The Legends of Saint Patrick

Then Patrick added, “They that night and morn
Down-lying and up-rising, sing that hymn,
They too that softly whisper it, nigh death,
If pure of heart, and liegeful unto Christ,
Shall see God’s face; and, since the hymn is long,
Its grace shall rest for children and the poor
Full measure on the last three lines; and thou
Of this dear company shalt die the first,
And first of Eire’s Apostles.”  Then his cheek
Secknall laid down once more on Patrick’s foot,
And answered, “Deo Gratias.”

                              Thus in mirth,
And solemn talk, and prayer, that brother band
In the golden age of Faith with great free heart
Gave thanks to God that blissful eventide,
A thousand and four hundred years and more
Gone by.  But now clear rang the compline bell,
And two by two they wended towards their church
Across a space for cloister set apart,
Yet still with wood-flowers sweet, and scent beside
Of sod that evening turned.  The night came on;
A dim ethereal twilight o’er the hills
Deepened to dewy gloom.  Against the sky
Stood ridge and rock unmarked amid the day:
A few stars o’er them shone.  As bower on bower
Let go the waning light, so bird on bird
Let go its song.  Two songsters still remained,
Each feebler than a fountain soon to cease,
And claimed somewhile across the dusking dell
Rivals unseen in sleepy argument,
Each, the last word:—a pause; and then, once more,
An unexpected note:—a longer pause;
And then, past hope, one other note, the last.
A moment more the brethren stood in prayer:
The rising moon upon the church-roof new
Glimmered; and o’er it sang an angel choir,
“Venite Sancti.”  Entering, soon were said
The psalm, “He giveth sleep,” and hymn, “Lætare;”
And in his solitary cell each monk
Lay down, rejoicing in the love of God.

The happy years went by.  When Patrick now
And all his company were housed with God
That hymn, at morning sung, and noon, and eve,
Even as it lulled the waves of warring clans
So lulled with music lives of toil-worn men
And charmed their ebbing breath.  One time it chanced
When in his convent Kevin with his monks
Had sung it thrice, the board prepared, a guest,
Foot-sore and hungered, murmured, “Wherefore thrice?”
And Kevin answered, “Speak not thus, my son,
For while we sang it, visible to all,
Saint Patrick was among us.  At his right
Benignus stood, and, all around, the Twelve,
God’s light upon their brows; while Secknall knelt
Demanding meed of song.  Moreover, son,
This self-same day and hour, twelve months gone by,
Patrick, our Patriarch, died; and happy Feast
Is that he holds, by two short days alone
Severed from his of Hebrew Patriarchs last,
And Chief.  The Holy House at Nazareth
He ruled benign, God’s Warder with white hairs;
And still his feast, that silver star of March,
When snows afflict the hill and frost the moor,
With temperate beam gladdens the vernal Church—
All praise to God who draws that Twain so near.”

THE STRIVING OF SAINT PATRICK ON MOUNT CRUACHAN.

ARGUMENT.

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.

From realm to realm had Patrick trod the Isle;
And evermore God’s work beneath his hand,
Since God had blessed that hand, ran out full-sphered,
And brighter than a new-created star.
The Island race, in feud of clan with clan
Barbaric, gracious else and high of heart,
Nor worshippers of self, nor dulled through sense,
Beholding, not alone his wondrous works;
But, wondrous more, the sweetness of his strength
And how he neither shrank from flood nor fire,
And how he couched him on the wintry rocks,
And how he sang great hymns to One who heard,
And how he cared for poor men and the sick,
And for the souls invisible of men,
To him made way—not simple hinds alone,
But chiefly wisest heads, for wisdom then
Prime wisdom saw in Faith; and, mixt with these,
Chieftains and sceptred kings.  Nigh Tara, first,
Scorning the king’s command, had Patrick lit
His Paschal fire, and heavenward as it soared,
The royal fire and all the Beltaine fires
Shamed by its beam had withered round the Isle
Like fires on little hearths whereon the sun
Looks in his greatness.  Later, to that plain
Central ’mid Eire, “of Adoration” named,
Down-trampled for two thousand years and more
By erring feet of men, the Saint had sped
In Apostolic might, and kenned far off
Ill-pleased, the nation’s idol lifting high
His head, and those twelve vassal gods around
All mailed in gold and shining as the sun,
A pomp impure.  Ill-pleased the Saint had seen them,
And raised the Staff of Jesus with a ban:
Then he, that demon named of men Crom-dubh,
With all his vassal gods, into the earth
That knew her Maker, to their necks had sunk
While round the island rang three times the cry
Of fiends tormented.

                              Not for this as yet
Had Patrick perfected his strength: as yet
The depths he had not trodden; nor had God
Drawn forth His total forces in the man
Hidden long since and sealed.  For this cause he,
Who still his own heart in triumphant hour
Suspected most, remembering Milchoe’s fate,
With fear lest aught of human mar God’s work,
And likewise from his handling of the Gael
Knowing not less their weakness than their strength,
Paused on his conquering way, and lonely sat
In cloud of thought.  The great Lent Fast had come:
Its first three days went by; the fourth, he rose,
And meeting his disciples that drew nigh
Vouchsafed this greeting only: “Bide ye here
Till I return,” and straightway set his face
Alone to that great hill “of eagles” named
Huge Cruachan, that o’er the western deep
Hung through sea-mist, with shadowing crag on crag,
High-ridged, and dateless forest long since dead.

That forest reached, the angel of the Lord
Beside him, as he entered, stood and spake:
“The gifts thy soul demands, demand them not;
For they are mighty and immeasurable,
And over great for granting.”  And the Saint:
“This mountain Cruachan I will not leave
Alive till all be granted, to the last.”

Then knelt he on the shrouded mountain’s base,
And was in prayer; and, wrestling with the Lord,
Demanded wondrous things immeasurable,
Not easy to be granted, for the land;
Nor brooked repulse; and when repulse there came,
Repulse that quells the weak and crowns the strong,
Forth from its gloom like lightning on him flashed
Intelligential gleam and insight winged
That plainlier showed him all his people’s heart,
And all the wound thereof: and as in depth
Knowledge descended, so in height his prayer
Rose, and far spread; nor roused alone those Powers
Regioned with God; for as the strength of fire
When flames some palace pile, or city vast,
Wakens a tempest round it dragging in
Wild blast, and from the aggression mightier grows,
So wakened Patrick’s prayer the demon race,
And drew their legions in upon his soul
From near and far.  First came the Accursed encamped
On Connact’s cloudy hills and watery moors;
Old Umbhall’s Heads, Iorras, and Arran Isle,
And where Tyrawley clasps that sea-girt wood
Fochlut, whence earliest rang the Children’s Cry,
To demons trump of doom.  In stormy rack
They came, and hung above the invested Mount
Expectant.  But, their mutterings heeding not,
When Patrick still in puissance rose of prayer,
O’er all their armies round the realm dispersed
There ran prescience of fate; and, north and south,
From all the mountain-girdled coasts—for still
Best site attracts worst Spirit—on they came,
From Aileach’s shore and Uladh’s hoary cliffs,
Which held the aeries of that eagle race
More late in Alba throned, “Lords of the Isles”—
High chiefs whose bards, in strong transmitted line,
Filled with the name of Fionn, and thine, Oiseen,
The blue glens of that never-vanquished land—
From those purpureal mountains that o’ergaze
Rock-bowered Loch Lene broidered with sanguine bead,
They came, and many a ridge o’er sea-lake stretched
That, autumn-robed in purple and in gold,
Pontific vestment, guard the memories still
Of monks who reared thereon their mystic cells,
Finian and Kieran, Fiacre, and Enda’s self
Of hermits sire, and that sea-facing Saint
Brendan, who, in his wicker boat of skins
Before that Genoese a thousand years
Found a new world; and many more that now
Under wind-wasted Cross of Clonmacnoise
Await the day of Christ.

                              So rushed they on
From all sides, and, close met, in circling storm
Besieged the enclouded steep of Cruachan,
That scarce the difference knew ’twixt night and day
More than the sunless pole.  Him sought they, him
Whom infinitely near they might approach,
Not touch, while firm his faith—their Foe that dragged,
Sole-kneeling on that wood-girt mountain’s base,
With both hands forth their realm’s foundation stone.
Thus ruin filled the mountain: day by day
The forest torment deepened; louder roared
The great aisles of the devastated woods;
Black cave replied to cave; and oaks, whole ranks,
Colossal growth of immemorial years,
Sown ere Milesius landed, or that race
He vanquished, or that earliest Scythian tribe,
Fell in long line, like deep-mined castle wall,
At either side God’s warrior.  Slowly died
At last, far echoed in remote ravines,
The thunder: then crept forth a little voice
That shrilly whispered to him thus in scorn:
“Two thousand years yon race hath walked in blood
Neck-deep; and shall it serve thy Lord of Peace?”
That whisper ceased.  Again from all sides burst
Tenfold the storm; and as it waxed, the Saint
Waxed in strong heart; and, kneeling with stretched hands,
Made for himself a panoply of prayer,
And wound it round his bosom twice and thrice,
And made a sword of comminating psalm,
And smote at them that mocked him.  Day by day,
Till now the second Sunday’s vesper bell
Gladdened the little churches round the isle,
That conflict raged: then, maddening in their ire,
Sudden the Princedoms of the Dark, that rode
This way and that way through the tempest, brake
Their sceptres, and with one great cry it fell:
At once o’er all was silence: sunset lit
The world, that shone as though with face upturned
It gazed on heavens by angel faces thronged
And answered light with light.  A single bird
Carolled; and from the forest skirt down fell,
Gem-like, the last drops of the exhausted storm.

Then bowed the Saint his forehead to the ground
Thanking his God; and there in sacred trance,
Which was not sleep, abode not hours alone
But silent nights and days; and, ’mid that trance,
God fed his heart with unseen Sacraments,
Immortal food.  Awaking, Patrick felt
Yearnings for nearer commune with his God,
Though great its cost; and gat him on his feet,
And, mile by mile, ascended through the woods
Till stunted were its growths; and still he clomb
Printing with sandalled foot the dewy steep:
But when above the mountain rose the moon
Brightening each mist, while sank the prone morass
In double night, he came upon a stone
Tomb-shaped, that flecked that steep: a little stream
Dropped by it from the summits to the woods:
Thereon he knelt; and was once more in prayer.

Nor prayed unnoticed by that race abhorred.
No sooner had his knees the mountain touched
Than through their realm vibration went; and straight
His prayer detecting back they trooped in clouds
And o’er him closed, blotting with bat-like wing
And inky pall, the moon.  Then thunder pealed
Once more, nor ceased from pealing.  Over all
Night ruled, except when blue and forkèd flash
Revealed the on-circling waterspout or plunge
Of rain beneath the blown cloud’s ravelled hem,
Or, huge on high, that lion-coloured steep
Which, like a lion, roared into the night
Answering the roaring from sea-caves far down.
Dire was the strife.  That hour the Mountain old,
An anarch throned ’mid ruins flung himself
In madness forth on all his winds and floods,
An omnipresent wrath!  For God reserved,
Too long the prey of demons he had been;
Possession foul and fell.  Now nigh expelled
Those demons rent their victim freed.  Aloft,
They burst the rocky barrier of the tarn
That downward dashed its countless cataracts,
Drowning far vales.  On either side the Saint
A torrent rushed—mightiest of all these twain—
Peeling the softer substance from the hills
Their flesh, till glared, deep-trenched, the mountain’s bones;
And as those torrents widened, rocks down rolled
Showering upon that unsubverted head
Sharp spray ice-cold.  Before him closed the flood,
And closed behind, till all was raging flood,
All but that tomb-like stone whereon he knelt.

Unshaken there he knelt with hands outstretched,
God’s Athlete!  For a mighty prize he strove,
Nor slacked, nor any whit his forehead bowed:
Fixed was his eye and keen; the whole white face
Keen as that eye itself, though—shapeless yet—
The infernal horde to ear not eye addressed
Their battle.  Back he drave them, rank on rank,
Routed, with psalm, and malison, and ban,
As from a sling flung forth.  Revolt’s blind spawn
He named them; one time Spirits, now linked with brute,
Yea, bestial more and baser: and as a ship
Mounts with the mounting of the wave, so he
O’er all the insurgent tempest of their wrath
Rising rode on triumphant.  Days went by,
Then came a lull; and lo! a whisper shrill,
Once heard before, again its poison cold
Distilled: “Albeit to Christ this land should bow,
Some conqueror’s foot one day would quell her Faith.”
It ceased.  Tenfold once more the storm burst forth:
Once more the ecstatic passion of his prayer
Met it, and, breasting, overbore, until
Sudden the Princedoms of the dark that rode
This way and that way through the whirlwind, dashed
Their vanquished crowns of darkness to the ground
With one long cry.  Then silence came; and lo!
The white dawn of the fourth fair Day of God
O’erflowed the world.  Slowly the Saint upraised
His wearied eyes.  Upon the mountain lawns
Lay happy lights; and birds sang; and a stream
That any five-years’ child might overleap,
Beside him lapsed crystalline between banks
With violets all empurpled, and smooth marge
Green as that spray which earliest sucks the spring.

Then Patrick raised to God his orison
On that fair mount, and planted in the grass
His crozier staff, and slept; and in his sleep
God fed his heart with unseen Sacraments,
Manna of might divine.  Three days he slept;
The fourth he woke.  Upon his heart there rushed
Yearning for closer converse with his God
Though great its cost; and on his feet he gat,
And high, and higher yet, that mountain scaled,
And reached at noon the summit.  Far below
Basking the island lay, through rainbow shower
Gleaming in part, with shadowy moor, and ridge
Blue in the distance looming.  Westward stretched
A galaxy of isles, and, these beyond,
Infinite sea with sacred light ablaze,
And high o’erhead there hung a cloudless heaven.

Upon that summit kneeling, face to sea
The Saint, with hands held forth and thanks returned,
Claimed as his stately heritage that realm
From north to south: but instant as his lip
Printed with earliest pulse of Christian prayer
That clear aërial clime Pagan till then;
The Host Accursed, sagacious of his act,
Rushed back from all the isle and round him met
With anger seven times heated, since their hour,
And this they knew, was come.  Nor thunder din
And challenge through the ear alone, sufficed
That hour their rage malign that, craving sore
Material bulk to rend his bulk—their foe’s—
Through fleshly strength of that their murder-lust
Flamed forth in fleshly form phantoms night-black
Though bodiless yet to bodied mass as nigh
As Spirits can reach.  More thick than vultures winged
To fields with carnage piled, the Accursèd thronged
Making thick night which neither earth nor sky
Could pierce, from sense expunged.  In phalanx now,
Anon in breaking legion, or in globe,
With clang of iron pinion on they rushed
And spectral dart high-held.  Nor quailed the Saint,
Contending for his people on that Mount,
Nor spared God’s foes; for as old minster towers
Besieged by midnight storm send forth reply
In storm outrolled of bells, so sent he forth
Defiance from fierce lip, vindictive chaunt,
And blight and ban, and maledictive rite
Potent on face of Spirits impure to raise
These plague-spots three, Defeat, Madness, Despair;
Nor stinted flail of taunt—“When first my bark
Threatened your coasts, as now upon the hills
Hung ye in cloud; as now, I raised this Cross;
Ye fled before it and again shall fly!”
So hurled he back their squadrons.  Day by day
The hurricanes of war shook earth and heaven:
Till now, on Holy Saturday, that hour
Returned which maketh glad the Church of God
When over Christendom in widowed fanes
Two days by penance stripped, and dumb as though
Some Antichrist had trodd’n them down, once more
Swells forth amid the new-lit paschal lights
The “Gloria in Excelsis:” sudden then
That mighty conflict ceased, save one low voice
Twice heard before, now edged with bitterer scoff,
“That race thou lov’st, though fierce in wrath, is soft:
Plenty and peace will melt their Faith one day:”
Then with that whisper dying, died the night:
Then forth from darkness issued earth and sky:
Then fled the phantoms far o’er ocean’s wave,
Thence to return not till the day of doom.

But he, their conqueror wept, upon that height
Standing; nor of his victory had he joy,
Nor of that jubilant isle restored to light,
Nor of that heaven relit; so worked that scoff
Winged from the abyss; and ever thus the man
With darkness communed and that poison cold:
“If Faith indeed should flood the land with peace,
And peace with gold, and gold eat out her heart
Once true, till Faith one day through Faith’s reward
Or die, or live diseased, the shame of Faith,
Then blacker were this land and more accursed
Than lands that knew no Christ.”  And musing thus
The whole heart of the man was turned to tears,
A fount of bale and chalice brimmed with death—
For oft a thought chance-born more racks than truth
Proven and sure—and, weeping, still he wept
Till drenched was all his sad monastic cowl
As sea-weed on the dripping shelf storm-cast
Latest, and tremulous still.

                              As thus he wept
Sudden beside him on that summit broad,
Ran out a golden beam like sunset path
Gilding the sea: and, turning, by his side
Victor, God’s angel, stood with lustrous brow
Fresh from that Face no man can see and live.
He, putting forth his hand, with living coal
Snatched from God’s altar, made that dripping cowl
Dry as an Autumn sheaf.  The angel spake:
“Rejoice, for they are fled that hate thy land,
And those are nigh that love it.”  Then the Saint
Upraised his head; and lo! in snowy sheen
Cresting high rock, and ridge, and airy peak,
Innumerable the Sons of God all round
Vested the invisible mountain with white light,
As when the foam-white birds of ocean throng
Sea-rock so close that none that rock may see.
In trance the Living Creatures stood, with wings
That pointing crossed upon their breasts; nor seemed
As new arrived but native to that site
Though veiled till now from mortal vision.  Song
They sang to soothe the vexed heart of the Saint—
Love-song of Heaven: and slowly as it died
Their splendours waned; and through that vanishing light
Earth, sea, and heaven returned.

                              To Patrick then,
Thus Victor spake: “Depart from Cruachan,
Since God hath given thee wondrous gifts, immense,
And through thy prayer routed that rebel host.”
And Patrick, “Till the last of all my prayers
Be granted, I depart not though I die:—
One said, ‘Too fierce that race to bend to faith.’”
Then spake God’s angel, mild of voice, and kind:
“Not all are fierce that fiercest seem, for oft
Fierceness is blindfold love, or love ajar.
Souls thou wouldst have: for every hair late wet
In this thy tearful cowl and habit drenched
God gives thee myriads seven of Souls redeemed
From sin and doom; and Souls, beside, as many
As o’er yon sea in legioned flight might hang
Far as thine eye can range.  But get thee down
From Cruachan, for mighty is thy prayer.”
And Patrick made reply: “Not great thy boon!
Watch have I kept, and wearied are mine eyes
And dim; nor see they far o’er yonder deep.”
And Victor: “Have thou Souls from coast to coast
In cloud full-stretched; but, get thee down: this Mount
God’s Altar is, and puissance adds to prayer.”
And Patrick: “On this Mountain wept have I;
And therefore giftless will I not depart:
One said, ‘Although that People should believe
Yet conqueror’s heel one day would quell their Faith.’”
To whom the angel, mild of voice, and kind:
“Conquerors are they that subjugate the soul:
This also God concedes thee; conquering foe
Trampling this land, shall tread not out her Faith
Nor sap by fraud, so long as thou in heaven
Look’st on God’s Face; nay, by that Faith subdued,
That foe shall serve and live.  But get thee down
And worship in the vale.”  Then Patrick said,
“Live they that list!  Full sorely wept have I,
Nor will I hence depart unsatisfied:
One said; ‘Grown soft, that race their Faith will shame;’
Say therefore what the Lord thy God will grant,
Nor stint His hand; since never scanter grace
Fell yet on head of nation-taming man
Than thou to me hast portioned till this hour.”

Then answer made the angel, soft of voice:
“Not all men stumble when a Nation falls;
There are that stand upright.  God gives thee this:
They that are faithful to thy Faith, that walk
Thy way, and keep thy covenant with God,
And daily sing thy hymn, when comes the Judge
With Sign blood-red facing Jehosaphat,
And fear lays prone the many-mountained world,
The same shall ’scape the doom.”  And Patrick said,
“That hymn is long, and hard for simple folk,
And hard for children.”  And the angel thus:
“At least from ‘Christum Illum’ let them sing,
And keep thy Faith: when comes the Judge, the pains
Shall take not hold of such.  Is that enough?”
And Patrick answered, “That is not enough.”
Then Victor: “Likewise this thy God accords:
The Dreadful Coming and the Day of Doom
Thy land shall see not; for before that day
Seven years, a great wave arched from out the deep,
Ablution pure, shall sweep the isle and take
Her children to its peace.  Is that enough?”
And Patrick answered, “That is not enough.”

Then spake once more that courteous angel kind:
“What boon demand’st then?”  And the Saint, “No less
Than this.  Though every nation, ere that day
Recreant from creed and Christ, old troth forsworn,
Should flee the sacred scandal of the Cross
Through pride, as once the Apostles fled through fear,
This Nation of my love, a priestly house,
Beside that Cross shall stand, fate-firm, like him
That stood beside Christ’s Mother.”  Straightway, as one
Who ends debate, the angel answered stern:
“That boon thou claimest is too great to grant:
Depart thou from this mountain, Cruachan,
In peace; and find that Nation which thou lov’st,
That like thy body is, and thou her head,
For foes are round her set in valley and plain,
And instant is the battle.”  Then the Saint:
“The battle for my People is not there,
With them, low down, but here upon this height
From them apart, with God.  This Mount of God
Dowerless and bare I quit not till I die;
And dying, I will leave a Man Elect
To keep its keys, and pray my prayer, and name
Dying in turn, his heir, successive line,
Even till the Day of Doom.”

                              Then heavenward sped
Victor, God’s angel, and the Man of God
Turned to his offering; and all day he stood
Offering in heart that Offering Undefiled
Which Abel offered, and Melchisedek,
And Abraham, Patriarch of the faithful race,
In type, and which in fulness of the times
The Victim-Priest offered on Calvary,
And, bloodless, offers still in Heaven and Earth,
Whose impetration makes the whole Church one.
Thus offering stood the man till eve, and still
Offered; and as he offered, far in front
Along the aërial summit once again
Ran out that beam like fiery pillar prone
Or sea-path sunset-paved; and by his side
That angel stood.  Then Patrick, turning not
His eyes in prayer upon the West close held
Demanded, “From the Maker of all worlds
What answer bring’st thou?”  Victor made reply:
“Down knelt in Heaven the Angelic Orders Nine,
And all the Prophets and the Apostles knelt,
And all the Creatures of the hand of God
Visible, and invisible, down knelt,
While thou thy mighty Mass, though altarless,
Offeredst in spirit, and thine Offering joined;
And all God’s Saints on earth, or roused from sleep
Or on the wayside pausing, knelt, the cause
Not knowing; likewise yearned the Souls to God
In that fire-clime benign that clears from sin;
And lo! the Lord thy God hath heard thy prayer,
Since fortitude in prayer—and this thou know’st,”—
Smiling the Bright One spake, “is that which lays
Man’s hand upon God’s sceptre.  That thou sought’st
Shall lack not consummation.  Many a race
Shrivelling in sunshine of its prosperous years,
Shall cease from faith, and, shamed though shameless, sink
Back to its native clay; but over thine
God shall extend the shadow of His Hand,
And through the night of centuries teach to her
In woe that song which, when the nations wake,
Shall sound their glad deliverance: nor alone
This nation, from the blind dividual dust
Of instincts brute, thoughts driftless, warring wills
By thee evoked and shapen by thy hands
To God’s fair image which confers alone
Manhood on nations, shall to God stand true;
But nations far in undiscovered seas,
Her stately progeny, while ages fleet
Shall wear the kingly ermine of her Faith,
Fleece uncorrupted of the Immaculate Lamb,
For ever: lands remote shall raise to God
Her fanes; and eagle-nurturing isles hold fast
Her hermit cells: thy nation shall not walk
Accordant with the Gentiles of this world,
But as a race elect sustain the Crown
Or bear the Cross: and when the end is come,
When in God’s Mount the Twelve great Thrones are set,
And round it roll the Rivers Four of fire,
And in their circuit meet the Peoples Three
Of Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, fulfilled that day
Shall be the Saviour’s word, what time He stretched
Thy crozier-staff forth from His glory-cloud
And sware to thee, ‘When they that with Me walked
Sit with Me on their everlasting thrones
Judging the Twelve Tribes of Mine Israel,
Thy People thou shalt judge in righteousness.’

Thou therefore kneel, and bless thy Land of Eire.”

Then Patrick knelt, and blessed the land, and said,
“Praise be to God who hears the sinner’s prayer.”

EPILOGUE.

THE CONFESSION OF SAINT PATRICK.

ARGUMENT.

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.

At Saul then, by the inland-spreading sea,
There where began my labour, comes the end:
I, blind and witless, willed it otherwise:
God willed it thus.  When prescience came of death
I said, “My Resurrection place I choose”—
O fool, for ne’er since boyhood choice was mine
Save choice to subject will of mine to God—
“At great Ardmacha.”   Thitherward I turned;
But in my pathway, with forbidding hand,
Victor, God’s angel stood.  “Not so,” he said,
“For in Ardmacha stands thy princedom fixed,
Age after age, thy teaching, and thy law,
But not thy grave.  Return thou to that shore
Thy place of small beginnings, and thereon
Lessen in body and mind, and grow in spirit:
Then sing to God thy little hymn and die.”

Yea, Lord, my mouth would praise Thee ere I die,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit
Who knittest in His Church the just to Christ:
Help me, my sons—mine orphans soon to be—
Help me to praise Him; ye that round me sit
On those grey rocks; ye that have faithful been,
Honouring, despite dishonour of my sins,
His servant: I would praise Him yet once more,
Though mine the stammerer’s voice, or as a child’s;
For it is written, “Stammerers shall speak plain
Sounding Thy Gospel.”  “They whom Christ hath sent
Are Christ’s Epistle, borne to ends of earth,
Writ by His Spirit, and plain to souls elect:”
Lord, am not I of Thine Apostolate?

Yea, by abjection Thine, by suffering Thine!
Till I was humbled I was as a stone
In deep mire sunk.  Then, stretched from heaven, Thy hand
Slid under me in might, and lifted me,
And fixed me in Thy Temple where Thou wouldst.
Wonder, ye great ones, wonder, ye the wise!
On me, the last and least, this charge was laid
This crown, that I in humbleness and truth
Should walk this nation’s Servant till I die.

Therefore, a youth of sixteen years, or less,
With others of my land by pirates seized
I stood on Erin’s shore.  Our bonds were just;
Our God we had forsaken, and His Law,
And mocked His priests.  Tending a stern man’s swine
I trod those Dalaraida hills that face
Eastward to Alba.  Six long years went by;
But—sent from God—Memory, and Faith, and Fear
Moved on my spirit as winds upon the sea,
And the Spirit of Prayer came down.  Full many a day
Climbing the mountain tops, one hundred times
I flung upon the storm my cry to God.
Nor frost, nor rain might harm me, for His love
Burned in my heart.  Through love I made my fast;
And in my fasts one night I heard this voice,
“Thou fastest well: soon shalt thou see thy Land.”
Later, once more thus spake it: “Southward fly,
Thy ship awaits thee.”  Many a day I fled,
And found the black ship dropping down the tide,
And entered with those Gentiles by Thy grace
Vanquished, though first they spurned me, and was free.
It was Thy leading, Lord; the Hand was Thine!
For now when, perils past, I walked secure,
Kind greetings round me, and the Christian Rite,
There rose a clamorous yearning in my heart,
And memories of that land so far, so fair,
And lost in such a gloom.  And through that gloom
The eyes of little children shone on me,
So ready to believe!  Such children oft
Ran by me naked in and out the waves,
Or danced in circles upon Erin’s shores,
Like creatures never fallen!  Thought of such
Passed into thought of others.  From my youth
Both men and women, maidens most, to me
As children seemed; and O the pity then
To mark how oft they wept, how seldom knew
Whence came the wound that galled them!  As I walked,
Each wind that passed me whispered, “Lo, that race
Which trod thee down!  Requite with good their ill!
Thou know’st their tongue; old man to thee, and youth,
For counsel came, and lambs would lick thy foot;
And now the whole land is a sheep astray
That bleats to God.”

                              Alone one night I mused,
Burthened with thought of that vocation vast.
O’er-spent I sank asleep.  In visions then,
Satan my soul plagued with temptation dire.
Methought, beneath a cliff I lay, and lo!
Thick-legioned demons o’er me dragged a rock,
That falling, seemed a mountain.  Near, more near,
O’er me it blackened.  Sudden from my heart
This thought leaped forth: “Elias!  Him invoke!”
That name invoked, vanished the rock; and I,
On mountains stood watching the rising sun,
As stood Elias once on Carmel’s crest,
Gazing on heaven unbarred, and that white cloud,
A thirsting land’s salvation.

                              Might Divine!
Thou taught’st me thus my weakness; and I vowed
To seek Thy strength.  I turned my face to Tours,
There where in years gone by Thy soldier-priest
Martin had ruled, my kinsman in the flesh.
Dead was the lion; but his lair was warm:
In it I laid me, and a conquering glow
Rushed up into my heart.  I heard discourse
Of Martin still, his valour in the Lord,
His rugged warrior zeal, his passionate love
For Hilary, his vigils, and his fasts,
And all his pitiless warfare on the Powers
Of darkness; and one day, in secrecy,
With Ninian, missioned then to Alba’s shore,
I peered into his branch-enwoven cell,
Half-way between the river and the rocks,
From Tours a mile and more.

                              So passed eight years
Till strengthened was my heart by discipline:
Then spake a priest, “Brother, thy will is good,
Yet rude thou art of learning as a beast;
Fare thee to great Germanus of Auxerres,
Who lightens half the West!”  I heard, and went,
And to that Saint was subject fourteen years.
He from my mind removed the veil; “Lift up,”
He said, “thine eyes!” and like a mountain land
The Queenly Science stood before me plain,
From rocky buttress up to peak of snow:
The great Commandments first, Edicts, and Laws
That bastion up man’s life:—then high o’er these
The forest huge of Doctrine, one, yet many,
Forth stretching in innumerable aisles,
At the end of each, the self-same glittering star:—
Lastly, the Life God-hidden.  Day by day,
With him for guide, that first and second realm
I tracked, and learned to shun the abyss flower-veiled,
And scale heaven-threatening heights.  This, too, he taught,
Himself long time a ruler and a prince,
The regimen of States from chaos won
To order, and to Christ.  Prudence I learned,
And sageness in the government of men,
By me sore needed soon.  O stately man,
In all things great, in action and in thought,
And plain as great!  To Britain called, the Saint
Trod down that great Pelagian Blasphemy,
Chief portent of the age.  But better far
He loved his cell.  There sat he vigil-worn,
In cowl and dusky tunic hued like earth
Whence issued man and unto which returns;
I marvelled at his wrinkled brows, and hands
Still tracing, enter or depart who would,
From morn to night his parchments.

                              There, once more,
O God, Thine eye was on me, or my hand
Once more had missed the prize.  Temptation now
Whispered in softness, “Wisdom’s home is here:
Here bide untroubled.”  Almost I had fallen;
But, by my side, in visions of the night,
God’s angel, Victor, stood as one that hastes,
On travel sped.  Unnumbered missives lay
Clasped in his hands.  One stretched he forth, inscribed
“The wail of Erin’s Children.”  As I read
The cry of babes, from Erin’s western coast
And Fochlut’s forest, and the wintry sea,
Shrilled o’er me, clamouring, “Holy youth, return!
Walk then among us!”  I could read no more.

   Thenceforth rose up renewed mine old desire:
My kinsfolk mocked me.  “What! past woes too scant!
Slave of four masters, and the best a churl!
Thy Gospel they will trample under foot,
And rend thee!  Late to them Palladius preached:
They drave him as a leper from their shores.”
I stood in agony of staggering mind
And warring wills.  Then, lo! at dead of night
I heard a mystic voice, till then unheard,
I knew not if within me or close by
That swelled in passionate pleading; nor the words
Grasped I, so great they seemed and wonderful,
Till sank that tempest to a whisper:—“He
Who died for thee is He that in thee groans.”
Then fell, methought, scales from mine inner eyes:
Then saw I—terrible that sight, yet sweet—
Within me saw a Man that in me prayed
With groans unutterable.  That Man was girt
For mission far.  My heart recalled that word,
“The Spirit helpeth our infirmities;
That which we lack we know not, but the Spirit
Himself for us doth intercession make
With groanings which may never be revealed.”
That hour my vow was vowed; and he approved,
My master and my guide.  “But go,” he said,
“First to that island in the Tyrrhene Sea,
Where live the high Contemplatives to God:
There learn perfection; there that Inner Life
Win thou, God’s strength amid the world’s loud storm:
Nor fear lest God should frown on such delay,
For Heavenly Wisdom is compassionate:
Slowly before man’s weakness moves it on;
Softly: so moved of old the Wise Men’s Star,
Which curbed its lightning ardours and forbore
Honouring the pensive tread of hoary Eld,
Honouring the burthened slave, the camel line
Long-linked, with level head and foot that fell
As though in sleep, printing the silent sands.”
Thus, smiling, spake Germanus, large in lore.

So in that island-Eden I sojourned,
Lerins, and saw where Vincent lived, and his,
Life fountained from on high.  That life was Love;
For all their mighty knowledge food became
Of Love Divine, and took, by Love absorbed,
Shape from his flame-like body.  Hard their beds;
Ceaseless their prayers.  They tilled a sterile soil;
Beneath their hands it blossomed like the rose:
O’er thymy hollows blew the nectared airs;
Blue ocean flashed through olives.  They had fled
From praise of men; yet cities far away
Rapt those meek saints to fill the bishop’s throne.
I saw the light of God on faces calm
That blended with man’s meditative might
Simplicity of childhood, and, with both
The sweetness of that flower-like sex which wears
Through love’s Obedience twofold crowns of Love.
O blissful time!  In that bright island bloomed
The third high region on the Hills of God,
Above the rock, above the wood, the cloud:—
There laughs the luminous air, there bursts anew
Spring bud in summer on suspended lawns;
There the bell tinkles while once more the lamb
Trips by the sun-fed runnel: there green vales
Lie lost in purple heavens.

                              Transfigured Life!
This was thy glory, that, without a sigh,
Who loved thee yet could leave thee!  Thus it fell:
One morning I was on the sea, and lo!
An isle to Lerins near, but fairer yet,
Till then unseen!  A grassy vale sea-lulled
Wound inward, breathing balm, with fruited trees,
And stream through lilies gliding.  By a door
There stood a man in prime, and others sat
Not far, some grey; and one, a weed of years,
Lay like a withered wreath.  An old man spake:
“See what thou seest, and scan the mystery well!
The man who stands so stately in his prime
Is of this company the eldest born.
The Saviour in His earthly sojourn, Risen,
Perchance, or ere His Passion, who can tell,
Stood up at this man’s door; and this man rose,
And let Him in, and made for Him a feast;
And Jesus said, ‘Tarry, till I return.’
Moreover, others are there on this isle,
Both men and maids, who saw the Son of Man,
And took Him in, and shine in endless youth;
But we, the rest, in course of nature fade,
For we believe, yet saw not God, nor touched.”
Then spake I, “Here till death my home I make,
Where Jesus trod.”  And answered he in prime,
“Not so; the Master hath for thee thy task.
Parting, thus spake He: ‘Here for Mine Elect
Abide thou.  Bid him bear this crozier staff;
My blessing rests thereon: the same shall drive
The foes of God before him.’”  Answer thus
I made, “That crozier staff I will not touch
Until I take it from that nail-pierced Hand.”
From these I turned, and clomb a mountain high,
Hermon by name; and there—was this, my God,
In visions of the Lord, or in the flesh?—
I spake with Him, the Lord of Life, Who died;
He from the glory stretched the Hand nail-pierced,
And placed in mine that crozier staff, and said:
“Upon that day when they that with Me walked
Sit with Me on their everlasting Thrones,
Judging the Twelve Tribes of Mine Israel,
Thy People thou shalt judge in righteousness.”

Forthwith to Rome I fled; there knelt I down
Above the bones of Peter and of Paul,
And saw the mitred embassies from far,
And saw Celestine with his head high held
As though it bore the Blessed Sacrament;
Chief Shepherd of the Saviour’s flock on earth.
Tall was the man, and swift; white-haired; with eye
Starlike and voice a trumpet clear that pealed
God’s Benediction o’er the city and globe;
Yea, and whene’er his palm he lifted, still
Blessing before it ran.  Upon my head
He laid both hands, and “Win,” he said, “to Christ
One realm the more!”  Moreover, to my charge
Relics he gave, unnumbered, without price;
And when those relics lost had been, and found,
And at his feet I wept, he chided not;
But, smiling, said, “Thy glorious task fulfilled,
House them in thy new country’s stateliest church
By cresset girt of ever-burning lamps,
And never-ceasing anthems.”

                              Northward then
Returned I, missioned.  Yet once more, but once,
That old temptation proved me.  When they sat,
The Elders, making inquest of my life,
Sudden a certain brother rose, and spake,
“Shall this man be a Bishop, who hath sinned?”
My dearest friend was he.  To him alone
One time had I divulged a sin by me
Through ignorance wrought when fifteen years of age;
And after thirty years, behold, once more,
That sin had found me out!  He knew my mission:
When in mine absence slander sought my name,
Mine honour he had cleared.  Yet now—yet now—
That hour the iron passed into my soul:
Yea, well nigh all was lost.  I wept, “Not one,
No heart of man there is that knows my heart,
Or in its anguish shares.”

                              Yet, O my God!
I blame him not: from Thee that penance came:
Not for man’s love should Thine Apostle strive,
Thyself alone his great and sole reward.
Thou laid’st that hour a fiery hand of love
Upon a faithless heart; and it survived.

At dead of night a Vision gave me peace.
Slowly from out the breast of darkness shone
Strange characters, a writing unrevealed:
And slowly thence and infinitely sad,
A Voice: “Ill-pleased, this day have we beheld
The face of the Elect without a name.”
It said not, “Thou hast grieved,” but “We have grieved;”
With import plain, “O thou of little faith!
Am I not nearer to thee than thy friends?
Am I not inlier with thee than thyself?”
Then I remembered, “He that touches you
Doth touch the very apple of mine eye.”
Serene I slept.  At morn I rose and ran
Down to the shore, and found a boat, and sailed.

That hour true life’s beginning was, O Lord,
Because the work Thou gav’st into my hands
Prospered between them.  Yea, and from the work
The Power forth issued.  Strength in me was none,
Nor insight, till the occasion: then Thy sword
Flamed in my grasp, and beams were in mine eyes
That showed the way before me, and nought else.
Thou mad’st me know Thy Will.  As taper’s light
Veers with a wind man feels not, o’er my heart
Hovered thenceforth some Pentecostal flame
That bent before that Will.  Thy Truth, not mine,
Lightened this People’s mind; Thy Love inflamed
Their hearts; Thy Hope upbore them as on wings.
Valiant that race, and simple, and to them
Not hard the godlike venture of belief:
Conscience was theirs: tortuous too oft in life
Their thoughts, when passionate most, then most were true,
Heart-true.  With naked hand firmly they clasped
The naked Truth: in them Belief was Act.
A tribe from Thy far East they called themselves:
Their clans were Patriarch households, rude through war:
Old Pagan Rome had known them not; their Isle
Virgin to Christ had come.  Oh how unlike
Her sons to those old Roman Senators,
Scorn of Germanus oft, who breathed the air
Fouled by dead Faiths successively blown out,
Or Grecian sophist with his world of words,
That, knowing all, knew nothing!  Praise to Thee,
Lord of the night-time as the day, Who keep’st
Reserved in blind barbaric innocence,
Pure breed, when boastful lights corrupt the wise,
With healthier fruit to bless a later age.

   I to that people all things made myself
For Christ’s sake, building still that good they lacked
On good already theirs.  In courts of kings
I stood: before mine eye their eye went down,
For Thou wert with me.  Gentle with the meek,
I suffered not the proud to mock my face:
Thus by the anchors twain of Love and Fear,
Since Love, not perfected, gains strength from Fear,
I bound to thee This nation.  Parables
I spake in; parables in act I wrought
Because the people’s mind was in the sense.
At Imbher Dea they scoffed Thy word: I raised
Thy staff, and smote with barrenness that flood:
Then learned they that the world was Thine, not ruled
By Sun or Moon, their famed “God-Elements:”
Yea, like Thy Fig-tree cursed, that river banned
Witnessed Thy Love’s stern pureness.  From the grass
The little three-leaved herb, I stooped and plucked,
And preached the Trinity.  Thy Staff I raised,
And bade—not ravening beast—but reptiles foul
Flee to the abyss like that blind herd of old;
Then spake I: “Be not babes, but understand:
Thus in your spirit lift the Cross of Christ:
Banish base lusts; so God shall with you walk
As once with man in Eden.”  With like aim
Convents I reared for holy maids, then sought
The marriage feast, and cried, “If God thus draws
Close to Himself those virgin hearts, and yet
Blesses the bridal troth, and infant’s font,
How white a thing should be the Christian home!”
Marvelling, they learned what heritage their God
Possessed in them! how wide a realm, how fair.

Lord, save in one thing only, I was weak—
I loved this people with a mother’s love,
For their sake sanctified my spirit to thee
In vigil, fast, and meditation long,
On mountain and on moor.  Thus, Lord, I wrought,
Trusting that so Thy lineaments divine,
Deeplier upon my spirit graved, might pass
Thence on that hidden burthen which my heart
Still from its substance feeding, with great pangs
Strove to bring forth to Thee.  O loyal race!
Me too they loved.  They waited me all night
On lonely roads; and, as I preached, the day
To those high listeners seemed a little hour.
Have I not seen ten thousand brows at once
Flash in the broad light of some Truth new risen,
And felt like him, that Saint who cried, flame-girt,
“At last do I begin to be a Christian?”
Have I not seen old foes embrace?  Seen him,
That white-haired man who dashed him on the ground,
Crying aloud, “My buried son, forgive!
Thy sire hath touched the hand that shed thy blood?”
Fierce chiefs knelt down in penance!  Lord! how oft
Shook I their tear-drop sparkles from my gown!
’Twas the forgiveness taught them all the debt,
Great-hearted penitents!  How many a youth
Contemned the praise of men!  How many a maid—
O not in narrowness, but Love’s sweet pride
And love-born shyness—jealous for a mate
Himself not jealous—spurned terrestrial love,
Glorying in heavenly Love’s fair oneness!  Race
High-dowered!  God’s Truth seemed some remembered thing
To them; God’s Kingdom smiled, their native haunt
Prophesied then their daughters and their sons:
Each man before the face of each upraised
His hand on high, and said, “The Lord hath risen!”
Then, like a stream from ice released, forth fled
And wafted far the tidings, flung them wide,
Shouted them loud from rocky ridge o’er bands
Marching far down to war!  The sower sowed
With happier hope; the reaper bending sang,
“Thus shall God’s Angels reap the field of God
When we are ripe for heaven.”  Lovers new-wed
Drank of that water changed to wine, thenceforth
Breathing on earth heaven’s sweetness.  Unto such
More late, whate’er of brightness time or will
Infirm had dimmed, shone back from infant brows
By baptism lit.  Each age its garland found:
Fair shone on trustful childhood faith divine:
Eld, once a weight of wrinkles now upsoared
In venerable lordship of white hairs,
Seer-like and sage.  Healed was a nation’s wound:
All men believed who willed not disbelief;
And sat in that oppugnancy steel-mailed:
They cried, “Before thy priests our bards shall bow,
And all our clans put on thy great Clan Christ!”

   For your sake, O my brethren, and my sons
These things have I recorded.  Something I wrought:
Strive ye in loftier labours; strive, and win:
Your victory shall be mine: my crown are ye.
My part is ended now.  I lived for Truth:
I to this people gave that truth I knew;
My witnesses ye are I grudged it not:
Freely did I receive, freely I gave;
Baptising, or confirming, or ordaining,
I sold not things divine.  Of mine own store
Ofttimes the hire of fifteen men I paid
For guard where bandits lurked.  When prince or chief
Laid on God’s altar ring, or torque, or gold,
I sent them back.  Too fortunate, too beloved,
I said, “Can he Apostle be who bears
Such scanty marks of Christ’s Apostolate,
Hunger, and thirst, and scorn of men?”  For this,
Those pains they spared I spared not to myself,
The body’s daily death.  I make not boast:
What boast have I?  If God His servant raised,
He knoweth—not ye—how oft I fell; how low;
How oft in faithless longings yearned my heart
For faces of His Saints in mine own land,
Remembered fields far off.  This, too, He knoweth,
How perilous is the path of great attempts,
How oft pride meets us on the storm-vexed height,
Pride, or some sting its scourge.  My hope is He:
His hand, my help so long, will loose me never:
And, thanks to God, the sheltering grave is near.

   How still this eve!  The morn was racked with storm:
’Tis past; the skylark sings; the tide at flood
Sighs a soft joy: alone those lines of weed
Report the wrath foregone.  Yon watery plain
Far shines, a mingled sea of glass and fire,
Even as that Beatific Sea outspread
Before the Throne of God.  ’Tis Paschal Tide;—
O sorrowful, O blissful Paschal Tide!
Fain would I die on Holy Saturday;
For then, as now, the storm is past—the woe;
And, somewhere ’mid the shades of Olivet
Lies sealed the sacred cave of that Repose
Watched by the Holy Women.  Earth, that sing’st,
Since first He made thee, thy Creator’s praise,
Sing, sing, thy Saviour’s!  Myriad-minded sea,
How that bright secret thrills thy rippling lips
Which shake, yet speak not!  Thou that mad’st the worlds,
Man, too, Thou mad’st; within Thy Hands the life
Of each was shapen, and new-wov’n ran out,
New-willed each moment.  What makes up that life?
Love infinite, and nothing else save love!
Help ere need came, deliverance ere defeat;
At every step an angel to sustain us,
An angel to retrieve!  My years are gone:
Sweet were they with a sweetness felt but half
Till now;—not half discerned.  Those blessèd years
I would re-live, deferring thus so long
The Vision of Thy Face, if thus with gaze
Cast backward I might see that guiding hand
Step after step, and kiss it.

                              Happy isle!
Be true; for God hath graved on thee His Name:
God, with a wondrous ring, hath wedded thee;
God on a throne divine hath ’stablished thee:—
Light of a darkling world!  Lamp of the North!
My race, my realm, my great inheritance,
To lesser nations leave inferior crowns;
Speak ye the thing that is; be just, be kind;
Live ye God’s Truth, and in its strength be free!

This day to Him, the Faithful and the True,
For Whom I toiled, my spirit I commend.
That which I am, He knoweth: I know not now:
But I shall know ere long.  If I have loved Him
I seek but this for guerdon of my love
With holier love to love Him to the end:
If I have vanquished others to His love
Would God that this might be their meed and mine
In witness for His love to pour our blood
A glad stream forth, though vultures or wild beasts
Rent our unburied bones!  Thou setting sun,
That sink’st to rise, that time shall come at last
When in thy splendours thou shalt rise no more;
And, darkening with the darkening of thy face,
Who worshipped thee with thee shall cease; but those
Who worshipped Christ shall shine with Christ abroad,
Eternal beam, and Sun of Righteousness,
In endless glory.  For His sake alone
I, bondsman in this land, re-sought this land.
All ye who name my name in later times,
Say to this People, since vindictive rage
Tempts them too often, that their Patriarch gave
Pattern of pardon ere in words he preached
That God who pardons.  Wrongs if they endure
In after years, with fire of pardoning love
Sin-slaying, bid them crown the head that erred:
For bread denied let them give Sacraments,
For darkness light, and for the House of Bondage
The glorious freedom of the sons of God:
This is my last Confession ere I die.

NOTES.

[10a]  Cotton MSS., Nero, E.’; Codex Salisburiensis; and a MS. in the Monastery of St. Vaast.

[10b]  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.

[77]  The Isle of Man.

[101]  Now Limerick.

[111]  Foynes.

[116]  The Giant’s Causeway.