation of the beautiful, the +pathetic, and the pure. The early Irish chronicles, as well +as songs, show how strong among them that sentiment had ever +been. The Borromean Tribute, for so many ages the source of +relentless wars, had been imposed in vengeance for an insult +offered to a woman; and a discourtesy shown to a poet had +overthrown an ancient dynasty. The education of an Ollambh +occupied twelve years; and in the third century, the time of +Oiseen and Fionn, the military rules of the Feinè included +provisions which the chivalry of later ages might have been proud +of. It was a wild, but not wholly an ungentle time. +An unprovoked affront was regarded as a grave moral offence; and +severe punishments were ordained, not only for detraction, but +for a word, though uttered in jest, which brought a blush on the +cheek of a listener. Yet an injury a hundred years old +could meet no forgiveness, and the life of man was war! It +was not that laws were wanting; a code, minute in its justice, +had proportioned a penalty to every offence, and specified the +<i>Eric</i> which was to wipe out the bloodstain in case the +injured party renounced his claim to right his own wrong. +It was not that hearts were hard—there was at least as much +pity for others as for self. It was that anger was +implacable, and that where fear was unknown, the war field was +what among us the hunting field is.</p> +<p>The rapid growth of learning as well as piety in the three +centuries succeeding the conversion of Ireland, prove that the +country had not been till then without a preparation for the +gift. It had been the special skill of Saint Patrick to +build the good which was lacked upon that which existed. +Even the material arts of Ireland he had pressed into the service +of the Faith; and Irish craftsmen had assisted him, not only in +the building of his churches, but in casting his church bells, +and in the adornment of his chalices, crosiers, and +ecclesiastical vestments. Once elevated by Christianity, +Ireland’s early civilisation was a memorable thing. +It sheltered a high virtue at home, and evangelised a great part +of Northern Europe; and amidst many confusions it held its own +till the true time of barbarism had set in—those two +disastrous centuries when the Danish invasions trod down the +sanctuaries, dispersed the libraries, and laid waste the colleges +to which distant kings had sent their sons.</p> +<p>Perhaps nothing human had so large an influence in the +conversion of the Irish as the personal character of her +Apostle. Where others, as Palladius, had failed, he +succeeded. By nature, by grace, and by providential +training, he had been specially fitted for his task. We can +still see plainly even the finer traits of that character, while +the land of his birth is a matter of dispute, and of his early +history we know little, except that he was of noble birth, that +he was carried to Ireland by pirates at the age of sixteen, and +that after five years of bondage he escaped thence, to return +<span class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 432, when about +forty-five years old; belonging thus to that great age of the +Church which was made illustrious by the most eminent of its +Fathers, and tasked by the most critical of its trials. In +him a great character had been built on the foundations of a +devout childhood, and of a youth ennobled by adversity. +Everywhere we trace the might and the sweetness which belonged to +it, the versatile mind yet the simple heart, the varying tact yet +the fixed resolve, the large design taking counsel for all, yet +the minute solicitude for each, the fiery zeal yet the genial +temper, the skill in using means yet the reliance on God alone, +the readiness in action with the willingness to wait, the +habitual self-possession yet the outbursts of an inspiration +which raised him above himself, the abiding consciousness of +authority—an authority in him, but not of him—and yet +the ever-present humility. Above all, there burned in him +that boundless love, which seems the main constituent of the +Apostolic character. It was love for God; but it was love +for man also, an impassioned love, and a parental +compassion. It was not for the spiritual weal alone of man +that he thirsted. Wrong and injustice to the poor he +resented as an injury to God. His vehement love for the +poor is illustrated by his “Epistle to Coroticus,” +reproaching him with his cruelty, as well as by his denunciations +of slavery, which piracy had introduced into parts of +Ireland. No wonder that such a character should have +exercised a talismanic power over the ardent and sensitive race +among whom he laboured, a race “easy to be drawn, but +impossible to be driven,” and drawn more by sympathy than +even by benefits. That character can only be understood by +one who studies, and in a right spirit, that account of his life +which he bequeathed to us shortly before its close—the +“Confession of Saint Patrick.” The last poem in +this series embodies its most characteristic portions, including +the visions which it records.</p> +<p>The “Tripartite Life” thus +ends:—“After these great miracles, therefore, after +resuscitating the dead, after healing lepers, and the blind, and +the deaf, and the lame, and all diseases; after ordaining +bishops, and priests, and deacons, and people of all orders in +the Church; after teaching the men of Erin, and after baptising +them; after founding churches and monasteries; after destroying +idols and images and Druidical arts, the hour of death of Saint +Patrick approached. He received the body of Christ from the +Bishop Tassach, according to the counsel of the Angel +Victor. He resigned his spirit afterwards to Heaven, in the +one hundred and twentieth year of his age. His body is +still here in the earth, with honour and reverence. Though +great his honour here, greater honour will be to him in the Day +of Judgment, when judgment will be given on the fruit of his +teaching, as of every great Apostle, in the union of the Apostles +and Disciples of Jesus; in the union of the Nine Orders of +Angels, which cannot be surpassed; in the union of the Divinity +and Humanity of the Son of God; in the union, which is higher +than all unions, of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy +Ghost.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right">A. <span class="smcap">de +Vere</span>.</p> +<h2><span class="GutSmall">THE</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Legends of Saint Patrick</span>.</h2> +<h3>THE BAPTISM OF ST. PATRICK.</h3> +<p class="poetry">“How can the babe baptiséd be<br +/> + Where font is none and water none?”<br /> +Thus wept the nurse on bended knee,<br /> + And swayed the Infant in the sun.</p> +<p class="poetry">“The blind priest took that +Infant’s hand:<br /> + With that small hand, above the ground<br /> +He signed the Cross. At God’s command<br /> + A fountain rose with brimming bound.</p> +<p class="poetry">“In that pure wave from Adam’s +sin<br /> + The blind priest cleansed the Babe with awe;<br /> +Then, reverently, he washed therein<br /> + His old, unseeing face, and saw!</p> +<p class="poetry">“He saw the earth; he saw the skies,<br +/> + And that all-wondrous Child decreed<br /> +A pagan nation to baptise,<br /> + To give the Gentiles light indeed.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus Secknall sang. Far off and nigh<br +/> + The clansmen shouted loud and long;<br /> +While every mother tossed more high<br /> + Her babe, and glorying joined the song.</p> +<h3>THE DISBELIEF OF MILCHO,<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OR, SAINT PATRICK’S ONE +FAILURE.</span></h3> +<h4>ARGUMENT.</h4> +<p>Fame of St. Patrick goes ever before him, and men of goodwill +believe gladly; but Milcho, a mighty merchant, and one given +wholly to pride and greed, wills to disbelieve. St. Patrick +sends him greeting and gifts; but he, discovering that the +prophet welcomed by all had once been his slave, hates him the +more. Notwithstanding, he fears that when that prophet +arrives, he, too, may be forced to believe, though against his +will. He resolves to set fire to his castle and all his +wealth, and make new fortunes in far lands. The doom of +Milcho, who willed to disbelieve.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> now at Imber +Dea that precious bark<br /> +Freighted with Erin’s future, touched the sands<br /> +Just where a river, through a woody vale<br /> +Curving, with duskier current clave the sea,<br /> +Patrick, the Island’s great inheritor,<br /> +His perilous voyage past, stept forth and knelt<br /> +And blessed his God. The peace of those green meads<br /> +Cradled ’twixt purple hills and purple deep,<br /> +Seemed as the peace of heaven. The sun had set;<br /> +But still those summits twinned, the “Golden +Spears,”<br /> +Laughed with his latest beam. The hours went by:<br /> +The brethren paced the shore or musing sat,<br /> +But still their Patriarch knelt and still gave thanks<br /> +For all the marvellous chances of his life<br /> +Since those his earlier years when, slave new-trapped,<br /> +He comforted on hills of Dalaraide<br /> +His hungry heart with God, and, cleansed by pain,<br /> +In exile found the spirit’s native land.<br /> +Eve deepened into night, and still he prayed:<br /> +The clear cold stars had crowned the azure vault;<br /> +And, risen at midnight from dark seas, the moon<br /> +Had quenched those stars, yet Patrick still prayed on:<br /> +Till from the river murmuring in the vale,<br /> +Far off, and from the morning airs close by<br /> +That shook the alders by the river’s mouth,<br /> +And from his own deep heart a voice there came,<br /> +“Ere yet thou fling’st God’s bounty on this +land<br /> +There is a debt to cancel. Where is he,<br /> +Thy five years’ lord that scourged thee for his swine?<br +/> +Alas that wintry face! Alas that heart<br /> +Joyless since earliest youth! To him reveal it!<br /> +To him declare that God who Man became<br /> +To raise man’s fall’n estate, as though a man,<br /> +All faculties of man unmerged, undimmed,<br /> +Had changed to worm and died the prey of worms,<br /> +That so the mole might see!”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Thus +Patrick mused<br /> +Not ignorant that from low beginnings rise<br /> +Oftenest the works of greatness; yet of this<br /> +Unweeting, that his failure, one and sole<br /> +Through all his more than mortal course, even now<br /> +Before that low beginning’s threshold lay,<br /> +Betwixt it and that Promised Land beyond<br /> +A bar of scandal stretched. Not otherwise<br /> +Might whatsoe’er was mortal in his strength<br /> +Dying, put on the immortal.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> With +the morn<br /> +Deep sleep descended on him. Waking soon,<br /> +He rose a man of might, and in that might<br /> +Laboured; and God His servant’s toil revered;<br /> +And gladly on that coast Erin to Christ<br /> +Paid her firstfruits. Three days he preached his Lord:<br +/> +The fourth embarking, cape succeeding cape<br /> +They passed, and heard the lowing herds remote<br /> +In hollow glens, and smelt the balmy breath<br /> +Of gorse on golden hillsides; till at eve,<br /> +The Imber Domnand reached, on silver sands<br /> +Grated their keel. Around them flocked at dawn<br /> +Warriors with hunters mixed, and shepherd youths<br /> +And maids with lips as red as mountain berries<br /> +And eyes like sloes, or keener eyes, dark-fringed<br /> +And gleaming like the blue-black spear. They came<br /> +With milk-pail, and with kid, and kindled fire<br /> +And spread the genial board. Upon that shore<br /> +Full many knelt and gave themselves to Christ,<br /> +Strong men, and men at midmost of their hopes<br /> +By sickness felled; old chiefs, at life’s dim close<br /> +That oft had asked, “Beyond the grave what hope?”<br +/> +Worn sailors weary of the toilsome seas,<br /> +And craving rest; they, too, that sex which wears<br /> +The blended crowns of Chastity and Love;<br /> +Wondering, they hailed the Maiden-Motherhood;<br /> +And listening children praised the Babe Divine,<br /> +And passed Him, each to each.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Ere +long, once more<br /> +Their sails were spread. Again by grassy marge<br /> +They rowed, and sylvan glades. The branching deer<br /> +Like flying gleams went by them. Oft the cry<br /> +Of fighting clans rang out: but oftener yet<br /> +Clamour of rural dance, or mart confused<br /> +With many-coloured garb and movements swift,<br /> +Pageant sun-bright: or on the sands a throng<br /> +Girdled with circle glad some bard whose song<br /> +Shook the wild clan as tempest shakes the woods.<br /> +Still north the wanderers sailed: at evening, mists<br /> +Cumbered the shore and on them leaned the blast,<br /> +And fierce rain flashed mingling with dim-lit sea.<br /> +All night they toiled; next day at noon they kenned<br /> +A seaward stream that shone like golden tress<br /> +Severed and random-thrown. That river’s mouth<br /> +Ere long attained was all with lilies white<br /> +As April field with daisies. Entering there<br /> +They reached a wood, and disembarked with joy:<br /> +There, after thanks to God, silent they sat<br /> +In thought, and watched the ripples, dusk yet bright,<br /> +That lived and died like things that laughed at time,<br /> +On gliding ’neath those many-centuried boughs.<br /> +But, midmost, Patrick slept. Then through the trees,<br /> +Shy as a fawn half-tamed now stole, now fled<br /> +A boy of such bright aspect faëry child<br /> +He seemed, or babe exposed of royal race:<br /> +At last assured beside the Saint he stood,<br /> +And dropped on him a flower, and disappeared:<br /> +Thus flower on flower from the great wood he brought<br /> +And hid them in the bosom of the Saint.<br /> +The monks forbade him, saying, “Lest thou wake<br /> +The master from his sleep.” But Patrick woke,<br /> +And saw the boy, and said, “Forbid him not;<br /> +The heir of all my kingdom is this child.”<br /> +Then spake the brethren, “Wilt thou walk with us?”<br +/> +And he, “I will:” and so for his sweet face<br /> +They called his name Benignus: and the boy<br /> +Thenceforth was Christ’s. Beneath his parent’s +roof<br /> +At night they housed. Nowhere that child would sleep<br /> +Except at Patrick’s feet. Till Patrick’s +death<br /> +Unchanged to him he clave, and after reigned<br /> +The second at Ardmacha.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Day +by day<br /> +They held their course; ere long the hills of Mourne<br /> +Loomed through sea-mist: Ulidian summits next<br /> +Before them rose: but nearer at their left<br /> +Inland with westward channel wound the wave<br /> +Changed to sea-lake. Nine miles with chant and hymn<br /> +They tracked the gold path of the sinking sun;<br /> +Then southward ran ’twixt headland and green isle<br /> +And landed. Dewy pastures sunset-dazed,<br /> +At leisure paced by mild-eyed milk-white kine<br /> +Smiled them a welcome. Onward moved in sight<br /> +Swiftly, with shadow far before him cast,<br /> +Dichu, that region’s lord, a martial man<br /> +And merry, and a speaker of the truth.<br /> +Pirates he deemed them first and toward them faced<br /> +With wolf-hounds twain that watched their master’s eye<br +/> +To spring, or not to spring. The imperious face<br /> +Forbidding not, they sprang; but Patrick raised<br /> +His hand, and stone-like crouched they chained and still:<br /> +Then, Dichu onward striding fierce, the Saint<br /> +Between them signed the Cross; and lo, the sword<br /> +Froze in his hand, and Dichu stood like stone.<br /> +The amazement past, he prayed the man of God<br /> +To grace his house; and, side by side, a mile<br /> +They clomb the hills. Ascending, Patrick turned,<br /> +His heart with prescience filled. Beneath, there lay<br /> +A gleaming strait; beyond, a dim vast plain<br /> +With many an inlet pierced: a golden marge<br /> +Girdled the water-tongues with flag and reed;<br /> +But, farther off, a gentle sea-mist changed<br /> +The fair green flats to purple. “Night comes +on;”<br /> +Thus Dichu spake, and waited. Patrick then<br /> +Advanced once more, and Sabhall soon was reached,<br /> +A castle half, half barn. There garnered lay<br /> +Much grain, and sun-imbrowned: and Patrick said,<br /> +“Here where the earthly grain was stored for man<br /> +The bread of angels man shall eat one day.”<br /> +And Patrick loved that place, and Patrick said,<br /> +“King Dichu, give thou to the poor that grain,<br /> +To Christ, our Lord, thy barn.” The strong man +stood<br /> +In doubt; but prayers of little orphaned babes<br /> +Reared by his hand, went up for him that hour:<br /> +Therefore that barn he ceded, and to Christ<br /> +By Patrick was baptised. Where lay the corn<br /> +A convent later rose. There dwelt he oft;<br /> +And ’neath its roof more late the stranger sat,<br /> +Exile, or kingdom-wearied king, or bard,<br /> +That haply blind in age, yet tempest-rocked<br /> +By memories of departed glories, drew<br /> +With gradual influx into his old heart<br /> +Solace of Christian hope.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> With +Dichu bode<br /> +Patrick somewhile, intent from him to learn<br /> +The inmost of that people. Oft they spake<br /> +Of Milcho. “Once his thrall, against my will<br /> +In earthly things I served him: for his soul<br /> +Needs therefore must I labour. Hard was he;<br /> +Unlike those hearts to which God’s Truth makes way<br /> +Like message from a mother in her grave:<br /> +Yet what I can I must. Not heaven itself<br /> +Can force belief; for Faith is still good will.”<br /> +Dichu laughed aloud: “Good will! Milcho’s good +will<br /> +Neither to others, nor himself, good will<br /> +Hath Milcho! Fireless sits he, winter through,<br /> +The logs beside his hearth: and as on them<br /> +Glimmers the rime, so glimmers on his face<br /> +The smile. Convert him! Better thrice to hang him!<br +/> +Baptise him! He will film your font with ice!<br /> +The cold of Milcho’s heart has winter-nipt<br /> +That glen he dwells in! From the sea it slopes<br /> +Unfinished, savage, like some nightmare dream,<br /> +Raked by an endless east wind of its own.<br /> +On wolf’s milk was he suckled not on woman’s!<br /> +To Milcho speed! Of Milcho claim belief!<br /> +Milcho will shrivel his small eye and say<br /> +He scorns to trust himself his father’s son,<br /> +Nor deems his lands his own by right of race<br /> +But clutched by stress of brain! Old Milcho’s God<br +/> +Is gold. Forbear him, sir, or ere you seek him<br /> +Make smooth your way with gold.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Thus +Dichu spake;<br /> +And Patrick, after musings long, replied:<br /> +“Faith is no gift that gold begets or feeds,<br /> +Oftener by gold extinguished. Unto God,<br /> +Unbribed, unpurchased, yearns the soul of man;<br /> +Yet finds perforce in God its great reward.<br /> +Not less this Milcho deems I did him wrong,<br /> +His slave, yet fleeing. To requite that loss<br /> +Gifts will I send him first by messengers<br /> +Ere yet I see his face.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Then +Patrick sent<br /> +His messengers to Milcho, speaking thus:<br /> +“If ill befell thy herds through flight of mine<br /> +Fourfold that loss requite I, lest, for hate<br /> +Of me, thou disesteem my Master’s Word.<br /> +Likewise I sue thy friendship; and I come<br /> +In few days’ space, with gift of other gold<br /> +Than earth concedes, the Tidings of that God<br /> +Who made all worlds, and late His Face hath shown,<br /> +Sun-like to man. But thou, rejoice in hope!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><br /> +Thus Patrick, once by man advised in part,<br /> +Though wont to counsel with his God alone.</p> +<p class="poetry"><br /> +Meantime full many a rumour vague had vexed<br /> +Milcho much musing. He had dealings large<br /> +And distant. Died a chief? He sent and bought<br /> +The widow’s all; or sold on foodless shores<br /> +For usury the leanest of his kine.<br /> +Meantime, his dark ships and the populous quays<br /> +With news still murmured. First from Imber Dea<br /> +Came whispers how a sage had landed late,<br /> +And how when Nathi fain had barred his way,<br /> +Nathi that spurned Palladius from the land,<br /> +That sage with levelled eyes, and kingly front<br /> +Had from his presence driven him with a ban<br /> +Cur-like and craven; how on bended knee<br /> +Sinell believed, the royal man well-loved<br /> +Descending from the judgment-seat with joy:<br /> +And how when fishers spurned his brethren’s quest<br /> +For needful food, that sage had raised his rod,<br /> +And all the silver harvest of blue streams<br /> +Lay black in nets and sand. His wrinkled brow<br /> +Wrinkling yet more, thus Milcho answer made:<br /> +“Deceived are those that will to be deceived:<br /> +This knave has heard of gold in river-beds,<br /> +And comes a deft sand-groper; let him come!<br /> +He’ll toil ten years ere gold enough he finds<br /> +To make a crooked torque.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> From +Tara next<br /> +The news: “Laeghaire, the King, sits close in cloud<br /> +Of sullen thought, or storms from court to court,<br /> +Because the chiefest of the Druid race<br /> +Locru, and Luchat prophesied long since<br /> +That one day from the sea a Priest would come<br /> +With Doctrine and a Rite, and dash to earth<br /> +Idols, and hurl great monarchs from their thrones;<br /> +And lo! At Imber Boindi late there stept<br /> +A priest from roaring waves with Creed and Rite,<br /> +And men before him bow.” Then Milcho spake:<br /> +“Not flesh enough from thy strong bones, Laeghaire,<br /> +These Druids, ravens of the woods, have plucked,<br /> +But they must pluck thine eyes! Ah priestly race,<br /> +I loathe ye! ’Twixt the people and their King<br /> +Ever ye rub a sore!” Last came a voice:<br /> +“This day in Eire thy saying is fulfilled,<br /> +Conn of the ‘Hundred Battles,’ from thy throne<br /> +Leaping long since, and crying, ‘O’er the sea<br /> +The Prophet cometh, princes in his train,<br /> +Bearing for regal sceptres bended staffs,<br /> +Which from the land’s high places, cliff and peak,<br /> +Shall drag the fair flowers down!’” Scoffing he +heard:<br /> +“Conn of the ‘Hundred Battles!’ Had he +sent<br /> +His hundred thousand kernes to yonder steep<br /> +And rolled its boulders down, and built a mole<br /> +To fence my laden ships from spring-tide surge,<br /> +Far kinglier pattern had he shown, and given<br /> +More solace to the land.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> He +rose and turned<br /> +With sideway leer; and printing with vague step<br /> +Irregular the shining sands, on strode<br /> +Toward his cold home, alone; and saw by chance<br /> +A little bird light-perched, that, being sick,<br /> +Plucked from the fissured sea-cliff grains of sand;<br /> +And, noting, said, “O bird, when beak of thine<br /> +From base to crown hath gorged this huge sea-wall,<br /> +Then shall that man of Creed and Rite make null<br /> +The strong rock of my will!” Thus Milcho spake,<br /> +Feigning the peace not his.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Next +day it chanced<br /> +Women he heard in converse. Thus the first:<br /> +“If true the news, good speed for him, my boy!<br /> +Poor slaves by Milcho scourged on earth shall wear<br /> +In heaven a monarch’s crown! Good speed for her<br /> +His little sister, not reserved like us<br /> +To bend beneath these loads.” To whom her mate:<br /> +“Doubt not the Prophet’s tidings! Not in +vain<br /> +The Power Unknown hath shaped us! Come He must,<br /> +Or send, and help His people on their way.<br /> +Good is He, or He ne’er had made these babes!”<br /> +They passed, and Milcho said, “Through hate of me<br /> +All men believe!” And straightway Milcho’s +face<br /> +Grew bleaker than that crab-tree stem forlorn<br /> +That hid him, wanner than that sea-sand wet<br /> +That whitened round his foot down-pressed.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Time +passed.<br /> +One morn in bitter mockery Milcho mused:<br /> +“What better laughter than when thief from thief<br /> +Pilfers the pilfered goods? Our Druid thief<br /> +Two thousand years hath milked and shorn this land;<br /> +Now comes the thief outlandish that with him<br /> +Would share milk-pail and fleece! O Bacrach old,<br /> +To hear thee shout ‘Impostor!’” Straight +he went<br /> +To Bacrach’s cell hid in a skirt wind-shav’n<br /> +Of low-grown wood, and met, departing thence,<br /> +Three sailors sea-tanned from a ship late-beached.<br /> +Within a corner huddled, on the floor,<br /> +The Druid sat, cowering, and cold, and mazed:<br /> +Sudden he rose, and cried, by conquering joy<br /> +Clothed as with youth restored: “The God Unknown,<br /> +That God who made the earth, hath walked the earth!<br /> +This hour His Prophet treads the isle! Three men<br /> +Have seen him; and their speech is true. To them<br /> +That Prophet spake: ‘Four hundred years ago,<br /> +Sinless God’s Son on earth for sinners died:<br /> +Black grew the world, and graves gave up their dead.’<br /> +Thus spake the Seer. Four hundred years ago!<br /> +Mark well the time! Of Ulster’s Druid race<br /> +What man but yearly, those four hundred years,<br /> +Trembled that tale recounting which with this<br /> +Tallies as footprint with the foot of man?<br /> +Four hundred years ago—that self-same day—<br /> +Connor, the son of Nessa, Ulster’s King,<br /> +Sat throned, and judged his people. As he sat,<br /> +Under clear skies, behold, o’er all the earth<br /> +Swept a great shadow from the windless east;<br /> +And darkness hung upon the air three hours;<br /> +Dead fell the birds, and beasts astonied fled.<br /> +Then to his Chief of Druids, Connor spake<br /> +Whispering; and he, his oracles explored,<br /> +Shivering made answer, ‘From a land accursed,<br /> +O King, that shadow sweeps; therein, this hour,<br /> +By sinful men sinless God’s Son is slain.’<br /> +Then Ulster’s king, down-dashing sceptre and crown,<br /> +Rose, clamouring, ‘Sinless! shall the sinless +die?’<br /> +And madness fell on him; and down that steep<br /> +He rushed whereon the Emanian Palace stood,<br /> +And reached the grove, Lambraidhè, with two swords,<br /> +The sword of battle, and the sword of state,<br /> +And hewed and hewed, crying, ‘Were I but there<br /> +Thus they should fall who slay that Sinless One;’<br /> +And in that madness died. Old Erin’s sons<br /> +Beheld this thing; nor ever in the land<br /> +Hath ceased the rumour, nor the tear for him<br /> +Who, wroth at justice trampled, martyr died.<br /> +And now we know that not for any dream<br /> +He died, but for the truth: and whensoe’er<br /> +The Prophet of that Son of God who died<br /> +Sinless for sinners, standeth in this place,<br /> +I, Bacrach, oldest Druid in this Isle,<br /> +Will rise the first, and kiss his vesture’s hem.”</p> +<p class="poetry">He spake; and Milcho heard, and without +speech<br /> +Departed from that house.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> A +later day<br /> +When the wild March sunset, gone almost ere come,<br /> +By glacial shower was hustled out of life,<br /> +Under a blighted ash tree, near his house,<br /> +Thus mused the man: “Believe, or Disbelieve!<br /> +The will does both; Then idiot who would be<br /> +For profitless belief to sell himself?<br /> +Yet disbelief not less might work our bane!<br /> +For, I remember, once a sickly slave<br /> +Ill shepherded my flock: I spake him plain;<br /> +‘When next, through fault of thine, the midnight wolf<br /> +Worries my sheep, on yonder tree you hang:’<br /> +The blear-eyed idiot looked into my face,<br /> +And smiled his disbelief. On that day week<br /> +Two lambs lay dead. I hanged him on a tree.<br /> +What tree? this tree! Why, this is passing strange!<br /> +For, three nights since, I saw him in a dream:<br /> +Weakling as wont he stood beside my bed,<br /> +And, clutching at his wrenched and livid throat,<br /> +Spake thus, ‘Belief is safest.’”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Ceased +the hail<br /> +To rattle on the ever barren boughs,<br /> +And friendlier sound was heard. Beside his door<br /> +Wayworn the messengers of Patrick stood,<br /> +And showed the gifts, and held his missive forth.<br /> +Then learned that lost one all the truth. That sage<br /> +Confessed by miracles, that prophet vouched<br /> +By warnings old, that seer by words of might<br /> +Subduing all things to himself—that priest,<br /> +None other was than the uncomplaining boy<br /> +Five years his slave and swineherd! In him rage<br /> +Burst forth, with fear commixed, as when a beast<br /> +Strains in the toils. “Can I alone stand +firm?”<br /> +He mused; and next, “Shall I, in mine old age,<br /> +Byword become—the vassal of my slave?<br /> +Shall I not rather drive him from my door<br /> +With wolf hounds and a curse?” As thus he stood<br /> +He marked the gifts, and bade men bare them in,<br /> +And homeward signed the messengers unfed.</p> +<p class="poetry">But Milcho slept not all that night for +thought,<br /> +And, forth ere sunrise issuing, paced a moor<br /> +Stone-roughened like the graveyard of dead hosts,<br /> +Till noontide. Sudden then he stopt, and thus<br /> +Discoursed within: “A plot from first to last,<br /> +The fraudulent bondage, flight, and late return;<br /> +For now I mind me of a foolish dream<br /> +Chance-sent, yet drawn by him awry. One night<br /> +Methought that boy from far hills drenched in rain<br /> +Dashed through my halls, all fire. From hands and head,<br +/> +From hair and mouth, forth rushed a flaming fire<br /> +White, like white light, and still that mighty flame<br /> +Into itself took all. With hands outstretched<br /> +I spurned it. On my cradled daughters twain<br /> +It turned, and they were ashes. Then in burst<br /> +The south wind through the portals of the house,<br /> +Tempest rose-sweet, and blew those ashes forth<br /> +Wide as the realm. At dawn I sought the knave;<br /> +He glossed my vision thus: ‘That fire is Faith—<br /> +Faith in the God Triune, the God made Man,<br /> +Sole light wherein I walk, and walking burn;<br /> +And they that walk with me shall burn like me<br /> +By Faith. But thou that radiance wilt repel,<br /> +Housed through ill-will, in Error’s endless night.<br /> +Not less thy little daughters shall believe<br /> +With glory and great joy; and, when they die,<br /> +Report of them, like ashes blown abroad,<br /> +Shall light far lands, and health to men of Faith<br /> +Stream from their dust.’ I drave the impostor +forth:<br /> +Perjured ere long he fled, and now returns<br /> +To reap a harvest from his master’s dream”—<br +/> +Thus mused he, while black shadow swept the moor.<br /> + So day by day darker was Milcho’s heart,<br /> +Till, with the endless brooding on one thought,<br /> +Began a little flaw within that brain<br /> +Whose strength was still his boast. Was no friend nigh?<br +/> +Alas! what friend had he? All men he scorned;<br /> +Knew truly none. In each, the best and sweetest<br /> +Near him had ever pined, like stunted growth<br /> +Dwarfed by some glacier nigh. The fifth day dawned:<br /> +And inly thus he muttered, darkly pale:<br /> +“Five days; in three the messengers returned:<br /> +In three—in two—the Accursèd will be here,<br +/> +Or blacken yonder Sleemish with his crew<br /> +Descending. Then those idiots, kerne and slave—<br /> +The mighty flame into itself takes all—<br /> +Full swarm will fly to meet him! Fool! fool! fool!<br /> +The man hath snared me with those gifts he sent;<br /> +Else had I barred the mountains: now ’twere late,<br /> +My people in revolt. Whole weeks his horde<br /> +Will throng my courts, demanding board and bed,<br /> +With hosts by Dichu sent to flout my pang,<br /> +And sorer make my charge. My granaries sacked,<br /> +My larder lean as ship six months ice-bound,<br /> +The man I hate will rise, and open shake<br /> +The invincible banner of his mad new Faith,<br /> +Till all that hear him shout, like winds or waves,<br /> +Belief; and I be left sole recusant;<br /> +Or else perhaps that Fury who prevails<br /> +At times o’er knee-joints of reluctant men,<br /> +By magic imped, may crumble into dust<br /> +By force my disbelief.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> He +raised his head,<br /> +And lo, before him lay the sea far ebbed<br /> +Sad with a sunset all but gone: the reeds<br /> +Sighed in the wind, and sighed a sweeter voice<br /> +Oft heard in childhood—now the last time heard:<br /> +“Believe!” it whispered. Vain the voice! +That hour,<br /> +Stirred from the abyss, the sins of all his life<br /> +Around him rose like night—not one, but all—<br /> +That earliest sin which, like a dagger, pierced<br /> +His mother’s heart; that worst, when summer drouth<br /> +Parched the brown vales, and infants thirsting died,<br /> +While from full pail he gorged his swine with milk<br /> +And flung the rest away. Sin-walled he stood:<br /> +God’s Angels could not pierce that cincture dread,<br /> +Nor he look through it. Yet he dreamed he saw:<br /> +His life he saw; its labours, and its gains<br /> +Hard won, long-waited, wonder of his foes;<br /> +The manifold conquests of a Will oft tried;<br /> +Victory, Defeat, Retrieval; last, that scene<br /> +Around him spread: the wan sea and grey rocks;<br /> +And he was ’ware that on that self-same ledge<br /> +He, Milcho, thirty years gone by, had stood,<br /> +While pirates pushed to sea, leaving forlorn<br /> +On that wild shore a scared and weeping boy,<br /> +(His price two yearling kids and half a sheep)<br /> +Thenceforth his slave.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Not +sole he mused that hour.<br /> +The Demon of his House beside him stood<br /> +Upon that iron coast, and whispered thus:<br /> +“Masterful man art thou for wit and strength;<br /> +Yet girl-like standst thou brooding! Weave a snare!<br /> +He comes for gold, this prophet. All thou hast<br /> +Heap in thy house; then fire it! In far lands<br /> +Build thee new fortunes. Frustrate thus shall he<br /> +Stare but on stones, his destined vassal scaped.”</p> +<p class="poetry">So fell the whisper; and as one who hears<br /> +And does, the stiff-necked man obsequious bent<br /> +His strong will to a stronger, and returned,<br /> +And gave command to heap within his house<br /> +His stored up wealth—yea, all things that were +his—<br /> +Borne from his ships and granaries. It was done.<br /> +Then filled he his huge hall with resinous beams<br /> +Seasoned for far sea-voyage, and the ribs<br /> +Of ocean-sundering vessels deep in sea;<br /> +Which ended, to his topmost tower he clomb,<br /> +And therein sat two days, with face to south,<br /> +Clutching a brand; and oft through clenched teeth hissed,<br /> +Hissed long, “Because I will to disbelieve.”<br /> + But ere the second sunset two brief hours,<br /> +Where comfortless leaned forth that western ridge<br /> +Long patched with whiteness by half melted snows,<br /> +There crept a gradual shadow. Soon the man<br /> +Discerned its import. There they hung—he saw +them—<br /> +That company detested; hung as when<br /> +Storm-boding cloud on mountain hangs half way<br /> +Scarce moving, and in fear the shepherd cries,<br /> +“Would that the worse were come!” So dread to +him<br /> +Those Heralds of fair Peace! He gazed upon them<br /> +With blood-shot eyes; a moment passed: he stood<br /> +Sole in his never festal hall, and flung<br /> +His lighted brand into that pile far forth,<br /> +And smiled that smile men feared to see, and turned,<br /> +And issuing faced the circle of his serfs<br /> +That wondering gathered round in thickening mass,<br /> +Eyeing that unloved House.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> His +place he chose<br /> +Beside that blighted ash, fronting those towers<br /> +Palled with red smoke, and muttered low, “So be it!<br /> +Worse to be vassal to the man I hate,”<br /> +With hueless lips. His whole white face that hour<br /> +Was scorched; and blistered was the dead tree’s bark;<br /> +Yet there he stood; and in that fiery light<br /> +His life, no more triumphant, passed once more<br /> +In underthought before him, while on spread<br /> +The swift, contagious madness of that fire,<br /> +And muttered thus, not knowing it, the man,<br /> +“The mighty flame into itself takes all,”<br /> +Mechanic iteration. Not alone<br /> +Stood he that hour. The Demon of his House<br /> +By him once more and closer than of old,<br /> +Stood, whispering thus, “Thy game is now played out;<br /> +Henceforth a byword art thou—rich in youth—<br /> +Self-beggared in old age.” And as the wind<br /> +Of that shrill whisper cut his listening soul,<br /> +The blazing roof fell in on all his wealth,<br /> +Hard-won, long-waited, wonder of his foes;<br /> +And, loud as laughter from ten thousand fiends,<br /> +Up rushed the fire. With arms outstretched he stood;<br /> +Stood firm; then forward with a wild beast’s cry<br /> +He dashed himself into that terrible flame,<br /> +And vanished as a leaf.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Upon +a spur<br /> +Of Sleemish, eastward on its northern slope,<br /> +Stood Patrick and his brethren, travel-worn,<br /> +When distant o’er the brown and billowy moor<br /> +Rose the white smoke, that changed ere long to flame,<br /> +From site unknown; for by the seaward crest<br /> +That keep lay hidden. Hands to forehead raised,<br /> +Wondering they watched it. One to other spake:<br /> +“The huge Dalriad forest is afire<br /> +Ere melted are the winter’s snows!” Another,<br +/> +“In vengeance o’er the ocean Creithe or Pict,<br /> +Favoured by magic, or by mist, have crossed,<br /> +And fired old Milcho’s ships.” But Patrick +leaned<br /> +Upon his crosier, pale as the ashes wan<br /> +Left by a burned out city. Long he stood<br /> +Silent, till, sudden, fiercelier soared the flame<br /> +Reddening the edges of a cloud low hung;<br /> +And, after pause, vibration slow and stern<br /> +Troubling the burthened bosom of the air,<br /> +Upon a long surge of the northern wind<br /> +Came up—a murmur as of wintry seas<br /> +Far borne at night. All heard that sound; all felt it;<br +/> +One only know its import. Patrick turned;<br /> +“The deed is done: the man I would have saved<br /> +Is dead, because he willed to disbelieve.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet Patrick grieved for Milcho, nor that +hour<br /> +Passed further north. Three days on Sleemish hill<br /> +He dwelt in prayer. To Tara’s royal halls<br /> +Then turned he, and subdued the royal house<br /> +And host to Christ, save Erin’s king, Laeghaire.<br /> +But Milcho’s daughters twain to Christ were born<br /> +In baptism, and each Emeria named:<br /> +Like rose-trees in the garden of the Lord<br /> +Grew they and flourished. Dying young, one grave<br /> +Received them at Cluanbrain. Healing thence<br /> +To many from their relics passed; to more<br /> +The spirit’s happier healing, Love and Faith.</p> +<h3>SAINT PATRICK AT TARA.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> King is wroth +with a greater wrath<br /> + Than the wrath of Nial or the wrath of Conn!<br /> +From his heart to his brow the blood makes path,<br /> + And hangs there, a red cloud, beneath his crown.</p> +<p class="poetry">Is there any who knows not, from south to +north,<br /> + That Laeghaire to-morrow his birthday keeps?<br /> +No fire may be lit upon hill or hearth<br /> +Till the King’s strong fire in its kingly mirth<br /> + Up rushes from Tara’s palace steeps!</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet Patrick has lighted his Paschal fire<br /> + At Slane—it is holy Saturday—<br /> +And blessed his font ’mid the chaunting choir!<br /> + From hill to hill the flame makes way;<br /> +While the king looks on it his eyes with ire<br /> + Flash red, like Mars, under tresses grey.</p> +<p class="poetry">The chiefs and the captains with drawn swords +rose:<br /> + To avenge their Lord and the Realm they swore;<br /> + The Druids rose and their garments tore;<br /> +“The strangers to us and our Gods are foes!”<br /> +Then the king to Patrick a herald sent,<br /> + Who spake, “Come up at noon and show<br /> +Who lit thy fire and with what intent:<br /> + These things the great king Laeghaire would +know.”</p> +<p class="poetry">But Laeghaire had hid twelve men by the way,<br +/> +Who swore by the sun the Saint to slay.</p> +<p class="poetry">When the waters of Boyne began to bask<br /> + And fields to flash in the rising sun<br /> +The Apostle Evangelist kept his Pasch,<br /> + And Erin her grace baptismal won:<br /> +Her birthday it was: his font the rock,<br /> +He blessed the land, and he blessed his flock.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then forth to Tara he fared full lowly:<br /> + The Staff of Jesus was in his hand:<br /> +Twelve priests paced after him chaunting slowly,<br /> + Printing their steps on the dewy land.<br /> +It was the Resurrection morn;<br /> +The lark sang loud o’er the springing corn;<br /> +The dove was heard, and the hunter’s horn.</p> +<p class="poetry">The murderers twelve stood by on the way;<br /> +Yet they saw nought save the lambs at play.</p> +<p class="poetry">A trouble lurked in the monarch’s eye<br +/> +When the guest he counted for dead drew nigh:<br /> +He sat in state at his palace gate;<br /> + His chiefs and nobles were ranged around;<br /> +The Druids like ravens smelt some far fate;<br /> + Their eyes were gloomily bent on the ground.<br /> +Then spake Laeghaire: “He comes—beware!<br /> +Let none salute him, or rise from his chair!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Like some still vision men see by night,<br /> + Mitred, with eyes of serene command,<br /> +Saint Patrick moved onward in ghostly white:<br /> + The Staff of Jesus was in his hand;<br /> +Twelve priests paced after him unafraid,<br /> +And the boy, Benignus, more like a maid;<br /> +Like a maid just wedded he walked and smiled,<br /> +To Christ new plighted, that priestly child.</p> +<p class="poetry">They entered the circle; their anthem +ceased;<br /> + The Druids their eyes bent earthward still:<br /> +On Patrick’s brow the glory increased<br /> + As a sunrise brightening some sea-beat hill.<br /> +The warriors sat silent: strange awe they felt:<br /> +The chief bard, Dubtach, rose and knelt:</p> +<p class="poetry">Then Patrick discoursed of the things to be<br +/> +When time gives way to eternity,<br /> +Of kingdoms that fall, which are dreams not things,<br /> +And the Kingdom built by the King of kings.<br /> +Of Him he spake who reigns from the Cross;<br /> +Of the death which is life, and the life which is loss;<br /> +How all things were made by the Infant Lord,<br /> +And the small hand the Magian kings adored.<br /> +His voice sounded on like a throbbing flood<br /> +That swells all night from some far-off wood,<br /> +And when it ended—that wondrous strain—<br /> +Invisible myriads breathed “Amen!”</p> +<p class="poetry">While he spake, men say that the refluent +tide<br /> + On the shore by Colpa ceased to sink:<br /> +They say that the white stag by Mulla’s side<br /> + O’er the green marge bending forbore to +drink:<br /> +That the Brandon eagle forgat to soar;<br /> + That no leaf stirred in the wood by Lee:<br /> +Such stupor hung the island o’er,<br /> + For none might guess what the end would be.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then whispered the king to a chief close by,<br +/> +“It were better for me to believe than die!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet the king believed not; but ordinance +gave<br /> + That whoso would might believe that word:<br /> +So the meek believed, and the wise, and brave,<br /> + And Mary’s Son as their God adored.<br /> +And the Druids, because they could answer nought,<br /> +Bowed down to the Faith the stranger brought.<br /> +That day on Erin God poured His Spirit:<br /> +Yet none like the chief of the bards had merit,<br /> +Dubtach! He rose and believed the first,<br /> +Ere the great light yet on the rest had burst.</p> +<h3>SAINT PATRICK AND THE TWO PRINCESSES.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">FEDELM “THE RED ROSE,” AND +ETHNA “THE FAIR.”</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Like</span> two sister +fawns that leap,<br /> + Borne, as though on viewless wings,<br /> +Down bosky glade and ferny steep<br /> + To quench their thirst at silver springs,<br /> +From Cruachan palace through gorse and heather,<br /> +Raced the Royal Maids together.<br /> +Since childhood thus the twain had rushed<br /> + Each morn to Clebach’s fountain-cell<br /> +Ere earliest dawn the East had flushed<br /> + To bathe them in its well:<br /> +Each morn with joy their young hearts tingled;<br /> + Each morn as, conquering cloud or mist,<br /> +The first beam with the wavelet mingled,<br /> + Mouth to mouth they kissed!</p> +<p class="poetry">They stand by the fount with their unlooped +hair—<br /> +A hand each raises—what see they there?<br /> +A white Form seated on Clebach stone;<br /> + A kinglike presence: the monks stood nigh:<br /> +Fronting the dawn he sat alone;<br /> + On the star of morning he fixed his eye:<br /> +That crozier he grasped shone bright; but brighter<br /> +The sunrise flashed from Saint Patrick’s mitre!<br /> +They gazed without fear. To a kingdom dear<br /> + From the day of their birth those Maids had been;<br +/> +Of wrong they had heard; but it came not near;<br /> + They hoped they were dear to the Power unseen.<br /> +They knelt when that Vision of Peace they saw;<br /> +Knelt, not in fear, but in loving awe:<br /> +The “Red Rose” bloomed like that East afar;<br /> +The “Fair One” shone like that morning star.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then Patrick rose: no word he said,<br /> + But thrice he made the sacred Sign:<br /> +At the first, men say that the demons fled;<br /> + At the third flocked round them the Powers divine<br +/> +Unseen. Like children devout and good,<br /> +Hands crossed on their bosoms, the maidens stood.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Blessed and holy! This land is +Eire:<br /> +Whence come ye to her, and the king our sire?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“We come from a Kingdom far off yet +near<br /> +Which the wise love well, and the wicked fear:<br /> +We come with blessing and come with ban,<br /> +We come from the Kingdom of God with man.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Whose is that Kingdom? And say, +therein<br /> + Are the chiefs all brave, and the maids all fair?<br +/> +Is it clean from reptiles, and that thing, sin?<br /> + Is it like this kingdom of King +Laeghaire?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“The chiefs of that kingdom wage war on +wrong,<br /> +And the clash of their swords is sweet as song;<br /> +Fair are the maids, and so pure from taint<br /> +The flash of their eyes turns sinner to saint;<br /> +There reptile is none, nor the ravening beast;<br /> +There light has no shadow, no end the feast.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“But say, at that feast hath the poor man +place?<br /> + Is reverence there for the old head hoar?<br /> +For the cripple that never might join the race?<br /> + For the maimed that fought, and can fight no +more?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Reverence is there for the poor and +meek;<br /> +And the great King kisses the worn, pale cheek;<br /> +And the King’s Son waits on the pilgrim guest;<br /> +And the Queen takes the little blind child to her breast:<br /> +There with a crown is the just man crowned;<br /> +But the false and the vengeful are branded and bound<br /> +In knots of serpents, and flung without pity<br /> +From the bastions and walls of the saintly City.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then the eyes of the Maidens grew dark, as +though<br /> + That judgment of God had before them passed:<br /> +And the two sweet faces grew dim with woe;<br /> + But the rose and the radiance returned at last.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Are gardens there? Are there +streams like ours?<br /> + Is God white-headed, or youthful and strong?<br /> +Hang there the rainbows o’er happy bowers?<br /> + Are there sun and moon and the thrush’s +song?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“They have gardens there without noise or +strife,<br /> +And there is the Tree of immortal Life:<br /> +Four rivers circle that blissful bound;<br /> +And Spirits float o’er it, and Spirits go round:<br /> +There, set in the midst, is the golden throne;<br /> +And the Maker of all things sits thereon:<br /> +A rainbow o’er-hangs him; and lo! therein<br /> +The beams are His Holy Ones washed from sin.”</p> +<p class="poetry">As he spake, the hearts of the Maids beat +time<br /> + To music in heaven of peace and love;<br /> +And the deeper sense of that lore sublime<br /> + Came out from within them, and down from above;<br +/> +By degrees came down; by degrees came out:<br /> +Who loveth, and hopeth, not long shall doubt.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Who is your God? Is love on His +brow?<br /> +Oh how shall we love Him and find Him? How?”<br /> +The pure cheek flamed like the dawn-touched dew:<br /> +There was silence: then Patrick began anew.<br /> +“The princes who ride in your father’s train<br /> +Have courted your love, but sued in vain;—<br /> +Look up, O Maidens; make answer free:<br /> +What boon desire you, and what would you be?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Pure we would be as yon wreath of +foam,<br /> + Or the ripple which now yon sunbeams smite:<br /> +And joy we would have, and a songful home;<br /> + And one to rule us, and Love’s +delight.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“In love God fashioned whatever is,<br /> + The hills, and the seas, and the skiey fires;<br /> +For love He made them, and endless blis<br /> + Sustains, enkindles, uplifts, inspires:<br /> +That God is Father, and Son, and Spirit;<br /> +And the true and spotless His peace inherit:<br /> +And God made man, with his great sad heart,<br /> +That hungers when held from God apart.<br /> +Your sire is a King on earth: but I<br /> +Would mate you to One who is Lord on high:<br /> +There bride is maid: and her joy shall stand,<br /> +For the King’s Son hath laid on her head His +hand.”<br /> +As he spake, the eyes of that lovely twain<br /> + Grew large with a tearful but glorious light,<br /> +Like skies of summer late cleared by rain,<br /> + When the full-orbed moon will be soon in sight.</p> +<p class="poetry">“That Son of the King—is He fairest +of men?<br /> + That mate whom He crowns—is she bright and +blest?<br /> +Does she chase the red deer at His side through the glen?<br /> + Does she charm Him with song to His noontide +rest?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“That King’s Son strove in a long, +long war:<br /> +His people He freed; yet they wounded Him sore;<br /> +And still in His hands, and His feet, and His side,<br /> +The scars of His sorrow are ’graved, deep-dyed.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then the breasts of the Maidens began to +heave<br /> + Like harbour waves when beyond the bar<br /> +The great waves gather, and wet winds grieve,<br /> + And the roll of the tempest is heard afar.</p> +<p class="poetry">“We will kiss, we will kiss those +bleeding feet;<br /> + On the bleeding hands our tears shall fall;<br /> +And whatever on earth is dear or sweet,<br /> + For that wounded heart we renounce them all.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Show us the way to His +palace-gate:”—<br /> +“That way is thorny, and steep, and straight;<br /> +By none can His palace-gate be seen,<br /> +Save those who have washed in the waters clean.”</p> +<p class="poetry">They knelt; on their heads the wave he +poured<br /> +Thrice in the name of the Triune Lord:<br /> +And he signed their brows with the Sign adored.<br /> +On Fedelm the “Red Rose,” on Ethna “The +Fair,”<br /> +God’s dew shone bright in that morning air:<br /> +Some say that Saint Agnes, ’twixt sister and sister,<br /> +As the Cross touched each, bent over and kissed her.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then sang God’s new-born Creatures, +“Behold!<br /> + We see God’s City from heaven draw nigh:<br /> +But we thirst for the fountains divine and cold:<br /> + We must see the great King’s Son, or die!<br +/> +Come, Thou that com’st! Our wish is this,<br /> + That the body might die, and the soul, set free,<br +/> +Swell out, like an infant’s lips, to the kiss<br /> + Of the Lover who filleth infinity!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“The City of God, by the water’s +grace,<br /> +Ye see: alone, they behold His Face,<br /> +Who have washed in the baths of Death their eyes,<br /> +And tasted His Eucharist Sacrifice.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Give us the Sacrifice!” Each +bright head<br /> + Bent toward it as sunflowers bend to the sun:<br /> +They ate; and the blood from the warm cheek fled:<br /> + The exile was over: the home was won:<br /> +A starry darkness o’erflowed their brain:<br /> + Far waters beat on some heavenly shore:<br /> +Like the dying away of a low, sweet strain,<br /> + The young life ebbed, and they breathed no more:<br +/> +In death they smiled, as though on the breast<br /> +Of the Mother Maid they had found their rest.</p> +<p class="poetry">The rumour spread: beside the bier<br /> + The King stood mute, and his chiefs and court:<br /> +The Druids dark-robed drew surlily near,<br /> + And the Bards storm-hearted, and humbler sort:<br /> +The “Staff of Jesus” Saint Patrick raised:<br /> + Angelic anthems above them swept:<br /> +There were that muttered; there were that praised:<br /> + But none who looked on that marvel wept.</p> +<p class="poetry">For they lay on one bed, like Brides +new-wed,<br /> + By Clebach well; and, the dirge days over,<br /> +On their smiling faces a veil was spread,<br /> + And a green mound raised that bed to cover.<br /> +Such were the ways of those ancient days—<br /> + To Patrick for aye that grave was given;<br /> +And above it he built a church in their praise;<br /> + For in them had Eire been spoused to heaven.</p> +<h3>SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDREN OF FOCHLUT WOOD.</h3> +<h4>ARGUMENT.</h4> +<p>Saint Patrick makes way into Fochlut wood by the sea, the +oldest of Erin’s forests, whence there had been borne unto +him, then in a distant land, the Children’s Wail from +Erin. He meets there two young Virgins, who sing a dirge of +man’s sorrowful condition. Afterwards they lead him +to the fortress of the king, their father. There are sung +two songs, a song of Vengeance and a song of Lament; which ended, +Saint Patrick makes proclamation of the Advent and of the +Resurrection. The king and all his chiefs believe with full +contentment.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">One</span> day as Patrick +sat upon a stone<br /> +Judging his people, Pagan babes flocked round,<br /> +All light and laughter, angel-like of mien,<br /> +Sueing for bread. He gave it, and they ate:<br /> +Then said he, “Kneel;” and taught them prayer: but +lo!<br /> +Sudden the stag hounds’ music dinned the wind;<br /> +They heard; they sprang; they chased it. Patrick spake;<br +/> +“It was the cry of children that I heard<br /> +Borne from the black wood o’er the midnight seas:<br /> +Where are those children? What avails though Kings<br /> +Have bowed before my Gospel, and in awe<br /> +Nations knelt low, unless I set mine eyes<br /> +On Fochlut Wood?” Thus speaking, he arose,<br /> +And, journeying with the brethren toward the West,<br /> +Fronted the confine of that forest old.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then entered they that darkness; and the +wood<br /> +Closed as a cavern round them. O’er its roof<br /> +Leaned roof of cloud, and hissing ran the wind,<br /> +And moaned the trunks for centuries hollowed out<br /> +Yet stalwart still. There, rooted in the rock,<br /> +Stood the huge growths, by us unnamed, that frowned<br /> +Perhaps on Partholan, the parricide,<br /> +When that first Pagan settler fugitive<br /> +Landed, a man foredoomed. Between the stems<br /> +The ravening beast now glared, now fled. Red leaves,<br /> +The last year’s phantoms, rattled here and there.<br /> +The oldest wood that ever grew in Eire<br /> +Was Fochlut Wood, and gloomiest. Spirits of Ill<br /> +Made it their palace, and its labyrinths sowed<br /> +With poisons. Many a cave, with horrors thronged<br /> +Within it yawned, and many a chasm unseen<br /> +Waited the unwary treader. Cry of wolf<br /> +Pierced the cold air, and gibbering ghosts were heard;<br /> +And o’er the black marsh passed those wandering lights<br +/> +That lure lost feet. A thousand pathways wound<br /> +From gloom to gloom. One only led to light:<br /> +That path was sharp with flints.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Then +Patrick mused,<br /> +“O life of man, how dark a wood art thou!<br /> +Erring how many track thee till Despair,<br /> +Sad host, receives them in his crypt-like porch<br /> +At nightfall.” Mute he paced. The brethren +feared;<br /> +And fearing, knelt to God. Made strong by prayer<br /> +Westward once more they trod that dark, sharp way<br /> +Till deeper gloom announced the night, then slept<br /> +Guarded by angels. But the Saint all night<br /> +Watched, strong in prayer. The second day still on<br /> +They fared, like mariners o’er strange seas borne,<br /> +That keep in mist their soundings when the rocks<br /> +Vex the dark strait, and breakers roar unseen.<br /> +At last Benignus cried, “To God be praise!<br /> +He sends us better omens. See! the moss<br /> +Brightens the crag!” Ere long another spake:<br /> +“The worst is past! This freshness in the air<br /> +Wafts us a welcome from the great salt sea;<br /> +Fair spreads the fern: green buds are on the spray,<br /> +And violets throng the grass.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> A +few steps more<br /> +Brought them to where, with peaceful gleam, there spread<br /> +A forest pool that mirrored yew trees twain<br /> +With beads like blood-drops hung. A sunset flash<br /> +Kindled a glory in the osiers brown<br /> +Encircling that still water. From the reeds<br /> +A sable bird, gold-circled, slowly rose;<br /> +But when the towering tree-tops he outsoared,<br /> +Eastward a great wind swept him as a leaf.<br /> +Serenely as he rose a music soft<br /> +Swelled from afar; but, as that storm o’ertook him,<br /> +The music changed to one on-rushing note<br /> +O’ertaken by a second; both, ere long,<br /> +Blended in wail unending. Patrick’s brow,<br /> +Listening that wail, was altered, and he spake:<br /> +“These were the Voices that I heard when stood<br /> +By night beside me in that southern land<br /> +God’s angel, girt for speed. Letters he bare<br /> +Unnumbered, full of woes. He gave me one,<br /> +Inscribed, ‘The Wailing of the Irish Race;’<br /> +And as I read that legend on mine ear<br /> +Forth from a mighty wood on Erin’s coast<br /> +There rang the cry of children, ‘Walk once more<br /> +Among us; bring us help!’” Thus Patrick +spake:<br /> +Then towards that wailing paced with forward head.</p> +<p class="poetry">Ere long they came to where a river broad,<br +/> +Swiftly amid the dense trees winding, brimmed<br /> +The flower-enamelled marge, and onward bore<br /> +Green branches ’mid its eddies. On the bank<br /> +Two virgins stood. Whiter than earliest streak<br /> +Of matin pearl dividing dusky clouds<br /> +Their raiment; and, as oft in silent woods<br /> +White beds of wind-flower lean along the earth-breeze,<br /> +So on the river-breeze that raiment wan<br /> +Shivered, back blown. Slender they stood and tall,<br /> +Their brows with violets bound; while shone, beneath,<br /> +The dark blue of their never-tearless eyes.<br /> +Then Patrick, “For the sake of Him who lays<br /> +His blessing on the mourners, O ye maids,<br /> +Reveal to me your grief—if yours late sent,<br /> +Or sped in careless childhood.” And the maids:<br /> +“Happy whose careless childhood ’scaped the +wound:”<br /> +Then she that seemed the saddest added thus:<br /> +“Stranger! this forest is no roof of joy,<br /> +Nor we the only mourners; neither fall<br /> +Bitterer the widow’s nor the orphan’s tears<br /> +Now than of old; nor sharper than long since<br /> +That loss which maketh maiden widowhood.<br /> +In childhood first our sorrow came. One eve<br /> +Within our foster-parents’ low-roofed house<br /> +The winter sunset from our bed had waned:<br /> +I slept, and sleeping dreamed. Beside the bed<br /> +There stood a lovely Lady crowned with stars;<br /> +A sword went through her heart. Down from that sword<br /> +Blood trickled on the bed, and on the ground.<br /> +Sorely I wept. The Lady spake: ‘My child,<br /> +Weep not for me, but for thy country weep;<br /> +Her wound is deeper far than mine. Cry loud!<br /> +The cry of grief is Prayer.’ I woke, all tears;<br /> +And lo! my little sister, stiff and cold,<br /> +Sat with wide eyes upon the bed upright:<br /> +That starry Lady with the bleeding heart<br /> +She, too, had seen, and heard her. Clamour vast<br /> +Rang out; and all the wall was fiery red;<br /> +And flame was on the sea. A hostile clan<br /> +Landing in mist, had fired our ships and town,<br /> +Our clansmen absent on a foray far,<br /> +And stricken many an old man, many a boy<br /> +To bondage dragged. Oh night with blood redeemed!<br /> +Upon the third day o’er the green waves rushed<br /> +The vengeance winged, with axe and torch, to quit<br /> +Wrong with new wrong, and many a time since then.<br /> +That night sad women on the sea sands toiled,<br /> +Drawing from wreck and ruin, beam or plank<br /> +To shield their babes. Our foster-parents slain,<br /> +Unheeded we, the children of the chief,<br /> +Roamed the great forest. There we told our dream<br /> +To children likewise orphaned. Sudden fear<br /> +Smote them as though themselves had dreamed that dream,<br /> +And back from them redoubled upon us;<br /> +Until at last from us and them rang out—<br /> +The dark wood heard it, and the midnight sea—<br /> +A great and bitter cry.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “That +cry went up,<br /> +O children, to the heart of God; and He<br /> +Down sent it, pitying, to a far-off land,<br /> +And on into my heart. By that first pang<br /> +Which left the eternal pallor in your cheeks,<br /> +O maids, I pray you, sing once more that song<br /> +Ye sang but late. I heard its long last note:<br /> +Fain would I hear the song that such death died.”</p> +<p class="poetry">They sang: not scathless those that sing such +song!<br /> +Grief, their instructress, of the Muses chief<br /> +To hearts by grief unvanquished, to their hearts<br /> +Had taught a melody that neither spared<br /> +Singer nor listener. Pale when they began,<br /> +Paler it left them. He not less was pale<br /> +Who, out of trance awaking, thanked them thus:<br /> +“Now know I of that sorrow in you fixed;<br /> +What, and how great it is, and bless that Power<br /> +Who called me forth from nothing for your sakes,<br /> +And sent me to this wood. Maidens, lead on!<br /> +A chieftain’s daughters ye; and he, your sire,<br /> +And with him she who gave you your sweet looks<br /> +(Sadder perchance than you in songless age)<br /> +They, too, must hear my tidings. Once a Prince<br /> +Went solitary from His golden throne,<br /> +Tracking the illimitable wastes, to find<br /> +One wildered sheep, the meanest of the flock,<br /> +And on His shoulders bore it to that House<br /> +Where dwelt His Sire. ‘Good Shepherd’ was His +Name.<br /> +My tidings these: heralds are we, footsore,<br /> +That bring the heart-sore comfort.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> On +they paced,<br /> +On by the rushing river without words.<br /> +Beside the elder sister Patrick walked,<br /> +Benignus by the younger. Fair her face;<br /> +Majestic his, though young. Her looks were sad<br /> +And awe-struck; his, fulfilled with secret joy,<br /> +Sent forth a gleam as when a morn-touched bay<br /> +Through ambush shines of woodlands. Soon they stood<br /> +Where sea and river met, and trod a path<br /> +Wet with salt spray, and drank the clement breeze,<br /> +And saw the quivering of the green gold wave,<br /> +And, far beyond, that fierce aggressor’s bourn,<br /> +Fair haunt for savage race, a purple ridge<br /> +By rainy sunbeam gemmed from glen to glen,<br /> +Dim waste of wandering lights. The sun, half risen,<br /> +Lay half sea-couched. A neighbouring height sent forth<br +/> +Welcome of baying hounds; and, close at hand,<br /> +They reached the chieftain’s keep.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> A +white-haired man<br /> +And long since blind, there sat he in his hall,<br /> +Untamed by age. At times a fiery gleam<br /> +Flashed from his sightless eyes; and oft the red<br /> +Burned on his forehead, while with splenetic speech<br /> +Stirred by ill news or memory stung, he banned<br /> +Foes and false friend. Pleased by his daughters’ +tale,<br /> +At once he stretched his huge yet aimless hands<br /> +In welcome towards his guests. Beside him stood<br /> +His mate of forty years by that strong arm<br /> +From countless suitors won. Pensive her face:<br /> +With parted youth the confidence of youth<br /> +Had left her. Beauty, too, though with remorse,<br /> +Its seat had half relinquished on a cheek<br /> +Long time its boast, and on that willowy form,<br /> +So yielding now, where once in strength upsoared<br /> +The queenly presence. Tenderest grace not less<br /> +Haunted her life’s dim twilight—meekness, +love—<br /> +That humble love, all-giving, that seeks nought,<br /> +Self-reverent calm, and modesty in age.<br /> +She turned an anxious eye on him she loved;<br /> +And, bending, kissed at times that wrinkled hand,<br /> +By years and sorrows made his wife far more<br /> +Than in her nuptial bloom. These two had lost<br /> +Five sons, their hope, in war.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> That +eve it chanced<br /> +High feast was holden in the chieftain’s tower<br /> +To solemnise his birthday. In they flocked,<br /> +Each after each, the warriors of the clan,<br /> +Not without pomp heraldic and fair state<br /> +Barbaric, yet beseeming. Unto each<br /> +Seat was assigned for deeds or lineage old,<br /> +And to the chiefs allied. Where each had place<br /> +Above him waved his banner. Not for this<br /> +Unhonoured were the pilgrim guests. They sat<br /> +Where, fed by pinewood and the seeded cone,<br /> +The loud hearth blazed. Bathed were the wearied feet<br /> +By maidens of the place and nurses grey,<br /> +And dried in linen fragrant still with flowers<br /> +Of years when those old nurses too were fair.<br /> +And now the board was spread, and carved the meat,<br /> +And jests ran round, and many a tale was told,<br /> +Some rude, but none opprobrious. Banquet done,<br /> +Page-led the harper entered, old, and blind:<br /> +The noblest ranged his chair, and spread the mat;<br /> +The loveliest raised his wine cup, one light hand<br /> +Laid on his shoulder, while the golden hair<br /> +Commingled with the silver. “Sing,” they +cried,<br /> +“The death of Deirdrè; or that desolate sire<br /> +That slew his son, unweeting; or that Queen<br /> +Who from her palace pacing with fixed eyes<br /> +Stared at those heads in dreadful circle ranged,<br /> +The heads of traitor-friends that slew her lord<br /> +Then mocked the friend they murdered. Leal and true,<br /> +The Bard who wrought that vengeance!” Thus he +sang:</p> +<h4>THE LAY OF THE HEADS.</h4> +<p class="poetry"> The Bard +returns to a stricken house:<br /> + What shape is +that he rears on high?<br /> + A withe of the Willow, set round +with Heads:<br /> + They blot that +evening sky.</p> +<p class="poetry"> A Widow +meets him at the gates:<br /> + What fixes thus +that Widow’s eye?<br /> + She names the name; but she sees +not the man,<br /> + Nor beyond him +that reddening sky.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Bard +of the Brand, thou Foster-Sire<br /> + Of him they +slew—their friend—my lord—<br /> + What Head is that—the +first—that frowns<br /> + Like a traitor +self-abhorred?”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “Daughter +of Orgill wounded sore,<br /> + Thou of the +fateful eye serene,<br /> + Fergus is he. The feast he +made<br /> + That snared thy +Cuchullene.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “What +Head is that—the next—half-hid<br /> + In curls full +lustrous to behold?<br /> + They mind me of a hand that +once<br /> + I saw amid their +gold.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “’Tis +Manadh. He that by the shore<br /> + Held rule, and +named the waves his steeds:<br /> + ’Twas he that struck the +stroke accursed—<br /> + Headless this +day he bleeds.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “What +Head is that close by—so still,<br /> + With half-closed +lids, and lips that smile?<br /> + Methinks I know their voice: +methinks<br /> + <i>His</i> wine +they quaffed erewhile!”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “’Twas +he raised high that severed head:<br /> + Thy head he +raised, my Foster-Child!<br /> + That was the latest stroke I +struck:<br /> + I struck that +stroke, and smiled.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “What +Heads are those—that twain, so like,<br /> + Flushed as with +blood by yon red sky?”<br /> + “Each unto each, <i>his</i> +Head they rolled;<br /> + Red on that +grass they lie.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “That +paler twain, which face the East?”<br /> + “Laegar is +one; the other Hilt;<br /> + Silent they watched the sport! +they share<br /> + The doom, that +shared the guilt.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Bard +of the Vengeance! well thou knew’st<br /> + Blood cries for +blood! O kind, and true,<br /> + How many, kith and kin, have +died<br /> + That mocked the +man they slew?”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “O +Woman of the fateful eye,<br /> + The untrembling +voice, the marble mould,<br /> + Seven hundred men, in house or +field,<br /> + For the man they +mocked, lie cold.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “Their +wives, thou Bard? their wives? their wives?<br /> + Far off, or +nigh, through Inisfail,<br /> + This hour what are they? +Stand they mute<br /> + Like me; or make +their wail?”</p> +<p class="poetry"> “O +Eimer! women weep and smile;<br /> + The young have +hope, the young that mourn;<br /> + But I am old; my hope was he:<br +/> + He that can +ne’er return!</p> +<p class="poetry"> “O +Conal! lay me in his grave:<br /> + Oh! lay me by my +husband’s side:<br /> + Oh! lay my lips to his in +death;”<br /> + She spake, and, +standing, died.</p> +<p class="poetry"> She fell at +last—in death she fell—<br /> + She lay, a black +shade, on the ground;<br /> + And all her women o’er her +wailed<br /> + Like sea-birds +o’er the drowned.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Thus to the blind chief sang +that harper blind,<br /> +Hymning the vengeance; and the great hall roared<br /> +With wrath of those wild listeners. Many a heel<br /> +Smote the rough stone in scorn of them that died<br /> +Not three days past, so seemed it! Direful hands,<br /> +Together dashed, thundered the Avenger’s praise.<br /> +At last the tide of that fierce tumult ebbed<br /> +O’er shores of silence. From her lowly seat<br /> +Beside her husband’s spake the gentle Queen:<br /> +“My daughters, from your childhood ye were still<br /> +A voice of music in your father’s house—<br /> +Not wrathful music. Sing that song ye made<br /> +Or found long since, and yet in forest sing,<br /> +If haply Power Unknown may hear and help.”<br /> +She spake, and at her word her daughters sang.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Lost, lost, all lost! O tell us +what is lost?<br /> +Behold, this too is hidden! Let him speak,<br /> +If any knows. The wounded deer can turn<br /> +And see the shaft that quivers in its flank;<br /> +The bird looks back upon its broken wing;<br /> +But we, the forest children, only know<br /> +Our grief is infinite, and hath no name.<br /> +What woman-prophet, shrouded in dark veil,<br /> +Whispered a Hope sadder than Fear? Long since,<br /> +What Father lost His children in the wood?<br /> +Some God? And can a God forsake? Perchance<br /> +His face is turned to nobler worlds new-made;<br /> +Perchance his palace owns some later bride<br /> +That hates the dead Queen’s children, and with charm<br /> +Prevails that they are exiled from his eyes,<br /> +The exile’s winter theirs—the exile’s song.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Blood, ever blood! The sword goes +raging on<br /> +O’er hill and moor; and with it, iron-willed,<br /> +Drags on the hand that holds it and the man<br /> +To slake its ceaseless thirst for blood of men;<br /> +Fire takes the little cot beside the mere,<br /> +And leaps upon the upland village: fire<br /> +Up clambers to the castle on the crag;<br /> +And whom the fire has spared the hunger kills;<br /> +And earth draws all into her thousand graves.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Ah me! the little linnet knows the +branch<br /> +Whereon to build; the honey-pasturing bee<br /> +Knows the wild heath, and how to shape its cell;<br /> +Upon the poisonous berry no bird feeds;<br /> +So well their mother, Nature, helps her own.<br /> +Mothers forsake not;—can a Father hate?<br /> +Who knows but that He yearns—that Sire Unseen—<br /> +To clasp His children? All is sweet and sane,<br /> +All, all save man! Sweet is the summer flower,<br /> +The day-long sunset of the autumnal woods;<br /> +Fair is the winter frost; in spring the heart<br /> +Shakes to the bleating lamb. O then what thing<br /> +Might be the life secure of man with man,<br /> +The infant’s smile, the mother’s kiss, the love<br /> +Of lovers, and the untroubled wedded home?<br /> +This might have been man’s lot. Who sent the woe?<br +/> +Who formed man first? Who taught him first the ill way?<br +/> +One creature, only, sins; and he the highest!</p> +<p class="poetry">“O Higher than the highest! Thou +Whose hand<br /> +Made us—Who shaped’st that hand Thou wilt not +clasp,<br /> +The eye Thou open’st not, the sealed-up ear!<br /> +Be mightier than man’s sin: for lo, how man<br /> +Seeks Thee, and ceases not: through noontide cave<br /> +And dark air of the dawn-unlighted peak<br /> +To Thee how long he strains the weak, worn eye<br /> +If haply he might see Thy vesture’s hem<br /> +On farthest winds receding! Yea, how oft<br /> +Against the blind and tremulous wall of cliff<br /> +Tormented by sea surge, he leans his ear<br /> +If haply o’er it name of Thine might creep;<br /> +Or bends above the torrent-cloven abyss,<br /> +If falling flood might lisp it! Power unknown!<br /> +He hears it not: Thou hear’st his beating heart<br /> +That cries to Thee for ever! From the veil<br /> +That shrouds Thee, from the wood, the cloud, the void,<br /> +O, by the anguish of all lands evoked,<br /> +Look forth! Though, seeing Thee, man’s race should +die,<br /> +One moment let him see Thee! Let him lay<br /> +At least his forehead on Thy foot in death!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> So sang the maidens: but the +warriors frowned;<br /> +And thus the blind king muttered, “Bootless weed<br /> +Is plaint where help is none!” But wives and maids<br +/> +And the thick-crowding poor, that many a time<br /> +Had wailed on war-fields o’er their brethren slain,<br /> +Went down before that strain as river reeds<br /> +Before strong wind, went down when o’er them passed<br /> +Its last word, “Death;” and grief’s infection +spread<br /> +From least to first; and weeping filled the hall.<br /> +Then on Saint Patrick fell compassion great;<br /> +He rose amid that concourse, and with voice<br /> +And words now lost, alas, or all but lost,<br /> +Such that the chief of sight amerced, beheld<br /> +The imagined man before him crowned with light,<br /> +Proclaimed that God who hideth not His face,<br /> +His people’s King and Father; open flung<br /> +The portals of His realm, that inward rolled,<br /> +With music of a million singing spheres<br /> +Commanded all to enter. Who was He<br /> +Who called the worlds from nought? His name is Love!<br /> +In love He made those worlds. They have not lost,<br /> +The sun his splendour, nor the moon her light:<br /> +<i>That</i> miracle survives. Alas for thee!<br /> +Thou better miracle, fair human love,<br /> +That splendour shouldst have been of home and hearth,<br /> +Now quenched by mortal hate! Whence come our woes<br /> +But from our lusts? O desecrated law<br /> +By God’s own finger on our hearts engraved,<br /> +How well art thou avenged! No dream it was,<br /> +That primal greatness, and that primal peace:<br /> +Man in God’s image at the first was made,<br /> +A God to rule below!</p> +<p +class="poetry"> He +told it all—<br /> +Creation, and that Sin which marred its face;<br /> +And how the great Creator, creature made,<br /> +God—God for man incarnate—died for man:<br /> +Dead, with His Cross he thundered on the gates<br /> +Of Death’s blind Hades. Then, with hands +outstretched<br /> +His Holy Ones that, in their penance prison<br /> +From hope in Him had ceased not, to the light<br /> +Flashed from His bleeding hands and branded brow<br /> +Through darkness soared: they reign with Him in heaven:<br /> +Their brethren we, the children of one Sire.<br /> +Long time he spake. The winds forbore their wail;<br /> +The woods were hushed. That wondrous tale complete,<br /> +Not sudden fell the silence; for, as when<br /> +A huge wave forth from ocean toiling mounts<br /> +High-arched, in solid bulk, the beach rock-strewn,<br /> +Burying his hoar head under echoing cliffs,<br /> +And, after pause, refluent to sea returns<br /> +Not all at once is stillness, countless rills<br /> +Or devious winding down the steep, or borne<br /> +In crystal leap from sea-shelf to sea-well,<br /> +And sparry grot replying; gradual thus<br /> +With lessening cadence sank that great discourse,<br /> +While round him gazed Saint Patrick, now the old<br /> +Regarding, now the young, and flung on each<br /> +In turn his boundless heart, and gazing longed<br /> +As only Apostolic heart can long<br /> +To help the helpless.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “Fair, +O friends, the bourn<br /> +We dwell in! Holy King makes happy land:<br /> +Our King is in our midst. He gave us gifts;<br /> +Laws that are Love, the sovereignty of Truth.<br /> +What, sirs, ye knew Him not! But ye by signs<br /> +Foresaw His coming, as, when buds are red<br /> +Ye say, ‘The spring is nigh us.’ Him, +unknown,<br /> +Each loved who loved his brother! Shepherd youths,<br /> +Who spread the pasture green beneath your lambs<br /> +And freshened it with snow-fed stream and mist?<br /> +Who but that Love unseen? Grey mariners,<br /> +Who lulled the rough seas round your midnight nets,<br /> +And sent the landward breeze? Pale sufferers wan,<br /> +Rejoice! His are ye; yea, and His the most!<br /> +Have ye not watched the eagle that upstirs<br /> +Her nest, then undersails her falling brood<br /> +And stays them on her plumes, and bears them up<br /> +Till, taught by proof, they learn their unguessed powers<br /> +And breast the storm? Thus God stirs up His people;<br /> +Thus proves by pain. Ye too, O hearths well-loved!<br /> +How oft your sin-stained sanctities ye mourned!<br /> +Wives! from the cradle reigns the Bethelem Babe!<br /> +Maidens! henceforth the Virgin Mother spreads<br /> +Her shining veil above you!</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “Speak +aloud,<br /> +Chieftains world-famed! I hear the ancient blood<br /> +That leaps against your hearts! What? Warriors ye!<br +/> +Danger your birthright, and your pastime death!<br /> +Behold your foes! They stand before you plain:<br /> +Ill passions, base ambitions, falsehood, hate:<br /> +Wage war on these! A King is in your host!<br /> +His hands no roses plucked but on the Cross:<br /> +He came not hand of man in woman’s tasks<br /> +To mesh. In woman’s hand, in childhood’s +hand,<br /> +Much more in man’s, He lodged His conquering sword;<br /> +Them too His soldiers named, and vowed to war.<br /> +Rise, clan of Kings, rise, champions of man’s race,<br /> +Heaven’s sun-clad army militant on earth,<br /> +One victory gained, the realm decreed is ours.<br /> +The bridal bells ring out, for Low with High<br /> +Is wed in endless nuptials. It is past,<br /> +The sin, the exile, and the grief. O man,<br /> +Take thou, renewed, thy sister-mate by hand;<br /> +Know well thy dignity, and hers: return,<br /> +And meet once more Thy Maker, for He walks<br /> +Once more within thy garden, in the cool<br /> +Of the world’s eve!”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> The +words that Patrick spake<br /> +Were words of power, not futile did they fall:<br /> +But, probing, healed a sorrowing people’s wound.<br /> +Round him they stood, as oft in Grecian days,<br /> +Some haughty city sieged, her penitent sons<br /> +Thronging green Pnyx or templed Forum hushed<br /> +Hung listening on that People’s one true Voice,<br /> +The man that ne’er had flattered, ne’er deceived,<br +/> +Nursed no false hope. It was the time of Faith;<br /> +Open was then man’s ear, open his heart:<br /> +Pride spurned not then that chiefest strength of man<br /> +The power, by Truth confronted, to believe.<br /> +Not savage was that wild, barbaric race:<br /> +Spirit was in them. On their knees they sank,<br /> +With foreheads lowly bent; and when they rose<br /> +Such sound went forth as when late anchored fleet<br /> +Touched by dawn breeze, shakes out its canvas broad<br /> +And sweeps into new waters. Man with man<br /> +Clasped hands; and each in each a something saw<br /> +Till then unseen. As though flesh-bound no more,<br /> +Their souls had touched. One Truth, the Spirit’s +life,<br /> +Lived in them all, a vast and common joy.<br /> +And yet as when, that Pentecostal morn,<br /> +Each heard the Apostle in his native tongue,<br /> +So now, on each, that Truth, that Joy, that Life<br /> +Shone forth with beam diverse. Deep peace to one<br /> +Those tidings seemed, a still vale after storm;<br /> +To one a sacred rule, steadying the world;<br /> +A third exulting saw his youthful hope<br /> +Written in stars; a fourth triumphant hailed<br /> +The just cause, long oppressed. Some laughed, some wept:<br +/> +But she, that aged chieftain’s mournful wife<br /> +Clasped to her boding breast his hoary head<br /> +Loud clamouring, “Death is dead; and not for long<br /> +That dreadful grave can part us.” Last of all,<br /> +He too believed. That hoary head had shaped<br /> +Full many a crafty scheme:—behind them all<br /> +Nature held fast her own.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> O +happy night!<br /> +Back through the gloom of centuries sin-defaced<br /> +With what a saintly radiance thou dost shine!<br /> +They slept not, on the loud-resounding shore<br /> +In glory roaming. Many a feud that night<br /> +Lay down in holy grave, or, mockery made,<br /> +Was quenched in its own shame. Far shone the fires<br /> +Crowning dark hills with gladness: soared the song;<br /> +And heralds sped from coast to coast to tell<br /> +How He the Lord of all, no Power Unknown<br /> +But like a man rejoicing in his house,<br /> +Ruled the glad earth. That demon-haunted wood,<br /> +Sad Erin’s saddest region, yet, men say,<br /> +Tenderest for all its sadness, rang at last<br /> +With hymns of men and angels. Onward sailed<br /> +High o’er the long, unbreaking, azure waves<br /> +A mighty moon, full-faced, as though on winds<br /> +Of rapture borne. With earliest red of dawn<br /> +Northward once more the wingèd war-ships rushed<br /> +Swift as of old to that long hated shore—<br /> +Not now with axe and torch. His Name they bare<br /> +Who linked in one the nations.</p> +<p class="poetry"><br /> + + +On a cliff<br /> +Where Fochlut’s Wood blackened the northern sea<br /> +A convent rose. Therein those sisters twain<br /> +Whose cry had summoned Patrick o’er the deep,<br /> +Abode, no longer weepers. Pallid still,<br /> +In radiance now their faces shone; and sweet<br /> +Their psalms amid the clangour of rough brine.<br /> +Ten years in praise to God and good to men<br /> +That happy precinct housed them. In their morn<br /> +Grief had for them her great work perfected;<br /> +Their eve was bright as childhood. When the hour<br /> +Came for their blissful transit, from their lips<br /> +Pealed forth ere death that great triumphant chant<br /> +Sung by the Virgin Mother. Ages passed;<br /> +And, year by year, on wintry nights, <i>that</i> song<br /> +Alone the sailors heard—a cry of joy.</p> +<h3>SAINT PATRICK AND KING LAEGHAIRE.</h3> +<p class="poetry">“<span class="smcap">Thou</span> son of +Calphurn, in peace go forth!<br /> + This hand shall slay them whoe’er shall slay +thee!<br /> +The carles shall stand to their necks in earth<br /> + Till they die of thirst who mock or stay thee!</p> +<p class="poetry">“But my father, Nial, who is dead long +since,<br /> + Permits not me to believe thy word;<br /> +For the servants of Jesus, thy heavenly Prince,<br /> + Once dead, lie flat as in sleep, interred:<br /> +But we are as men that through dark floods wade;<br /> +We stand in our black graves undismayed;<br /> +Our faces are turned to the race abhorred,<br /> +And at each hand by us stand spear or sword,<br /> +Ready to strike at the last great day,<br /> +Ready to trample them back into clay!</p> +<p class="poetry">“This is my realm, and men call it +Eire,<br /> + Wherein I have lived and live in hate<br /> +Like Nial before me and Erc his sire,<br /> + Of the race Lagenian, ill-named the +Great!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus spake Laeghaire, and his host rushed +on,<br /> + A river of blood as yet unshed:—<br /> +At noon they fought: and at set of sun<br /> + That king lay captive, that host lay dead!</p> +<p class="poetry">The Lagenian loosed him, but bade him swear<br +/> + He would never demand of them Tribute more:<br /> + So Laeghaire by the dread “God-Elements” +swore,<br /> +By the moon divine and the earth and air;<br /> +He swore by the wind and the broad sunshine<br /> + That circle for ever both land and sea,<br /> +By the long-backed rivers, and mighty wine,<br /> + By the cloud far-seeing, by herb and tree,<br /> +By the boon spring shower, and by autumn’s fan,<br /> +By woman’s breast, and the head of man,<br /> +By Night and the noonday Demon he swore<br /> +He would claim the Boarian Tribute no more.</p> +<p class="poetry">But with time wrath waxed; and he brake his +faith:<br /> +Then the dread “God-Elements” wrought his death;<br +/> +For the Wind and Sun-Strength by Cassi’s side<br /> +Came down and smote on his head that he died.<br /> +Death-sick three days on his throne he sate;<br /> +Then died, as his father died, great in hate.</p> +<p class="poetry">They buried their king upon Tara’s +hill,<br /> +In his grave upright—there stands he still:<br /> +Upright there stands he as men that wade<br /> +By night through a castle-moat, undismayed;<br /> +On his head is the crown, the spear in his hand;<br /> +And he looks to the hated Lagenian land.</p> +<p class="poetry">Such rites in the time of wrath and wrong<br /> + Were Eire’s: baptised, they were hers no +longer:<br /> +For Patrick had taught her his sweet new song,<br /> + “Though hate is strong, yet love is +stronger.”</p> +<h3>SAINT PATRICK AND THE IMPOSTOR;<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OR, MAC KYLE OF MAN.</span></h3> +<p>Mac Kyle, a child of death, dwells in a forest with other men +like unto himself, that slay whom they will. Saint Patrick +coming to that wood, a certain Impostor devises how he may be +deceived and killed; but God smites the Impostor through his own +snare, and he dies. Mac Kyle believes, and demanding +penance is baptised. Afterwards he preaches in Manann <a +name="citation77"></a><a href="#footnote77" +class="citation">[77]</a> Isle, and becomes a great Saint.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> Uladh, near Magh +Inis, lived a chief,<br /> +Fierce man and fell. From orphaned childhood he<br /> +Through lawless youth to blood-stained middle age<br /> +Had rushed as stormy morn to stormier noon,<br /> +Working, except that still he spared the poor,<br /> +All wrongs with iron will; a child of death.<br /> +Thus spake he to his followers, while the woods<br /> +Snow-cumbered creaked, their scales of icy mail<br /> +Angered by winter winds: “At last he comes,<br /> +He that deceives the people with great signs,<br /> +And for the tinkling of a little gold<br /> +Preaches new Gods. Where rises yonder smoke<br /> +Beyond the pinewood, camps this Lord of Dupes:<br /> +How say ye? Shall he track o’er Uladh’s +plains,<br /> +As o’er the land beside, his venomous way?<br /> +Forth with your swords! and if that God he serves<br /> +Can save him, let him prove it!”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Dark +with wrath<br /> +Thus spake Mac Kyle; and all his men approved,<br /> +Shouting, while downward fell the snows hard-caked Loosened by +shock of forest-echoed hands,<br /> +Save Garban. Crafty he, and full of lies,<br /> +That thing which Patrick hated. Sideway first<br /> +Glancing, as though some secret foe were nigh,<br /> +He spake: “Mac Kyle! a counsel for thine ear!<br /> +A man of counsel I, as thou of war!<br /> +The people love this stranger. Patrick slain,<br /> +Their wrath will blaze against us, and demand<br /> +An <i>eric</i> for his head. Let us by craft<br /> +Unravel first <i>his</i> craft: then safe our choice;<br /> +We slay a traitor, or great ransom take:<br /> +Impostors lack not gold. Lay me as dead<br /> +Upon a bier: above me spread yon cloth,<br /> +And make your wail: and when the seer draws nigh<br /> +Worship him, crying, ‘Lo, our friend is dead!<br /> +Kneel, prophet, kneel, and pray that God thou serv’st<br /> +To raise him.’ If he kneels, no prophet he,<br /> +But like the race of mortals. Sweep the cloth<br /> +Straight from my face; then, laughing, I will rise.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus counselled Garban; and the counsel +pleased;<br /> +Yet pleased not God. Upon a bier, branch-strewn,<br /> +They laid their man, and o’er him spread a cloth;<br /> +Then, moving towards that smoke behind the pines,<br /> +They found the Saint and brought him to that bier,<br /> +And made their moan—and Garban ’neath that cloth<br +/> +Smiled as he heard it—“Lo, our friend is dead!<br /> +Great prophet kneel; and pray the God thou serv’st<br /> +To raise him from the dead.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> The +man of God<br /> +Upon them fixed a sentence-speaking eye:<br /> +“Yea! he is dead. In this ye have not lied:<br /> +Behold, this day shall Garban’s covering be<br /> +The covering of the dead. Remove that cloth.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then drew they from his face the cloth; and +lo!<br /> +Beneath it Garban lay, a corpse stone-cold.</p> +<p class="poetry">Amazement fell upon that bandit throng,<br /> +Contemplating that corpse, and on Mac Kyle<br /> +Grief for his friend, remorse, and strong belief,<br /> +A threefold power: for she that at his birth,<br /> +Her brief life faithful to that Law she knew,<br /> +Had died, in region where desires are crowned<br /> +That hour was strong in prayer. “From God he +came,”<br /> +Thus cried they; “and we worked a work accursed,<br /> +Tempting God’s prophet.” Patrick heard, and +spake;<br /> +“Not me ye tempted, but the God I serve.”<br /> +At last Mac Kyle made answer: “I have sinned;<br /> +I, and this people, whom I made to sin:<br /> +Now therefore to thy God we yield ourselves<br /> +Liegemen henceforth, his thralls as slave to Lord,<br /> +Or horse to master. That which thou command’st<br /> +That will we do.” And Patrick said, +“Believe;<br /> +Confess your sins; and be baptised to God,<br /> +The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit,<br /> +And live true life.” Then Patrick where he stood<br +/> +Above the dead, with hands uplifted preached<br /> +To these in anguish and in terror bowed<br /> +The tidings of great joy from Bethlehem’s Crib<br /> +To Calvary’s Cross. Sudden upon his knees,<br /> +Heart-pierced, as though he saw that Head thorn-pierced,<br /> +Fell that wild chief, and was baptised to God;<br /> +And, lifting up his great strong hands, while still<br /> +The waters streamed adown his matted locks,<br /> +He cried, “Alas, my master, and my sire!<br /> +I sinned a mighty sin; for in my heart<br /> +Fixed was my purpose, soon as thou hadst knelt,<br /> +To slay thee with my sword. Therefore judge thou<br /> +What <i>eric</i> I must pay to quit my sin?”<br /> +Him Patrick answered, “God shall be thy Judge:<br /> +Arise, and to the seaside flee, as one<br /> +That flies his foe. There shalt thou find a boat<br /> +Made of one hide: eat nought, and nothing take<br /> +Except one cloak alone: but in that boat<br /> +Sit thou, and bear the sin-mark on thy brow,<br /> +Facing the waves, oarless and rudderless;<br /> +And bind the boat chain thrice around thy feet,<br /> +And fling the key with strength into the main,<br /> +Far as thou canst: and wheresoe’er the breath<br /> +Of God shall waft thee, there till death abide<br /> +Working the Will Divine.” Then spake that chief,<br +/> +“I, that commanded others, can obey;<br /> +Such lore alone is mine: but for this man<br /> +That sinned my sin, alas, to see him thus!”<br /> +To whom the Saint, “For him, when thou art gone,<br /> +My prayer shall rise. If God will raise the dead<br /> +He knows: not I.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Then +rose that chief, and rushed<br /> +Down to the shore, as one that flies his foe;<br /> +Nor ate, nor drank, nor spake to wife or child,<br /> +But loosed a little boat, of one hide made,<br /> +And sat therein, and round his ankles wound<br /> +The boat chain thrice; and flung the key far forth<br /> +Above the ridged sea foam. The Lord of all<br /> +Gave ordinance to the wind, and, as a leaf<br /> +Swift rushed that boat, oarless and rudderless,<br /> +Over the on-shouldering, broad-backed, glaucous wave<br /> +Slow-rising like the rising of a world,<br /> +And purple wastes beyond, with funeral plume<br /> +Crested, a pallid pomp. All night the chief<br /> +Under the roaring tempest heard the voice<br /> +That preached the Son of Man; and when the morn<br /> +Shone out, his coracle drew near the surge<br /> +Reboant on Manann’s Isle. Not unbeheld<br /> +Rose it, and fell; not unregarded danced<br /> +A black spot on the inrolling ridge, then hung<br /> +Suspense upon the mile-long cataract<br /> +That, overtoppling, changed grass-green to light,<br /> +And drowned the shores in foam. Upon the sands<br /> +Two white-haired Elders in the salt air knelt,<br /> +Offering to God their early orisons,<br /> +Coninri and Romael. Sixty years<br /> +These two unto a hard and stubborn race<br /> +Had preached the Word; and gaining by their toil<br /> +But thirty souls, had daily prayed their God<br /> +To send ere yet they died some ampler arm,<br /> +And reap the ill-grown harvest of their youth.<br /> +Ten years they prayed, not doubting, and from God,<br /> +Who hastens not, this answer had received,<br /> +“Ye shall not die until ye see his face.”<br /> +Therefore, each morning, peered they o’er the waves,<br /> +Long-watching. These through breakers dragged the man,<br +/> +Their wished-for prize, half-frozen, and nigh to death,<br /> +And bare him to their cell, and warmed and fed him,<br /> +And heaped his couch with skins. Deep sleep he slept<br /> +Till evening lay upon the level sea<br /> +With roses strewn like bridal chamber’s floor;<br /> +Within it one star shone. Rested, he woke<br /> +And sought the shore. From earth, and sea, and sky,<br /> +Then passed into his spirit the Spirit of Love;<br /> +And there he vowed his vow, fierce chief no more,<br /> +But soldier of the cross.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> The +weeks ran on,<br /> +And daily those grey Elders ministered<br /> +God’s teaching to that chief, demanding still,<br /> +“Son, understandst thou? Gird thee like a man<br /> +To clasp, and hold, the total Faith of Christ,<br /> +And give us leave to die.” The months fled fast:<br +/> +Ere violets bloomed, he knew the creed; and when<br /> +Far heathery hills purpled the autumnal air,<br /> +He sang the psalter whole. That tale he told<br /> +Had power, and Patrick’s name. His strenous arm<br /> +Labouring with theirs, reaped harvest heavy and sound,<br /> +Till wondering gazed their wearied eyes on barns<br /> +Knee-deep in grain. At last an eve there fell,<br /> +When, on the shore in commune, with such might<br /> +Discoursed that pilgrim of the things of God,<br /> +Such insight calm, and wisdom reverence-born,<br /> +Each on the other gazing in their hearts<br /> +Received once more an answer from the Lord,<br /> +“Now is your task completed: ye shall die.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then on the red sand knelt those Elders +twain<br /> +With hands upraised, and all their hoary hair<br /> +Tinged like the foam-wreaths by that setting sun,<br /> +And sang their “Nunc Dimittis.” At its close<br +/> +High on the sandhills, ’mid the tall hard grass<br /> +That sighed eternal o’er the unbounded waste<br /> +With ceaseless yearnings like their own for death<br /> +They found the place where first, that bark descried,<br /> +Their sighs were changed to songs. That spot they +marked,<br /> +And said, “Our resurrection place is here:”<br /> +And, on the third day dying, in that place<br /> +The man who loved them laid them, at their heads<br /> +Planting one cross because their hearts were one<br /> +And one their lives. The snowy-breasted bird<br /> +Of ocean o’er their undivided graves<br /> +Oft flew with wailing note; but they rejoiced<br /> +’Mid God’s high realm glittering in endless +youth.</p> +<p class="poetry">These two with Christ, on him, their son in +Christ<br /> +Their mantle fell; and strength to him was given.<br /> +Long time he toiled alone; then round him flocked<br /> +Helpers from far. At last, by voice of all<br /> +He gat the Island’s great episcopate,<br /> +And king-like ruled the region. This is he,<br /> +Mac Kyle of Uladh, bishop, and Penitent,<br /> +Saint Patrick’s missioner in Manann’s Isle,<br /> +Sinner one time, and, after sinner, Saint<br /> +World-famous. May his prayer for sinners plead!</p> +<h3>SAINT PATRICK AT CASHEL;<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OR, THE BAPTISM OF AENGUS.</span></h3> +<h4>ARGUMENT.</h4> +<p>Saint Patrick goes to Cashel of the Rings to celebrate the +Feast of the Annunciation. Aengus, who reigns there, +receives him with all honour. He and his people believe, +and by Baptism are added unto the Church. Aengus desires to +resign his sovereignty, and become a monk. The Saint +suffers not this, because he had discovered by two notable signs, +both at the baptism of Aengus and before it, that the Prince is +of those who are called by God to rule men.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> Patrick now +o’er Ulster’s forest bound,<br /> +And Connact, echoing to the western wave,<br /> +And Leinster, fair with hill-suspended woods,<br /> +Had raised the cross, and where the deep night ruled,<br /> +Splendour had sent of everlasting light,<br /> +Sole peace of warring hearts, to Munster next,<br /> +Thomond and Desmond, Heber’s portion old,<br /> +He turned; and, fired by love that mocks at rest<br /> +Pushed on through raging storm the whole night long,<br /> +Intent to hold the Annunciation Feast<br /> +At Cashel of the Kings. The royal keep<br /> +High-seated on its Rock, as morning broke<br /> +Faced them at last; and at the selfsame hour<br /> +Aengus, in his father’s absence lord,<br /> +Rising from happy sleep and heaven-sent dreams<br /> +Went forth on duteous tasks. With sudden start<br /> +The prince stept back; for, o’er the fortress court<br /> +Like grove storm-levelled lay the idols huge,<br /> +False gods and foul that long had awed the land,<br /> +Prone, without hand of man. O’er-awed he gazed;<br /> +Then on the air there rang a sound of hymns,<br /> +And by the eastern gate Saint Patrick stood,<br /> +The brethren round him. On their shaggy garb<br /> +Auroral mist, struck by the rising sun,<br /> +Glittered, that diamond-panoplied they seemed,<br /> +And as a heavenly vision. At that sight<br /> +The youth, descending with a wildered joy,<br /> +Welcomed his guests: and, ere an hour, the streets<br /> +Sparkled far down like flowering meads in spring,<br /> +So thronged the folk in holiday attire<br /> +To see the man far-famed. “Who spurns our +gods?”<br /> +Once they had cried in wrath: but, year by year,<br /> +Tidings of some deliverance great and strange,<br /> +Some life more noble, some sublimer hope,<br /> +Some regal race enthroned beyond the grave,<br /> +Had reached them from afar. The best believed,<br /> +Great hearts for whom nor earthly love sufficed<br /> +Nor earthly fame. The meaner scoffed: yet all<br /> +Desired the man. Delay had edged their thirst.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then Patrick, standing up among them, spake,<br +/> +And God was with him. Not as when loose tongue<br /> +Babbles vain rumour, or the Sophist spins<br /> +Thought’s air-hung cobwebs gay with Fancy’s dews,<br +/> +Spake he, but words of might, as when a man<br /> +Bears witness to the things which he has seen,<br /> +And tells of that he knows: and as the harp<br /> +Attested is by rapture of the ear,<br /> +And sunlight by consenting of the eye<br /> +That, seeing, knows it sees, and neither craves<br /> +Inferior demonstration, so his words<br /> +Self-proved, went forth and conquered: for man’s mind,<br +/> +Created in His image who is Truth,<br /> +Challenged by truth, with recognising voice<br /> +Cries out “Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,”<br /> +And cleaves thereto. In all that listening host<br /> +One vast, dilating heart yearned to its God.<br /> +Then burst the bond of years. No haunting doubt<br /> +They knew. God dropped on them the robe of Truth<br /> +Sun-like: down fell the many-coloured weed<br /> +Of error; and, reclothed ere yet unclothed,<br /> +They walked a new-born earth. The blinded Past<br /> +Fled, vanquished. Glorious more than strange it seemed<br +/> +That He who fashioned man should come to man,<br /> +And raise by ruling. They, His trumpet heard,<br /> +In glory spurned demons misdeemed for gods:<br /> +The great chief had returned: the clan enthralled<br /> +Trod down the usurping foe.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Then +rose the cry,<br /> +“Join us to Christ!” His strong eyes on them +set,<br /> +Patrick replied, “Know ye what thing ye seek<br /> +Ye that would fain be house-mates with my King?<br /> +Ye seek His cross!” He paused, then added slow:<br /> +“If ye be liegeful, sirs, decree the day,<br /> +His baptism shall be yours.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> That +eve, while shone<br /> +The sunset on the green-touched woods, that, grazed<br /> +By onward flight of unalighting spring,<br /> +Caught warmth yet scarcely flamed, Aengus stood<br /> +With Patrick in a westward-facing tower<br /> +Which overlooked far regions town-besprent,<br /> +And lit with winding waters. Thus he spake:<br /> +“My Father! what is sovereignty of man?<br /> +Say, can I shield yon host from death, from sin,<br /> +Taking them up into my breast, like God?<br /> +I trow not so! Mine be the lowliest place<br /> +Following thy King who left his Father’s throne<br /> +To walk the lowliest!” Patrick answered thus:<br /> +“Best lot thou choosest, son. If thine that lot<br /> +Thou know’st not yet; nor I. The Lord, thy God,<br /> +Will teach us.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> When +the day decreed had dawned<br /> +Loud rang the bull-horn; and on every breeze<br /> +Floated the banners, saffron, green, and blue;<br /> +While issuing from the horizon’s utmost verge<br /> +The full-voiced People flocked. So swarmed of old<br /> +Some migratory nation, instinct-urged<br /> +To fly their native wastes sad winter’s realm;<br /> +So thronged on southern slopes when, far below,<br /> +Shone out the plains of promise. Bright they came!<br /> +No summer sea could wear a blithsomer sheen<br /> +Though every dancing crest and milky plume<br /> +Ran on with rainbows braided. Minstrel songs<br /> +Wafted like winds those onward hosts, or swayed<br /> +Or stayed them; while among them heralds passed<br /> +Lifting white wands of office. Foremost rode<br /> +Aileel, the younger brother of the prince:<br /> +He ruled a milk-white horse. Fluttered, breeze-borne<br /> +His mantle green, while all his golden hair<br /> +Streamed back redundant from the ring of gold<br /> +Circling his head uncovered. Loveliest light<br /> +Of innocence and joy was on that face:<br /> +Full well the young maids marked it! Brighter yet<br /> +Beamed he, his brother noting. On the verge<br /> +Of Cashel’s Rock that hour Aengus stood,<br /> +By Patrick’s side. That concourse nearer now<br /> +He gazed upon it, crying, with clasped hands,<br /> +“My Father, fair is sunrise, fair the sea,<br /> +The hills, the plains, the wind-stirred wood, the maid;<br /> +But what is like a People onward borne<br /> +In gladness? When I see that sight, my heart<br /> +Expands like palace-gates wide open flung<br /> +That say to all men, ‘Enter.’” Then the +Saint<br /> +Laid on that royal head a hand of might,<br /> +And said, “The Will of God decrees thee King!<br /> +Son of this People art thou: Sire one day<br /> +Thou shalt be! Son and Sire in one are King.<br /> +Shepherd for God thy flock, thou Shepherd true!”<br /> +He spake: that word was ratified in Heaven.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Meantime that multitude +innumerable<br /> +Had reached the Rock, and, now the winding road<br /> +In pomp ascending, faced those fair-wrought gates<br /> +Which, by the warders at the prince’s sign<br /> +Drawn back, to all gave entrance. In they streamed,<br /> +Filling the central courtway. Patrick stood<br /> +High stationed on a prostrate idol’s base,<br /> +In vestments of the Vigil of that Feast<br /> +The Annunciation, which with annual boon<br /> +Whispers, while melting snows dilate those streams<br /> +Purer than snows, to universal earth<br /> +That Maiden Mother’s joy. The Apostle watched<br /> +The advancing throng, and gave them welcome thus;<br /> +“As though into the great Triumphant Church,<br /> +O guests of God, ye flock! Her place is Heaven:<br /> +Sirs! we this day are militant below:<br /> +Not less, advance in faith. Behold your crowns—<br /> +Obedience and Endurance.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> There +and then<br /> +The Rite began: his people’s Chief and Head<br /> +Beside the font Aengus stood; his face<br /> +Sweet as a child’s, yet grave as front of eld:<br /> +For reverence he had laid his crown aside,<br /> +And from the deep hair to the unsandalled feet<br /> +Was raimented in white. With mitred head<br /> +And massive book, forward Saint Patrick leaned,<br /> +Stayed by the gem-wrought crosier. Prayer on prayer<br /> +Went up to God; while gift on gift from God,<br /> +All Angel-like, invisibly to man,<br /> +Descended. Thrice above that princely brow<br /> +Patrick the cleansing waters poured, and traced<br /> +Three times thereon the Venerable Sign,<br /> +Naming the Name Triune. The Rite complete,<br /> +Awestruck that concourse downward gazed. At last<br /> +Lifting their eyes, they marked the prince’s face<br /> +That pale it was though bright, anguished and pale,<br /> +While from his naked foot a blood-stream gushed<br /> +And o’er the pavement welled. The crosier’s +point,<br /> +Weighted with weight of all that priestly form,<br /> +Had pierced it through. “Why suffer’dst thou so +long<br /> +The pain in silence?” Patrick spake, +heart-grieved:<br /> +Smiling, Aengus answered, “O my Sire,<br /> +I thought, thus called to follow Him whose feet<br /> +Were pierced with nails, haply the blissful Rite<br /> +Bore witness to their sorrows.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> At +that word<br /> +The large eyes of the Apostolic man<br /> +Grew larger; and within them lived that light<br /> +Not fed by moon or sun, a visible flash<br /> +Of that invisible lightning which from God<br /> +Vibrates ethereal through the world of souls,<br /> +Vivific strength of Saints. The mitred brow<br /> +Uptowered sublime: the strong, yet wrinkled hands,<br /> +Ascending, ceased not, till the crosier’s head<br /> +Glittered above the concourse like a star.<br /> +At last his hands disparting, down he drew<br /> +From Heaven the Royal Blessing, speaking thus:<br /> +“For this cause may the blessing, Sire of kings,<br /> +Cleave to thy seed forever! Spear and sword<br /> +Before them fall! In glory may the race<br /> +Of Nafrach’s sons, Aengus, and Aileel,<br /> +Hold sway on Cashel’s summit! Be their kings<br /> +Great-hearted men, potent to rule and guard<br /> +Their people; just to judge them; warriors strong;<br /> +Sage counsellors; faithful shepherds; men of God,<br /> +That so through them the everlasting King<br /> +May flood their land with blessing.” Thus he +spake;<br /> +And round him all that nation said, “Amen.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Thus held they feast in +Cashel of the Kings<br /> +That day till all that land was clothed with Christ:<br /> +And when the parting came from Cashel’s steep<br /> +Patrick the People’s Blessing thus forth sent:<br /> +“The Blessing fall upon the pasture broad,<br /> +On fruitful mead, and every corn-clad hill,<br /> +And woodland rich with flowers that children love:<br /> +Unnumbered be the homesteads, and the hearths:—<br /> +A blessing on the women, and the men,<br /> +On youth, and maiden, and the suckling babe:<br /> +A blessing on the fruit-bestowing tree,<br /> +And foodful river tide. Be true; be pure,<br /> +Not living from below, but from above,<br /> +As men that over-top the world. And raise<br /> +Here, on this rock, high place of idols once,<br /> +A kingly church to God. The same shall stand<br /> +For aye, or, wrecked, from ruin rise restored,<br /> +His witness till He cometh. Over Eire<br /> +The Blessing speed till time shall be no more<br /> +From Cashel of the Kings.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> The +Saint fared forth:<br /> +The People bare him through their kingdom broad<br /> +With banner and with song; but o’er its bound<br /> +The women of that People followed still<br /> +A half day’s journey with lamenting voice;<br /> +Then silent knelt, lifting their babes on high;<br /> +And, crowned with two-fold blessing, home returned.</p> +<h3>SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDLESS MOTHER.</h3> +<h4>ARGUMENT.</h4> +<p>Saint Patrick finds an aged Pagan woman making great +lamentation above a tomb which she believes to be that of her +son. He kneels beside her in prayer, while around them a +wondrous tempest sweeps. After a long time, he declares +unto her the Death of Christ, and how, through that Death, the +Dead are blessed. Lastly, he dissuades her from her rage of +grief, and admonishes her to pray for her son on a tomb hard by, +which is his indeed. The woman believes, and, being +consoled by a Sign of Heaven, departs in peace.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Across</span> his breast +one hundred times each day<br /> +Saint Patrick drew the Venerable Sign,<br /> +And sixty times by night: and whensoe’er<br /> +In travel Cross was seen far off or nigh<br /> +On lonely moor, or rock, or heathy hill,<br /> +For Erin then was sown with Christian seed,<br /> +He sought it, and before it knelt. Yet once,<br /> +While cold in winter shone the star of eve<br /> +Upon their board, thus spake a youthful monk:<br /> +“Three times this day, my father, didst thou pass<br /> +The Cross of Christ unmarked. At morn thou saw’st<br +/> +A last year’s lamb that by it sheltered lay,<br /> +At noon a dove that near it sat and mourned,<br /> +At eve a little child that round it raced,<br /> +Well pleased with each; yet saw’st thou not that Cross,<br +/> +Nor mad’st thou any reverence!” At that word<br +/> +Wondering, the Saint arose, and left the meat,<br /> +And, wondering, went to venerate that Cross.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Dark was the earth and dank +ere yet he reached<br /> +That spot; and lo! where lamb had lain, and dove<br /> +Had mourned, and child had raced, there stood indeed<br /> +High-raised, the Cross of Christ. Before it long<br /> +He prayed, and kneeling, marked that on a tomb<br /> +That Cross was raised. Then, inly moved by God,<br /> +The Saint demanded, “Who, of them that walked<br /> +The sun-warmed earth lies here in darkness hid?”<br /> +And answer made a lamentable Voice:<br /> +“Pagan I lived, my own soul’s bane:—when +dead,<br /> +Men buried here my body.” Patrick then:<br /> +“How stands the Cross of Christ on Pagan grave?”<br +/> +And answered thus the lamentable Voice:<br /> +“A woman’s work. She had been absent long;<br +/> +Her son had died; near mine his grave was made;<br /> +Half blind was she through fleeting of her tears,<br /> +And, erring, raised the Cross upon my tomb,<br /> +Misdeeming it for his. Nightly she comes,<br /> +Wailing as only Pagan mothers wail;<br /> +So wailed my mother once, while pain tenfold<br /> +Ran through my bodiless being. For her sake,<br /> +If pity dwells on earth or highest heaven,<br /> +May it this mourner comfort! Christian she,<br /> +And capable of pity.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Then +the Saint<br /> +Cried loud, “O God, Thou seest this Pagan’s heart,<br +/> +That love within it dwells: therefore not his<br /> +That doom of Souls all hate, and self-exiled<br /> +To whom Thy Presence were a woe twice told.<br /> +Eternal Pity! pity Thou Thy work;—<br /> +Sole Peace of them that love Thee, grant him peace.”<br /> +Thus Patrick prayed; and in the heaven of heavens<br /> +God heard his servant’s prayer. Then Patrick mused<br +/> +“Now know I why I passed that Cross unmarked;<br /> +It was not that it seemed.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> As +thus he knelt,<br /> +Behold, upon the cold and bitter wind<br /> +Rang wail on wail; and o’er the moor there moved<br /> +What seemed a woman’s if a human form.<br /> +That miserable phantom onward came<br /> +With cry succeeding cry that sank or swelled<br /> +As dipped or rose the moor. Arrived at last,<br /> +She heeded not the Saint, but on that grave<br /> +Dashed herself down. Long time that woman wailed;<br /> +And Patrick, long, for reverence of her woe<br /> +Forbore. At last he spake low-toned as when<br /> +Best listener knows not when the strain begins.<br /> +“Daughter! the sparrow falls not to the ground<br /> +Without his Maker. He that made thy son<br /> +Hath sent His Son to bear all woes of men,<br /> +And vanquish every foe—the latest, Death.”<br /> +Then rolled that woman on the Saint an eye<br /> +As when the last survivor of a host<br /> +Glares on some pitying conqueror. “Ho! the man<br /> +That treads upon my grief! He ne’er had sons;<br /> +And thou, O son of mine, hast left no sons,<br /> +Though oft I said, ‘When I am old, his babes<br /> +Shall climb my knees.’ My boast was mine in youth;<br +/> +But now mine age is made a barren stock<br /> +And as a blighted briar.” In grief she turned;<br /> +And as on blackening tarn gust follows gust,<br /> +Again came wail on wail. On strode the night:<br /> +The jagged forehead of that forest old<br /> +Alone was seen: all else was gloom. At last<br /> +With voice, though kind, upbraiding, Patrick spake:<br /> +“Daughter, thy grief is wilful and it errs;<br /> +Errs like those sad and tear-bewildered eyes<br /> +That for a Christian’s take a Pagan’s grave,<br /> +And for a son’s a stranger’s. Ah! poor +child,<br /> +Thy pride it was to raise, where lay thy son,<br /> +A Cross, his memory’s honour. By thee close<br /> +All dewed and glimmering in yon rising moon,<br /> +Low lies a grave unhonoured, and unknown:<br /> +No cross stands on it; yet upon its breast<br /> +Graved shalt thou find what Christian tomb ne’er lacks,<br +/> +The Cross of Christ. Woman, there lies thy son.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> She rose; she found that +other tomb; she knelt;<br /> +And o’er it went her wandering palms, as though<br /> +Some stone-blind mother o’er an infant’s face<br /> +Should spread an agonising hand, intent<br /> +To choose betwixt her own and counterfeit;<br /> +She found that cross deep-grav’n, and further sign<br /> +Close by, to her well known. One piercing shriek—<br +/> +Another moment, and her body lay<br /> +Along that grave with kisses, and wild hands<br /> +As when some forest beast tears up the ground,<br /> +Seeking its prey there hidden. Then once more<br /> +Rang the wild wail above that lonely heath,<br /> +While roared far off the vast invisible woods,<br /> +And with them strove the blast, in eddies dire<br /> +Whirling both branch and bough. Through hurrying clouds<br +/> +The scared moon rushed like ship that naked glares<br /> +One moment, lightning-lighted in the storm,<br /> +Anon in wild waves drowned. An hour went by:<br /> +Still wailed that woman, and the tempest roared;<br /> +While in the heart of ruin Patrick prayed.<br /> +He loved that woman. Unto Patrick dear,<br /> +Dear as God’s Church was still the single Soul,<br /> +Dearest the suffering Soul. He gave her time;<br /> +He let the floods of anguish spend themselves:<br /> +But when her wail sank low; when woods were mute,<br /> +And where the skiey madness late had raged<br /> +Shone the blue heaven, he spake with voice in strength<br /> +Gentle like that which calmed the Syrian lake,<br /> +“My sister, God hath shown me of thy wound,<br /> +And wherefore with the blind old Pagan’s cry<br /> +Hopeless thou mourn’st. Returned from far, thou +found’st<br /> +Thy son had Christian died, and saw’st the Cross<br /> +On Christian graves: and ill thy heart endured<br /> +That tomb so dear should lack its reverence meet.<br /> +To him thou gav’st the Cross, albeit that Cross<br /> +Inly thou know’st not yet. That knowledge thine,<br +/> +Thou hadst not left thy son amerced of prayer,<br /> +And given him tears, not succour.” “Yea,” +she said,<br /> +“Of this new Faith I little understand,<br /> +Being an aged woman and in woe:<br /> +But since my son was Christian, such am I;<br /> +And since the Christian tomb is decked with Cross<br /> +He shall not lack his right.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Then +Patrick spake:<br /> +“O woman, hearken, for through me thy son<br /> +Invokes thee. All night long for thee, unknown,<br /> +My hands have risen: but thou hast raised no prayer<br /> +For him, thy dearest; nor from founts of God,<br /> +Though brimful, hast thou drawn for lips that thirst.<br /> +Arise, and kneel, and hear thy loved one’s cry:<br /> +Too long he waiteth. Blessed are the dead:<br /> +They rest in God’s high Will. But more than peace,<br +/> +The rapturous vision of the Face of God,<br /> +Won by the Cross of Christ—for that they thirst<br /> +As thou, if viewless stood thy son close by,<br /> +Wouldst thirst to see his countenance. Eyes sin-sealed<br +/> +Not yet can see their God. Prayer speeds the time:<br /> +The living help the dead; all praise to Him<br /> +Who blends His children in a league of help,<br /> +Making all good one good. Eternal Love!<br /> +Not thine the will that love should cease with life,<br /> +Or, living, cease from service, barren made,<br /> +A stagnant gall eating the mourner’s heart<br /> +That hour when love should stretch a hand of might<br /> +Up o’er the grave to heaven. O great in love,<br /> +Perfect love’s work: for well, sad heart, I know,<br /> +Hadst thou not trained thy son in virtuous ways,<br /> +Christian he ne’er had been.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Those +later words<br /> +That solitary mourner understood,<br /> +The earlier but in part, and answered thus:<br /> +“A loftier Cross, and farther seen, shall rise<br /> +Upon this grave new-found! No hireling hands—<br /> +Mine own shall raise it; yea, though thirty years<br /> +Should sweat beneath the task.” And Patrick said:<br +/> +“What means the Cross? That lore thou lack’st +now learn.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Then that which Kings desired +to know, and seers<br /> +And prophets vigil-blind—that Crown of Truths,<br /> +Scandal of fools, yet conqueror of the world,<br /> +To her, that midnight mourner, he divulged,<br /> +Record authentic: how in sorrow and sin<br /> +The earth had groaned; how pity, like a sword,<br /> +Had pierced the great Paternal Heart in heaven;<br /> +How He, the Light of Light, and God of God,<br /> +Had man become, and died upon the Cross,<br /> +Vanquishing thus both sorrow and sin, and risen,<br /> +The might of death o’erthrown; and how the gates<br /> +Of heaven rolled inwards as the Anointed King<br /> +Resurgent and ascending through them passed<br /> +In triumph with His Holy Dead; and how<br /> +The just, thenceforth death-freed, the selfsame gates<br /> +Entering, shall share the everlasting throne.<br /> +Thus Patrick spake, and many a stately theme<br /> +Rehearsed beside, higher than heaven, and yet<br /> +Near as the farthest can alone be near.<br /> +Then in that grief-worn creature’s bosom old<br /> +Contentions rose, and fiercer fires than burn<br /> +In sultry breasts of youth: and all her past,<br /> +Both good and evil, woke, in sleep long sealed;<br /> +And all the powers and forces of her soul<br /> +Rushed every way through darkness seeking light,<br /> +Like winds or tides. Beside her Patrick prayed,<br /> +And mightier than his preaching was his prayer,<br /> +Sheltering that crisis dread. At last beneath<br /> +The great Life-Giver’s breath that Human Soul,<br /> +An inner world vaster than planet worlds,<br /> +In undulation swayed, as when of old<br /> +The Spirit of God above the waters moved<br /> +Creative, while the blind and shapeless void<br /> +Yearned into form, and form grew meet for life,<br /> +And downward through the abysses Law ran forth<br /> +With touch soul-soft, and seas from lands retired,<br /> +And light from dark, and wondering Nature passed<br /> +Through storm to calm, and all things found their home.</p> +<p class="poetry">Silence long time endured; at last, +clear-voiced,<br /> +Her head not turning, thus the woman spake:<br /> +“That God who Man became—who died, and +lives,—<br /> +Say, died He for my son?” And Patrick said,<br /> +“Yea, for thy son He died. Kneel, woman, kneel!<br /> +Nor doubt, for mighty is a mother’s prayer,<br /> +That He who in the eternal light is throned,<br /> +Lifting the roseate and the nail-pierced palm,<br /> +Will make in heaven the Venerable Sign,<br /> +For He it is prays in us, and that Soul<br /> +Thou lov’st pass on to glory.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> At +his word<br /> +She knelt, and unto God, with help of God,<br /> +Uprushed the strength of prayer, as when the cloud<br /> +Uprushes past some beetling mountain wall<br /> +From billowy deeps unseen. Long time she prayed;<br /> +While heaven and earth grew silent as that night<br /> +When rose the Saviour. Sudden ceased the prayer:<br /> +And rang upon the night her jubilant cry,<br /> +“I saw a Sign in Heaven. Far inward rolled<br /> +The gates; and glory flashed from God; and he<br /> +I love his entrance won.” Then, fair and tall,<br /> +That woman stood with hands upraised to heaven<br /> +The dusky shadow of her youth renewed,<br /> +And instant Patrick spake, “Give thanks to God,<br /> +And speed thee home, and sleep; and since thy son<br /> +No children left, take to thee orphans twain<br /> +And rear them, in his honour, unto Christ;<br /> +And yearly, when the death-day of thy son<br /> +Returns, his birth-day name it; call thy friends;<br /> +Give alms; and range the poor around thy door,<br /> +So shall they feast, and pray. Woman, farewell:<br /> +All night the dark upon thy face hath lain;<br /> +Yet shall we know each other, met in heaven.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then blithe of foot that Mother crossed the +moor;<br /> +And when she reached her door a zone of white<br /> +Loosening along a cloud that walled the east<br /> +Revealed the coming dawn. That dawn ere long<br /> +Lay, unawaking, on a face serene,<br /> +On tearless lids, and quiet, open palms,<br /> +On stormless couch and raiment calm that hid<br /> +A breast if faded now, yet happier far<br /> +Than when in prime its youthful wave first heaved<br /> +Rocking a sleeping Infant.</p> +<h3>SAINT PATRICK AT THE FEAST OF KNOCK CAE;<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OR, THE FOUNDING OF MUNGRET.</span></h3> +<h4>ARGUMENT.</h4> +<p>Saint Patrick, being bidden to a feast, discourses on the way +against the pride of the Bards, for whom Fiacc pleads. +Derball, a scoffer, requires the Saint to remove a +mountain. He kneels down and prays, and Derball avers that +the mountain moved. Notwithstanding, Derball believes not, +but departs. The Saint declares that he saw not whether the +mountain moved. He places Nessan over his convent at +Mungret because he had given a little wether to the hungry. +Nessan’s mother grudged the gift; and Saint Patrick +prophesies that her grave shall not be in her son’s +church.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> Limneach, <a +name="citation101"></a><a href="#footnote101" +class="citation">[101]</a> ere he reached it, fame there ran<br +/> +Of Patrick’s words and works. Before his foot<br /> +Aileel had fallen, loud wailing, with his wife,<br /> +And cried, “Our child is slain by savage beasts;<br /> +But thou, O prophet, if that God thou serv’st<br /> +Be God indeed, restore him!” Patrick turned<br /> +To Malach, praised of all men. “Brother, kneel,<br /> +And raise yon child.” But Malach answered, +“Nay,<br /> +Lest, tempting God, His service I should shame.”<br /> +Then Patrick, “Answer of the base is thine;<br /> +And base shall be that house thou build’st on earth,<br /> +Little, and low. A man may fail in prayer:<br /> +What then? Thank God! the fault is ours not His,<br /> +And ours alone the shame.” The Apostle turned<br /> +To Ibar, and to Ailbè, bishops twain,<br /> +And bade them raise the child. They heard and knelt:<br /> +And Patrick knelt between them; and these three<br /> +Upheaved a wondrous strength of prayer; and lo!<br /> +All pale, yet shining, rose the child, and sat,<br /> +Lifting small hands, and preached to those around,<br /> +And straightway they believed, and were baptized.</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus with loud rumour all the land was full,<br +/> +And some believed; some doubted; and a chief,<br /> +Lonan, the son of Eire, that half believed,<br /> +Willing to draw from Patrick wonder and sign,<br /> +By messengers besought him, saying, “Come,<br /> +For in thy reverence waits thy servant’s feast<br /> +Spread on Knock Cae.” That pleasant hill ascends<br +/> +Westward of Ara, girt by rivers twain,<br /> +Maigue, lily-lighted, and the “Morning Star”<br /> +Once “Samhair” named, that eastward through the +woods<br /> +Winding, upon its rapids earliest meets<br /> +The morn, and flings it far o’er mead and plain.</p> +<p class="poetry">From Limneach therefore Patrick, while the +dawn<br /> +Still dusk, its joyous secret kept, went forth,<br /> +O’er dustless road soon lost in dewy fields,<br /> +And groves that, touched by wakening winds, began<br /> +To load damp airs with scent. That time it was<br /> +When beech leaves lose their silken gloss, and maids<br /> +From whitest brows depose the hawthorn white,<br /> +Red rose in turn enthroning. Earliest gleams<br /> +Glimmered on leaves that shook like wings of birds:<br /> +Saint Patrick marked them well. He turned to +Fiacc—<br /> +“God might have changed to Pentecostal tongues<br /> +The leaves of all the forests in the world,<br /> +And bade them sing His love! He wrought not thus:<br /> +A little hint He gives us and no more.<br /> +Alone the willing see. Thus they sin less<br /> +Who, if they saw, seeing would disbelieve.<br /> +Hark to that note! O foolish woodland choirs!<br /> +Ye sing but idle loves; and, idler far,<br /> +The bards sing war—war only!”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Answered +thus<br /> +The monk bard-loving: “Sing it! Ay, and make<br /> +The keys of all the tempests hang on zones<br /> +Of those cloud-spirits! They, too, can ‘bind and +loose:’<br /> +A bard incensed hath proved a kingdom’s doom!<br /> +Such Aidan. Upon cakes of meal his host,<br /> +King Aileach, fed him in a fireless hall:<br /> +The bard complained not—ay, but issuing forth,<br /> +Sang in dark wood a keen and venomed song<br /> +That raised on the king’s countenance plague-spots +three;<br /> +Who saw him named them Scorn, Dishonour, Shame,<br /> +And blighted those three oak trees nigh his door.<br /> +What next? Before a month that realm lay drowned<br /> +In blood; and fire went o’er the opprobrious +house!”<br /> +Thus spake the youth, and blushed at his own zeal<br /> +For bardic fame; then added, “Strange the power<br /> +Of song! My father, do I vainly dream<br /> +Oft thinking that the bards, perchance the birds,<br /> +Sing something vaster than they think or know?<br /> +Some fire immortal lives within their strings:<br /> +Therefore the people love them. War divine,<br /> +God’s war on sin—true love-song best and +sweetest—<br /> +Perforce they chaunt in spirit, not wars of clans:<br /> +Yea, one day, conscious, they shall sing that song;<br /> +One day by river clear of south or north,<br /> +Pagan no more, the laurelled head shall rise,<br /> +And chaunt the Warfare of the Realm of Souls,<br /> +The anguish and the cleansing, last the crown—<br /> +Prelude of songs celestial!”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Patrick +smiled:<br /> +“Still, as at first, a lover of the bards!<br /> +Hard task was mine to win thee to the cowl!<br /> +Dubtach, thy master, sole in Tara’s hall<br /> +Who made me reverence, mocked my quest. He said,<br /> +‘Fiacc thou wouldst?—my Fiacc? Few days gone +by<br /> +I sent the boy with poems to the kings;<br /> +He loves me: hardly will he leave the songs<br /> +To wear thy tonsure!’ As he spake, behold,<br /> +Thou enter’dst. Sudden hands on Dubtach’s +head<br /> +I laid, as though to gird with tonsure crown:<br /> +Then rose thy clamour, ‘Erin’s chief of bards<br /> +A tonsured man! Me, father, take, not him!<br /> +Far less the loss to Erin and the songs!’<br /> +Down knelt’st thou; and, ere long, old Dubtach’s +floor<br /> +Shone with thy vernal locks, like forest paths<br /> +Made gold by leaves of autumn!”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> As +he spake,<br /> +The sun, new-risen, flashed on a breast of wood<br /> +That answered from a thousand jubilant throats:<br /> +Then Fiacc, with all their music in his face,<br /> +Resumed: “My father, upon Tara’s steep<br /> +Patient thou sat’st whole months, sifting with care<br /> +The laws of Eire, recasting for all time,<br /> +Ill laws from good dissevering, as that Day<br /> +Shall sever tares from wheat. I see thee still,<br /> +As then we saw—thy clenched hand lost in beard<br /> +Propping thy chin; thy forehead wrinkle-trenched<br /> +Above that wondrous tome, the ‘Senchus Mohr,’<br /> +Like his, that Hebrew lawgiver’s, who sat<br /> +Throned on the clouded Mount, while far below<br /> +The Tribes waited in awe. Now answer make!<br /> +Three bishops, and three brehons, and three kings.<br /> +Ye toiled—who helped thee best?” +“Dubtach, the bard,”<br /> +Patrick replied—“Yea, wise was he, and knew<br /> +Man’s heart like his own strings.” “All +bards are wise,”<br /> +Shouted the youth, “except when war they wage<br /> +On thee, the wisest. In their music bath<br /> +They cleanse man’s heart, not less, and thus prepare,<br /> +Though hating thee, thy way. The bards are wise<br /> +For all except themselves. Shall God not save them,<br /> +He who would save the worst? Such grace were hard<br /> +Unless, death past, their souls to birds might change,<br /> +And in the darksomest grove of Paradise<br /> +Lament, amerced, their error, yet rejoice<br /> +In souls that walked obedient!” “Darksomest +grove,”<br /> +Patrick made answer; “darksome is their life;<br /> +Darksome their pride, their love, their joys, their hopes;<br /> +Darksome, though gleams of happier lore they have,<br /> +Their light! Seest thou yon forest floor, and o’er +it,<br /> +The ivy’s flash—earth-light? Such light is +theirs:<br /> +By such can no man walk.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Thus, +gay or grave,<br /> +Conversed they, while the Brethren paced behind;<br /> +Till now the morn crowded each cottage door<br /> +With clustered heads. They reached ere long in woods<br /> +A hamlet small. Here on the weedy thatch<br /> +White fruit-bloom fell: through shadow, there, went round<br /> +The swinging mill-wheel tagged with silver fringe;<br /> +Here rang the mallet; there was heard remote<br /> +The one note of the love-contented bird.<br /> +Though warm the sun, in shade the young spring morn<br /> +Was edged with winter yet, and icy film<br /> +Glazed the deep ruts. The swarthy smith worked hard,<br /> +And working sang; the wheelwright toiled close by;<br /> +An armourer next to these: through flaming smoke<br /> +Glared the fierce hands that on the anvil fell<br /> +In thunder down. A sorcerer stood apart<br /> +Kneading Death’s messenger, that missile ball,<br /> +The <i>Lia Laimbhè</i>. To his heart he clasped +it,<br /> +And o’er it muttered spells with flatteries mixed:<br /> +“Hail, little daughter mine! ’Twixt hand and +heart<br /> +I knead thee! From the Red Sea came that sand<br /> +Which, blent with viper’s poison, makes thy flesh!<br /> +Be thou no shadow wandering on the air!<br /> +Rush through the battle gloom as red-combed snake<br /> +Cleaves the blind waters! On! like Witch’s glance,<br +/> +Or forkèd flash, or shaft of summer pest,<br /> +And woe to him that meets thee! Mouth blood-red<br /> +My daughter hath:—not healing be her kiss!”<br /> +Thus he. In shade he stood, and phrensy-fired;<br /> +And yet he marked who watched him. Without word<br /> +Him Patrick passed; but spake to all the rest<br /> +With voice so kindly reverent, “Is not this,”<br /> +Men asked, “the preacher of the ‘Tidings +Good?’”<br /> +“What tidings? Has he found a mine?” +“He speaks<br /> +To princes as to brothers; to the hind<br /> +As we to princes’ children! Yea, when mute,<br /> +Saith not his face ‘Rejoice’?”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> At +times the Saint<br /> +Laid on the head of age his strong right hand,<br /> +Gentle as touch of soft-accosting eyes;<br /> +And once before an open door he stopped,<br /> +Silent. Within, all glowing like a rose,<br /> +A mother stood for pleasure of her babes<br /> +That—in them still the warmth of couch late left—<br +/> +Around her gambolled. On his face, as hers,<br /> +Their sport regarding, long time lay the smile;<br /> +Then crept a shadow o’er it, and he spake<br /> +In sadness: “Woman! when a hundred years<br /> +Have passed, with opening flower and falling snow,<br /> +Where then will be thy children?” Like a cloud<br /> +Fear and great wrath fell on her. From the wall<br /> +She snatched a battle-axe and raised it high<br /> +In both hands, clamouring, “Wouldst thou slay my +babes?”<br /> +He answered, “I would save them. Woman, hear!<br /> +Seest thou yon floating shape? It died a worm;<br /> +It lives, the blue-winged angel of spring meads.<br /> +Thy children, likewise, if they serve my King,<br /> +Death past, shall find them wings.” Then to her +cheek<br /> +The bloom returned, and splendour to her eye;<br /> +And catching to her breast, that larger swelled,<br /> +A child, she wept, “Oh, would that he might live<br /> +For ever! Prophet, speak! thy words are good!<br /> +Their father, too, must hear thee.” Patrick said,<br +/> +“Not so; nor falls this seed on every road;”<br /> +Then added thus: “You child, by all the rest<br /> +Cherished as though he were some infant God,<br /> +Is none of thine.” She answered, “None of +ours;<br /> +A great chief sent him here for fosterage.”<br /> +Then he: “All men on earth the children are<br /> +Of One who keeps them here in fosterage:<br /> +They see not yet His face; but He sees them,<br /> +Yea, and decrees their seasons and their times:<br /> +Like infants, they must learn Him first by touch,<br /> +Through nature, and her gifts—by hearing next,<br /> +The hearing of the ear, and that is Faith—<br /> +By Vision last. Woman, these things are hard;<br /> +But thou to Limneach come in three days’ time,<br /> +Likewise thy husband; there, by Sangul’s Well,<br /> +Thou shalt know all.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> The +Saint had reached ere long<br /> +That festal mount. Thousands with bannered line<br /> +Scaled it light-hearted. Never favourite lamb<br /> +In ribands decked shone brighter than that hour<br /> +The fair flank of Knock Cae. Heath-scented airs<br /> +Lightened the clambering toil. At times the Saint<br /> +Stayed on their course the crowds, and towards the Truth<br /> +Drew them by parable, or record old,<br /> +Oftener by question sage. Not all believed:<br /> +Of such was Derball. Man of wealth and wit,<br /> +Nor wise, nor warlike, toward the Saint he strode<br /> +With bubble-seething brain, and head high tossed,<br /> +And cried, “Great Seer! remove yon mountain blue,<br /> +Cenn Abhrat, by thy prayer! That done, to thee<br /> +Fealty I pledge.” Saint Patrick knelt in prayer:<br +/> +Soon Derball cried, “The central ridge descends;—<br +/> +Southward, beyond it, Longa’s lake shines out<br /> +In sunlight flashing!” At his word drew near<br /> +The men of Erin. Derball homeward turned,<br /> +Mocking: “Believe who will, believe not I!<br /> +Me more imports it o’er my foodful fields<br /> +To draw the Maigue’s rich waters than to stare<br /> +At moving hills.” But certain of that throng,<br /> +Light men, obsequious unto Derball’s laugh,<br /> +Questioned of Patrick if the mountain moved.<br /> +He answered, “On the ground mine eyes were fixed;<br /> +Nought saw I. Haply, through defect of mine,<br /> +It moved not. Derball said the mountain moved;<br /> +Yet kept he not his pledge, but disbelieved.<br /> +‘Faith can move mountains.’ Never said my +King<br /> +That mountains moved could move reluctant faith<br /> +In unbelieving heart.” With sad, calm voice<br /> +He spake; and Derball’s laughter frustrate died.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Meantime, high up on that +thyme-scented hill<br /> +By shadows swept, and lights, and rapturous winds,<br /> +Lonan prepared the feast, and, with that chief,<br /> +Mantan, a deacon. Tables fair were spread;<br /> +And tents with branches gay. Beside those tents<br /> +Stood the sweet-breathing, mournful, slow-eyed kine<br /> +With hazel-shielded horns, and gave their milk<br /> +Gravely to merry maidens. Low the sun<br /> +Had fallen, when, Patrick near the summit now,<br /> +There burst on him a wandering troop, wild-eyed,<br /> +With scant and quaint array. O’er sunburnt brows<br +/> +They wore sere wreaths; their piebald vests were stained,<br /> +And lean their looks, and sad: some piped, some sang,<br /> +Some tossed the juggler’s ball. “From far we +came,”<br /> +They cried; “we faint with hunger; give as food!”<br +/> +Upon them Patrick bent a pitying eye,<br /> +And said, “Where Lonan and where Mantan toil<br /> +Go ye, and pray them, for mine honour’s sake,<br /> +To gladden you with meat.” But Lonan said,<br /> +And Mantan, “Nay, but when the feast is o’er,<br /> +The fragments shall be yours.” With darkening brow<br +/> +The Saint of that denial heard, and cried,<br /> +“He cometh from the North, even now he cometh,<br /> +For whom the Blessing is reserved; he cometh<br /> +Bearing a little wether at his back:”<br /> +And, straightway, through the thicket evening-dazed<br /> +A shepherd—by him walked his mother—pushed,<br /> +Bearing a little wether. Patrick said,<br /> +“Give them to eat. They hunger.” Gladly +then<br /> +That shepherd youth gave them the wether small:<br /> +With both his hands outstretched, and liberal smile,<br /> +He gave it, though, with angry eye askance<br /> +His mother grudged it sore. The wether theirs,<br /> +As though earth-swallowed, vanished that wild tribe,<br /> +Fearing that mother’s eye.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Then +Patrick spake<br /> +To Lonan, “Zealous is thy service, friend;<br /> +Yet of thy house no king shall sit on throne,<br /> +No bishop bless the people.” Turning then<br /> +To Mantan, thus he spake, “Careful art thou<br /> +Of many things; not less that church thou raisest<br /> +Shall not be of the honoured in the land;<br /> +And in its chancel waste the mountain kine<br /> +Shall couch above thy grave.” To Nessan last<br /> +Thus spake he: “Thou that didst the hungry feed,<br /> +The poor of Christ, that know not yet His name,<br /> +And, helping them that cried to me for help,<br /> +Cherish mine honour, like a palm, one day,<br /> +Shall rise thy greatness.” Nessan’s mother +old<br /> +For pardon knelt. He blessed her hoary head,<br /> +Yet added, mournful, “Not within the Church<br /> +That Nessan serves shall lie his mother’s grave.”<br +/> +Then Nessan he baptized, and on him bound<br /> +Ere long the deacon’s grade, and placed him, later,<br /> +Priest o’er his church at Mungret. Centuries ten<br +/> +It stood, a convent round it as a star<br /> +Forth sending beams of glory and of grace<br /> +O’er woods Teutonic and the Tyrrhene Sea.<br /> +Yet Nessan’s mother in her son’s great church<br /> +Slept not; nor where the mass bell tinkled low:<br /> +West of the church her grave, to his—her +son’s—<br /> +Neighbouring, yet severed by the chancel wall.</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus from the morning star to evening star<br +/> +Went by that day. In Erin many such<br /> +Saint Patrick lived, using well pleased the chance,<br /> +Or great or small, since all things come from God:<br /> +And well the people loved him, being one<br /> +Who sat amid their marriage feasts, and saw,<br /> +Where sin was not, in all things beauty and love.<br /> +But, ere he passed from Munster, longing fell<br /> +On Patrick’s heart to view in all its breadth<br /> +Her river-flood, and bless its western waves;<br /> +Therefore, forth journeying, to that hill he went,<br /> +Highest among the wave-girt, heathy hills,<br /> +That still sustains his name, and saw the flood<br /> +At widest stretched, and that green Isle <a +name="citation111"></a><a href="#footnote111" +class="citation">[111]</a> hard by,<br /> +And northern Thomond. From its coasts her sons<br /> +Rushed countless forth in skiff and coracle<br /> +Smiting blue wave to white, till Sheenan’s sound<br /> +Ceased, in their clamour lost. That hour from God<br /> +Power fell on Patrick; and in spirit he saw,<br /> +Invisible to flesh, the western coasts,<br /> +And the ocean way, and, far beyond, that land<br /> +The Future’s heritage, and prophesied<br /> +Of Brendan who ere long in wicker boat<br /> +Should over-ride the mountains of the deep,<br /> +Shielded by God, and tread—no fable then—<br /> +Fabled Hesperia. Last of all he saw<br /> +More near, thy hermit home, Senanus;—“Hail,<br /> +Isle of blue ocean and the river’s mouth!<br /> +The People’s Lamp, their Counsel’s Head, is +thine!”<br /> +That hour shone out through cloud the westering sun<br /> +And paved the wave with fire: that hour not less<br /> +Strong in his God, westward his face he set,<br /> +Westward and north, and spread his arms abroad,<br /> +And drew the blessing down, and flung it far:<br /> +“A blessing on the warriors, and the clans,<br /> +A blessing on high field, and golden vales,<br /> +On sea-like plain and on the showery ridge,<br /> +On river-ripple, cliff, and murmuring deep,<br /> +On seaward peaks, harbours, and towns, and ports;<br /> +A blessing on the sand beneath the ships:<br /> +On all descend the Blessing!” Thus he prayed,<br /> +Great-hearted; and from all the populous hills<br /> +And waters came the People’s vast “Amen!”</p> +<h3>SAINT PATRICK AND KING EOCHAID.</h3> +<h4>ARGUMENT.</h4> +<p>King Eochaid submits himself to the Christian Law because +Saint Patrick has delivered his son from bonds, yet only after +making a pact that he is not, like the meaner sort, to be +baptized. In this stubbornness he persists, though +otherwise a kindly king; and after many years, he dies. +Saint Patrick had refused to see his living face; yet after death +he prays by the death-bed. Life returns to the dead; and +sitting up, like one sore amazed, he demands baptism. The +Saint baptizes him, and offers him a choice either to reign over +all Erin for fifteen years, or to die. Eochaid chooses to +die, and so departs.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Eochaid</span>, son of +Crimther, reigned, a King<br /> +Northward in Clochar. Dearer to his heart<br /> +Than kingdom or than people or than life<br /> +Was he, the boy long wished for. Dear was she,<br /> +Keinè, his daughter. Babyhood’s white star,<br +/> +Beauteous in childhood, now in maiden dawn<br /> +She witched the world with beauty. From her eyes<br /> +A light went forth like morning o’er the sea;<br /> +Sweeter her voice than wind on harp; her smile<br /> +Could stay men’s breath. With wingèd feet she +trod<br /> +The yearning earth that, if it could, like waves<br /> +Had swelled to meet their pressure. Ah, the pang!<br /> +Beauty, the immortal promise, like a cheat<br /> +If unwed glides into the shadow land,<br /> +Childless and twice defeated. Beauty wed<br /> +To mate unworthy, suffers worse eclipse—<br /> +“Ill choice between two ills!” thus spleenfull +cried<br /> +Eochaid; but not his the pensive grief:<br /> +He would have kept his daughter in his house<br /> +For ever; yet, since better might not be,<br /> +Himself he chose her out a mate, and frowned,<br /> +And said, “The dog must have her.” But the +maid<br /> +Wished not for marriage. Tender was her heart;<br /> +Yet though her twentieth year had o’er her flown,<br /> +And though her tears had dewed a mother’s grave,<br /> +In her there lurked, not flower of womanhood,<br /> +But flower of angel texture. All around<br /> +To her was love. The crown of earthly love<br /> +Seemed but its crown of mockery. Love Divine—<br /> +For that she yearned, and yet she knew it not;<br /> +Knew less that love she feared.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> She +walked in woods<br /> +While all the green leaves, drenched by sunset’s gold,<br +/> +Upon a shower-bespangled sycamore<br /> +Shivered, and birds among them choir on choir<br /> +Chanted her praise—or spring’s. “Ill +sung,” she laughed,<br /> +“My dainty minstrels! Grant to me your wings,<br /> +And I for them will teach you song of mine:<br /> +Listen!” A carol from her lip there gushed<br /> +That, ere its time, might well have called the spring<br /> +From winter’s coldest cave. It ceased; she turned.<br +/> +Beside her Patrick stood. His hand he raised<br /> +To bless her. Awed, though glad, upon her knees<br /> +The maiden sank. His eye, as if through air,<br /> +Saw through that stainless soul, and, crystal-shrined<br /> +Therein, its inmate, Truth. That other Truth<br /> +Instant to her he preached—the Truth Divine—<br /> +(For whence is caution needful, save from sin?)<br /> +And those two Truths, each gazing upon each,<br /> +Embraced like sisters, thenceforth one. For her<br /> +No arduous thing was Faith, ere yet she heard<br /> +In heart believing: and, as when a babe<br /> +Marks some bright shape, if near or far, it knows not,<br /> +And stretches forth a witless hand to clasp<br /> +Phantom or form, even so with wild surmise<br /> +And guesses erring first, and questions apt,<br /> +She chased the flying light, and round it closed<br /> +At last, and found it substance. “This is +He.”<br /> +Then cried she, “This, whom every maid should love,<br /> +Conqueror self-sacrificed of sin and death:<br /> +How shall we find, how please Him, how be nigh?”<br /> +Patrick made answer: “They that do His will<br /> +Are nigh Him.” And the virgin: “Of the nigh,<br +/> +Say, who is nighest?” Thus, that wingèd +heart<br /> +Rushed to its rest. He answered: “Nighest they<br /> +Who offer most to Him in sacrifice,<br /> +As when the wedded leaves her father’s house<br /> +And cleaveth to her husband. Nighest they<br /> +Who neither father’s house nor husband’s house<br /> +Desire, but live with Him in endless prayer,<br /> +And tend Him in His poor.” Aloud she cried,<br /> +“The nearest to the Highest, that is love;—<br /> +I choose that bridal lot!” He answered, +“Child,<br /> +The choice is God’s. For each, that lot is best<br /> +To which He calls us.” Lifting then pure hands,<br /> +Thus wept the maiden: “Call me, Virgin-born!<br /> +Will not the Mother-Maid permit a maid<br /> +To sit beside those nail-pierced feet, and wipe,<br /> +With hair untouched by wreaths of mortal love,<br /> +The dolorous blood-stains from them? Stranger guest,<br /> +Come to my father’s tower! Against my will,<br /> +Against his own, in bridal bonds he binds me:<br /> +My suit he might resist: he cannot thine!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> She spake; and by her Patrick +paced with feet<br /> +To hers accordant. Soon they reached that fort:<br /> +Central within a circling rath earth-built<br /> +It stood; the western tower of stone; the rest,<br /> +Not high, but spreading wide, of wood compact;<br /> +For thither many a forest hill had sent<br /> +His wind-swept daughter brood, relinquishing<br /> +Converse with cloud and beam and rain forever<br /> +To echo back the revels of a Prince.<br /> +Mosaic was the work, beam laced with beam<br /> +In quaint device: high up, o’er many a door<br /> +Shone blazon rich of vermeil, or of green,<br /> +Or shield of bronze, glittering with veinèd boss,<br /> +Chalcedony or agate, or whate’er<br /> +The wave-lipped marge of Neagh’s broad lake might boast,<br +/> +Or ocean’s shore, northward from Brandon’s Head<br /> +To where the myriad-pillared cliffs hang forth<br /> +Their stony organs o’er the lonely main.<br /> +And trembles yet the pilgrim, noting at eve<br /> +The pride Fomorian, and that Giant Way <a +name="citation116"></a><a href="#footnote116" +class="citation">[116]</a><br /> +Trending toward eastern Alba. From his throne<br /> +Above the semicirque of grassy seats<br /> +Whereon by Brehons and by Ollambs girt<br /> +Daily be judged his people, rose the king<br /> +And bade the stranger welcome.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Day +to day<br /> +And night to night succeeded. In fit time,<br /> +For Patrick, sometimes sudden, oft was slow,<br /> +He spoke his Master’s message. At the close,<br /> +As though in trance, the warriors circling stood<br /> +With hands outstretched; the Druids downward frowned,<br /> +Silent; and like a strong man awed for once,<br /> +Eochaid round him stared. A little while,<br /> +And from him passed the amazement. Buoyant once more,<br /> +And bright like trees fresher for thunder-shower,<br /> +With all his wonted aspect, bold and keen,<br /> +He answered: “O my prophet, words, words, words!<br /> +We too have Prophets. Better thrice our Bards;<br /> +Yet, being no better these than trumpet’s blast,<br /> +The trumpet more I prize. Had words been work,<br /> +Myself in youth had led the loud-voiced clan!<br /> +Deeds I preferred. What profit e’er had I<br /> +From windy marvels? Once with me in war<br /> +A seer there camped that, bending back his head,<br /> +Fit rites performed, and upward gazing, blew<br /> +With rounded lips into the heaven of heavens<br /> +Druidic breath. That heaven was changed to cloud,<br /> +Cloud that on borne to Clairè’s hated bound<br /> +Down fell, a rain of blood! To me what gain?<br /> +Within three weeks my son was trapped and snared<br /> +By Aodh of Hy Brinin, king whose hosts<br /> +Number my warriors fourfold. Three long years<br /> +Beyond those purple mountains in the west<br /> +Hostage he lies.” Lightly Eochaid spake,<br /> +And turned: but shaken chin betrayed that grief<br /> +Which lived beneath his lightness.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Sudden +thronged<br /> +High on the neighbouring hills a jubilant troop,<br /> +Their banners waving, while the midway vale<br /> +With harp and horn resounded. Patrick spake:<br /> +“Rejoice! thy son returns! not sole he comes,<br /> +But in his hand a princess, fair and good,<br /> +A kingdom for her dowry. Aodh’s realm,<br /> +By me late left, welcomed <i>my</i> King with joy:<br /> +All fire the mountains shone. ‘The God I +serve,’<br /> +Thus spake I, Aodh pointing to those fires,<br /> +‘In mountains of rejoicing hath no joy<br /> +While sad beyond them sits a childless man,<br /> +His only son thy captive. Captive groaned<br /> +Creation; Bethlehem’s Babe set free the slave.<br /> +For His sake loose thy thrall!’ A sweeter voice<br /> +Pleaded with mine, his daughter’s ’mid her tears.<br +/> +‘Aodh,’ I said, ‘these two each other love!<br +/> +What think’st thou? He who shaped the linnet’s +nest,<br /> +Indifferent unto Him are human loves?<br /> +Arise! thy work make perfect! Righteous deeds<br /> +Are easier whole than half.’ In thought awhile<br /> +Old Aodh sat; then to his daughter turned,<br /> +And thus, imperious even in kindness, spake:<br /> +‘Well fought the youth ere captured, like the son<br /> +Of kings, and worthy to be sire of kings:<br /> +Wed him this hour: and in three days, at eve,<br /> +Restore him to his father!’ King, this hour<br /> +Thou know’st if Christ’s strong Faith be empty +words,<br /> +Or truth, and armed with power.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> That +night was passed<br /> +In feasting and in revel, high and low<br /> +Rich with a common gladness. Many a torch<br /> +Flared in the hand of servitors hill-sent,<br /> +That standing, each behind a guest, retained<br /> +Beneath that roof clouded by banquet steam<br /> +Their mountain wildness. Here, the splendour glanced<br /> +On goblet jewel-chased and dark with wine,<br /> +Swift circling; there, on walls with antlers spread,<br /> +And rich with yew-wood carvings, flower or bud,<br /> +Or clustered grape pendent in russet gleam<br /> +As though from nature’s hand. A hall hard by<br /> +Echoed the harp that now nor kindled rage,<br /> +Nor grief condoled, nor sealed with slumber’s balm<br /> +Tempestuous spirits, triumphs three of song,<br /> +But raised to rapture, mirth. Far shone that hall<br /> +Glowing with hangings steeped in every tinct<br /> +The boast of Erin’s dyeing-vats, now plain,<br /> +Now pranked with bird or beast or fish, whate’er<br /> +Fast-flying shuttle from the craftsman’s thought<br /> +Catching, on bore through glimmering warp and woof,<br /> +A marvellous work; now traced by broiderer’s hand<br /> +With legends of Ferdìadh and of Meave,<br /> +Even to the golden fringe. The warriors paced<br /> +Exulting. Oft they showed their merit’s prize,<br /> +Poniard or cup, tribute ordained of tribes<br /> +From age to age, Eochaid’s right, on them<br /> +With equal right devolving. Slow they moved<br /> +In mantle now of crimson, now of blue,<br /> +Clasped with huge torque of silver or of gold<br /> +Just where across the snowy shirt there strayed<br /> +Tendril of purple thread. With jewelled fronts<br /> +Beauteous in pride ’mid light of winsome smiles,<br /> +Over the rushes green with slender foot<br /> +In silver slipper hid, the ladies passed,<br /> +Answering with eyes not lips the whispered praise,<br /> +Or loud the bride extolling—“When was seen<br /> +Such sweetness and such grace?”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Meantime +the king<br /> +Conversed with Patrick. Vexed he heard announced<br /> +His daughter’s high resolve: but still his looks<br /> +Went wandering to his son. “My boy! Behold +him!<br /> +His valour and his gifts are all from me:<br /> +My first-born!” From the dancing throng apart<br /> +His daughter stood the while, serene and pale,<br /> +Down-gazing on that lily in her hand<br /> +With face of one who notes not shapes around,<br /> +But dreams some happy dream. The king drew nigh,<br /> +And on her golden head the sceptre staff<br /> +Leaning, but not to hurt her, thus began:<br /> +“Your prophets of the day, I trust them not!<br /> +If sent from God, why came they not long since?<br /> +Our Druids came before them, and, belike,<br /> +Shall after them abide! With these new seers<br /> +I count not Patrick. Things that Patrick says<br /> +I ofttimes thought. His lineage too is old—<br /> +Wide-browed, grey-eyed, with downward lessening face,<br /> +Not like your baser breeds, with questing eyes<br /> +And jaw of dog. But for thy Heavenly Spouse,<br /> +I like not Him! At least, wed Cormac first!<br /> +If rude his ways, yet noble is his name,<br /> +And being but poor the man will bide with me:<br /> +He’s brave, and likeliest soon in fight may fall!<br /> +When Cormac dies, wed next—” a music clash<br /> +Forth bursting drowned his words.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Three +days passed by:<br /> +To Patrick, then preparing to depart,<br /> +Thus spake Eochaid in the ears of all:<br /> +“Herald Heaven-missioned of the Tidings Good!<br /> +Those tidings I have pondered. They are true:<br /> +I for that truth’s sake, and in honour bound<br /> +By reason of my son set free, resolve<br /> +The same, upon conditions, to believe,<br /> +And suffer all my people to believe,<br /> +Just terms exacted. Briefly these they are:<br /> +First, after death, I claim admittance frank<br /> +Into thy Heavenly Kingdom: next, till death<br /> +For me exemption from that Baptism Rite,<br /> +Imposed on kerne and hind. Experience-taught,<br /> +I love not rigid bond and written pledge:<br /> +’Tis well to brand your mark on sheep or lamb:<br /> +Kings are of lion breed; and of my house<br /> +’Tis known there never yet was king baptized.<br /> +This pact concluded, preach within my realm<br /> +Thy Faith; and wed my daughter to thy God.<br /> +Not scholarly am I to know what joy<br /> +A maid can find in psalm, and cell, and spouse<br /> +Unseen: yet ever thus my sentence stood,<br /> +‘Choose each his way.’ My son restored, her +loss<br /> +To me is loss the less.” Thus spake the king.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then Patrick, on whose face the princess +bent<br /> +The supplication softly strong of eyes<br /> +Like planets seen through mist, Eochaid’s heart<br /> +Knowing, which miracle had hardened more,<br /> +Made answer, “King, a man of jests art thou,<br /> +Claiming free range in heaven, and yet its gate<br /> +Thyself close barring! In thy daughter’s prayers<br +/> +Belike thou trustest, that where others creep<br /> +Thou shalt its golden bastions over-fly.<br /> +Far otherwise than in that way thou ween’st,<br /> +That daughter’s prayers shall speed thee. With thy +word<br /> +I close, that word to frustrate. God be with thee!<br /> +Thou living, I return not. Fare thee well.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> Thus speaking, by the hand he +took the maid,<br /> +And led her through the concourse. At her feet<br /> +The poor fell low, kissing her garment’s hem,<br /> +And many brought their gifts, and all their prayers,<br /> +And old men wept. A maiden train snow-garbed,<br /> +Her steps attending, whitened plain and field,<br /> +As when at times dark glebe, new-turned, is changed<br /> +To white by flock of ocean birds alit,<br /> +Or inland blown by storm, or hunger-urged<br /> +To filch the late-sown grain. Her convent home<br /> +Ere long received her. There Ethembria ruled,<br /> +Green Erin’s earliest nun. Of princely race,<br /> +She in past years before the font of Christ<br /> +Had knelt at Patrick’s feet. Once more she sought +him:<br /> +Over the lovely, lovelier change had passed,<br /> +As when on childish girlhood, ’mid a shower<br /> +Of lilies earthward wafted, maidenhood<br /> +In peacefuller state assumes her spotless throne;<br /> +So, from that maiden, vestal now had risen:—<br /> +Lowlier she seemed, more tender, soft, and grave,<br /> +Yet loftier; hushed in quiet more divine,<br /> +Yet wonder-awed. Again she knelt, and o’er<br /> +The bending queenly head, till then unbent,<br /> +He flung that veil which woman bars from man<br /> +To make her more than woman. Nigh to death<br /> +The Saint forgat not her. With her remained<br /> +Keinè; but Patrick dwelt far off at Saul.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Years came and went: yet +neither chance nor change,<br /> +Nor war, nor peace, nor warnings from the priests,<br /> +Nor whispers ’mid the omen-mongering crowd,<br /> +Might from Eochaid charm his wayward will,<br /> +Nor reasonings of the wise that still preferred<br /> +Safe port to victory’s pride. He reasoned too,<br /> +For confident in his reasonings was the king,<br /> +Reckoning on pointed fingers every link<br /> +That clenched his mail of proof. “On Patrick’s +word<br /> +Ye tell me Baptism is the gate of Heaven:<br /> +Attend, Sirs! I have Patrick’s word no less<br /> +That I shall enter Heaven. What need I more?<br /> +If, Death, truth-speaker, shows that Patrick lied,<br /> +Plain is my right against him! Heaven not won,<br /> +Patrick bare hence my daughter through a fraud:<br /> +He must restore her fourfold—daughters four,<br /> +As fair and good. If not, the prophet’s pledge<br /> +For honour’s sake his Master must redeem,<br /> +And unbaptized receive me. Dupes are ye!<br /> +Doomed ’mid the common flock, with branded fleece<br /> +Bleating to enter Heaven!”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> The +years went by;<br /> +And weakness came. No more his small light form<br /> +To reverent eyes seemed taller than it was:<br /> +No more the shepherd watched him from the hill<br /> +Heading his hounds, and hoped to catch his smile,<br /> +Yet feared his questions keen. The end drew near.<br /> +Some wept, some railed; restless the warriors tramped;<br /> +The Druids conned their late discountenanced spells;<br /> +The bard his lying harpstrings spurned, so long<br /> +Healing, unhelpful now. But far away,<br /> +Within that lonely convent tower from her<br /> +Who prayed for ever, mightier rose the prayer.</p> +<p class="poetry">Within the palace, now by usage old<br /> +To all flung open, all were sore amazed,<br /> +All save the king. The leech beside the bed<br /> +Sobbed where he stood, yet sware, “The fit will pass:<br /> +Ten years the King may live.” Eochaid frowned:<br /> +“Shall I, to patch thy fame, live ten years more,<br /> +My death-time come? My seventy years are sped:<br /> +My sire and grandsire died at sixty-nine.<br /> +Like Aodh, shall I lengthen out my days<br /> +Toothless, nor fit to vindicate my clan,<br /> +Some losel’s song? The kingdom is my son’s!<br +/> +Strike from my little milk-white horse the shoes,<br /> +And loose him where the freshets make the mead<br /> +Greenest in springtide. He must die ere long;<br /> +And not to him did Patrick open Heaven.<br /> +Praise be to Patrick’s God! May He my sins,<br /> +Known and unknown, forgive!”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Backward +he sank<br /> +Upon his bed, and lay with eyes half closed,<br /> +Murmuring at times one prayer, five words or six;<br /> +And twice or thrice he spake of trivial things;<br /> +Then like an infant slumbered till the sun,<br /> +Sinking beneath a great cloud’s fiery skirt,<br /> +Smote his old eyelids. Waking, in his ears<br /> +The ripening cornfields whispered ’neath the breeze,<br /> +For wide were all the casements that the soul<br /> +By death delivered hindrance none might find<br /> +(Careful of this the king); and thus he spake:<br /> +“Nought ever raised my heart to God like fields<br /> +Of harvest, waving wide from hill to hill,<br /> +All bread-full for my people. Hale me forth:<br /> +When I have looked once more upon that sight<br /> +My blessing I will give them, and depart.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then in the fields they laid him, and he +spake.<br /> +“May He that to my people sends the bread,<br /> +Send grace to all who eat it!” With that word<br /> +His hands down-falling, back once more he sank,<br /> +And lay as dead; yet, sudden, rising not,<br /> +Nor moving, nor his eyes unclosing, said,<br /> +“My body in the tomb of ancient kings<br /> +Inter not till beside it Patrick stands<br /> +And looks upon my brow.” He spake, then sighed<br /> +A little sigh, and died.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Three +days, as when<br /> +Black thunder cloud clings fast to mountain brows,<br /> +So to the nation clung the grief: three days<br /> +The lamentation sounded on the hills<br /> +And rang around the pale blue meres, and rose<br /> +Shrill from the bleeding heart of vale and glen,<br /> +And rocky isle, and ocean’s moaning shore;<br /> +While by the bier the yellow tapers stood,<br /> +And on the right side knelt Eochaid’s son,<br /> +Behind him all the chieftains cloaked in black;<br /> +And on his left his daughter knelt, the nun,<br /> +Behind her all her sisterhood, white-veiled,<br /> +Like tombstones after snowstorm. Far away,<br /> +At “Saul of Patrick,” dwelt the Saint when first<br +/> +The king had sickened. Message sent he none<br /> +Though knowing all; and when the end was nigh,<br /> +And heralds now besought him day by day,<br /> +He made no answer till o’er eastern seas<br /> +Advanced the third fair morning. Then he rose,<br /> +And took the Staff of Jesus, and at eve<br /> +Beside the dead king standing, on his brow<br /> +Fixed a sad eye. Aloud the people wept;<br /> +The kneeling warriors eyed their lord askance;<br /> +The nuns intoned their hymn. Above that hymn<br /> +A cry rang out: it was the daughter’s prayer;<br /> +And after that was silence. By the dead<br /> +Still stood the Saint, nor e’er removed his gaze.<br /> +Then—seen of all—behold, the dead king’s +hands<br /> +Rose slowly, as the weed on wave upheaved<br /> +Without its will; and all the strengthless shape<br /> +In cerements wrapped, as though by mastering voice<br /> +From the white void evoked and realm of death,<br /> +Without its will, a gradual bulk half rose,<br /> +The hoar head gazing forth. Upon the face<br /> +Had passed a change, the greatest earth may know;<br /> +For what the majesty of death began<br /> +The majesties of worlds unseen, and life<br /> +Resurgent ere its time, had perfected,<br /> +All accidents of flesh and sorrowful years<br /> +Cancelled and quelled. Yet horror from his eyes<br /> +Looked out as though some vision once endured<br /> +Must cling to them for ever. Patrick spake:<br /> +“Soul from the dead sent back once more to earth<br /> +What seek’st thou from God’s Church?” He +answer made,<br /> +“Baptism.” Then Patrick o’er him poured +the might<br /> +Of healing waters in the Name Triune,<br /> +The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit;<br /> +And from his eyes the horror passed, and light<br /> +Went from them, as the light of eyes that rest<br /> +On the everlasting glory, while he spake:<br /> +“Tempest of darkness drave me past the gates<br /> +Celestial, and, a moment’s space, within<br /> +I heard the hymning of the hosts of God<br /> +That feed for ever on the Bread of Life<br /> +As feed the nations on the harvest wheat.<br /> +Tempest of darkness drave me to the gates<br /> +Of Anguish: then a cry came up from earth,<br /> +Cry like my daughter’s when her mother died,<br /> +That stayed the on-rushing whirlwind; yet mine eyes<br /> +Perforce looked in, and, many a thousand years,<br /> +Branded upon them lay that woful sight<br /> +Now washed from them for ever.” Patrick spake:<br /> +“This day a twofold choice I give thee, son;<br /> +For fifteen years the rule o’er Erin’s land,<br /> +Rule absolute, Ard-Righ o’er lesser kings;<br /> +Or instant else to die, and hear once more<br /> +That hymn celestial, and that Vision see<br /> +They see who sing that anthem.” Light from God<br /> +Over that late dead countenance streamed amain,<br /> +Like to his daughter’s now—more beauteous +thrice—<br /> +Yet awful, more than beauteous. “Rule o’er +earth,<br /> +Rule without end, were nought to that great hymn<br /> +Heard but a single moment. I would die.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then Patrick, on him gazing, answered, +“Die!”<br /> +And died the king once more, and no man wept;<br /> +But on her childless breast the nun sustained<br /> +Softly her father’s head.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> That +night discourse<br /> +Through hall and court circled in whispers low.<br /> +First one, “Was that indeed our king? But where<br /> +The sword-scar and the wrinkles?” +“Where,” rejoined,<br /> +Wide-eyed, the next, “his little cranks and girds<br /> +The wisdom, and the whim?” Then Patrick spake:<br /> +“Sirs, till this day ye never saw your king;<br /> +The man ye doted on was but his mask,<br /> +His picture—yea, his phantom. Ye have seen<br /> +At last the man himself.” That night nigh sped,<br /> +While slowly o’er the darkling woods went down,<br /> +Warned by the cold breath of the up-creeping morn<br /> +Invisible yet nigh, the August moon,<br /> +Two vestals, gliding past like moonlight gleams,<br /> +Conversed: one said, “His daughter’s prayer +prevailed!”<br /> +The second, “Who may know the ways of God?<br /> +For this, may many a heart one day rejoice<br /> +In hope! For this, the gift to many a man<br /> +Exceed the promise; Faith’s invisible germ<br /> +Quickened with parting breath; and Baptism given,<br /> +It may be, by an angel’s hand unseen!”</p> +<h3>SAINT PATRICK AND THE FOUNDING OF ARMAGH CATHEDRAL.</h3> +<h4>ARGUMENT.</h4> +<p>Saint Patrick repairs to Ardmacha, there to found the chief +church of Erin. For that purpose he demands of +Dairè, the king, a certain woody hill. The king +refuses it, and afterwards treats him with alternate scorn and +reverence; while the Saint, in each event alike, makes the same +answer, “Deo Gratias.” At last the king +concedes to him the hill; and on the summit of it Saint Patrick +finds a little white fawn asleep. The men of Erin would +have slain that fawn; but the Saint carries it on his shoulder, +and restores it to its dam. Where the fawn lay, he places +the altar of his cathedral.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">At</span> Cluain Cain, in +Ross, unbent yet old,<br /> +Dwelt Patrick long. Its sweet and flowery sward<br /> +He to the rock had delved, with fixed resolve<br /> +To build thereon Christ’s chiefest church in Eire.<br /> +Then by him stood God’s angel, speaking thus:<br /> +“Not here, but northward.” He replied, +“O, would<br /> +This spot might favour find with God! Behold!<br /> +Fair is it, and as meet to clasp a church<br /> +As is a true heart in a virgin breast<br /> +To clasp the Faith of Christ. The hinds around<br /> +Name it ‘the beauteous meadow.’” +“Fair it is,”<br /> +The angel answered, “nor shall lack its crown.<br /> +Another’s is its beauty. Here, one day<br /> +A pilgrim from the Britons sent shall build,<br /> +And, later, what he builds shall pass to thine;<br /> +But thou to Macha get thee.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Patrick +then,<br /> +Obedient as that Patriarch Sire who faced<br /> +At God’s command the desert, northward went<br /> +In holy silence. Soon to him was lost<br /> +That green and purple meadow-sea, embayed<br /> +’Twixt two descending woody promontories,<br /> +Its outlet girt with isles of rock, its shores<br /> +Cream-white with meadow-sweet. Not once he turned,<br /> +Climbing the uplands rough, or crossing streams<br /> +Swoll’n by the melted snows. The Brethren paced<br /> +Behind; Benignus first, his psalmist; next<br /> +Secknall, his bishop; next his brehon Erc;<br /> +Mochta, his priest; and Sinell of the Bells;<br /> +Rodan, his shepherd; Essa, Bite, and Tassach,<br /> +Workers of might in iron and in stone,<br /> +God-taught to build the churches of the Faith<br /> +With wisdom and with heart-delighting craft;<br /> +Mac Cairthen last, the giant meek that oft<br /> +On shoulders broad bare Patrick through the floods:<br /> +His rest was nigh. That hour they crossed a stream;<br /> +’Twas deep, and, ’neath his load, the giant +sighed.<br /> +Saint Patrick said, “Thou wert not wont to sigh!”<br +/> +He answered, “Old I grow. Of them my mates<br /> +How many hast thou left in churches housed<br /> +Wherein they rule and rest!” The Saint replied,<br /> +“Thee also will I leave within a church<br /> +For rule and rest; not to mine own too near<br /> +For rarely then should we be seen apart,<br /> +Nor yet remote, lest we should meet no more.”<br /> +At Clochar soon he placed him. There, long years<br /> +Mac Cairthen sat, its bishop.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> As +they went,<br /> +Oft through the woodlands rang the battle-shout;<br /> +And twice there rose above the distant hill<br /> +The smoke of hamlet fired. Yet, none the less,<br /> +Spring-touched, the blackbird sang; the cowslip changed<br /> +Green lawn to green and golden; and grey rock<br /> +And river’s marge with primroses were starred;<br /> +Here shook the windflower; there the blue-bells gleamed,<br /> +As though a patch of sky had fallen on earth.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then to Benignus spake the Saint: “My +son,<br /> +If grief were lawful in a world redeemed<br /> +The blood-stains on a land so strong in faith,<br /> +So slack in love, might cloud the holiest brow,<br /> +Yea, his whose head lay on the breast of Christ.<br /> +Clan wars with clan: no injury is forgiven;<br /> +Like to the joy in stag-hunts is the war:<br /> +Alas! for such what hope!” Benignus answered<br /> +“O Father, cease not for this race to hope,<br /> +Lest they should hope no longer! Hope they have;<br /> +Still say they, ‘God will snare us in the end<br /> +Though wild.’” And Patrick, “Spirits +twain are theirs:<br /> +The stranger, and the poor, at every door<br /> +They meet, and bid him in. The youngest child<br /> +Officious is in service; maids prepare<br /> +The bath; men brim the wine-cup. Then, forth borne,<br /> +Cities they fire and rich in spoil depart,<br /> +Greed mixed with rage—an industry of blood!”<br /> +He spake, and thus the younger made reply:<br /> +“Father, the stranger is the brother-man<br /> +To them; the poor is neighbour. Septs remote<br /> +To them are alien worlds. They know not yet<br /> +That rival clans are men.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “That +know they shall,”<br /> +Patrick made answer, “when a race far off<br /> +Tramples their race to clay! God sends abroad<br /> +His plague of war that men on earth may know<br /> +Brother from foe, and anguish work remorse.”<br /> +He spake, and after musings added thus:<br /> +“Base of God’s kingdom is Humility—<br /> +I have not spared to thunder o’er their pride;<br /> +Great kings have I rebuked and signs sent forth,<br /> +And banned for their sake fruitful plain, and bay;<br /> +Yet still the widow’s cry is on the air,<br /> +The orphan’s wail!” Benignus answered mild,<br +/> +“O Father, not alone with sign and ban<br /> +Hast thou rebuked their madness. Oftener far<br /> +Thy sweetness hath reproved them. Once in woods<br /> +Northward of Tara as we tracked our way<br /> +Round us there gathered slaves who felled the pines<br /> +For ship-masts. Scarred their hands, and red with blood,<br +/> +Because their master, Trian, thus had sworn,<br /> +‘Let no man sharpen axe!’ Upon those hands<br +/> +Gazing, they wept soon as thy voice they heard,<br /> +Because that voice was soft. Thou heard’st their +tale;<br /> +Straight to that chieftain’s castle went’st thou +up,<br /> +And bound’st him with thy fast, beside his gate<br /> +Sitting in silence till his heart should melt;<br /> +And since he willed it not to melt, he died.<br /> +Then, in her arms two babes, came forth the queen<br /> +Black-robed, and freed her slaves, and gave them hire;<br /> +And, we returning after many years,<br /> +Filled was that wood with homesteads; plots of corn<br /> +Rustled around them; here were orchards; there<br /> +In trench or tank they steeped the bright blue flax;<br /> +The saw-mill turned to use the wanton brook;<br /> +Murmured the bee-hive; murmured household wheel;<br /> +Soft eyes looked o’er it through the dusk; at work<br /> +The labourers carolled; matrons glad and maids<br /> +Bare us the pail head-steadied, children flowers:<br /> +Last, from her castle paced the queen, and led<br /> +In either hand her sons whom thou hadst blest,<br /> +Thenceforth to stand thy priests. The land believed;<br /> +And not through ban, or word, sharp-edged or soft,<br /> +But silence and thy fast the ill custom died.”</p> +<p class="poetry">He answered, “Christ, in Christ-like life +expressed,<br /> +This, this, not words, subdues a land to Christ;<br /> +And in this best Apostolate all have part.<br /> +Ah me! that flower thou hold’st is strong to preach<br /> +Creative Love, because itself is lovely;<br /> +But we, the heralds of Redeeming Love,<br /> +Because we are unlovely in our lives,<br /> +Preach to deaf ears! Yet theirs, theirs too, the +sin.”<br /> +Benignus made reply: “The race is old;<br /> +Not less their hearts are young. Have patience with +them!<br /> +For see, in spring the grave old oaks push forth<br /> +Impatient sprays, wine-red: their strength matured,<br /> +These sober down to verdure.” Patrick paused,<br /> +Then, brooding, spake, as one who thinks, not speaks:<br /> +“A priest there walked with me ten years and more;<br /> +Warrior in youth was he. One day we heard<br /> +The shock of warring clans—I hear it still:<br /> +Within him, as in darkening vase you note<br /> +The ascending wine, I watched the passion mount:—<br /> +Sudden he dashed him down into the fight,<br /> +Nor e’er to Christ returned.” Benignus +answered;<br /> +“I saw above a dusky forest roof<br /> +The glad spring run, leaving a track sea-green:<br /> +Not straight she ran; and yet she reached her goal:<br /> +Later I saw above green copse of thorn<br /> +The glad spring run, leaving a track foam-white:<br /> +Not straight she ran; yet soon she conquered all!<br /> +O Father, is it sinful to be glad<br /> +Here amid sin and sorrow? Joy is strong,<br /> +Strongest in spring-tide! Mourners I have known<br /> +That, homeward wending from the new-dug grave,<br /> +Against their will, where sang the happy birds<br /> +Have felt the aggressive gladness stir their hearts,<br /> +And smiled amid their tears.” So babbled he,<br /> +Shamed at his spring-tide raptures.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> As +they went,<br /> +Far on their left there stretched a mighty land<br /> +Of forest-girdled hills, mother of streams:<br /> +Beyond it sank the day; while round the west<br /> +Like giants thronged the great cloud-phantoms towered.<br /> +Advancing, din they heard, and found in woods<br /> +A hamlet and a field by war unscathed,<br /> +And boys on all sides running. Placid sat<br /> +The village Elders; neither lacked that hour<br /> +The harp that gently tranquillises age,<br /> +Yet wakes young hearts with musical unrest,<br /> +Forerunner oft of love’s unrest. Ere long<br /> +The measure changed to livelier: maid with maid<br /> +Danced ’mid the dancing shadows of the trees,<br /> +And youth with youth; till now, the strangers near,<br /> +Those Elders welcomed them with act benign;<br /> +And soon was slain the fatted kid, and soon<br /> +The lamb; nor any asked till hunger’s rage<br /> +Was quelled, “Who art thou?” Patrick made +reply,<br /> +“A Priest of God.” Then prayed they, +“Offer thou<br /> +To Him our sacrifice! Belike ’tis He<br /> +Who saves from war this hamlet hid in woods:<br /> +Unblest be he who finds it!” Thus they spake,<br /> +The matrons, not the youths. In friendly talk<br /> +The hours went by with laughter winged and tale;<br /> +But when the moon, on rolling through the heavens,<br /> +Showered through the leaves a dew of sprinkled light<br /> +O’er the dark ground, the maidens garments brought<br /> +Woven in their quiet homes when nights were long,<br /> +Red cloak and kirtle green, and laid them soft,<br /> +Still with the wearers’ blameless beauty warm,<br /> +For coverlet upon the warm dry grass,<br /> +Honouring the stranger guests. For these they deemed<br /> +Their low-roofed cots too mean. Glad-hearted rose<br /> +The Christian hymn, not timid: far it rang<br /> +Above the woods. Ere long, their blissful rites<br /> +Fulfilled, the wanderers laid them down and slept.</p> +<p class="poetry">At midnight by the side of Patrick stood<br /> +Victor, God’s Angel, saying, “Lo! thy work<br /> +Hath favour found and thou ere long shalt die:<br /> +Thus therefore saith the Lord, ‘So long as sea<br /> +Girdeth this isle, so long thy name shall hang<br /> +In splendour o’er it, like the stars of +God.’”<br /> +Then Patrick said, “A boon! I crave a boon!”<br +/> +The angel answered, “Speak;” and Patrick said,<br /> +“Let them that with me toiled, or in the years<br /> +To come shall toil, building o’er all this land<br /> +The Fortress-Temple and great House of Christ,<br /> +Equalled with me my name in Erin share.”<br /> +And Victor answered, “Half thy prayer is thine;<br /> +With thee shall they partake. Not less, thy name<br /> +Higher than theirs shall rise, and wider spread,<br /> +Since thus more plainly shall His glory shine<br /> +Whose glory is His justice.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> With +the morn<br /> +Those pilgrims rose, and, prime entoned and lauds,<br /> +Poured out their blessing on that woodland clan<br /> +Which, round them pressing, kissed them, robe and knee;<br /> +Then on they journeyed till at set of sun<br /> +Shone out the roofs of Macha, and that tower<br /> +Where Dairè dwelt, its lord.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Saint +Patrick sent<br /> +To Dairè embassage, vouchsafing prayer<br /> +As sire might pray of son; “Give thou yon hill<br /> +To Christ, that we may build His church thereon.”<br /> +And Dairè answered with a brow of storms<br /> +Bent forward darkly, and long, sneering lips,<br /> +“Your master is a mighty man, we know.<br /> +Garban, that lied to God, he slew through prayer,<br /> +And banned full many a lake, and many a plain,<br /> +For trespass there committed! Let it be!<br /> +A Chief of souls he is! No signs we work,<br /> +Rulers earth-born: yet somewhat are we here—<br /> +Depart! By others answer we will send.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> So Dairè sent to +Patrick men of might,<br /> +Fierce men, the battle’s nurslings. Thus they +spake:<br /> +“High region for high heads! If build ye must,<br /> +Build on the plain: the hill is Dairè’s right:<br /> +Church site he grants you, and the field around.”<br /> +And Patrick, glancing from his Office Book,<br /> +Made answer, “Deo Gratias,” and no more.</p> +<p class="poetry">Upon that plain he built a little church<br /> +Ere long, a convent likewise, girt with mound<br /> +Banked from the meadow loam, and deftly set<br /> +With stone, and fence, and woody palisade,<br /> +That neither warring clans, far heard by day,<br /> +Might hurt his cloistered charge, nor wolves by night,<br /> +Howling in woods; and there he served the Lord.</p> +<p class="poetry">But Dairè scorned the Saint, and grudged +his gift,<br /> +Though small; and half in spleen, and half in greed,<br /> +Sent down two stately coursers all night long<br /> +To graze the deep sweet pasture round the church:<br /> +Ill deed:—and so, for guerdon of that sin,<br /> +Dead lay the coursers twain at the break of dawn.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then fled the servants back, and told their +lord,<br /> +Fearing for negligence rebuke and scath,<br /> +“Thy Christian slew the coursers!” and the king<br /> +Gave word to slay or bind him. But from God<br /> +A sickness fell on Dairè nigh to death<br /> +That day and night. When morning brake, the queen,<br /> +A woman leal with kind barbaric heart,<br /> +Her bosom from the sick man’s head withdrew<br /> +A moment while he slept; and, round her gazing,<br /> +Closed with both hands upon a liegeman’s arm,<br /> +And sped him to the Saint for pardon and peace.<br /> +Then Patrick, dipping in the inviolate fount<br /> +A chalice, blessed the water, with command<br /> +“Sprinkle the stately coursers and the king;”<br /> +And straightway as from death the king arose,<br /> +And rose from death the coursers.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Dairè +then,<br /> +His tall frame boastful with that life renewed,<br /> +Took with him men, and down the stone-paved hill<br /> +Rode from his tower, and through the woodlands green,<br /> +And bare with him an offering of those days,<br /> +A brazen cauldron vast. Embossed it shone<br /> +With sculptured shapes. On one side hunters rode:<br /> +Low stretched their steeds: the dogs pulled down the stag<br /> +Unseen, except the branching horns that rose<br /> +Like hands in protest. Feasters, on the other,<br /> +Raised high the cup pledging the safe return.<br /> +This offering Dairè brought, and, entering, spake:<br /> +“A gift for guerdon and for grace, O Priest!”<br /> +And Patrick, upward glancing from his book,<br /> +Made answer, “Deo Gratias!” and no more.</p> +<p class="poetry">King Dairè, homeward riding with knit +brow<br /> +Muttered, “Churl’s welcome for a kingly +boon!”<br /> +And, drinking late that night the stormy breath<br /> +Of others’ anger blent with his, commanded,<br /> +“Ride forth at morn and bring me back my gift!<br /> +Spurn it he shall not, though he prize it not.”<br /> +They heard him, and obeyed. At noon the king<br /> +Demanded thus, “What answer made the Saint?”<br /> +They said, “His eyes he raised not from his book,<br /> +But answered, ‘Deo Gratias!’ and no more.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then Dairè stamped his foot, like +war-horse stung<br /> +By gadfly: musing next, and mute he sat<br /> +A space, and lastly roared great laughter peals<br /> +Till roared in mockery back the raftered roof,<br /> +And clashed his hands together shouting thus:<br /> +“A gift, and ‘Deo Gratias!’—gift +withdrawn,<br /> +And ‘Deo Gratias!’ Sooth, the word is good!<br +/> +Madman is this, or man of God? We’ll know!”<br +/> +So from his frowning fortress once again<br /> +Adown the resonant road o’er street and bridge<br /> +Rode Dairè, at his right the queen in fear,<br /> +With dumbly pleading countenance; close behind,<br /> +With tangled locks and loose-hung battle-axe<br /> +Ran the wild kerne; and loud the bull-horn blew.<br /> +The convent reached, King Dairè from his horse<br /> +Flung his great limbs, and at the doorway towered<br /> +In gazing stern: the queen beside him stood,<br /> +Her lustrous violet eyes all lost in tears:<br /> +One hand on Dairè’s garment lay like light<br /> +Wandering on dusky ripple; one, upraised,<br /> +Held in the high-necked horse that champed the bit,<br /> +His head near hers. Within, the man of God,<br /> +Sole-sitting, read his office book unmoved,<br /> +And ending fixed his keen eye on the king,<br /> +Not rising from his seat.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Then +fell from God<br /> +Insight on Dairè, and aloud he cried,<br /> +“A kingly man, of mind unmovable<br /> +Art thou; and as the rock beneath my tower<br /> +Shakes not in storm so shakes not heart of thine:<br /> +Such men are of the height and not the plain:<br /> +Therefore that hill to thee I grant unsought<br /> +Which whilome I refused. Possession take<br /> +This day, lest hostile demon warp my mood;<br /> +And build thereon thy church. The same shall stand<br /> +Strong mother-church of all thy great clan Christ!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus Dairè spake; and Patrick, at his +word<br /> +Rising, gave thanks to God, and to the king<br /> +High blessing heard in heaven; and making sign<br /> +Went forth, attended by his priestly train,<br /> +Benignus first, his dearest, then the rest.<br /> +In circuit thrice they girt that hill, and sang<br /> +Anthem first heard when unto God was vowed<br /> +That House which David offered in his heart<br /> +His son in act, and hymn of holy Church<br /> +Hailing that city like a bride attired,<br /> +From heaven to earth descending. With them sang<br /> +An angel choir above them borne. The birds<br /> +Forbore their songs, listening that angel strain,<br /> +Ethereal music and by men unheard<br /> +Except the Elect. The king in reverence paced<br /> +Behind, his liegemen next, a mass confused<br /> +With saffron standard gay and spears upheld<br /> +Flashing through thickets green. These kept not line,<br /> +For Alp was still recounting battles old,<br /> +Aodh of wizards sang, and Ir of love;<br /> +While bald-pate Conan, sharpening from his eye<br /> +The sneering light, shot from his plastic mouth<br /> +Shrill taunt and biting gibe. The younger sort<br /> +Eyed the dense copse and launched full many a shaft<br /> +Through it at flying beast. From ledge to ledge<br /> +Clomb Angus, keen of sight, with hand o’er brow,<br /> +Forth gazing on some far blue ridge of war<br /> +With nostril wide outblown, and snorting cried,<br /> +“Would I were there!”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Meantime, +the man of God<br /> +Had reached the fair crown of that sacred hill,<br /> +A circle girt with woodland branching low,<br /> +And roofed with heaven. Beyond its tonsure fringe,<br /> +Birch trees and oaks, there pushed a thorn milk-white,<br /> +And close beside it slept in shade a fawn<br /> +Whiter. The startled dam had left its side,<br /> +And through the dark stems fled like flying gleam.<br /> +Minded they were, the kernes, to kill that fawn,<br /> +And all the priests stood silent; but the Saint<br /> +Put forth his hand, and o’er her signed the Cross,<br /> +And, stooping, on his shoulder placed her firm,<br /> +And bade the brethren mark with stones her lair<br /> +Dewless and dusk: then, singing as he went<br /> +“Like as the hart desires the water brooks,”<br /> +He walked, that hill descending. Light from God<br /> +O’ershone his face. Meantime the awakened fawn<br /> +Now rolled her dark eye on the silver head<br /> +Close by, now turning licked the wrinkled hand,<br /> +Unfearing. Soon, with little whimpering sob,<br /> +The doe drew near and paced at Patrick’s side.<br /> +At last they reached a little field low down<br /> +Beneath that hill: there Patrick laid the fawn.</p> +<p class="poetry">King Dairè questioned Patrick of that +deed,<br /> +Incensed; and scornful asked, “Shall mitred man<br /> +Play thus the shepherd and the forester?”<br /> +And Patrick answered, “Aged men, O king,<br /> +Forget their reasons oft. Benignus seek,<br /> +If haply God has shown him for what cause<br /> +I wrought this thing.” Then Dairè turned him +back<br /> +And faced Benignus; and with lifted hand,<br /> +Pure as a maid’s, and dimpled like a child’s,<br /> +Picturing his thoughts on air, the little monk<br /> +Thus glossed that deed. “Great mystery, king, is +Love:<br /> +Poets its worthiness have sung in lays<br /> +Unread by ruder ones like me; and yet<br /> +Thus much the simplest and the rudest know,<br /> +Dear is the fawn to her that gave it birth,<br /> +And to the sceptred monarch dear the child<br /> +That mounts his knee. Nor here the marvel ends;<br /> +For, like yon star, the great Paternal Heart<br /> +Through all the unmeted, unimagined years,<br /> +While yet Creation uncreated hung,<br /> +A thought, a dawn-streak on the verge extreme<br /> +Of lonely Godhead’s inner Universe,<br /> +Panted and pants with splendour of its love,<br /> +The Eternal Sire rejoicing in the Son<br /> +And Both in Him Who still from Both proceeds,<br /> +Bond of their love. Moreover, king, that Son<br /> +Who, Virgin-born, raised from the ruinous gulf<br /> +Our world, and made it footstool to God’s throne,<br /> +The same is Love, and died for Love, and reigns:<br /> +Loveless, His Church were but a corse stone-cold;<br /> +Loveless, her creed were but a winter leaf<br /> +Network of barren thoughts, the cerement wan<br /> +Of Faith extinct. Therefore our Saint revered<br /> +The love and anguish of that mother doe,<br /> +And inly vowed that where her offspring couched<br /> +Christ’s chiefest church should stand, from age to age<br +/> +Confession plain ’mid raging of the clans<br /> +That God is Love;—His worship void and vain<br /> +Disjoined from Love that, rising to the heights<br /> +Even to the depths descends.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Conversing +thus,<br /> +Macha they reached. Ere long where lay the fawn<br /> +Stood God’s new altar; and, ere many years,<br /> +Far o’er the woodlands rose the church high-towered,<br /> +Preaching God’s peace to still a troubled world.<br /> +The Saint who built it found not there his grave<br /> +Though wished for; him God buried otherwhere,<br /> +Fulfilling thus the counsels of His Will:<br /> +But old, and grey, when many a winter’s frost<br /> +To spring had yielded, bent by wounds and woes<br /> +Upon that church’s altar looked once more<br /> +King Dairè; at its font was joined to Christ;<br /> +And, midway ’twixt that altar and that font,<br /> +Rejoined his beauteous mate a later day.</p> +<h3>THE ARRAIGNMENT OF SAINT PATRICK.</h3> +<h4>ARGUMENT.</h4> +<p>Secknall, the poet, brings, in sport, three heavy charges +against Saint Patrick, who, supposing them to be serious, defends +himself against them. Lastly Secknall sings a hymn written +in praise of a Saint. Saint Patrick commends it, affirming +that for once Fame has dispensed her honours honestly. Upon +this, Secknall recites the first stave, till then craftily +reserved, which offers the whole homage of that hymn to Patrick, +who, though the humblest of men, has thus arrogated to himself +the saintly Crown. There is laughter among the +brethren.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> Patrick now was +old and nigh to death<br /> +Undimmed was still his eye; his tread was strong;<br /> +And there was ever laughter in his heart,<br /> +And music in his laughter. In a wood<br /> +Nigh to Ardmacha dwelt he with his monks;<br /> +And there, like birds that cannot stay their songs<br /> +Love-touched in Spring, or grateful for their nests,<br /> +They to the woodsmen preached of Christ, their King,<br /> +To swineherds, and to hinds that tended sheep,<br /> +Yea, and to pilgrim guests from distant clans;<br /> +His shepherd-worshipped birth when breath of kine<br /> +Went o’er the Infant; all His wondrous works<br /> +Or words from mount, or field, or anchored boat,<br /> +And Christendom upreared for weal of men<br /> +And Angel-wonder. Daily preached the monks<br /> +And daily built their convent. Wildly sweet<br /> +The season, prime of unripe spring, when March<br /> +Distils from cup half gelid yet some drops<br /> +Of finer relish than the hand of May<br /> +Pours from her full-brimmed beaker. Frost, though gone,<br +/> +Had left its glad vibration on the air;<br /> +Laughed the blue heavens as though they ne’er had +frowned,<br /> +Through leafless oak-boughs; limes of kindlier grace<br /> +And swifter to believe Spring’s “tidings +good”<br /> +Took the sweet lights upon a breast bud-swoll’n,<br /> +And crimson as the redbreast’s; while, as when<br /> +Clear rings a flute-note through sea-murmurs harsh,<br /> +At intervals ran out a streak of green<br /> +Across the dim-hued forest.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> From +their wood<br /> +The strong arms of the monks had hewn them space<br /> +For all their convent needed; farmyard stored<br /> +With stacks that all the winter long had clutched<br /> +Their hoarded harvest sunshine; pasture green<br /> +Whitened with sheep; fair garden fenceless still<br /> +With household herbs new-sprouting: but, as oft<br /> +Some conquered race, forth sallying in its spleen<br /> +When serves the occasion, wins a province back,<br /> +Or flouts at least the foe, so here once more<br /> +Wild flowers, a clan unvanquished, raised their heads<br /> +’Mid sprouting wheat; and where from craggy height<br /> +Pushed the grey ledge, the woodland host recoiled<br /> +As though in Parthian flight; while many a bird,<br /> +Barbaric from the inviolate forest launched<br /> +Wild warbled scorn on all that life reclaimed,<br /> +Mute garth-still orchard. Child of distant hills,<br /> +A proud stream, swollen by midnight rains, down leaped<br /> +From rock to rock. It spurned the precinct now<br /> +With airy dews silvering the bramble green<br /> +And redd’ning more the beech-stock.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> ’Twas +the hour<br /> +Of rest, and every monk was glad at heart,<br /> +For each had wrought with might. With hands upheld,<br /> +Mochta, the priest, had thundered against sin,<br /> +Wrath-roused, as when some prince too late returned<br /> +Stares at his sea-side village all in flames,<br /> +The slave-thronged ship escaped. The bishop, Erc,<br /> +Had reconciled old feuds by Brehon Law<br /> +Where Brehon Law was lawful. Boys wild-eyed<br /> +Had from Benignus learned the church’s song,<br /> +Boys brightened now, yet tempered, by that age<br /> +Gracious to stripling as to maid, that brings<br /> +Valour to one and modesty to both<br /> +Where youth is loyal to the Virgin-born.<br /> +The giant meek, Mac Cairthen, on bent neck<br /> +Had carried beam on beam, while Criemther felled<br /> +The oaks, and from the anvil Laeban dashed<br /> +The sparks in showers. A little way removed,<br /> +Beneath a pine three vestals sat close-veiled:<br /> +A song these childless sang of Bethlehem’s Child,<br /> +Low-toned, and worked their Altar-cloth, a Lamb<br /> +All white on golden blazon; near it bled<br /> +The bird that with her own blood feeds her young:<br /> +Red drops affused her holy breast. These three<br /> +Were daughters of three kings. The best and fairest,<br /> +King Dairè’s daughter, Erenait by name,<br /> +Had loved Benignus in her Pagan years.<br /> +He knew it not: full sweet to her his voice<br /> +Chaunting in choir. One day through grief of love<br /> +The maiden lay as dead: Benignus shook<br /> +Dews from the font above her, and she woke<br /> +With heart emancipate that outsoared the lark<br /> +Lost in blue heavens. She loved the Spouse of Souls.<br /> +It was as though some child that, dreaming, wept<br /> +Its childish playthings lost, awaked by bells,<br /> +Bride-bells, had found herself a queen new wed<br /> +Unto her country’s lord.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> While +monk with monk<br /> +Conversed, the son of Patrick’s sister sat,<br /> +Secknall by name, beside the window sole<br /> +And marked where Patrick from his hill of prayer<br /> +Approached, descending slowly. At the sight<br /> +He, maker blithe of songs, and wild as hawk<br /> +Albeit a Saint, whose wont it was at times<br /> +Or shy, or strange, or shunning flattery’s taint,<br /> +To attempt with mockery those whom most he loved,<br /> +Whispered a brother, “Speak to Patrick thus:<br /> +‘When all men praised thee, Secknall made reply<br /> +“A blessed man were Patrick save for this,<br /> +Alms deeds he preaches not.”’” The +brother went:<br /> +Ere long among them entered Patrick, wroth,<br /> +Or, likelier, feigning wrath:—“What man is he<br /> +Who saith I preach not alms deeds?” Secknall rose:<br +/> +“I said it, Father, and the charge is true.”<br /> +Then Patrick answered, “Out of Charity<br /> +I preach not Charity. This people, won<br /> +To Christ, ere long will prove a race of Saints;<br /> +To give will be its passion, not to gain:<br /> +Its heart is generous; but its hand is slack<br /> +In all save war: herein there lurks a snare:<br /> +The priest will fatten, and the beggar feast:<br /> +But the lean land will yield nor chief nor prince<br /> +Hire of two horses yoked to chariot beam.”<br /> +Then Secknall spake, “O Father, dead it lies<br /> +Mine earlier charge against thee. Hear my next,<br /> +Since in our Order’s equal Brotherhood<br /> +Censure uncensured is the right of all.<br /> +You press to the earth your converts! gold you spurn;<br /> +Yet bind upon them heavier load than when<br /> +Conqueror his captive tasks. Have shepherds three<br /> +Bowed them to Christ? ‘Build up a church,’ you +cry;<br /> +So one must draw the sand, and one the stone<br /> +And one the lime. Honouring the seven great Gifts,<br /> +You raise in one small valley churches seven.<br /> +Who serveth you fares hard!” The Saint replied,<br /> +“Second as first! I came not to this land<br /> +To crave scant service, nor with shallow plough<br /> +Cleave I this glebe. The priest that soweth much<br /> +For here the land is fruitful, much shall reap:<br /> +Who soweth little nought but weeds shall bind<br /> +And poppies of oblivion.” Secknall next:<br /> +“Yet man to man will whisper, and the face<br /> +Of all this people darken like a sea<br /> +When pipes the coming storm.” He answered, +“Son,<br /> +I know this people better. Fierce they are<br /> +In anger; neither flies their thought direct;<br /> +For some, though true to Nature, lie to men,<br /> +And others, true to men, are false to God:<br /> +Yet as the prince’s is the poor man’s heart;<br /> +Burthen for God sustained no burden is<br /> +To him; and those who most have given to Christ<br /> +Largeliest His fulness share.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Secknall +replied,<br /> +“Low lies my second charge; a third remains,<br /> +Which, as a shaft from seasoned bow, not green,<br /> +Shall pierce the marl. With convents still you sow<br /> +The land: in other countries sparse and small<br /> +They swell to cities here. A hundred monks<br /> +On one late barren mountain dig and pray:<br /> +A hundred nuns gladden one woodland lawn,<br /> +Or sing in one small island. Well—’tis well!<br +/> +Yet, balance lost and measure, nought is well.<br /> +The Angelic Life more common will become<br /> +Than life of mortal men.” The Saint replied,<br /> +“No shaft from homicidal yew-tree bow<br /> +Is thine, but winged of thistle-down! Now hear!<br /> +Measure is good; but measure’s law with scale<br /> +Changeth; nor doth the part reflect the whole.<br /> +Each nation hath its gift, and each to all<br /> +Not equal ministers. If all were eye,<br /> +Where then were ear? If all were ear or hand,<br /> +Where then were eye? The nation is the part;<br /> +The Church the whole”—But Criemther where he +stood,<br /> +Old warrior, shouted like a chief war-waked,<br /> +“This land is Eire! No nation lives like her!<br /> +A part! Who portions Eire?” The Saint, with +smile<br /> +Resumed: “The whole that from the part receives,<br /> +Repaying still that part, till man’s whole race<br /> +Grow to the fulness of Mankind redeemed.<br /> +What gift hath God in eminence given to Eire?<br /> +Singly, her race is feeble; strong when knit:<br /> +Nought knits them truly save a heavenly aim.<br /> +I knit them as an army unto God,<br /> +Give them God’s War! Yon star is militant!<br /> +Its splendour ’gainst the dark must fight or die:<br /> +So wars that Faith I preach against the world;<br /> +And nations fitted least for this world’s gain<br /> +Can speed Faith’s triumph best. Three hundred +years,<br /> +Well used, should make of Eire a northern Rome.<br /> +Criemther! her destiny is this, or nought;<br /> +Secknall! the highest only can she reach;<br /> +Alone the Apostle’s crown is hers: for this,<br /> +A Rule I give her, strong, yet strong in Love;<br /> +Monastic households build I far and wide;<br /> +Monastic clans I plant among her clans,<br /> +With abbots for their chiefs. The same shall live,<br /> +Long as God’s love o’errules them.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Secknall +then<br /> +Knelt, reverent; yet his eye had in it mirth,<br /> +And round the full bloom of the red rich mouth,<br /> +No whit ascetic, ran a dim half smile.<br /> +“Father, my charges three have futile fallen,<br /> +And thrice, like some great warrior of the bards,<br /> +Your conquering wheels above me you have driven.<br /> +Brought low, I make confession. Once, in woods<br /> +Wandering, we heard a sound, now loud, now low,<br /> +As he that treads the sand-hills hears the sea<br /> +High murmuring while he climbs the seaward slope,<br /> +Low, as he drops to landward. ’Twas a throng<br /> +Awed, yet tumultuous, wild-eyed, wondering, fierce,<br /> +That, standing round a harper, stave on stave<br /> +Acclaimed as each had ending. ‘War, still +war!’<br /> +Thou saidst; ‘the bards but sing of War and Death!<br /> +Ah! if they sang that Death which conquered Death,<br /> +Then, like a tide, this people, music-drawn,<br /> +Would mount the shores of Christ! Bards love not us,<br /> +Prescient that power, that power wielded elsewhere<br /> +By priest, but here by them, shall pass to us:<br /> +Yet we love them for good one day their gift.’<br /> +Then didst thou turn on me an eye of might<br /> +Such as on Malach, when thou had’st him raise<br /> +By miracle of prayer that babe boar-slain,<br /> +And said’st, ‘Go, fell thy pine, and frame thy +harp,<br /> +And in the hearing of this people sing<br /> +Some Saint, the friend of Christ.’ Too long the +attempt<br /> +Shame-faced, I shunned; at last, like him of old,<br /> +That better brother who refused, yet went,<br /> +I made my hymn. ’Tis called ‘A Child of +Life.’”<br /> +Then Patrick, “Welcome is the praise of Saints:<br /> +Sing thou thy hymn.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> From +kneeling Secknall rose<br /> +And stood, and singing, raised his hand as when<br /> +Her cymbal by the Red Sea Miriam raised<br /> +While silent stood God’s hosts, and silent lay<br /> +Those host-entombing waters. Shook, like hers,<br /> +His slight form wavering ’mid the gusts of song.<br /> +He sang the Saint of God, create from nought<br /> +To work God’s Will. As others gaze on earth,<br /> +Her vales, her plains, her green meads ocean-girt,<br /> +So gazed the Saint for ever upon God<br /> +Who girds all worlds—saw intermediate nought—<br /> +And on Him watched the sunshine and the storm,<br /> +And learned His Countenance, and from It alone,<br /> +Drew in upon his heart its day and night.<br /> +That contemplation was for him no dream:<br /> +It hurled him on his mission. As a sword<br /> +He lodged his soul within the Hand Divine<br /> +And wrought, keen-edged, God’s counsel. Next to +God<br /> +Next, and how near, he loved the souls of men:<br /> +Yea, men to him were Souls; the unspiritual herd<br /> +He saw as magic-bound, or chained to beast,<br /> +And groaned to free them. For their sakes, unfearing,<br /> +He faced the ravening waves, and iron rocks,<br /> +Hunger, and poniard’s edge, and poisoned cup,<br /> +And faced the face of kings, and faced the host<br /> +Of demons raging for their realm o’erthrown.<br /> +This was the Man of Love. Self-love cast out,<br /> +The love made spiritual of a thousand hearts<br /> +Met in his single heart, and kindled there<br /> +A sun-like image of Love Divine. Within<br /> +That Spirit-shadowed heart was Christ conceived<br /> +Hourly through faith, hourly through Love was born;<br /> +Sole secret this of fruitfulness to Christ.<br /> +Who heard him heard with his a lordlier Voice,<br /> +Strong as that Voice which said, “Let there be +light,”<br /> +And light o’erflowed their beings. He from each<br /> +His secret won; to each God’s secret told:<br /> +He touched them, and they lived. In each, the flesh<br /> +Subdued to soul, the affections, vassals proud<br /> +By conscience ruled, and conscience lit by Christ,<br /> +The whole man stood, planet full-orbed of powers<br /> +In equipoise, Image restored of God.<br /> +A nation of such men his portion was;<br /> +That nation’s Patriarch he. No wrangler loud;<br /> +No sophist; lesser victories knew he none:<br /> +No triumph his of sect, or camp, or court;<br /> +The Saint his great soul flung upon the world,<br /> +And took the people with him like a wind<br /> +Missioned from God that with it wafts in spring<br /> +Some wingèd race, a multitudinous night,<br /> +Into new sun-bright climes.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> As +Secknall sang,<br /> +Nearer the Brethren drew. On Patrick’s right<br /> +Benignus stood; old Mochta on his left,<br /> +Slow-eyed, with solemn smile and sweet; next Erc,<br /> +Whose ever-listening countenance that hour<br /> +Beyond its wont was listening; Criemther near<br /> +The workman Saint, his many-wounded hands<br /> +Together clasped: forward each mighty arm<br /> +On shoulders propped of Essa and of Bite,<br /> +Leaned the meek giant Cairthen: twelve in all<br /> +Clustering they stood and in them was one soul.<br /> +When Secknall ceased, in silence still they hung<br /> +Each upon each, glad-hearted since the meed<br /> +Of all their toils shone out before them plain,<br /> +Gold gates of heaven—a nation entering in.<br /> +A light was on their faces, and without<br /> +Spread a great light, for sunset now had fallen<br /> +A Pentecostal fire upon the woods,<br /> +Or else a rain of angels streamed o’er earth.<br /> +In marvel gazed the twelve: yea, clans far off<br /> +Stared from their hills, deeming the site aflame.<br /> +That glory passed away, discourse arose<br /> +On Secknall’s hymn. Its radiance from his face<br /> +Had, like the sunset’s, vanished as he spake.<br /> +“Father, what sayst thou?” Patrick made +reply,<br /> +“My son, the hymn is good; for Truth is gold;<br /> +And Fame, obsequious often to base heads,<br /> +For once is loyal, and its crown hath laid<br /> +Where honour’s debt was due.” Then Secknall +raised<br /> +In triumph both his hands, and chaunted loud<br /> +That hymn’s first stave, earlier through craft withheld,<br +/> +Stave that to Patrick’s name, and his alone,<br /> +Offered that hymn’s whole incense! Ceasing, he +stood<br /> +Low-bowed, with hands upon his bosom crossed.<br /> +Great laughter from the brethren came, their Chief<br /> +Thus trapped, though late—he meekest man of men—<br +/> +To claim the saintly crown. First young, then old,<br /> +Later the old, and sore against their will,<br /> +That laughter raised. Last from the giant chest<br /> +Of Cairthen forth it rolled its solemn bass,<br /> +Like sea-sound swallowing lighter sounds hard by.<br /> +But Patrick laughed not: o’er his face there passed<br /> +Shade lost in light; and thus he spake, “O friends<br /> +That which I have to do I know in part:<br /> +God grant I work my work. That which I am<br /> +He knows Who made me. Saints He hath, good store:<br /> +Their names are written in His Book of Life;<br /> +Kneel down, my sons, and pray that if thus long<br /> +I seem to stand, I fall not at the end.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then in a circle kneeling prayed the twelve.<br +/> +But when they rose, Secknall with serious brow<br /> +Advanced, and knelt, and kissed Saint Patrick’s foot,<br /> +And said, “O Father, at thy hest that hymn<br /> +I made, long labouring, and thy crown it stands:<br /> +Thou, therefore, grant me gifts, for strong thy +prayer.”</p> +<p class="poetry">And Patrick said, “The house wherein thy +hymn<br /> +Is sung at morn or eve shall lack not bread:<br /> +And if men sing it in a house new-built,<br /> +Where none hath dwelt, nor bridegroom yet, nor bride,<br /> +Nor hath the cry of babe been heard therein,<br /> +Upon that house the watching of the Saints<br /> +Of Eire, and Patrick’s watching, shall be fixed<br /> +Even as the stars.” And Secknall said, “What +more?”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then Patrick added, “They that night and +morn<br /> +Down-lying and up-rising, sing that hymn,<br /> +They too that softly whisper it, nigh death,<br /> +If pure of heart, and liegeful unto Christ,<br /> +Shall see God’s face; and, since the hymn is long,<br /> +Its grace shall rest for children and the poor<br /> +Full measure on the last three lines; and thou<br /> +Of this dear company shalt die the first,<br /> +And first of Eire’s Apostles.” Then his +cheek<br /> +Secknall laid down once more on Patrick’s foot,<br /> +And answered, “Deo Gratias.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Thus +in mirth,<br /> +And solemn talk, and prayer, that brother band<br /> +In the golden age of Faith with great free heart<br /> +Gave thanks to God that blissful eventide,<br /> +A thousand and four hundred years and more<br /> +Gone by. But now clear rang the compline bell,<br /> +And two by two they wended towards their church<br /> +Across a space for cloister set apart,<br /> +Yet still with wood-flowers sweet, and scent beside<br /> +Of sod that evening turned. The night came on;<br /> +A dim ethereal twilight o’er the hills<br /> +Deepened to dewy gloom. Against the sky<br /> +Stood ridge and rock unmarked amid the day:<br /> +A few stars o’er them shone. As bower on bower<br /> +Let go the waning light, so bird on bird<br /> +Let go its song. Two songsters still remained,<br /> +Each feebler than a fountain soon to cease,<br /> +And claimed somewhile across the dusking dell<br /> +Rivals unseen in sleepy argument,<br /> +Each, the last word:—a pause; and then, once more,<br /> +An unexpected note:—a longer pause;<br /> +And then, past hope, one other note, the last.<br /> +A moment more the brethren stood in prayer:<br /> +The rising moon upon the church-roof new<br /> +Glimmered; and o’er it sang an angel choir,<br /> +“Venite Sancti.” Entering, soon were said<br /> +The psalm, “He giveth sleep,” and hymn, +“Lætare;”<br /> +And in his solitary cell each monk<br /> +Lay down, rejoicing in the love of God.</p> +<p class="poetry">The happy years went by. When Patrick +now<br /> +And all his company were housed with God<br /> +That hymn, at morning sung, and noon, and eve,<br /> +Even as it lulled the waves of warring clans<br /> +So lulled with music lives of toil-worn men<br /> +And charmed their ebbing breath. One time it chanced<br /> +When in his convent Kevin with his monks<br /> +Had sung it thrice, the board prepared, a guest,<br /> +Foot-sore and hungered, murmured, “Wherefore +thrice?”<br /> +And Kevin answered, “Speak not thus, my son,<br /> +For while we sang it, visible to all,<br /> +Saint Patrick was among us. At his right<br /> +Benignus stood, and, all around, the Twelve,<br /> +God’s light upon their brows; while Secknall knelt<br /> +Demanding meed of song. Moreover, son,<br /> +This self-same day and hour, twelve months gone by,<br /> +Patrick, our Patriarch, died; and happy Feast<br /> +Is that he holds, by two short days alone<br /> +Severed from his of Hebrew Patriarchs last,<br /> +And Chief. The Holy House at Nazareth<br /> +He ruled benign, God’s Warder with white hairs;<br /> +And still his feast, that silver star of March,<br /> +When snows afflict the hill and frost the moor,<br /> +With temperate beam gladdens the vernal Church—<br /> +All praise to God who draws that Twain so near.”</p> +<h3>THE STRIVING OF SAINT PATRICK ON MOUNT CRUACHAN.</h3> +<h4>ARGUMENT.</h4> +<p>Saint Patrick, seeing that now Erin believes, desires that the +whole land should stand fast in belief till Christ returns to +judge the world. For this end he resolves to offer prayer +on Mount Cruachan; but Victor, the Angel who has attended him in +all his labours, restrains him from that prayer as being too +great. Notwithstanding, the Saint prays three times on the +mountain, and three times all the demons of Erin contend against +him, and twice Victor, the Angel, rebukes his prayers. In +the end Saint Patrick scatters the demons with ignominy, and +God’s Angel bids him know that his prayer hath conquered +through constancy.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">From</span> realm to realm +had Patrick trod the Isle;<br /> +And evermore God’s work beneath his hand,<br /> +Since God had blessed that hand, ran out full-sphered,<br /> +And brighter than a new-created star.<br /> +The Island race, in feud of clan with clan<br /> +Barbaric, gracious else and high of heart,<br /> +Nor worshippers of self, nor dulled through sense,<br /> +Beholding, not alone his wondrous works;<br /> +But, wondrous more, the sweetness of his strength<br /> +And how he neither shrank from flood nor fire,<br /> +And how he couched him on the wintry rocks,<br /> +And how he sang great hymns to One who heard,<br /> +And how he cared for poor men and the sick,<br /> +And for the souls invisible of men,<br /> +To him made way—not simple hinds alone,<br /> +But chiefly wisest heads, for wisdom then<br /> +Prime wisdom saw in Faith; and, mixt with these,<br /> +Chieftains and sceptred kings. Nigh Tara, first,<br /> +Scorning the king’s command, had Patrick lit<br /> +His Paschal fire, and heavenward as it soared,<br /> +The royal fire and all the Beltaine fires<br /> +Shamed by its beam had withered round the Isle<br /> +Like fires on little hearths whereon the sun<br /> +Looks in his greatness. Later, to that plain<br /> +Central ’mid Eire, “of Adoration” named,<br /> +Down-trampled for two thousand years and more<br /> +By erring feet of men, the Saint had sped<br /> +In Apostolic might, and kenned far off<br /> +Ill-pleased, the nation’s idol lifting high<br /> +His head, and those twelve vassal gods around<br /> +All mailed in gold and shining as the sun,<br /> +A pomp impure. Ill-pleased the Saint had seen them,<br /> +And raised the Staff of Jesus with a ban:<br /> +Then he, that demon named of men Crom-dubh,<br /> +With all his vassal gods, into the earth<br /> +That knew her Maker, to their necks had sunk<br /> +While round the island rang three times the cry<br /> +Of fiends tormented.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Not +for this as yet<br /> +Had Patrick perfected his strength: as yet<br /> +The depths he had not trodden; nor had God<br /> +Drawn forth His total forces in the man<br /> +Hidden long since and sealed. For this cause he,<br /> +Who still his own heart in triumphant hour<br /> +Suspected most, remembering Milchoe’s fate,<br /> +With fear lest aught of human mar God’s work,<br /> +And likewise from his handling of the Gael<br /> +Knowing not less their weakness than their strength,<br /> +Paused on his conquering way, and lonely sat<br /> +In cloud of thought. The great Lent Fast had come:<br /> +Its first three days went by; the fourth, he rose,<br /> +And meeting his disciples that drew nigh<br /> +Vouchsafed this greeting only: “Bide ye here<br /> +Till I return,” and straightway set his face<br /> +Alone to that great hill “of eagles” named<br /> +Huge Cruachan, that o’er the western deep<br /> +Hung through sea-mist, with shadowing crag on crag,<br /> +High-ridged, and dateless forest long since dead.</p> +<p class="poetry">That forest reached, the angel of the Lord<br +/> +Beside him, as he entered, stood and spake:<br /> +“The gifts thy soul demands, demand them not;<br /> +For they are mighty and immeasurable,<br /> +And over great for granting.” And the Saint:<br /> +“This mountain Cruachan I will not leave<br /> +Alive till all be granted, to the last.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then knelt he on the shrouded mountain’s +base,<br /> +And was in prayer; and, wrestling with the Lord,<br /> +Demanded wondrous things immeasurable,<br /> +Not easy to be granted, for the land;<br /> +Nor brooked repulse; and when repulse there came,<br /> +Repulse that quells the weak and crowns the strong,<br /> +Forth from its gloom like lightning on him flashed<br /> +Intelligential gleam and insight winged<br /> +That plainlier showed him all his people’s heart,<br /> +And all the wound thereof: and as in depth<br /> +Knowledge descended, so in height his prayer<br /> +Rose, and far spread; nor roused alone those Powers<br /> +Regioned with God; for as the strength of fire<br /> +When flames some palace pile, or city vast,<br /> +Wakens a tempest round it dragging in<br /> +Wild blast, and from the aggression mightier grows,<br /> +So wakened Patrick’s prayer the demon race,<br /> +And drew their legions in upon his soul<br /> +From near and far. First came the Accursed encamped<br /> +On Connact’s cloudy hills and watery moors;<br /> +Old Umbhall’s Heads, Iorras, and Arran Isle,<br /> +And where Tyrawley clasps that sea-girt wood<br /> +Fochlut, whence earliest rang the Children’s Cry,<br /> +To demons trump of doom. In stormy rack<br /> +They came, and hung above the invested Mount<br /> +Expectant. But, their mutterings heeding not,<br /> +When Patrick still in puissance rose of prayer,<br /> +O’er all their armies round the realm dispersed<br /> +There ran prescience of fate; and, north and south,<br /> +From all the mountain-girdled coasts—for still<br /> +Best site attracts worst Spirit—on they came,<br /> +From Aileach’s shore and Uladh’s hoary cliffs,<br /> +Which held the aeries of that eagle race<br /> +More late in Alba throned, “Lords of the +Isles”—<br /> +High chiefs whose bards, in strong transmitted line,<br /> +Filled with the name of Fionn, and thine, Oiseen,<br /> +The blue glens of that never-vanquished land—<br /> +From those purpureal mountains that o’ergaze<br /> +Rock-bowered Loch Lene broidered with sanguine bead,<br /> +They came, and many a ridge o’er sea-lake stretched<br /> +That, autumn-robed in purple and in gold,<br /> +Pontific vestment, guard the memories still<br /> +Of monks who reared thereon their mystic cells,<br /> +Finian and Kieran, Fiacre, and Enda’s self<br /> +Of hermits sire, and that sea-facing Saint<br /> +Brendan, who, in his wicker boat of skins<br /> +Before that Genoese a thousand years<br /> +Found a new world; and many more that now<br /> +Under wind-wasted Cross of Clonmacnoise<br /> +Await the day of Christ.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> So +rushed they on<br /> +From all sides, and, close met, in circling storm<br /> +Besieged the enclouded steep of Cruachan,<br /> +That scarce the difference knew ’twixt night and day<br /> +More than the sunless pole. Him sought they, him<br /> +Whom infinitely near they might approach,<br /> +Not touch, while firm his faith—their Foe that dragged,<br +/> +Sole-kneeling on that wood-girt mountain’s base,<br /> +With both hands forth their realm’s foundation stone.<br /> +Thus ruin filled the mountain: day by day<br /> +The forest torment deepened; louder roared<br /> +The great aisles of the devastated woods;<br /> +Black cave replied to cave; and oaks, whole ranks,<br /> +Colossal growth of immemorial years,<br /> +Sown ere Milesius landed, or that race<br /> +He vanquished, or that earliest Scythian tribe,<br /> +Fell in long line, like deep-mined castle wall,<br /> +At either side God’s warrior. Slowly died<br /> +At last, far echoed in remote ravines,<br /> +The thunder: then crept forth a little voice<br /> +That shrilly whispered to him thus in scorn:<br /> +“Two thousand years yon race hath walked in blood<br /> +Neck-deep; and shall it serve thy Lord of Peace?”<br /> +That whisper ceased. Again from all sides burst<br /> +Tenfold the storm; and as it waxed, the Saint<br /> +Waxed in strong heart; and, kneeling with stretched hands,<br /> +Made for himself a panoply of prayer,<br /> +And wound it round his bosom twice and thrice,<br /> +And made a sword of comminating psalm,<br /> +And smote at them that mocked him. Day by day,<br /> +Till now the second Sunday’s vesper bell<br /> +Gladdened the little churches round the isle,<br /> +That conflict raged: then, maddening in their ire,<br /> +Sudden the Princedoms of the Dark, that rode<br /> +This way and that way through the tempest, brake<br /> +Their sceptres, and with one great cry it fell:<br /> +At once o’er all was silence: sunset lit<br /> +The world, that shone as though with face upturned<br /> +It gazed on heavens by angel faces thronged<br /> +And answered light with light. A single bird<br /> +Carolled; and from the forest skirt down fell,<br /> +Gem-like, the last drops of the exhausted storm.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then bowed the Saint his forehead to the +ground<br /> +Thanking his God; and there in sacred trance,<br /> +Which was not sleep, abode not hours alone<br /> +But silent nights and days; and, ’mid that trance,<br /> +God fed his heart with unseen Sacraments,<br /> +Immortal food. Awaking, Patrick felt<br /> +Yearnings for nearer commune with his God,<br /> +Though great its cost; and gat him on his feet,<br /> +And, mile by mile, ascended through the woods<br /> +Till stunted were its growths; and still he clomb<br /> +Printing with sandalled foot the dewy steep:<br /> +But when above the mountain rose the moon<br /> +Brightening each mist, while sank the prone morass<br /> +In double night, he came upon a stone<br /> +Tomb-shaped, that flecked that steep: a little stream<br /> +Dropped by it from the summits to the woods:<br /> +Thereon he knelt; and was once more in prayer.</p> +<p class="poetry">Nor prayed unnoticed by that race abhorred.<br +/> +No sooner had his knees the mountain touched<br /> +Than through their realm vibration went; and straight<br /> +His prayer detecting back they trooped in clouds<br /> +And o’er him closed, blotting with bat-like wing<br /> +And inky pall, the moon. Then thunder pealed<br /> +Once more, nor ceased from pealing. Over all<br /> +Night ruled, except when blue and forkèd flash<br /> +Revealed the on-circling waterspout or plunge<br /> +Of rain beneath the blown cloud’s ravelled hem,<br /> +Or, huge on high, that lion-coloured steep<br /> +Which, like a lion, roared into the night<br /> +Answering the roaring from sea-caves far down.<br /> +Dire was the strife. That hour the Mountain old,<br /> +An anarch throned ’mid ruins flung himself<br /> +In madness forth on all his winds and floods,<br /> +An omnipresent wrath! For God reserved,<br /> +Too long the prey of demons he had been;<br /> +Possession foul and fell. Now nigh expelled<br /> +Those demons rent their victim freed. Aloft,<br /> +They burst the rocky barrier of the tarn<br /> +That downward dashed its countless cataracts,<br /> +Drowning far vales. On either side the Saint<br /> +A torrent rushed—mightiest of all these twain—<br /> +Peeling the softer substance from the hills<br /> +Their flesh, till glared, deep-trenched, the mountain’s +bones;<br /> +And as those torrents widened, rocks down rolled<br /> +Showering upon that unsubverted head<br /> +Sharp spray ice-cold. Before him closed the flood,<br /> +And closed behind, till all was raging flood,<br /> +All but that tomb-like stone whereon he knelt.</p> +<p class="poetry">Unshaken there he knelt with hands +outstretched,<br /> +God’s Athlete! For a mighty prize he strove,<br /> +Nor slacked, nor any whit his forehead bowed:<br /> +Fixed was his eye and keen; the whole white face<br /> +Keen as that eye itself, though—shapeless yet—<br /> +The infernal horde to ear not eye addressed<br /> +Their battle. Back he drave them, rank on rank,<br /> +Routed, with psalm, and malison, and ban,<br /> +As from a sling flung forth. Revolt’s blind spawn<br +/> +He named them; one time Spirits, now linked with brute,<br /> +Yea, bestial more and baser: and as a ship<br /> +Mounts with the mounting of the wave, so he<br /> +O’er all the insurgent tempest of their wrath<br /> +Rising rode on triumphant. Days went by,<br /> +Then came a lull; and lo! a whisper shrill,<br /> +Once heard before, again its poison cold<br /> +Distilled: “Albeit to Christ this land should bow,<br /> +Some conqueror’s foot one day would quell her +Faith.”<br /> +It ceased. Tenfold once more the storm burst forth:<br /> +Once more the ecstatic passion of his prayer<br /> +Met it, and, breasting, overbore, until<br /> +Sudden the Princedoms of the dark that rode<br /> +This way and that way through the whirlwind, dashed<br /> +Their vanquished crowns of darkness to the ground<br /> +With one long cry. Then silence came; and lo!<br /> +The white dawn of the fourth fair Day of God<br /> +O’erflowed the world. Slowly the Saint upraised<br /> +His wearied eyes. Upon the mountain lawns<br /> +Lay happy lights; and birds sang; and a stream<br /> +That any five-years’ child might overleap,<br /> +Beside him lapsed crystalline between banks<br /> +With violets all empurpled, and smooth marge<br /> +Green as that spray which earliest sucks the spring.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then Patrick raised to God his orison<br /> +On that fair mount, and planted in the grass<br /> +His crozier staff, and slept; and in his sleep<br /> +God fed his heart with unseen Sacraments,<br /> +Manna of might divine. Three days he slept;<br /> +The fourth he woke. Upon his heart there rushed<br /> +Yearning for closer converse with his God<br /> +Though great its cost; and on his feet he gat,<br /> +And high, and higher yet, that mountain scaled,<br /> +And reached at noon the summit. Far below<br /> +Basking the island lay, through rainbow shower<br /> +Gleaming in part, with shadowy moor, and ridge<br /> +Blue in the distance looming. Westward stretched<br /> +A galaxy of isles, and, these beyond,<br /> +Infinite sea with sacred light ablaze,<br /> +And high o’erhead there hung a cloudless heaven.</p> +<p class="poetry">Upon that summit kneeling, face to sea<br /> +The Saint, with hands held forth and thanks returned,<br /> +Claimed as his stately heritage that realm<br /> +From north to south: but instant as his lip<br /> +Printed with earliest pulse of Christian prayer<br /> +That clear aërial clime Pagan till then;<br /> +The Host Accursed, sagacious of his act,<br /> +Rushed back from all the isle and round him met<br /> +With anger seven times heated, since their hour,<br /> +And this they knew, was come. Nor thunder din<br /> +And challenge through the ear alone, sufficed<br /> +That hour their rage malign that, craving sore<br /> +Material bulk to rend his bulk—their foe’s—<br +/> +Through fleshly strength of that their murder-lust<br /> +Flamed forth in fleshly form phantoms night-black<br /> +Though bodiless yet to bodied mass as nigh<br /> +As Spirits can reach. More thick than vultures winged<br /> +To fields with carnage piled, the Accursèd thronged<br /> +Making thick night which neither earth nor sky<br /> +Could pierce, from sense expunged. In phalanx now,<br /> +Anon in breaking legion, or in globe,<br /> +With clang of iron pinion on they rushed<br /> +And spectral dart high-held. Nor quailed the Saint,<br /> +Contending for his people on that Mount,<br /> +Nor spared God’s foes; for as old minster towers<br /> +Besieged by midnight storm send forth reply<br /> +In storm outrolled of bells, so sent he forth<br /> +Defiance from fierce lip, vindictive chaunt,<br /> +And blight and ban, and maledictive rite<br /> +Potent on face of Spirits impure to raise<br /> +These plague-spots three, Defeat, Madness, Despair;<br /> +Nor stinted flail of taunt—“When first my bark<br /> +Threatened your coasts, as now upon the hills<br /> +Hung ye in cloud; as now, I raised this Cross;<br /> +Ye fled before it and again shall fly!”<br /> +So hurled he back their squadrons. Day by day<br /> +The hurricanes of war shook earth and heaven:<br /> +Till now, on Holy Saturday, that hour<br /> +Returned which maketh glad the Church of God<br /> +When over Christendom in widowed fanes<br /> +Two days by penance stripped, and dumb as though<br /> +Some Antichrist had trodd’n them down, once more<br /> +Swells forth amid the new-lit paschal lights<br /> +The “Gloria in Excelsis:” sudden then<br /> +That mighty conflict ceased, save one low voice<br /> +Twice heard before, now edged with bitterer scoff,<br /> +“That race thou lov’st, though fierce in wrath, is +soft:<br /> +Plenty and peace will melt their Faith one day:”<br /> +Then with that whisper dying, died the night:<br /> +Then forth from darkness issued earth and sky:<br /> +Then fled the phantoms far o’er ocean’s wave,<br /> +Thence to return not till the day of doom.</p> +<p class="poetry">But he, their conqueror wept, upon that +height<br /> +Standing; nor of his victory had he joy,<br /> +Nor of that jubilant isle restored to light,<br /> +Nor of that heaven relit; so worked that scoff<br /> +Winged from the abyss; and ever thus the man<br /> +With darkness communed and that poison cold:<br /> +“If Faith indeed should flood the land with peace,<br /> +And peace with gold, and gold eat out her heart<br /> +Once true, till Faith one day through Faith’s reward<br /> +Or die, or live diseased, the shame of Faith,<br /> +Then blacker were this land and more accursed<br /> +Than lands that knew no Christ.” And musing thus<br +/> +The whole heart of the man was turned to tears,<br /> +A fount of bale and chalice brimmed with death—<br /> +For oft a thought chance-born more racks than truth<br /> +Proven and sure—and, weeping, still he wept<br /> +Till drenched was all his sad monastic cowl<br /> +As sea-weed on the dripping shelf storm-cast<br /> +Latest, and tremulous still.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> As +thus he wept<br /> +Sudden beside him on that summit broad,<br /> +Ran out a golden beam like sunset path<br /> +Gilding the sea: and, turning, by his side<br /> +Victor, God’s angel, stood with lustrous brow<br /> +Fresh from that Face no man can see and live.<br /> +He, putting forth his hand, with living coal<br /> +Snatched from God’s altar, made that dripping cowl<br /> +Dry as an Autumn sheaf. The angel spake:<br /> +“Rejoice, for they are fled that hate thy land,<br /> +And those are nigh that love it.” Then the Saint<br +/> +Upraised his head; and lo! in snowy sheen<br /> +Cresting high rock, and ridge, and airy peak,<br /> +Innumerable the Sons of God all round<br /> +Vested the invisible mountain with white light,<br /> +As when the foam-white birds of ocean throng<br /> +Sea-rock so close that none that rock may see.<br /> +In trance the Living Creatures stood, with wings<br /> +That pointing crossed upon their breasts; nor seemed<br /> +As new arrived but native to that site<br /> +Though veiled till now from mortal vision. Song<br /> +They sang to soothe the vexed heart of the Saint—<br /> +Love-song of Heaven: and slowly as it died<br /> +Their splendours waned; and through that vanishing light<br /> +Earth, sea, and heaven returned.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> To +Patrick then,<br /> +Thus Victor spake: “Depart from Cruachan,<br /> +Since God hath given thee wondrous gifts, immense,<br /> +And through thy prayer routed that rebel host.”<br /> +And Patrick, “Till the last of all my prayers<br /> +Be granted, I depart not though I die:—<br /> +One said, ‘Too fierce that race to bend to +faith.’”<br /> +Then spake God’s angel, mild of voice, and kind:<br /> +“Not all are fierce that fiercest seem, for oft<br /> +Fierceness is blindfold love, or love ajar.<br /> +Souls thou wouldst have: for every hair late wet<br /> +In this thy tearful cowl and habit drenched<br /> +God gives thee myriads seven of Souls redeemed<br /> +From sin and doom; and Souls, beside, as many<br /> +As o’er yon sea in legioned flight might hang<br /> +Far as thine eye can range. But get thee down<br /> +From Cruachan, for mighty is thy prayer.”<br /> +And Patrick made reply: “Not great thy boon!<br /> +Watch have I kept, and wearied are mine eyes<br /> +And dim; nor see they far o’er yonder deep.”<br /> +And Victor: “Have thou Souls from coast to coast<br /> +In cloud full-stretched; but, get thee down: this Mount<br /> +God’s Altar is, and puissance adds to prayer.”<br /> +And Patrick: “On this Mountain wept have I;<br /> +And therefore giftless will I not depart:<br /> +One said, ‘Although that People should believe<br /> +Yet conqueror’s heel one day would quell their +Faith.’”<br /> +To whom the angel, mild of voice, and kind:<br /> +“Conquerors are they that subjugate the soul:<br /> +This also God concedes thee; conquering foe<br /> +Trampling this land, shall tread not out her Faith<br /> +Nor sap by fraud, so long as thou in heaven<br /> +Look’st on God’s Face; nay, by that Faith subdued,<br +/> +That foe shall serve and live. But get thee down<br /> +And worship in the vale.” Then Patrick said,<br /> +“Live they that list! Full sorely wept have I,<br /> +Nor will I hence depart unsatisfied:<br /> +One said; ‘Grown soft, that race their Faith will +shame;’<br /> +Say therefore what the Lord thy God will grant,<br /> +Nor stint His hand; since never scanter grace<br /> +Fell yet on head of nation-taming man<br /> +Than thou to me hast portioned till this hour.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then answer made the angel, soft of voice:<br +/> +“Not all men stumble when a Nation falls;<br /> +There are that stand upright. God gives thee this:<br /> +They that are faithful to thy Faith, that walk<br /> +Thy way, and keep thy covenant with God,<br /> +And daily sing thy hymn, when comes the Judge<br /> +With Sign blood-red facing Jehosaphat,<br /> +And fear lays prone the many-mountained world,<br /> +The same shall ’scape the doom.” And Patrick +said,<br /> +“That hymn is long, and hard for simple folk,<br /> +And hard for children.” And the angel thus:<br /> +“At least from ‘Christum Illum’ let them +sing,<br /> +And keep thy Faith: when comes the Judge, the pains<br /> +Shall take not hold of such. Is that enough?”<br /> +And Patrick answered, “That is not enough.”<br /> +Then Victor: “Likewise this thy God accords:<br /> +The Dreadful Coming and the Day of Doom<br /> +Thy land shall see not; for before that day<br /> +Seven years, a great wave arched from out the deep,<br /> +Ablution pure, shall sweep the isle and take<br /> +Her children to its peace. Is that enough?”<br /> +And Patrick answered, “That is not enough.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then spake once more that courteous angel +kind:<br /> +“What boon demand’st then?” And the +Saint, “No less<br /> +Than this. Though every nation, ere that day<br /> +Recreant from creed and Christ, old troth forsworn,<br /> +Should flee the sacred scandal of the Cross<br /> +Through pride, as once the Apostles fled through fear,<br /> +This Nation of my love, a priestly house,<br /> +Beside that Cross shall stand, fate-firm, like him<br /> +That stood beside Christ’s Mother.” +Straightway, as one<br /> +Who ends debate, the angel answered stern:<br /> +“That boon thou claimest is too great to grant:<br /> +Depart thou from this mountain, Cruachan,<br /> +In peace; and find that Nation which thou lov’st,<br /> +That like thy body is, and thou her head,<br /> +For foes are round her set in valley and plain,<br /> +And instant is the battle.” Then the Saint:<br /> +“The battle for my People is not there,<br /> +With them, low down, but here upon this height<br /> +From them apart, with God. This Mount of God<br /> +Dowerless and bare I quit not till I die;<br /> +And dying, I will leave a Man Elect<br /> +To keep its keys, and pray my prayer, and name<br /> +Dying in turn, his heir, successive line,<br /> +Even till the Day of Doom.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Then +heavenward sped<br /> +Victor, God’s angel, and the Man of God<br /> +Turned to his offering; and all day he stood<br /> +Offering in heart that Offering Undefiled<br /> +Which Abel offered, and Melchisedek,<br /> +And Abraham, Patriarch of the faithful race,<br /> +In type, and which in fulness of the times<br /> +The Victim-Priest offered on Calvary,<br /> +And, bloodless, offers still in Heaven and Earth,<br /> +Whose impetration makes the whole Church one.<br /> +Thus offering stood the man till eve, and still<br /> +Offered; and as he offered, far in front<br /> +Along the aërial summit once again<br /> +Ran out that beam like fiery pillar prone<br /> +Or sea-path sunset-paved; and by his side<br /> +That angel stood. Then Patrick, turning not<br /> +His eyes in prayer upon the West close held<br /> +Demanded, “From the Maker of all worlds<br /> +What answer bring’st thou?” Victor made +reply:<br /> +“Down knelt in Heaven the Angelic Orders Nine,<br /> +And all the Prophets and the Apostles knelt,<br /> +And all the Creatures of the hand of God<br /> +Visible, and invisible, down knelt,<br /> +While thou thy mighty Mass, though altarless,<br /> +Offeredst in spirit, and thine Offering joined;<br /> +And all God’s Saints on earth, or roused from sleep<br /> +Or on the wayside pausing, knelt, the cause<br /> +Not knowing; likewise yearned the Souls to God<br /> +In that fire-clime benign that clears from sin;<br /> +And lo! the Lord thy God hath heard thy prayer,<br /> +Since fortitude in prayer—and this thou +know’st,”—<br /> +Smiling the Bright One spake, “is that which lays<br /> +Man’s hand upon God’s sceptre. That thou +sought’st<br /> +Shall lack not consummation. Many a race<br /> +Shrivelling in sunshine of its prosperous years,<br /> +Shall cease from faith, and, shamed though shameless, sink<br /> +Back to its native clay; but over thine<br /> +God shall extend the shadow of His Hand,<br /> +And through the night of centuries teach to her<br /> +In woe that song which, when the nations wake,<br /> +Shall sound their glad deliverance: nor alone<br /> +This nation, from the blind dividual dust<br /> +Of instincts brute, thoughts driftless, warring wills<br /> +By thee evoked and shapen by thy hands<br /> +To God’s fair image which confers alone<br /> +Manhood on nations, shall to God stand true;<br /> +But nations far in undiscovered seas,<br /> +Her stately progeny, while ages fleet<br /> +Shall wear the kingly ermine of her Faith,<br /> +Fleece uncorrupted of the Immaculate Lamb,<br /> +For ever: lands remote shall raise to God<br /> +<i>Her</i> fanes; and eagle-nurturing isles hold fast<br /> +<i>Her</i> hermit cells: thy nation shall not walk<br /> +Accordant with the Gentiles of this world,<br /> +But as a race elect sustain the Crown<br /> +Or bear the Cross: and when the end is come,<br /> +When in God’s Mount the Twelve great Thrones are set,<br /> +And round it roll the Rivers Four of fire,<br /> +And in their circuit meet the Peoples Three<br /> +Of Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, fulfilled that day<br /> +Shall be the Saviour’s word, what time He stretched<br /> +Thy crozier-staff forth from His glory-cloud<br /> +And sware to thee, ‘When they that with Me walked<br /> +Sit with Me on their everlasting thrones<br /> +Judging the Twelve Tribes of Mine Israel,<br /> +Thy People thou shalt judge in righteousness.’</p> +<p class="poetry">Thou therefore kneel, and bless thy Land of +Eire.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then Patrick knelt, and blessed the land, and +said,<br /> +“Praise be to God who hears the sinner’s +prayer.”</p> +<h3>EPILOGUE.</h3> +<h4>THE CONFESSION OF SAINT PATRICK.</h4> +<h5>ARGUMENT.</h5> +<p>Before his death, Saint Patrick makes confession to his +brethren concerning his life; of his love for that land which had +been his House of Bondage; of his ceaseless prayer in youth: of +his sojourn at Tours, where St. Martin had made abode, at +Auxerres with St. Germanus, and at Lerins with the +Contemplatives: of that mystic mountain where the Redeemer +Himself lodged the Crozier Staff in his hand; of Pope Celestine +who gave him his Mission; of his Visions; of his Labours. +His last charge to the sons of Erin is that they should walk in +Truth; that they should put from them the spirit of Revenge; and +that they should hold fast to the Faith of Christ.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">At</span> Saul then, by the +inland-spreading sea,<br /> +There where began my labour, comes the end:<br /> +I, blind and witless, willed it otherwise:<br /> +God willed it thus. When prescience came of death<br /> +I said, “My Resurrection place I choose”—<br /> +O fool, for ne’er since boyhood choice was mine<br /> +Save choice to subject will of mine to God—<br /> +“At great Ardmacha.” Thitherward I +turned;<br /> +But in my pathway, with forbidding hand,<br /> +Victor, God’s angel stood. “Not so,” he +said,<br /> +“For in Ardmacha stands thy princedom fixed,<br /> +Age after age, thy teaching, and thy law,<br /> +But not thy grave. Return thou to that shore<br /> +Thy place of small beginnings, and thereon<br /> +Lessen in body and mind, and grow in spirit:<br /> +Then sing to God thy little hymn and die.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Yea, Lord, my mouth would praise Thee ere I +die,<br /> +The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit<br /> +Who knittest in His Church the just to Christ:<br /> +Help me, my sons—mine orphans soon to be—<br /> +Help me to praise Him; ye that round me sit<br /> +On those grey rocks; ye that have faithful been,<br /> +Honouring, despite dishonour of my sins,<br /> +His servant: I would praise Him yet once more,<br /> +Though mine the stammerer’s voice, or as a +child’s;<br /> +For it is written, “Stammerers shall speak plain<br /> +Sounding Thy Gospel.” “They whom Christ hath +sent<br /> +Are Christ’s Epistle, borne to ends of earth,<br /> +Writ by His Spirit, and plain to souls elect:”<br /> +Lord, am not I of Thine Apostolate?</p> +<p class="poetry">Yea, by abjection Thine, by suffering Thine!<br +/> +Till I was humbled I was as a stone<br /> +In deep mire sunk. Then, stretched from heaven, Thy hand<br +/> +Slid under me in might, and lifted me,<br /> +And fixed me in Thy Temple where Thou wouldst.<br /> +Wonder, ye great ones, wonder, ye the wise!<br /> +On me, the last and least, this charge was laid<br /> +This crown, that I in humbleness and truth<br /> +Should walk this nation’s Servant till I die.</p> +<p class="poetry">Therefore, a youth of sixteen years, or +less,<br /> +With others of my land by pirates seized<br /> +I stood on Erin’s shore. Our bonds were just;<br /> +Our God we had forsaken, and His Law,<br /> +And mocked His priests. Tending a stern man’s +swine<br /> +I trod those Dalaraida hills that face<br /> +Eastward to Alba. Six long years went by;<br /> +But—sent from God—Memory, and Faith, and Fear<br /> +Moved on my spirit as winds upon the sea,<br /> +And the Spirit of Prayer came down. Full many a day<br /> +Climbing the mountain tops, one hundred times<br /> +I flung upon the storm my cry to God.<br /> +Nor frost, nor rain might harm me, for His love<br /> +Burned in my heart. Through love I made my fast;<br /> +And in my fasts one night I heard this voice,<br /> +“Thou fastest well: soon shalt thou see thy Land.”<br +/> +Later, once more thus spake it: “Southward fly,<br /> +Thy ship awaits thee.” Many a day I fled,<br /> +And found the black ship dropping down the tide,<br /> +And entered with those Gentiles by Thy grace<br /> +Vanquished, though first they spurned me, and was free.<br /> +It was Thy leading, Lord; the Hand was Thine!<br /> +For now when, perils past, I walked secure,<br /> +Kind greetings round me, and the Christian Rite,<br /> +There rose a clamorous yearning in my heart,<br /> +And memories of that land so far, so fair,<br /> +And lost in such a gloom. And through that gloom<br /> +The eyes of little children shone on me,<br /> +So ready to believe! Such children oft<br /> +Ran by me naked in and out the waves,<br /> +Or danced in circles upon Erin’s shores,<br /> +Like creatures never fallen! Thought of such<br /> +Passed into thought of others. From my youth<br /> +Both men and women, maidens most, to me<br /> +As children seemed; and O the pity then<br /> +To mark how oft they wept, how seldom knew<br /> +Whence came the wound that galled them! As I walked,<br /> +Each wind that passed me whispered, “Lo, that race<br /> +Which trod thee down! Requite with good their ill!<br /> +Thou know’st their tongue; old man to thee, and youth,<br +/> +For counsel came, and lambs would lick thy foot;<br /> +And now the whole land is a sheep astray<br /> +That bleats to God.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Alone +one night I mused,<br /> +Burthened with thought of that vocation vast.<br /> +O’er-spent I sank asleep. In visions then,<br /> +Satan my soul plagued with temptation dire.<br /> +Methought, beneath a cliff I lay, and lo!<br /> +Thick-legioned demons o’er me dragged a rock,<br /> +That falling, seemed a mountain. Near, more near,<br /> +O’er me it blackened. Sudden from my heart<br /> +This thought leaped forth: “Elias! Him +invoke!”<br /> +That name invoked, vanished the rock; and I,<br /> +On mountains stood watching the rising sun,<br /> +As stood Elias once on Carmel’s crest,<br /> +Gazing on heaven unbarred, and that white cloud,<br /> +A thirsting land’s salvation.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Might +Divine!<br /> +Thou taught’st me thus my weakness; and I vowed<br /> +To seek Thy strength. I turned my face to Tours,<br /> +There where in years gone by Thy soldier-priest<br /> +Martin had ruled, my kinsman in the flesh.<br /> +Dead was the lion; but his lair was warm:<br /> +In it I laid me, and a conquering glow<br /> +Rushed up into my heart. I heard discourse<br /> +Of Martin still, his valour in the Lord,<br /> +His rugged warrior zeal, his passionate love<br /> +For Hilary, his vigils, and his fasts,<br /> +And all his pitiless warfare on the Powers<br /> +Of darkness; and one day, in secrecy,<br /> +With Ninian, missioned then to Alba’s shore,<br /> +I peered into his branch-enwoven cell,<br /> +Half-way between the river and the rocks,<br /> +From Tours a mile and more.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> So +passed eight years<br /> +Till strengthened was my heart by discipline:<br /> +Then spake a priest, “Brother, thy will is good,<br /> +Yet rude thou art of learning as a beast;<br /> +Fare thee to great Germanus of Auxerres,<br /> +Who lightens half the West!” I heard, and went,<br /> +And to that Saint was subject fourteen years.<br /> +He from my mind removed the veil; “Lift up,”<br /> +He said, “thine eyes!” and like a mountain land<br /> +The Queenly Science stood before me plain,<br /> +From rocky buttress up to peak of snow:<br /> +The great Commandments first, Edicts, and Laws<br /> +That bastion up man’s life:—then high o’er +these<br /> +The forest huge of Doctrine, one, yet many,<br /> +Forth stretching in innumerable aisles,<br /> +At the end of each, the self-same glittering star:—<br /> +Lastly, the Life God-hidden. Day by day,<br /> +With him for guide, that first and second realm<br /> +I tracked, and learned to shun the abyss flower-veiled,<br /> +And scale heaven-threatening heights. This, too, he +taught,<br /> +Himself long time a ruler and a prince,<br /> +The regimen of States from chaos won<br /> +To order, and to Christ. Prudence I learned,<br /> +And sageness in the government of men,<br /> +By me sore needed soon. O stately man,<br /> +In all things great, in action and in thought,<br /> +And plain as great! To Britain called, the Saint<br /> +Trod down that great Pelagian Blasphemy,<br /> +Chief portent of the age. But better far<br /> +He loved his cell. There sat he vigil-worn,<br /> +In cowl and dusky tunic hued like earth<br /> +Whence issued man and unto which returns;<br /> +I marvelled at his wrinkled brows, and hands<br /> +Still tracing, enter or depart who would,<br /> +From morn to night his parchments.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> There, +once more,<br /> +O God, Thine eye was on me, or my hand<br /> +Once more had missed the prize. Temptation now<br /> +Whispered in softness, “Wisdom’s home is here:<br /> +Here bide untroubled.” Almost I had fallen;<br /> +But, by my side, in visions of the night,<br /> +God’s angel, Victor, stood as one that hastes,<br /> +On travel sped. Unnumbered missives lay<br /> +Clasped in his hands. One stretched he forth, inscribed<br +/> +“The wail of Erin’s Children.” As I +read<br /> +The cry of babes, from Erin’s western coast<br /> +And Fochlut’s forest, and the wintry sea,<br /> +Shrilled o’er me, clamouring, “Holy youth, return!<br +/> +Walk then among us!” I could read no more.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Thenceforth rose up renewed +mine old desire:<br /> +My kinsfolk mocked me. “What! past woes too scant!<br +/> +Slave of four masters, and the best a churl!<br /> +Thy Gospel they will trample under foot,<br /> +And rend thee! Late to them Palladius preached:<br /> +They drave him as a leper from their shores.”<br /> +I stood in agony of staggering mind<br /> +And warring wills. Then, lo! at dead of night<br /> +I heard a mystic voice, till then unheard,<br /> +I knew not if within me or close by<br /> +That swelled in passionate pleading; nor the words<br /> +Grasped I, so great they seemed and wonderful,<br /> +Till sank that tempest to a whisper:—“He<br /> +Who died for thee is He that in thee groans.”<br /> +Then fell, methought, scales from mine inner eyes:<br /> +Then saw I—terrible that sight, yet sweet—<br /> +Within me saw a Man that in me prayed<br /> +With groans unutterable. That Man was girt<br /> +For mission far. My heart recalled that word,<br /> +“The Spirit helpeth our infirmities;<br /> +That which we lack we know not, but the Spirit<br /> +Himself for us doth intercession make<br /> +With groanings which may never be revealed.”<br /> +That hour my vow was vowed; and he approved,<br /> +My master and my guide. “But go,” he said,<br +/> +“First to that island in the Tyrrhene Sea,<br /> +Where live the high Contemplatives to God:<br /> +There learn perfection; there that Inner Life<br /> +Win thou, God’s strength amid the world’s loud +storm:<br /> +Nor fear lest God should frown on such delay,<br /> +For Heavenly Wisdom is compassionate:<br /> +Slowly before man’s weakness moves it on;<br /> +Softly: so moved of old the Wise Men’s Star,<br /> +Which curbed its lightning ardours and forbore<br /> +Honouring the pensive tread of hoary Eld,<br /> +Honouring the burthened slave, the camel line<br /> +Long-linked, with level head and foot that fell<br /> +As though in sleep, printing the silent sands.”<br /> +Thus, smiling, spake Germanus, large in lore.</p> +<p class="poetry">So in that island-Eden I sojourned,<br /> +Lerins, and saw where Vincent lived, and his,<br /> +Life fountained from on high. That life was Love;<br /> +For all their mighty knowledge food became<br /> +Of Love Divine, and took, by Love absorbed,<br /> +Shape from his flame-like body. Hard their beds;<br /> +Ceaseless their prayers. They tilled a sterile soil;<br /> +Beneath their hands it blossomed like the rose:<br /> +O’er thymy hollows blew the nectared airs;<br /> +Blue ocean flashed through olives. They had fled<br /> +From praise of men; yet cities far away<br /> +Rapt those meek saints to fill the bishop’s throne.<br /> +I saw the light of God on faces calm<br /> +That blended with man’s meditative might<br /> +Simplicity of childhood, and, with both<br /> +The sweetness of that flower-like sex which wears<br /> +Through love’s Obedience twofold crowns of Love.<br /> +O blissful time! In that bright island bloomed<br /> +The third high region on the Hills of God,<br /> +Above the rock, above the wood, the cloud:—<br /> +There laughs the luminous air, there bursts anew<br /> +Spring bud in summer on suspended lawns;<br /> +There the bell tinkles while once more the lamb<br /> +Trips by the sun-fed runnel: there green vales<br /> +Lie lost in purple heavens.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Transfigured +Life!<br /> +This was thy glory, that, without a sigh,<br /> +Who loved thee yet could leave thee! Thus it fell:<br /> +One morning I was on the sea, and lo!<br /> +An isle to Lerins near, but fairer yet,<br /> +Till then unseen! A grassy vale sea-lulled<br /> +Wound inward, breathing balm, with fruited trees,<br /> +And stream through lilies gliding. By a door<br /> +There stood a man in prime, and others sat<br /> +Not far, some grey; and one, a weed of years,<br /> +Lay like a withered wreath. An old man spake:<br /> +“See what thou seest, and scan the mystery well!<br /> +The man who stands so stately in his prime<br /> +Is of this company the eldest born.<br /> +The Saviour in His earthly sojourn, Risen,<br /> +Perchance, or ere His Passion, who can tell,<br /> +Stood up at this man’s door; and this man rose,<br /> +And let Him in, and made for Him a feast;<br /> +And Jesus said, ‘Tarry, till I return.’<br /> +Moreover, others are there on this isle,<br /> +Both men and maids, who saw the Son of Man,<br /> +And took Him in, and shine in endless youth;<br /> +But we, the rest, in course of nature fade,<br /> +For we believe, yet saw not God, nor touched.”<br /> +Then spake I, “Here till death my home I make,<br /> +Where Jesus trod.” And answered he in prime,<br /> +“Not so; the Master hath for thee thy task.<br /> +Parting, thus spake He: ‘Here for Mine Elect<br /> +Abide thou. Bid him bear this crozier staff;<br /> +My blessing rests thereon: the same shall drive<br /> +The foes of God before him.’” Answer thus<br /> +I made, “That crozier staff I will not touch<br /> +Until I take it from that nail-pierced Hand.”<br /> +From these I turned, and clomb a mountain high,<br /> +Hermon by name; and there—was this, my God,<br /> +In visions of the Lord, or in the flesh?—<br /> +I spake with Him, the Lord of Life, Who died;<br /> +He from the glory stretched the Hand nail-pierced,<br /> +And placed in mine that crozier staff, and said:<br /> +“Upon that day when they that with Me walked<br /> +Sit with Me on their everlasting Thrones,<br /> +Judging the Twelve Tribes of Mine Israel,<br /> +Thy People thou shalt judge in righteousness.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Forthwith to Rome I fled; there knelt I down<br +/> +Above the bones of Peter and of Paul,<br /> +And saw the mitred embassies from far,<br /> +And saw Celestine with his head high held<br /> +As though it bore the Blessed Sacrament;<br /> +Chief Shepherd of the Saviour’s flock on earth.<br /> +Tall was the man, and swift; white-haired; with eye<br /> +Starlike and voice a trumpet clear that pealed<br /> +God’s Benediction o’er the city and globe;<br /> +Yea, and whene’er his palm he lifted, still<br /> +Blessing before it ran. Upon my head<br /> +He laid both hands, and “Win,” he said, “to +Christ<br /> +One realm the more!” Moreover, to my charge<br /> +Relics he gave, unnumbered, without price;<br /> +And when those relics lost had been, and found,<br /> +And at his feet I wept, he chided not;<br /> +But, smiling, said, “Thy glorious task fulfilled,<br /> +House them in thy new country’s stateliest church<br /> +By cresset girt of ever-burning lamps,<br /> +And never-ceasing anthems.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Northward +then<br /> +Returned I, missioned. Yet once more, but once,<br /> +That old temptation proved me. When they sat,<br /> +The Elders, making inquest of my life,<br /> +Sudden a certain brother rose, and spake,<br /> +“Shall this man be a Bishop, who hath sinned?”<br /> +My dearest friend was he. To him alone<br /> +One time had I divulged a sin by me<br /> +Through ignorance wrought when fifteen years of age;<br /> +And after thirty years, behold, once more,<br /> +That sin had found me out! He knew my mission:<br /> +When in mine absence slander sought my name,<br /> +Mine honour he had cleared. Yet now—yet now—<br +/> +That hour the iron passed into my soul:<br /> +Yea, well nigh all was lost. I wept, “Not one,<br /> +No heart of man there is that knows my heart,<br /> +Or in its anguish shares.”</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Yet, +O my God!<br /> +I blame him not: from Thee that penance came:<br /> +Not for man’s love should Thine Apostle strive,<br /> +Thyself alone his great and sole reward.<br /> +Thou laid’st that hour a fiery hand of love<br /> +Upon a faithless heart; and it survived.</p> +<p class="poetry">At dead of night a Vision gave me peace.<br /> +Slowly from out the breast of darkness shone<br /> +Strange characters, a writing unrevealed:<br /> +And slowly thence and infinitely sad,<br /> +A Voice: “Ill-pleased, this day have we beheld<br /> +The face of the Elect without a name.”<br /> +It said not, “Thou hast grieved,” but “We have +grieved;”<br /> +With import plain, “O thou of little faith!<br /> +Am I not nearer to thee than thy friends?<br /> +Am I not inlier with thee than thyself?”<br /> +Then I remembered, “He that touches you<br /> +Doth touch the very apple of mine eye.”<br /> +Serene I slept. At morn I rose and ran<br /> +Down to the shore, and found a boat, and sailed.</p> +<p class="poetry">That hour true life’s beginning was, O +Lord,<br /> +Because the work Thou gav’st into my hands<br /> +Prospered between them. Yea, and from the work<br /> +The Power forth issued. Strength in me was none,<br /> +Nor insight, till the occasion: then Thy sword<br /> +Flamed in my grasp, and beams were in mine eyes<br /> +That showed the way before me, and nought else.<br /> +Thou mad’st me know Thy Will. As taper’s +light<br /> +Veers with a wind man feels not, o’er my heart<br /> +Hovered thenceforth some Pentecostal flame<br /> +That bent before that Will. Thy Truth, not mine,<br /> +Lightened this People’s mind; Thy Love inflamed<br /> +Their hearts; Thy Hope upbore them as on wings.<br /> +Valiant that race, and simple, and to them<br /> +Not hard the godlike venture of belief:<br /> +Conscience was theirs: tortuous too oft in life<br /> +Their thoughts, when passionate most, then most were true,<br /> +Heart-true. With naked hand firmly they clasped<br /> +The naked Truth: in them Belief was Act.<br /> +A tribe from Thy far East they called themselves:<br /> +Their clans were Patriarch households, rude through war:<br /> +Old Pagan Rome had known them not; their Isle<br /> +Virgin to Christ had come. Oh how unlike<br /> +Her sons to those old Roman Senators,<br /> +Scorn of Germanus oft, who breathed the air<br /> +Fouled by dead Faiths successively blown out,<br /> +Or Grecian sophist with his world of words,<br /> +That, knowing all, knew nothing! Praise to Thee,<br /> +Lord of the night-time as the day, Who keep’st<br /> +Reserved in blind barbaric innocence,<br /> +Pure breed, when boastful lights corrupt the wise,<br /> +With healthier fruit to bless a later age.</p> +<p class="poetry"> I to that people all things +made myself<br /> +For Christ’s sake, building still that good they lacked<br +/> +On good already theirs. In courts of kings<br /> +I stood: before mine eye their eye went down,<br /> +For Thou wert with me. Gentle with the meek,<br /> +I suffered not the proud to mock my face:<br /> +Thus by the anchors twain of Love and Fear,<br /> +Since Love, not perfected, gains strength from Fear,<br /> +I bound to thee This nation. Parables<br /> +I spake in; parables in act I wrought<br /> +Because the people’s mind was in the sense.<br /> +At Imbher Dea they scoffed Thy word: I raised<br /> +Thy staff, and smote with barrenness that flood:<br /> +Then learned they that the world was Thine, not ruled<br /> +By Sun or Moon, their famed “God-Elements:”<br /> +Yea, like Thy Fig-tree cursed, that river banned<br /> +Witnessed Thy Love’s stern pureness. From the +grass<br /> +The little three-leaved herb, I stooped and plucked,<br /> +And preached the Trinity. Thy Staff I raised,<br /> +And bade—not ravening beast—but reptiles foul<br /> +Flee to the abyss like that blind herd of old;<br /> +Then spake I: “Be not babes, but understand:<br /> +Thus in your spirit lift the Cross of Christ:<br /> +Banish base lusts; so God shall with you walk<br /> +As once with man in Eden.” With like aim<br /> +Convents I reared for holy maids, then sought<br /> +The marriage feast, and cried, “If God thus draws<br /> +Close to Himself those virgin hearts, and yet<br /> +Blesses the bridal troth, and infant’s font,<br /> +How white a thing should be the Christian home!”<br /> +Marvelling, they learned what heritage their God<br /> +Possessed in them! how wide a realm, how fair.</p> +<p class="poetry">Lord, save in one thing only, I was +weak—<br /> +I loved this people with a mother’s love,<br /> +For their sake sanctified my spirit to thee<br /> +In vigil, fast, and meditation long,<br /> +On mountain and on moor. Thus, Lord, I wrought,<br /> +Trusting that so Thy lineaments divine,<br /> +Deeplier upon my spirit graved, might pass<br /> +Thence on that hidden burthen which my heart<br /> +Still from its substance feeding, with great pangs<br /> +Strove to bring forth to Thee. O loyal race!<br /> +Me too they loved. They waited me all night<br /> +On lonely roads; and, as I preached, the day<br /> +To those high listeners seemed a little hour.<br /> +Have I not seen ten thousand brows at once<br /> +Flash in the broad light of some Truth new risen,<br /> +And felt like him, that Saint who cried, flame-girt,<br /> +“At last do I begin to be a Christian?”<br /> +Have I not seen old foes embrace? Seen him,<br /> +That white-haired man who dashed him on the ground,<br /> +Crying aloud, “My buried son, forgive!<br /> +Thy sire hath touched the hand that shed thy blood?”<br /> +Fierce chiefs knelt down in penance! Lord! how oft<br /> +Shook I their tear-drop sparkles from my gown!<br /> +’Twas the forgiveness taught them all the debt,<br /> +Great-hearted penitents! How many a youth<br /> +Contemned the praise of men! How many a maid—<br /> +O not in narrowness, but Love’s sweet pride<br /> +And love-born shyness—jealous for a mate<br /> +Himself not jealous—spurned terrestrial love,<br /> +Glorying in heavenly Love’s fair oneness! Race<br /> +High-dowered! God’s Truth seemed some remembered +thing<br /> +To them; God’s Kingdom smiled, their native haunt<br /> +Prophesied then their daughters and their sons:<br /> +Each man before the face of each upraised<br /> +His hand on high, and said, “The Lord hath risen!”<br +/> +Then, like a stream from ice released, forth fled<br /> +And wafted far the tidings, flung them wide,<br /> +Shouted them loud from rocky ridge o’er bands<br /> +Marching far down to war! The sower sowed<br /> +With happier hope; the reaper bending sang,<br /> +“Thus shall God’s Angels reap the field of God<br /> +When we are ripe for heaven.” Lovers new-wed<br /> +Drank of that water changed to wine, thenceforth<br /> +Breathing on earth heaven’s sweetness. Unto such<br +/> +More late, whate’er of brightness time or will<br /> +Infirm had dimmed, shone back from infant brows<br /> +By baptism lit. Each age its garland found:<br /> +Fair shone on trustful childhood faith divine:<br /> +Eld, once a weight of wrinkles now upsoared<br /> +In venerable lordship of white hairs,<br /> +Seer-like and sage. Healed was a nation’s wound:<br +/> +All men believed who willed not disbelief;<br /> +And sat in that oppugnancy steel-mailed:<br /> +They cried, “Before thy priests our bards shall bow,<br /> +And all our clans put on thy great Clan Christ!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> For your sake, O my brethren, +and my sons<br /> +These things have I recorded. Something I wrought:<br /> +Strive ye in loftier labours; strive, and win:<br /> +Your victory shall be mine: my crown are ye.<br /> +My part is ended now. I lived for Truth:<br /> +I to this people gave that truth I knew;<br /> +My witnesses ye are I grudged it not:<br /> +Freely did I receive, freely I gave;<br /> +Baptising, or confirming, or ordaining,<br /> +I sold not things divine. Of mine own store<br /> +Ofttimes the hire of fifteen men I paid<br /> +For guard where bandits lurked. When prince or chief<br /> +Laid on God’s altar ring, or torque, or gold,<br /> +I sent them back. Too fortunate, too beloved,<br /> +I said, “Can he Apostle be who bears<br /> +Such scanty marks of Christ’s Apostolate,<br /> +Hunger, and thirst, and scorn of men?” For this,<br +/> +Those pains they spared I spared not to myself,<br /> +The body’s daily death. I make not boast:<br /> +What boast have I? If God His servant raised,<br /> +He knoweth—not ye—how oft I fell; how low;<br /> +How oft in faithless longings yearned my heart<br /> +For faces of His Saints in mine own land,<br /> +Remembered fields far off. This, too, He knoweth,<br /> +How perilous is the path of great attempts,<br /> +How oft pride meets us on the storm-vexed height,<br /> +Pride, or some sting its scourge. My hope is He:<br /> +His hand, my help so long, will loose me never:<br /> +And, thanks to God, the sheltering grave is near.</p> +<p class="poetry"> How still this eve! The +morn was racked with storm:<br /> +’Tis past; the skylark sings; the tide at flood<br /> +Sighs a soft joy: alone those lines of weed<br /> +Report the wrath foregone. Yon watery plain<br /> +Far shines, a mingled sea of glass and fire,<br /> +Even as that Beatific Sea outspread<br /> +Before the Throne of God. ’Tis Paschal +Tide;—<br /> +O sorrowful, O blissful Paschal Tide!<br /> +Fain would I die on Holy Saturday;<br /> +For then, as now, the storm is past—the woe;<br /> +And, somewhere ’mid the shades of Olivet<br /> +Lies sealed the sacred cave of that Repose<br /> +Watched by the Holy Women. Earth, that sing’st,<br /> +Since first He made thee, thy Creator’s praise,<br /> +Sing, sing, thy Saviour’s! Myriad-minded sea,<br /> +How that bright secret thrills thy rippling lips<br /> +Which shake, yet speak not! Thou that mad’st the +worlds,<br /> +Man, too, Thou mad’st; within Thy Hands the life<br /> +Of each was shapen, and new-wov’n ran out,<br /> +New-willed each moment. What makes up that life?<br /> +Love infinite, and nothing else save love!<br /> +Help ere need came, deliverance ere defeat;<br /> +At every step an angel to sustain us,<br /> +An angel to retrieve! My years are gone:<br /> +Sweet were they with a sweetness felt but half<br /> +Till now;—not half discerned. Those blessèd +years<br /> +I would re-live, deferring thus so long<br /> +The Vision of Thy Face, if thus with gaze<br /> +Cast backward I might <i>see</i> that guiding hand<br /> +Step after step, and kiss it.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Happy +isle!<br /> +Be true; for God hath graved on thee His Name:<br /> +God, with a wondrous ring, hath wedded thee;<br /> +God on a throne divine hath ’stablished thee:—<br /> +Light of a darkling world! Lamp of the North!<br /> +My race, my realm, my great inheritance,<br /> +To lesser nations leave inferior crowns;<br /> +Speak ye the thing that is; be just, be kind;<br /> +Live ye God’s Truth, and in its strength be free!</p> +<p class="poetry">This day to Him, the Faithful and the True,<br +/> +For Whom I toiled, my spirit I commend.<br /> +That which I am, He knoweth: I know not now:<br /> +But I shall know ere long. If I have loved Him<br /> +I seek but this for guerdon of my love<br /> +With holier love to love Him to the end:<br /> +If I have vanquished others to His love<br /> +Would God that this might be their meed and mine<br /> +In witness for His love to pour our blood<br /> +A glad stream forth, though vultures or wild beasts<br /> +Rent our unburied bones! Thou setting sun,<br /> +That sink’st to rise, that time shall come at last<br /> +When in thy splendours thou shalt rise no more;<br /> +And, darkening with the darkening of thy face,<br /> +Who worshipped thee with thee shall cease; but those<br /> +Who worshipped Christ shall shine with Christ abroad,<br /> +Eternal beam, and Sun of Righteousness,<br /> +In endless glory. For His sake alone<br /> +I, bondsman in this land, re-sought this land.<br /> +All ye who name my name in later times,<br /> +Say to this People, since vindictive rage<br /> +Tempts them too often, that their Patriarch gave<br /> +Pattern of pardon ere in words he preached<br /> +That God who pardons. Wrongs if they endure<br /> +In after years, with fire of pardoning love<br /> +Sin-slaying, bid them crown the head that erred:<br /> +For bread denied let them give Sacraments,<br /> +For darkness light, and for the House of Bondage<br /> +The glorious freedom of the sons of God:<br /> +This is my last Confession ere I die.</p> +<h2>NOTES.</h2> +<p><a name="footnote10a"></a><a href="#citation10a" +class="footnote">[10a]</a> Cotton MSS., Nero, E.’; +Codex Salisburiensis; and a MS. in the Monastery of St. +Vaast.</p> +<p><a name="footnote10b"></a><a href="#citation10b" +class="footnote">[10b]</a> The Book of Armagh, preserved at +Trinity College, Dublin, contains a Life of St. Patrick, with his +writings, and consists in chief part of a description of all the +books of the New Testament, including the Epistle of Paul to the +Laodiceans. Traces found here and there of the name of the +copyist and of the archbishop for whom the copy was made, fix its +date almost to a year as 807 or 811–812.</p> +<p><a name="footnote77"></a><a href="#citation77" +class="footnote">[77]</a> The Isle of Man.</p> +<p><a name="footnote101"></a><a href="#citation101" +class="footnote">[101]</a> Now Limerick.</p> +<p><a name="footnote111"></a><a href="#citation111" +class="footnote">[111]</a> Foynes.</p> +<p><a name="footnote116"></a><a href="#citation116" +class="footnote">[116]</a> The Giant’s Causeway.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEGENDS OF SAINT PATRICK***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 7165-h.htm or 7165-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/1/6/7165 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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