The Legends of Saint Patrick

SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDREN OF FOCHLUT WOOD.

ARGUMENT.

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.

One day as Patrick sat upon a stone
Judging his people, Pagan babes flocked round,
All light and laughter, angel-like of mien,
Sueing for bread.  He gave it, and they ate:
Then said he, “Kneel;” and taught them prayer: but lo!
Sudden the stag hounds’ music dinned the wind;
They heard; they sprang; they chased it.  Patrick spake;
“It was the cry of children that I heard
Borne from the black wood o’er the midnight seas:
Where are those children?  What avails though Kings
Have bowed before my Gospel, and in awe
Nations knelt low, unless I set mine eyes
On Fochlut Wood?”  Thus speaking, he arose,
And, journeying with the brethren toward the West,
Fronted the confine of that forest old.

Then entered they that darkness; and the wood
Closed as a cavern round them.  O’er its roof
Leaned roof of cloud, and hissing ran the wind,
And moaned the trunks for centuries hollowed out
Yet stalwart still.  There, rooted in the rock,
Stood the huge growths, by us unnamed, that frowned
Perhaps on Partholan, the parricide,
When that first Pagan settler fugitive
Landed, a man foredoomed.  Between the stems
The ravening beast now glared, now fled.  Red leaves,
The last year’s phantoms, rattled here and there.
The oldest wood that ever grew in Eire
Was Fochlut Wood, and gloomiest.  Spirits of Ill
Made it their palace, and its labyrinths sowed
With poisons.  Many a cave, with horrors thronged
Within it yawned, and many a chasm unseen
Waited the unwary treader.  Cry of wolf
Pierced the cold air, and gibbering ghosts were heard;
And o’er the black marsh passed those wandering lights
That lure lost feet.  A thousand pathways wound
From gloom to gloom.  One only led to light:
That path was sharp with flints.

                              Then Patrick mused,
“O life of man, how dark a wood art thou!
Erring how many track thee till Despair,
Sad host, receives them in his crypt-like porch
At nightfall.”  Mute he paced.  The brethren feared;
And fearing, knelt to God.  Made strong by prayer
Westward once more they trod that dark, sharp way
Till deeper gloom announced the night, then slept
Guarded by angels.  But the Saint all night
Watched, strong in prayer.  The second day still on
They fared, like mariners o’er strange seas borne,
That keep in mist their soundings when the rocks
Vex the dark strait, and breakers roar unseen.
At last Benignus cried, “To God be praise!
He sends us better omens.  See! the moss
Brightens the crag!”  Ere long another spake:
“The worst is past!  This freshness in the air
Wafts us a welcome from the great salt sea;
Fair spreads the fern: green buds are on the spray,
And violets throng the grass.”

                              A few steps more
Brought them to where, with peaceful gleam, there spread
A forest pool that mirrored yew trees twain
With beads like blood-drops hung.  A sunset flash
Kindled a glory in the osiers brown
Encircling that still water.  From the reeds
A sable bird, gold-circled, slowly rose;
But when the towering tree-tops he outsoared,
Eastward a great wind swept him as a leaf.
Serenely as he rose a music soft
Swelled from afar; but, as that storm o’ertook him,
The music changed to one on-rushing note
O’ertaken by a second; both, ere long,
Blended in wail unending.  Patrick’s brow,
Listening that wail, was altered, and he spake:
“These were the Voices that I heard when stood
By night beside me in that southern land
God’s angel, girt for speed.  Letters he bare
Unnumbered, full of woes.  He gave me one,
Inscribed, ‘The Wailing of the Irish Race;’
And as I read that legend on mine ear
Forth from a mighty wood on Erin’s coast
There rang the cry of children, ‘Walk once more
Among us; bring us help!’”  Thus Patrick spake:
Then towards that wailing paced with forward head.

Ere long they came to where a river broad,
Swiftly amid the dense trees winding, brimmed
The flower-enamelled marge, and onward bore
Green branches ’mid its eddies.  On the bank
Two virgins stood.  Whiter than earliest streak
Of matin pearl dividing dusky clouds
Their raiment; and, as oft in silent woods
White beds of wind-flower lean along the earth-breeze,
So on the river-breeze that raiment wan
Shivered, back blown.  Slender they stood and tall,
Their brows with violets bound; while shone, beneath,
The dark blue of their never-tearless eyes.
Then Patrick, “For the sake of Him who lays
His blessing on the mourners, O ye maids,
Reveal to me your grief—if yours late sent,
Or sped in careless childhood.”  And the maids:
“Happy whose careless childhood ’scaped the wound:”
Then she that seemed the saddest added thus:
“Stranger! this forest is no roof of joy,
Nor we the only mourners; neither fall
Bitterer the widow’s nor the orphan’s tears
Now than of old; nor sharper than long since
That loss which maketh maiden widowhood.
In childhood first our sorrow came.  One eve
Within our foster-parents’ low-roofed house
The winter sunset from our bed had waned:
I slept, and sleeping dreamed.  Beside the bed
There stood a lovely Lady crowned with stars;
A sword went through her heart.  Down from that sword
Blood trickled on the bed, and on the ground.
Sorely I wept.  The Lady spake: ‘My child,
Weep not for me, but for thy country weep;
Her wound is deeper far than mine.  Cry loud!
The cry of grief is Prayer.’  I woke, all tears;
And lo! my little sister, stiff and cold,
Sat with wide eyes upon the bed upright:
That starry Lady with the bleeding heart
She, too, had seen, and heard her.  Clamour vast
Rang out; and all the wall was fiery red;
And flame was on the sea.  A hostile clan
Landing in mist, had fired our ships and town,
Our clansmen absent on a foray far,
And stricken many an old man, many a boy
To bondage dragged.  Oh night with blood redeemed!
Upon the third day o’er the green waves rushed
The vengeance winged, with axe and torch, to quit
Wrong with new wrong, and many a time since then.
That night sad women on the sea sands toiled,
Drawing from wreck and ruin, beam or plank
To shield their babes.  Our foster-parents slain,
Unheeded we, the children of the chief,
Roamed the great forest.  There we told our dream
To children likewise orphaned.  Sudden fear
Smote them as though themselves had dreamed that dream,
And back from them redoubled upon us;
Until at last from us and them rang out—
The dark wood heard it, and the midnight sea—
A great and bitter cry.”

                              “That cry went up,
O children, to the heart of God; and He
Down sent it, pitying, to a far-off land,
And on into my heart.  By that first pang
Which left the eternal pallor in your cheeks,
O maids, I pray you, sing once more that song
Ye sang but late.  I heard its long last note:
Fain would I hear the song that such death died.”

They sang: not scathless those that sing such song!
Grief, their instructress, of the Muses chief
To hearts by grief unvanquished, to their hearts
Had taught a melody that neither spared
Singer nor listener.  Pale when they began,
Paler it left them.  He not less was pale
Who, out of trance awaking, thanked them thus:
“Now know I of that sorrow in you fixed;
What, and how great it is, and bless that Power
Who called me forth from nothing for your sakes,
And sent me to this wood.  Maidens, lead on!
A chieftain’s daughters ye; and he, your sire,
And with him she who gave you your sweet looks
(Sadder perchance than you in songless age)
They, too, must hear my tidings.  Once a Prince
Went solitary from His golden throne,
Tracking the illimitable wastes, to find
One wildered sheep, the meanest of the flock,
And on His shoulders bore it to that House
Where dwelt His Sire.  ‘Good Shepherd’ was His Name.
My tidings these: heralds are we, footsore,
That bring the heart-sore comfort.”

                              On they paced,
On by the rushing river without words.
Beside the elder sister Patrick walked,
Benignus by the younger.  Fair her face;
Majestic his, though young.  Her looks were sad
And awe-struck; his, fulfilled with secret joy,
Sent forth a gleam as when a morn-touched bay
Through ambush shines of woodlands.  Soon they stood
Where sea and river met, and trod a path
Wet with salt spray, and drank the clement breeze,
And saw the quivering of the green gold wave,
And, far beyond, that fierce aggressor’s bourn,
Fair haunt for savage race, a purple ridge
By rainy sunbeam gemmed from glen to glen,
Dim waste of wandering lights.  The sun, half risen,
Lay half sea-couched.  A neighbouring height sent forth
Welcome of baying hounds; and, close at hand,
They reached the chieftain’s keep.

                              A white-haired man
And long since blind, there sat he in his hall,
Untamed by age.  At times a fiery gleam
Flashed from his sightless eyes; and oft the red
Burned on his forehead, while with splenetic speech
Stirred by ill news or memory stung, he banned
Foes and false friend.  Pleased by his daughters’ tale,
At once he stretched his huge yet aimless hands
In welcome towards his guests.  Beside him stood
His mate of forty years by that strong arm
From countless suitors won.  Pensive her face:
With parted youth the confidence of youth
Had left her.  Beauty, too, though with remorse,
Its seat had half relinquished on a cheek
Long time its boast, and on that willowy form,
So yielding now, where once in strength upsoared
The queenly presence.  Tenderest grace not less
Haunted her life’s dim twilight—meekness, love—
That humble love, all-giving, that seeks nought,
Self-reverent calm, and modesty in age.
She turned an anxious eye on him she loved;
And, bending, kissed at times that wrinkled hand,
By years and sorrows made his wife far more
Than in her nuptial bloom.  These two had lost
Five sons, their hope, in war.

                              That eve it chanced
High feast was holden in the chieftain’s tower
To solemnise his birthday.  In they flocked,
Each after each, the warriors of the clan,
Not without pomp heraldic and fair state
Barbaric, yet beseeming.  Unto each
Seat was assigned for deeds or lineage old,
And to the chiefs allied.  Where each had place
Above him waved his banner.  Not for this
Unhonoured were the pilgrim guests.  They sat
Where, fed by pinewood and the seeded cone,
The loud hearth blazed.  Bathed were the wearied feet
By maidens of the place and nurses grey,
And dried in linen fragrant still with flowers
Of years when those old nurses too were fair.
And now the board was spread, and carved the meat,
And jests ran round, and many a tale was told,
Some rude, but none opprobrious.  Banquet done,
Page-led the harper entered, old, and blind:
The noblest ranged his chair, and spread the mat;
The loveliest raised his wine cup, one light hand
Laid on his shoulder, while the golden hair
Commingled with the silver.  “Sing,” they cried,
“The death of Deirdrè; or that desolate sire
That slew his son, unweeting; or that Queen
Who from her palace pacing with fixed eyes
Stared at those heads in dreadful circle ranged,
The heads of traitor-friends that slew her lord
Then mocked the friend they murdered.  Leal and true,
The Bard who wrought that vengeance!”  Thus he sang:

THE LAY OF THE HEADS.

      The Bard returns to a stricken house:
         What shape is that he rears on high?
      A withe of the Willow, set round with Heads:
         They blot that evening sky.

      A Widow meets him at the gates:
         What fixes thus that Widow’s eye?
      She names the name; but she sees not the man,
         Nor beyond him that reddening sky.

      “Bard of the Brand, thou Foster-Sire
         Of him they slew—their friend—my lord—
      What Head is that—the first—that frowns
         Like a traitor self-abhorred?”

      “Daughter of Orgill wounded sore,
         Thou of the fateful eye serene,
      Fergus is he.  The feast he made
         That snared thy Cuchullene.”

      “What Head is that—the next—half-hid
         In curls full lustrous to behold?
      They mind me of a hand that once
         I saw amid their gold.”

      “’Tis Manadh.  He that by the shore
         Held rule, and named the waves his steeds:
      ’Twas he that struck the stroke accursed—
         Headless this day he bleeds.”

      “What Head is that close by—so still,
         With half-closed lids, and lips that smile?
      Methinks I know their voice: methinks
         His wine they quaffed erewhile!”

      “’Twas he raised high that severed head:
         Thy head he raised, my Foster-Child!
      That was the latest stroke I struck:
         I struck that stroke, and smiled.”

      “What Heads are those—that twain, so like,
         Flushed as with blood by yon red sky?”
      “Each unto each, his Head they rolled;
         Red on that grass they lie.”

      “That paler twain, which face the East?”
         “Laegar is one; the other Hilt;
      Silent they watched the sport! they share
         The doom, that shared the guilt.”

      “Bard of the Vengeance! well thou knew’st
         Blood cries for blood!  O kind, and true,
      How many, kith and kin, have died
         That mocked the man they slew?”

      “O Woman of the fateful eye,
         The untrembling voice, the marble mould,
      Seven hundred men, in house or field,
         For the man they mocked, lie cold.”

      “Their wives, thou Bard? their wives? their wives?
         Far off, or nigh, through Inisfail,
      This hour what are they?  Stand they mute
         Like me; or make their wail?”

      “O Eimer! women weep and smile;
         The young have hope, the young that mourn;
      But I am old; my hope was he:
         He that can ne’er return!

      “O Conal! lay me in his grave:
         Oh! lay me by my husband’s side:
      Oh! lay my lips to his in death;”
         She spake, and, standing, died.

      She fell at last—in death she fell—
         She lay, a black shade, on the ground;
      And all her women o’er her wailed
         Like sea-birds o’er the drowned.

   Thus to the blind chief sang that harper blind,
Hymning the vengeance; and the great hall roared
With wrath of those wild listeners.  Many a heel
Smote the rough stone in scorn of them that died
Not three days past, so seemed it!  Direful hands,
Together dashed, thundered the Avenger’s praise.
At last the tide of that fierce tumult ebbed
O’er shores of silence.  From her lowly seat
Beside her husband’s spake the gentle Queen:
“My daughters, from your childhood ye were still
A voice of music in your father’s house—
Not wrathful music.  Sing that song ye made
Or found long since, and yet in forest sing,
If haply Power Unknown may hear and help.”
She spake, and at her word her daughters sang.

“Lost, lost, all lost!  O tell us what is lost?
Behold, this too is hidden!  Let him speak,
If any knows.  The wounded deer can turn
And see the shaft that quivers in its flank;
The bird looks back upon its broken wing;
But we, the forest children, only know
Our grief is infinite, and hath no name.
What woman-prophet, shrouded in dark veil,
Whispered a Hope sadder than Fear?  Long since,
What Father lost His children in the wood?
Some God?  And can a God forsake?  Perchance
His face is turned to nobler worlds new-made;
Perchance his palace owns some later bride
That hates the dead Queen’s children, and with charm
Prevails that they are exiled from his eyes,
The exile’s winter theirs—the exile’s song.

“Blood, ever blood!  The sword goes raging on
O’er hill and moor; and with it, iron-willed,
Drags on the hand that holds it and the man
To slake its ceaseless thirst for blood of men;
Fire takes the little cot beside the mere,
And leaps upon the upland village: fire
Up clambers to the castle on the crag;
And whom the fire has spared the hunger kills;
And earth draws all into her thousand graves.

“Ah me! the little linnet knows the branch
Whereon to build; the honey-pasturing bee
Knows the wild heath, and how to shape its cell;
Upon the poisonous berry no bird feeds;
So well their mother, Nature, helps her own.
Mothers forsake not;—can a Father hate?
Who knows but that He yearns—that Sire Unseen—
To clasp His children?  All is sweet and sane,
All, all save man!  Sweet is the summer flower,
The day-long sunset of the autumnal woods;
Fair is the winter frost; in spring the heart
Shakes to the bleating lamb.  O then what thing
Might be the life secure of man with man,
The infant’s smile, the mother’s kiss, the love
Of lovers, and the untroubled wedded home?
This might have been man’s lot.  Who sent the woe?
Who formed man first?  Who taught him first the ill way?
One creature, only, sins; and he the highest!

“O Higher than the highest!  Thou Whose hand
Made us—Who shaped’st that hand Thou wilt not clasp,
The eye Thou open’st not, the sealed-up ear!
Be mightier than man’s sin: for lo, how man
Seeks Thee, and ceases not: through noontide cave
And dark air of the dawn-unlighted peak
To Thee how long he strains the weak, worn eye
If haply he might see Thy vesture’s hem
On farthest winds receding!  Yea, how oft
Against the blind and tremulous wall of cliff
Tormented by sea surge, he leans his ear
If haply o’er it name of Thine might creep;
Or bends above the torrent-cloven abyss,
If falling flood might lisp it!  Power unknown!
He hears it not: Thou hear’st his beating heart
That cries to Thee for ever!  From the veil
That shrouds Thee, from the wood, the cloud, the void,
O, by the anguish of all lands evoked,
Look forth!  Though, seeing Thee, man’s race should die,
One moment let him see Thee!  Let him lay
At least his forehead on Thy foot in death!”

   So sang the maidens: but the warriors frowned;
And thus the blind king muttered, “Bootless weed
Is plaint where help is none!”  But wives and maids
And the thick-crowding poor, that many a time
Had wailed on war-fields o’er their brethren slain,
Went down before that strain as river reeds
Before strong wind, went down when o’er them passed
Its last word, “Death;” and grief’s infection spread
From least to first; and weeping filled the hall.
Then on Saint Patrick fell compassion great;
He rose amid that concourse, and with voice
And words now lost, alas, or all but lost,
Such that the chief of sight amerced, beheld
The imagined man before him crowned with light,
Proclaimed that God who hideth not His face,
His people’s King and Father; open flung
The portals of His realm, that inward rolled,
With music of a million singing spheres
Commanded all to enter.  Who was He
Who called the worlds from nought?  His name is Love!
In love He made those worlds.  They have not lost,
The sun his splendour, nor the moon her light:
That miracle survives.  Alas for thee!
Thou better miracle, fair human love,
That splendour shouldst have been of home and hearth,
Now quenched by mortal hate!  Whence come our woes
But from our lusts?  O desecrated law
By God’s own finger on our hearts engraved,
How well art thou avenged!  No dream it was,
That primal greatness, and that primal peace:
Man in God’s image at the first was made,
A God to rule below!

                              He told it all—
Creation, and that Sin which marred its face;
And how the great Creator, creature made,
God—God for man incarnate—died for man:
Dead, with His Cross he thundered on the gates
Of Death’s blind Hades.  Then, with hands outstretched
His Holy Ones that, in their penance prison
From hope in Him had ceased not, to the light
Flashed from His bleeding hands and branded brow
Through darkness soared: they reign with Him in heaven:
Their brethren we, the children of one Sire.
Long time he spake.  The winds forbore their wail;
The woods were hushed.  That wondrous tale complete,
Not sudden fell the silence; for, as when
A huge wave forth from ocean toiling mounts
High-arched, in solid bulk, the beach rock-strewn,
Burying his hoar head under echoing cliffs,
And, after pause, refluent to sea returns
Not all at once is stillness, countless rills
Or devious winding down the steep, or borne
In crystal leap from sea-shelf to sea-well,
And sparry grot replying; gradual thus
With lessening cadence sank that great discourse,
While round him gazed Saint Patrick, now the old
Regarding, now the young, and flung on each
In turn his boundless heart, and gazing longed
As only Apostolic heart can long
To help the helpless.

                              “Fair, O friends, the bourn
We dwell in!  Holy King makes happy land:
Our King is in our midst.  He gave us gifts;
Laws that are Love, the sovereignty of Truth.
What, sirs, ye knew Him not!  But ye by signs
Foresaw His coming, as, when buds are red
Ye say, ‘The spring is nigh us.’  Him, unknown,
Each loved who loved his brother!  Shepherd youths,
Who spread the pasture green beneath your lambs
And freshened it with snow-fed stream and mist?
Who but that Love unseen?  Grey mariners,
Who lulled the rough seas round your midnight nets,
And sent the landward breeze?  Pale sufferers wan,
Rejoice!  His are ye; yea, and His the most!
Have ye not watched the eagle that upstirs
Her nest, then undersails her falling brood
And stays them on her plumes, and bears them up
Till, taught by proof, they learn their unguessed powers
And breast the storm?  Thus God stirs up His people;
Thus proves by pain.  Ye too, O hearths well-loved!
How oft your sin-stained sanctities ye mourned!
Wives! from the cradle reigns the Bethelem Babe!
Maidens! henceforth the Virgin Mother spreads
Her shining veil above you!

                              “Speak aloud,
Chieftains world-famed!  I hear the ancient blood
That leaps against your hearts!  What?  Warriors ye!
Danger your birthright, and your pastime death!
Behold your foes!  They stand before you plain:
Ill passions, base ambitions, falsehood, hate:
Wage war on these!  A King is in your host!
His hands no roses plucked but on the Cross:
He came not hand of man in woman’s tasks
To mesh.  In woman’s hand, in childhood’s hand,
Much more in man’s, He lodged His conquering sword;
Them too His soldiers named, and vowed to war.
Rise, clan of Kings, rise, champions of man’s race,
Heaven’s sun-clad army militant on earth,
One victory gained, the realm decreed is ours.
The bridal bells ring out, for Low with High
Is wed in endless nuptials.  It is past,
The sin, the exile, and the grief.  O man,
Take thou, renewed, thy sister-mate by hand;
Know well thy dignity, and hers: return,
And meet once more Thy Maker, for He walks
Once more within thy garden, in the cool
Of the world’s eve!”

                              The words that Patrick spake
Were words of power, not futile did they fall:
But, probing, healed a sorrowing people’s wound.
Round him they stood, as oft in Grecian days,
Some haughty city sieged, her penitent sons
Thronging green Pnyx or templed Forum hushed
Hung listening on that People’s one true Voice,
The man that ne’er had flattered, ne’er deceived,
Nursed no false hope.  It was the time of Faith;
Open was then man’s ear, open his heart:
Pride spurned not then that chiefest strength of man
The power, by Truth confronted, to believe.
Not savage was that wild, barbaric race:
Spirit was in them.  On their knees they sank,
With foreheads lowly bent; and when they rose
Such sound went forth as when late anchored fleet
Touched by dawn breeze, shakes out its canvas broad
And sweeps into new waters.  Man with man
Clasped hands; and each in each a something saw
Till then unseen.  As though flesh-bound no more,
Their souls had touched.  One Truth, the Spirit’s life,
Lived in them all, a vast and common joy.
And yet as when, that Pentecostal morn,
Each heard the Apostle in his native tongue,
So now, on each, that Truth, that Joy, that Life
Shone forth with beam diverse.  Deep peace to one
Those tidings seemed, a still vale after storm;
To one a sacred rule, steadying the world;
A third exulting saw his youthful hope
Written in stars; a fourth triumphant hailed
The just cause, long oppressed.  Some laughed, some wept:
But she, that aged chieftain’s mournful wife
Clasped to her boding breast his hoary head
Loud clamouring, “Death is dead; and not for long
That dreadful grave can part us.”  Last of all,
He too believed.  That hoary head had shaped
Full many a crafty scheme:—behind them all
Nature held fast her own.

                              O happy night!
Back through the gloom of centuries sin-defaced
With what a saintly radiance thou dost shine!
They slept not, on the loud-resounding shore
In glory roaming.  Many a feud that night
Lay down in holy grave, or, mockery made,
Was quenched in its own shame.  Far shone the fires
Crowning dark hills with gladness: soared the song;
And heralds sped from coast to coast to tell
How He the Lord of all, no Power Unknown
But like a man rejoicing in his house,
Ruled the glad earth.  That demon-haunted wood,
Sad Erin’s saddest region, yet, men say,
Tenderest for all its sadness, rang at last
With hymns of men and angels.  Onward sailed
High o’er the long, unbreaking, azure waves
A mighty moon, full-faced, as though on winds
Of rapture borne.  With earliest red of dawn
Northward once more the wingèd war-ships rushed
Swift as of old to that long hated shore—
Not now with axe and torch.  His Name they bare
Who linked in one the nations.

                              On a cliff
Where Fochlut’s Wood blackened the northern sea
A convent rose.  Therein those sisters twain
Whose cry had summoned Patrick o’er the deep,
Abode, no longer weepers.  Pallid still,
In radiance now their faces shone; and sweet
Their psalms amid the clangour of rough brine.
Ten years in praise to God and good to men
That happy precinct housed them.  In their morn
Grief had for them her great work perfected;
Their eve was bright as childhood.  When the hour
Came for their blissful transit, from their lips
Pealed forth ere death that great triumphant chant
Sung by the Virgin Mother.  Ages passed;
And, year by year, on wintry nights, that song
Alone the sailors heard—a cry of joy.

SAINT PATRICK AND KING LAEGHAIRE.

“Thou son of Calphurn, in peace go forth!
   This hand shall slay them whoe’er shall slay thee!
The carles shall stand to their necks in earth
   Till they die of thirst who mock or stay thee!

“But my father, Nial, who is dead long since,
   Permits not me to believe thy word;
For the servants of Jesus, thy heavenly Prince,
   Once dead, lie flat as in sleep, interred:
But we are as men that through dark floods wade;
We stand in our black graves undismayed;
Our faces are turned to the race abhorred,
And at each hand by us stand spear or sword,
Ready to strike at the last great day,
Ready to trample them back into clay!

“This is my realm, and men call it Eire,
   Wherein I have lived and live in hate
Like Nial before me and Erc his sire,
   Of the race Lagenian, ill-named the Great!”

Thus spake Laeghaire, and his host rushed on,
   A river of blood as yet unshed:—
At noon they fought: and at set of sun
   That king lay captive, that host lay dead!

The Lagenian loosed him, but bade him swear
   He would never demand of them Tribute more:
   So Laeghaire by the dread “God-Elements” swore,
By the moon divine and the earth and air;
He swore by the wind and the broad sunshine
   That circle for ever both land and sea,
By the long-backed rivers, and mighty wine,
   By the cloud far-seeing, by herb and tree,
By the boon spring shower, and by autumn’s fan,
By woman’s breast, and the head of man,
By Night and the noonday Demon he swore
He would claim the Boarian Tribute no more.

But with time wrath waxed; and he brake his faith:
Then the dread “God-Elements” wrought his death;
For the Wind and Sun-Strength by Cassi’s side
Came down and smote on his head that he died.
Death-sick three days on his throne he sate;
Then died, as his father died, great in hate.

They buried their king upon Tara’s hill,
In his grave upright—there stands he still:
Upright there stands he as men that wade
By night through a castle-moat, undismayed;
On his head is the crown, the spear in his hand;
And he looks to the hated Lagenian land.

Such rites in the time of wrath and wrong
   Were Eire’s: baptised, they were hers no longer:
For Patrick had taught her his sweet new song,
   “Though hate is strong, yet love is stronger.”

SAINT PATRICK AND THE IMPOSTOR;
OR, MAC KYLE OF MAN.

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 [77] Isle, and becomes a great Saint.

In Uladh, near Magh Inis, lived a chief,
Fierce man and fell.  From orphaned childhood he
Through lawless youth to blood-stained middle age
Had rushed as stormy morn to stormier noon,
Working, except that still he spared the poor,
All wrongs with iron will; a child of death.
Thus spake he to his followers, while the woods
Snow-cumbered creaked, their scales of icy mail
Angered by winter winds: “At last he comes,
He that deceives the people with great signs,
And for the tinkling of a little gold
Preaches new Gods.  Where rises yonder smoke
Beyond the pinewood, camps this Lord of Dupes:
How say ye?  Shall he track o’er Uladh’s plains,
As o’er the land beside, his venomous way?
Forth with your swords! and if that God he serves
Can save him, let him prove it!”

                              Dark with wrath
Thus spake Mac Kyle; and all his men approved,
Shouting, while downward fell the snows hard-caked Loosened by shock of forest-echoed hands,
Save Garban.  Crafty he, and full of lies,
That thing which Patrick hated.  Sideway first
Glancing, as though some secret foe were nigh,
He spake: “Mac Kyle! a counsel for thine ear!
A man of counsel I, as thou of war!
The people love this stranger.  Patrick slain,
Their wrath will blaze against us, and demand
An eric for his head.  Let us by craft
Unravel first his craft: then safe our choice;
We slay a traitor, or great ransom take:
Impostors lack not gold.  Lay me as dead
Upon a bier: above me spread yon cloth,
And make your wail: and when the seer draws nigh
Worship him, crying, ‘Lo, our friend is dead!
Kneel, prophet, kneel, and pray that God thou serv’st
To raise him.’  If he kneels, no prophet he,
But like the race of mortals.  Sweep the cloth
Straight from my face; then, laughing, I will rise.”

Thus counselled Garban; and the counsel pleased;
Yet pleased not God.  Upon a bier, branch-strewn,
They laid their man, and o’er him spread a cloth;
Then, moving towards that smoke behind the pines,
They found the Saint and brought him to that bier,
And made their moan—and Garban ’neath that cloth
Smiled as he heard it—“Lo, our friend is dead!
Great prophet kneel; and pray the God thou serv’st
To raise him from the dead.”

                              The man of God
Upon them fixed a sentence-speaking eye:
“Yea! he is dead.  In this ye have not lied:
Behold, this day shall Garban’s covering be
The covering of the dead.  Remove that cloth.”

Then drew they from his face the cloth; and lo!
Beneath it Garban lay, a corpse stone-cold.

Amazement fell upon that bandit throng,
Contemplating that corpse, and on Mac Kyle
Grief for his friend, remorse, and strong belief,
A threefold power: for she that at his birth,
Her brief life faithful to that Law she knew,
Had died, in region where desires are crowned
That hour was strong in prayer.  “From God he came,”
Thus cried they; “and we worked a work accursed,
Tempting God’s prophet.”  Patrick heard, and spake;
“Not me ye tempted, but the God I serve.”
At last Mac Kyle made answer: “I have sinned;
I, and this people, whom I made to sin:
Now therefore to thy God we yield ourselves
Liegemen henceforth, his thralls as slave to Lord,
Or horse to master.  That which thou command’st
That will we do.”  And Patrick said, “Believe;
Confess your sins; and be baptised to God,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit,
And live true life.”  Then Patrick where he stood
Above the dead, with hands uplifted preached
To these in anguish and in terror bowed
The tidings of great joy from Bethlehem’s Crib
To Calvary’s Cross.  Sudden upon his knees,
Heart-pierced, as though he saw that Head thorn-pierced,
Fell that wild chief, and was baptised to God;
And, lifting up his great strong hands, while still
The waters streamed adown his matted locks,
He cried, “Alas, my master, and my sire!
I sinned a mighty sin; for in my heart
Fixed was my purpose, soon as thou hadst knelt,
To slay thee with my sword.  Therefore judge thou
What eric I must pay to quit my sin?”
Him Patrick answered, “God shall be thy Judge:
Arise, and to the seaside flee, as one
That flies his foe.  There shalt thou find a boat
Made of one hide: eat nought, and nothing take
Except one cloak alone: but in that boat
Sit thou, and bear the sin-mark on thy brow,
Facing the waves, oarless and rudderless;
And bind the boat chain thrice around thy feet,
And fling the key with strength into the main,
Far as thou canst: and wheresoe’er the breath
Of God shall waft thee, there till death abide
Working the Will Divine.”  Then spake that chief,
“I, that commanded others, can obey;
Such lore alone is mine: but for this man
That sinned my sin, alas, to see him thus!”
To whom the Saint, “For him, when thou art gone,
My prayer shall rise.  If God will raise the dead
He knows: not I.”

                              Then rose that chief, and rushed
Down to the shore, as one that flies his foe;
Nor ate, nor drank, nor spake to wife or child,
But loosed a little boat, of one hide made,
And sat therein, and round his ankles wound
The boat chain thrice; and flung the key far forth
Above the ridged sea foam.  The Lord of all
Gave ordinance to the wind, and, as a leaf
Swift rushed that boat, oarless and rudderless,
Over the on-shouldering, broad-backed, glaucous wave
Slow-rising like the rising of a world,
And purple wastes beyond, with funeral plume
Crested, a pallid pomp.  All night the chief
Under the roaring tempest heard the voice
That preached the Son of Man; and when the morn
Shone out, his coracle drew near the surge
Reboant on Manann’s Isle.  Not unbeheld
Rose it, and fell; not unregarded danced
A black spot on the inrolling ridge, then hung
Suspense upon the mile-long cataract
That, overtoppling, changed grass-green to light,
And drowned the shores in foam.  Upon the sands
Two white-haired Elders in the salt air knelt,
Offering to God their early orisons,
Coninri and Romael.  Sixty years
These two unto a hard and stubborn race
Had preached the Word; and gaining by their toil
But thirty souls, had daily prayed their God
To send ere yet they died some ampler arm,
And reap the ill-grown harvest of their youth.
Ten years they prayed, not doubting, and from God,
Who hastens not, this answer had received,
“Ye shall not die until ye see his face.”
Therefore, each morning, peered they o’er the waves,
Long-watching.  These through breakers dragged the man,
Their wished-for prize, half-frozen, and nigh to death,
And bare him to their cell, and warmed and fed him,
And heaped his couch with skins.  Deep sleep he slept
Till evening lay upon the level sea
With roses strewn like bridal chamber’s floor;
Within it one star shone.  Rested, he woke
And sought the shore.  From earth, and sea, and sky,
Then passed into his spirit the Spirit of Love;
And there he vowed his vow, fierce chief no more,
But soldier of the cross.

                              The weeks ran on,
And daily those grey Elders ministered
God’s teaching to that chief, demanding still,
“Son, understandst thou?  Gird thee like a man
To clasp, and hold, the total Faith of Christ,
And give us leave to die.”  The months fled fast:
Ere violets bloomed, he knew the creed; and when
Far heathery hills purpled the autumnal air,
He sang the psalter whole.  That tale he told
Had power, and Patrick’s name.  His strenous arm
Labouring with theirs, reaped harvest heavy and sound,
Till wondering gazed their wearied eyes on barns
Knee-deep in grain.  At last an eve there fell,
When, on the shore in commune, with such might
Discoursed that pilgrim of the things of God,
Such insight calm, and wisdom reverence-born,
Each on the other gazing in their hearts
Received once more an answer from the Lord,
“Now is your task completed: ye shall die.”

Then on the red sand knelt those Elders twain
With hands upraised, and all their hoary hair
Tinged like the foam-wreaths by that setting sun,
And sang their “Nunc Dimittis.”  At its close
High on the sandhills, ’mid the tall hard grass
That sighed eternal o’er the unbounded waste
With ceaseless yearnings like their own for death
They found the place where first, that bark descried,
Their sighs were changed to songs.  That spot they marked,
And said, “Our resurrection place is here:”
And, on the third day dying, in that place
The man who loved them laid them, at their heads
Planting one cross because their hearts were one
And one their lives.  The snowy-breasted bird
Of ocean o’er their undivided graves
Oft flew with wailing note; but they rejoiced
’Mid God’s high realm glittering in endless youth.

These two with Christ, on him, their son in Christ
Their mantle fell; and strength to him was given.
Long time he toiled alone; then round him flocked
Helpers from far.  At last, by voice of all
He gat the Island’s great episcopate,
And king-like ruled the region.  This is he,
Mac Kyle of Uladh, bishop, and Penitent,
Saint Patrick’s missioner in Manann’s Isle,
Sinner one time, and, after sinner, Saint
World-famous.  May his prayer for sinners plead!

SAINT PATRICK AT CASHEL;
OR, THE BAPTISM OF AENGUS.

ARGUMENT.

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.

When Patrick now o’er Ulster’s forest bound,
And Connact, echoing to the western wave,
And Leinster, fair with hill-suspended woods,
Had raised the cross, and where the deep night ruled,
Splendour had sent of everlasting light,
Sole peace of warring hearts, to Munster next,
Thomond and Desmond, Heber’s portion old,
He turned; and, fired by love that mocks at rest
Pushed on through raging storm the whole night long,
Intent to hold the Annunciation Feast
At Cashel of the Kings.  The royal keep
High-seated on its Rock, as morning broke
Faced them at last; and at the selfsame hour
Aengus, in his father’s absence lord,
Rising from happy sleep and heaven-sent dreams
Went forth on duteous tasks.  With sudden start
The prince stept back; for, o’er the fortress court
Like grove storm-levelled lay the idols huge,
False gods and foul that long had awed the land,
Prone, without hand of man.  O’er-awed he gazed;
Then on the air there rang a sound of hymns,
And by the eastern gate Saint Patrick stood,
The brethren round him.  On their shaggy garb
Auroral mist, struck by the rising sun,
Glittered, that diamond-panoplied they seemed,
And as a heavenly vision.  At that sight
The youth, descending with a wildered joy,
Welcomed his guests: and, ere an hour, the streets
Sparkled far down like flowering meads in spring,
So thronged the folk in holiday attire
To see the man far-famed.  “Who spurns our gods?”
Once they had cried in wrath: but, year by year,
Tidings of some deliverance great and strange,
Some life more noble, some sublimer hope,
Some regal race enthroned beyond the grave,
Had reached them from afar.  The best believed,
Great hearts for whom nor earthly love sufficed
Nor earthly fame.  The meaner scoffed: yet all
Desired the man.  Delay had edged their thirst.

Then Patrick, standing up among them, spake,
And God was with him.  Not as when loose tongue
Babbles vain rumour, or the Sophist spins
Thought’s air-hung cobwebs gay with Fancy’s dews,
Spake he, but words of might, as when a man
Bears witness to the things which he has seen,
And tells of that he knows: and as the harp
Attested is by rapture of the ear,
And sunlight by consenting of the eye
That, seeing, knows it sees, and neither craves
Inferior demonstration, so his words
Self-proved, went forth and conquered: for man’s mind,
Created in His image who is Truth,
Challenged by truth, with recognising voice
Cries out “Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,”
And cleaves thereto.  In all that listening host
One vast, dilating heart yearned to its God.
Then burst the bond of years.  No haunting doubt
They knew.  God dropped on them the robe of Truth
Sun-like: down fell the many-coloured weed
Of error; and, reclothed ere yet unclothed,
They walked a new-born earth.  The blinded Past
Fled, vanquished.  Glorious more than strange it seemed
That He who fashioned man should come to man,
And raise by ruling.  They, His trumpet heard,
In glory spurned demons misdeemed for gods:
The great chief had returned: the clan enthralled
Trod down the usurping foe.

                              Then rose the cry,
“Join us to Christ!”  His strong eyes on them set,
Patrick replied, “Know ye what thing ye seek
Ye that would fain be house-mates with my King?
Ye seek His cross!”  He paused, then added slow:
“If ye be liegeful, sirs, decree the day,
His baptism shall be yours.”

                              That eve, while shone
The sunset on the green-touched woods, that, grazed
By onward flight of unalighting spring,
Caught warmth yet scarcely flamed, Aengus stood
With Patrick in a westward-facing tower
Which overlooked far regions town-besprent,
And lit with winding waters.  Thus he spake:
“My Father! what is sovereignty of man?
Say, can I shield yon host from death, from sin,
Taking them up into my breast, like God?
I trow not so!  Mine be the lowliest place
Following thy King who left his Father’s throne
To walk the lowliest!”  Patrick answered thus:
“Best lot thou choosest, son.  If thine that lot
Thou know’st not yet; nor I.  The Lord, thy God,
Will teach us.”

                              When the day decreed had dawned
Loud rang the bull-horn; and on every breeze
Floated the banners, saffron, green, and blue;
While issuing from the horizon’s utmost verge
The full-voiced People flocked.  So swarmed of old
Some migratory nation, instinct-urged
To fly their native wastes sad winter’s realm;
So thronged on southern slopes when, far below,
Shone out the plains of promise.  Bright they came!
No summer sea could wear a blithsomer sheen
Though every dancing crest and milky plume
Ran on with rainbows braided.  Minstrel songs
Wafted like winds those onward hosts, or swayed
Or stayed them; while among them heralds passed
Lifting white wands of office.  Foremost rode
Aileel, the younger brother of the prince:
He ruled a milk-white horse.  Fluttered, breeze-borne
His mantle green, while all his golden hair
Streamed back redundant from the ring of gold
Circling his head uncovered.  Loveliest light
Of innocence and joy was on that face:
Full well the young maids marked it!  Brighter yet
Beamed he, his brother noting.  On the verge
Of Cashel’s Rock that hour Aengus stood,
By Patrick’s side.  That concourse nearer now
He gazed upon it, crying, with clasped hands,
“My Father, fair is sunrise, fair the sea,
The hills, the plains, the wind-stirred wood, the maid;
But what is like a People onward borne
In gladness?  When I see that sight, my heart
Expands like palace-gates wide open flung
That say to all men, ‘Enter.’”  Then the Saint
Laid on that royal head a hand of might,
And said, “The Will of God decrees thee King!
Son of this People art thou: Sire one day
Thou shalt be!  Son and Sire in one are King.
Shepherd for God thy flock, thou Shepherd true!”
He spake: that word was ratified in Heaven.

   Meantime that multitude innumerable
Had reached the Rock, and, now the winding road
In pomp ascending, faced those fair-wrought gates
Which, by the warders at the prince’s sign
Drawn back, to all gave entrance.  In they streamed,
Filling the central courtway.  Patrick stood
High stationed on a prostrate idol’s base,
In vestments of the Vigil of that Feast
The Annunciation, which with annual boon
Whispers, while melting snows dilate those streams
Purer than snows, to universal earth
That Maiden Mother’s joy.  The Apostle watched
The advancing throng, and gave them welcome thus;
“As though into the great Triumphant Church,
O guests of God, ye flock!  Her place is Heaven:
Sirs! we this day are militant below:
Not less, advance in faith.  Behold your crowns—
Obedience and Endurance.”

                              There and then
The Rite began: his people’s Chief and Head
Beside the font Aengus stood; his face
Sweet as a child’s, yet grave as front of eld:
For reverence he had laid his crown aside,
And from the deep hair to the unsandalled feet
Was raimented in white.  With mitred head
And massive book, forward Saint Patrick leaned,
Stayed by the gem-wrought crosier.  Prayer on prayer
Went up to God; while gift on gift from God,
All Angel-like, invisibly to man,
Descended.  Thrice above that princely brow
Patrick the cleansing waters poured, and traced
Three times thereon the Venerable Sign,
Naming the Name Triune.  The Rite complete,
Awestruck that concourse downward gazed.  At last
Lifting their eyes, they marked the prince’s face
That pale it was though bright, anguished and pale,
While from his naked foot a blood-stream gushed
And o’er the pavement welled.  The crosier’s point,
Weighted with weight of all that priestly form,
Had pierced it through.  “Why suffer’dst thou so long
The pain in silence?”  Patrick spake, heart-grieved:
Smiling, Aengus answered, “O my Sire,
I thought, thus called to follow Him whose feet
Were pierced with nails, haply the blissful Rite
Bore witness to their sorrows.”

                              At that word
The large eyes of the Apostolic man
Grew larger; and within them lived that light
Not fed by moon or sun, a visible flash
Of that invisible lightning which from God
Vibrates ethereal through the world of souls,
Vivific strength of Saints.  The mitred brow
Uptowered sublime: the strong, yet wrinkled hands,
Ascending, ceased not, till the crosier’s head
Glittered above the concourse like a star.
At last his hands disparting, down he drew
From Heaven the Royal Blessing, speaking thus:
“For this cause may the blessing, Sire of kings,
Cleave to thy seed forever!  Spear and sword
Before them fall!  In glory may the race
Of Nafrach’s sons, Aengus, and Aileel,
Hold sway on Cashel’s summit!  Be their kings
Great-hearted men, potent to rule and guard
Their people; just to judge them; warriors strong;
Sage counsellors; faithful shepherds; men of God,
That so through them the everlasting King
May flood their land with blessing.”  Thus he spake;
And round him all that nation said, “Amen.”

   Thus held they feast in Cashel of the Kings
That day till all that land was clothed with Christ:
And when the parting came from Cashel’s steep
Patrick the People’s Blessing thus forth sent:
“The Blessing fall upon the pasture broad,
On fruitful mead, and every corn-clad hill,
And woodland rich with flowers that children love:
Unnumbered be the homesteads, and the hearths:—
A blessing on the women, and the men,
On youth, and maiden, and the suckling babe:
A blessing on the fruit-bestowing tree,
And foodful river tide.  Be true; be pure,
Not living from below, but from above,
As men that over-top the world.  And raise
Here, on this rock, high place of idols once,
A kingly church to God.  The same shall stand
For aye, or, wrecked, from ruin rise restored,
His witness till He cometh.  Over Eire
The Blessing speed till time shall be no more
From Cashel of the Kings.”

                              The Saint fared forth:
The People bare him through their kingdom broad
With banner and with song; but o’er its bound
The women of that People followed still
A half day’s journey with lamenting voice;
Then silent knelt, lifting their babes on high;
And, crowned with two-fold blessing, home returned.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDLESS MOTHER.

ARGUMENT.

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.

Across his breast one hundred times each day
Saint Patrick drew the Venerable Sign,
And sixty times by night: and whensoe’er
In travel Cross was seen far off or nigh
On lonely moor, or rock, or heathy hill,
For Erin then was sown with Christian seed,
He sought it, and before it knelt.  Yet once,
While cold in winter shone the star of eve
Upon their board, thus spake a youthful monk:
“Three times this day, my father, didst thou pass
The Cross of Christ unmarked.  At morn thou saw’st
A last year’s lamb that by it sheltered lay,
At noon a dove that near it sat and mourned,
At eve a little child that round it raced,
Well pleased with each; yet saw’st thou not that Cross,
Nor mad’st thou any reverence!”  At that word
Wondering, the Saint arose, and left the meat,
And, wondering, went to venerate that Cross.

   Dark was the earth and dank ere yet he reached
That spot; and lo! where lamb had lain, and dove
Had mourned, and child had raced, there stood indeed
High-raised, the Cross of Christ.  Before it long
He prayed, and kneeling, marked that on a tomb
That Cross was raised.  Then, inly moved by God,
The Saint demanded, “Who, of them that walked
The sun-warmed earth lies here in darkness hid?”
And answer made a lamentable Voice:
“Pagan I lived, my own soul’s bane:—when dead,
Men buried here my body.”  Patrick then:
“How stands the Cross of Christ on Pagan grave?”
And answered thus the lamentable Voice:
“A woman’s work.  She had been absent long;
Her son had died; near mine his grave was made;
Half blind was she through fleeting of her tears,
And, erring, raised the Cross upon my tomb,
Misdeeming it for his.  Nightly she comes,
Wailing as only Pagan mothers wail;
So wailed my mother once, while pain tenfold
Ran through my bodiless being.  For her sake,
If pity dwells on earth or highest heaven,
May it this mourner comfort!  Christian she,
And capable of pity.”

                              Then the Saint
Cried loud, “O God, Thou seest this Pagan’s heart,
That love within it dwells: therefore not his
That doom of Souls all hate, and self-exiled
To whom Thy Presence were a woe twice told.
Eternal Pity! pity Thou Thy work;—
Sole Peace of them that love Thee, grant him peace.”
Thus Patrick prayed; and in the heaven of heavens
God heard his servant’s prayer.  Then Patrick mused
“Now know I why I passed that Cross unmarked;
It was not that it seemed.”

                              As thus he knelt,
Behold, upon the cold and bitter wind
Rang wail on wail; and o’er the moor there moved
What seemed a woman’s if a human form.
That miserable phantom onward came
With cry succeeding cry that sank or swelled
As dipped or rose the moor.  Arrived at last,
She heeded not the Saint, but on that grave
Dashed herself down.  Long time that woman wailed;
And Patrick, long, for reverence of her woe
Forbore.  At last he spake low-toned as when
Best listener knows not when the strain begins.
“Daughter! the sparrow falls not to the ground
Without his Maker.  He that made thy son
Hath sent His Son to bear all woes of men,
And vanquish every foe—the latest, Death.”
Then rolled that woman on the Saint an eye
As when the last survivor of a host
Glares on some pitying conqueror.  “Ho! the man
That treads upon my grief!  He ne’er had sons;
And thou, O son of mine, hast left no sons,
Though oft I said, ‘When I am old, his babes
Shall climb my knees.’  My boast was mine in youth;
But now mine age is made a barren stock
And as a blighted briar.”  In grief she turned;
And as on blackening tarn gust follows gust,
Again came wail on wail.  On strode the night:
The jagged forehead of that forest old
Alone was seen: all else was gloom.  At last
With voice, though kind, upbraiding, Patrick spake:
“Daughter, thy grief is wilful and it errs;
Errs like those sad and tear-bewildered eyes
That for a Christian’s take a Pagan’s grave,
And for a son’s a stranger’s.  Ah! poor child,
Thy pride it was to raise, where lay thy son,
A Cross, his memory’s honour.  By thee close
All dewed and glimmering in yon rising moon,
Low lies a grave unhonoured, and unknown:
No cross stands on it; yet upon its breast
Graved shalt thou find what Christian tomb ne’er lacks,
The Cross of Christ.  Woman, there lies thy son.”

   She rose; she found that other tomb; she knelt;
And o’er it went her wandering palms, as though
Some stone-blind mother o’er an infant’s face
Should spread an agonising hand, intent
To choose betwixt her own and counterfeit;
She found that cross deep-grav’n, and further sign
Close by, to her well known.  One piercing shriek—
Another moment, and her body lay
Along that grave with kisses, and wild hands
As when some forest beast tears up the ground,
Seeking its prey there hidden.  Then once more
Rang the wild wail above that lonely heath,
While roared far off the vast invisible woods,
And with them strove the blast, in eddies dire
Whirling both branch and bough.  Through hurrying clouds
The scared moon rushed like ship that naked glares
One moment, lightning-lighted in the storm,
Anon in wild waves drowned.  An hour went by:
Still wailed that woman, and the tempest roared;
While in the heart of ruin Patrick prayed.
He loved that woman.  Unto Patrick dear,
Dear as God’s Church was still the single Soul,
Dearest the suffering Soul.  He gave her time;
He let the floods of anguish spend themselves:
But when her wail sank low; when woods were mute,
And where the skiey madness late had raged
Shone the blue heaven, he spake with voice in strength
Gentle like that which calmed the Syrian lake,
“My sister, God hath shown me of thy wound,
And wherefore with the blind old Pagan’s cry
Hopeless thou mourn’st.  Returned from far, thou found’st
Thy son had Christian died, and saw’st the Cross
On Christian graves: and ill thy heart endured
That tomb so dear should lack its reverence meet.
To him thou gav’st the Cross, albeit that Cross
Inly thou know’st not yet.  That knowledge thine,
Thou hadst not left thy son amerced of prayer,
And given him tears, not succour.”  “Yea,” she said,
“Of this new Faith I little understand,
Being an aged woman and in woe:
But since my son was Christian, such am I;
And since the Christian tomb is decked with Cross
He shall not lack his right.”

                              Then Patrick spake:
“O woman, hearken, for through me thy son
Invokes thee.  All night long for thee, unknown,
My hands have risen: but thou hast raised no prayer
For him, thy dearest; nor from founts of God,
Though brimful, hast thou drawn for lips that thirst.
Arise, and kneel, and hear thy loved one’s cry:
Too long he waiteth.  Blessed are the dead:
They rest in God’s high Will.  But more than peace,
The rapturous vision of the Face of God,
Won by the Cross of Christ—for that they thirst
As thou, if viewless stood thy son close by,
Wouldst thirst to see his countenance.  Eyes sin-sealed
Not yet can see their God.  Prayer speeds the time:
The living help the dead; all praise to Him
Who blends His children in a league of help,
Making all good one good.  Eternal Love!
Not thine the will that love should cease with life,
Or, living, cease from service, barren made,
A stagnant gall eating the mourner’s heart
That hour when love should stretch a hand of might
Up o’er the grave to heaven.  O great in love,
Perfect love’s work: for well, sad heart, I know,
Hadst thou not trained thy son in virtuous ways,
Christian he ne’er had been.”

                              Those later words
That solitary mourner understood,
The earlier but in part, and answered thus:
“A loftier Cross, and farther seen, shall rise
Upon this grave new-found!  No hireling hands—
Mine own shall raise it; yea, though thirty years
Should sweat beneath the task.”  And Patrick said:
“What means the Cross?  That lore thou lack’st now learn.”

   Then that which Kings desired to know, and seers
And prophets vigil-blind—that Crown of Truths,
Scandal of fools, yet conqueror of the world,
To her, that midnight mourner, he divulged,
Record authentic: how in sorrow and sin
The earth had groaned; how pity, like a sword,
Had pierced the great Paternal Heart in heaven;
How He, the Light of Light, and God of God,
Had man become, and died upon the Cross,
Vanquishing thus both sorrow and sin, and risen,
The might of death o’erthrown; and how the gates
Of heaven rolled inwards as the Anointed King
Resurgent and ascending through them passed
In triumph with His Holy Dead; and how
The just, thenceforth death-freed, the selfsame gates
Entering, shall share the everlasting throne.
Thus Patrick spake, and many a stately theme
Rehearsed beside, higher than heaven, and yet
Near as the farthest can alone be near.
Then in that grief-worn creature’s bosom old
Contentions rose, and fiercer fires than burn
In sultry breasts of youth: and all her past,
Both good and evil, woke, in sleep long sealed;
And all the powers and forces of her soul
Rushed every way through darkness seeking light,
Like winds or tides.  Beside her Patrick prayed,
And mightier than his preaching was his prayer,
Sheltering that crisis dread.  At last beneath
The great Life-Giver’s breath that Human Soul,
An inner world vaster than planet worlds,
In undulation swayed, as when of old
The Spirit of God above the waters moved
Creative, while the blind and shapeless void
Yearned into form, and form grew meet for life,
And downward through the abysses Law ran forth
With touch soul-soft, and seas from lands retired,
And light from dark, and wondering Nature passed
Through storm to calm, and all things found their home.

Silence long time endured; at last, clear-voiced,
Her head not turning, thus the woman spake:
“That God who Man became—who died, and lives,—
Say, died He for my son?”  And Patrick said,
“Yea, for thy son He died.  Kneel, woman, kneel!
Nor doubt, for mighty is a mother’s prayer,
That He who in the eternal light is throned,
Lifting the roseate and the nail-pierced palm,
Will make in heaven the Venerable Sign,
For He it is prays in us, and that Soul
Thou lov’st pass on to glory.”

                              At his word
She knelt, and unto God, with help of God,
Uprushed the strength of prayer, as when the cloud
Uprushes past some beetling mountain wall
From billowy deeps unseen.  Long time she prayed;
While heaven and earth grew silent as that night
When rose the Saviour.  Sudden ceased the prayer:
And rang upon the night her jubilant cry,
“I saw a Sign in Heaven.  Far inward rolled
The gates; and glory flashed from God; and he
I love his entrance won.”  Then, fair and tall,
That woman stood with hands upraised to heaven
The dusky shadow of her youth renewed,
And instant Patrick spake, “Give thanks to God,
And speed thee home, and sleep; and since thy son
No children left, take to thee orphans twain
And rear them, in his honour, unto Christ;
And yearly, when the death-day of thy son
Returns, his birth-day name it; call thy friends;
Give alms; and range the poor around thy door,
So shall they feast, and pray.  Woman, farewell:
All night the dark upon thy face hath lain;
Yet shall we know each other, met in heaven.”

Then blithe of foot that Mother crossed the moor;
And when she reached her door a zone of white
Loosening along a cloud that walled the east
Revealed the coming dawn.  That dawn ere long
Lay, unawaking, on a face serene,
On tearless lids, and quiet, open palms,
On stormless couch and raiment calm that hid
A breast if faded now, yet happier far
Than when in prime its youthful wave first heaved
Rocking a sleeping Infant.

SAINT PATRICK AT THE FEAST OF KNOCK CAE;
OR, THE FOUNDING OF MUNGRET.

ARGUMENT.

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.

In Limneach, [101] ere he reached it, fame there ran
Of Patrick’s words and works.  Before his foot
Aileel had fallen, loud wailing, with his wife,
And cried, “Our child is slain by savage beasts;
But thou, O prophet, if that God thou serv’st
Be God indeed, restore him!”  Patrick turned
To Malach, praised of all men.  “Brother, kneel,
And raise yon child.”  But Malach answered, “Nay,
Lest, tempting God, His service I should shame.”
Then Patrick, “Answer of the base is thine;
And base shall be that house thou build’st on earth,
Little, and low.  A man may fail in prayer:
What then?  Thank God! the fault is ours not His,
And ours alone the shame.”  The Apostle turned
To Ibar, and to Ailbè, bishops twain,
And bade them raise the child.  They heard and knelt:
And Patrick knelt between them; and these three
Upheaved a wondrous strength of prayer; and lo!
All pale, yet shining, rose the child, and sat,
Lifting small hands, and preached to those around,
And straightway they believed, and were baptized.

Thus with loud rumour all the land was full,
And some believed; some doubted; and a chief,
Lonan, the son of Eire, that half believed,
Willing to draw from Patrick wonder and sign,
By messengers besought him, saying, “Come,
For in thy reverence waits thy servant’s feast
Spread on Knock Cae.”  That pleasant hill ascends
Westward of Ara, girt by rivers twain,
Maigue, lily-lighted, and the “Morning Star”
Once “Samhair” named, that eastward through the woods
Winding, upon its rapids earliest meets
The morn, and flings it far o’er mead and plain.

From Limneach therefore Patrick, while the dawn
Still dusk, its joyous secret kept, went forth,
O’er dustless road soon lost in dewy fields,
And groves that, touched by wakening winds, began
To load damp airs with scent.  That time it was
When beech leaves lose their silken gloss, and maids
From whitest brows depose the hawthorn white,
Red rose in turn enthroning.  Earliest gleams
Glimmered on leaves that shook like wings of birds:
Saint Patrick marked them well.  He turned to Fiacc—
“God might have changed to Pentecostal tongues
The leaves of all the forests in the world,
And bade them sing His love!  He wrought not thus:
A little hint He gives us and no more.
Alone the willing see.  Thus they sin less
Who, if they saw, seeing would disbelieve.
Hark to that note!  O foolish woodland choirs!
Ye sing but idle loves; and, idler far,
The bards sing war—war only!”

                              Answered thus
The monk bard-loving: “Sing it!  Ay, and make
The keys of all the tempests hang on zones
Of those cloud-spirits!  They, too, can ‘bind and loose:’
A bard incensed hath proved a kingdom’s doom!
Such Aidan.  Upon cakes of meal his host,
King Aileach, fed him in a fireless hall:
The bard complained not—ay, but issuing forth,
Sang in dark wood a keen and venomed song
That raised on the king’s countenance plague-spots three;
Who saw him named them Scorn, Dishonour, Shame,
And blighted those three oak trees nigh his door.
What next?  Before a month that realm lay drowned
In blood; and fire went o’er the opprobrious house!”
Thus spake the youth, and blushed at his own zeal
For bardic fame; then added, “Strange the power
Of song!  My father, do I vainly dream
Oft thinking that the bards, perchance the birds,
Sing something vaster than they think or know?
Some fire immortal lives within their strings:
Therefore the people love them.  War divine,
God’s war on sin—true love-song best and sweetest—
Perforce they chaunt in spirit, not wars of clans:
Yea, one day, conscious, they shall sing that song;
One day by river clear of south or north,
Pagan no more, the laurelled head shall rise,
And chaunt the Warfare of the Realm of Souls,
The anguish and the cleansing, last the crown—
Prelude of songs celestial!”

                              Patrick smiled:
“Still, as at first, a lover of the bards!
Hard task was mine to win thee to the cowl!
Dubtach, thy master, sole in Tara’s hall
Who made me reverence, mocked my quest.  He said,
‘Fiacc thou wouldst?—my Fiacc?  Few days gone by
I sent the boy with poems to the kings;
He loves me: hardly will he leave the songs
To wear thy tonsure!’  As he spake, behold,
Thou enter’dst.  Sudden hands on Dubtach’s head
I laid, as though to gird with tonsure crown:
Then rose thy clamour, ‘Erin’s chief of bards
A tonsured man!  Me, father, take, not him!
Far less the loss to Erin and the songs!’
Down knelt’st thou; and, ere long, old Dubtach’s floor
Shone with thy vernal locks, like forest paths
Made gold by leaves of autumn!”

                              As he spake,
The sun, new-risen, flashed on a breast of wood
That answered from a thousand jubilant throats:
Then Fiacc, with all their music in his face,
Resumed: “My father, upon Tara’s steep
Patient thou sat’st whole months, sifting with care
The laws of Eire, recasting for all time,
Ill laws from good dissevering, as that Day
Shall sever tares from wheat.  I see thee still,
As then we saw—thy clenched hand lost in beard
Propping thy chin; thy forehead wrinkle-trenched
Above that wondrous tome, the ‘Senchus Mohr,’
Like his, that Hebrew lawgiver’s, who sat
Throned on the clouded Mount, while far below
The Tribes waited in awe.  Now answer make!
Three bishops, and three brehons, and three kings.
Ye toiled—who helped thee best?”  “Dubtach, the bard,”
Patrick replied—“Yea, wise was he, and knew
Man’s heart like his own strings.”  “All bards are wise,”
Shouted the youth, “except when war they wage
On thee, the wisest.  In their music bath
They cleanse man’s heart, not less, and thus prepare,
Though hating thee, thy way.  The bards are wise
For all except themselves.  Shall God not save them,
He who would save the worst?  Such grace were hard
Unless, death past, their souls to birds might change,
And in the darksomest grove of Paradise
Lament, amerced, their error, yet rejoice
In souls that walked obedient!”  “Darksomest grove,”
Patrick made answer; “darksome is their life;
Darksome their pride, their love, their joys, their hopes;
Darksome, though gleams of happier lore they have,
Their light!  Seest thou yon forest floor, and o’er it,
The ivy’s flash—earth-light?  Such light is theirs:
By such can no man walk.”