KING OSWY OF NORTHUMBRIA, OR THE WIFE'S VICTORY.

Oswy, King of Bernicia, being at war with his kinsman Oswin, slays him unarmed. He refuses to repent of this sin; yet at last, subdued by the penitence, humility, and charity of Eanfleda, his wife, repents likewise, and builds a monastery over the grave of Oswin. Afterwards he becomes a great warrior and dies a saint.

Young, beauteous, brave—the bravest of the brave—
 Who loved not Oswin? All that saw him loved:
 Aidan loved most, monk of Iona's Isle,
 Northumbria's bishop next, from Lindisfarne
 Ruling in things divine. One morn it chanced
 That Oswin, noting how with staff in hand
 Old Aidan roamed his spiritual realm, footbare,
 Wading deep stream, and piercing thorny brake,
 Sent him a horse—his best. The Saint was pleased;
 But, onward while he rode, and, musing, smiled
 To think of these his honours in old age,
 A beggar claimed his alms. 'Gold have I none,'
 Aidan replied; 'this horse be thine!' The King,
 Hearing the tale, was grieved. 'Keep I, my lord,
 No meaner horses fit for beggar's use
 That thus my best should seem a thing of naught?'
 The Saint made answer: 'Beggar's use, my King!
 What was that horse? The foal of some poor mare!
 The least of men—the sinner—is God's child!'
 Then dropped the King on both his knees, and cried:
 'Father, forgive me!' As they sat at meat
 Oswin was mirthful, and at jest and tale
 His hungry thanes laughed loud. But great, slow tears
 In silence trickled down old Aidan's face:
 These all men marked; yet no man question made.
 At last to one beside him Aidan spake
 In Irish tongue, unknown to all save them,
 'God will not leave such meekness long on earth.'
Who loved not Oswin? Not alone his realm,
 Dëira, loved him, but Bernician lords
 Whose monarch, Oswy, was a man of storms,
 Fierce King albeit in youth baptized to Christ;
 At heart half pagan. Swift as northern cloud
 Through summer skies, he swept with all his host
 Down on the rival kingdom. Face to face
 The armies stood. But Oswin, when he marked
 His own a little flock 'mid countless wolves,
 Addressed them thus: 'Why perish, friends, for me?
 From exile came I: for my people's sake
 To exile I return, or gladlier die:
 Depart in peace.' He rode to Gilling Tower;
 And waited there his fate. Thither next day
 King Oswy marched, and slew him.
 Twelve days passed;
 Then Aidan, while through green Northumbria's woods
 Pensive he paced, steadying his doubtful steps,
 Felt death approaching. Giving thanks to God,
 The old man laid him by a church half raised
 Amid great oaks and yews, and, leaning there
 His head against the buttress, passed to God.
 They made their bishop's grave at Lindisfarne;
 But Oswin rested at the mouth of Tyne
 Within a wave-girt, granite promontory
 Where sea and river meet. For many an age
 The pilgrim from far countries came in faith
 To that still shrine—they called it 'Oswin's Peace,'—
 Thither the outcast fled for sanctuary:
 The sick man there found health. Thus Oswin lived,
 Though dead, a benediction in the land.
What gentlest form kneels on the rain-washed ground
 From Gilling's keep a stone's-throw? Whose those hands
 Now pressed in anguish on a bursting heart,
 Now o'er a tearful countenance spread in shame?
 What purest mouth, but roseless for great woe,
 With zeal to youthful lovers never known
 Presses a new-made grave, and through the blades
 Of grass wind-shaken breathes her piteous prayer?
 Save from remorse came ever grief like hers?
 Yet how could ever sin, or sin's remorse,
 Find such fair mansion? Oswin's grave it is;
 And she that o'er it kneels is Eanfleda,
 Kinswoman of the noble dead, and wife
 To Oswin's murderer—Oswy.
 Saddest one
 And sweetest! Lo, that cloud which overhung
 Her cradle swathes once more in deeper gloom
 Her throne late won, and new-decked bridal bed.
 This was King Edwin's babe, whose natal star
 Shone on her father's pathway doubtful long,
 Shone there a line of light, from pagan snares
 Leading to Christian baptism. Penda heard—
 Penda, that drew his stock from Odin's loins,
 Penda, that drank his wine from skulls of foes,
 Penda, fierce Mercia's king. He heard, and fell
 In ruin on the region. Edwin dead,
 Paulinus led the widow and her babe
 Back to that Kentish shore whereon had reigned
 Its grandsire Ethelbert.
 The infant's feet
 Pattered above the pavement of that church
 In Canterbury by Augustine raised;
 The child grew paler when Gregorian chants
 Shook the dim roofs. Gladly the growing girl
 Hearkened to stories of her ancestress
 Clotilda, boast of France, but weeping turned
 From legends whispered by her Saxon nurse
 Of Loke, the Spirit accursed that slanders gods,
 And Sinna, Queen of Hell. The years went by;
 The last had brought King Oswy's embassage
 With suit obsequious, 'Let the princess share
 With me her father's crown.' To simple hearts
 Changes come gently. Soon, all trust, she stood
 Before God's altar with her destined lord:
 Adown her finger while the bride-ring ran
 So slid into her heart a true wife's love:
 Rooted in faith, it ripened day by day—
 And now the end was this!
 There as she knelt
 A strong foot clanged behind her. 'Weeping still!
 Up, wife of mine! If Oswin had not died
 His gracious ways had filched from me my realm,
 The base so loved his meekness!' Turning not
 She answered low: 'He died an unarmed man:'
 And Oswy: 'Fool that fought not when he might;
 At least his slaughtered troop had decked his grave!
 I scorned him for his grief that men should die;
 And, scorning him, I hated; yea, for that
 His blood is on my sword!'
 The priests of God
 Had faced the monarch and denounced his crime:
 They might as well have preached to ocean waves:
 He felt no anger: he but deemed them mad,
 And smiling went his way. Thus autumn passed:
 The queen—he knew it—when alone wept on:
 Near him the pale face smiled; the voice was sweet;
 Loving the service; the obedience full:
 Neither by words, by silence, nor by looks
 She chid him. Like some penitent she walked
 That mourns her own great sin.
 Yet Oswy's heart,
 Remorseless thus, had moods of passionate love:
 A warrior of his host, Tosti by name,
 Lay low, plague-stricken: kith and kin had fled:
 Whole days the king sustained upon his knees
 The sufferer's head, and cheered his heart with songs
 Of Odin, strangely blent with Christian hymns,
 While ofttimes stormy bursts of tears descended
 Upon that face upturned. Ministering he sat
 Till death the vigil closed.
 One winter night
 From distant chase belated he returned,
 And passed by Oswin's grave. The snow, new-fallen,
 Whitened the precinct. In the blast she knelt,
 While coldly glared the broad and bitter moon
 Upon those flying flakes that on her hair
 Settled, or on her thin, light raiment clung.
 She heard him not draw nigh. She only beat
 Her breast, and, praying, wept: 'Our sin, our sin!'
 There as the monarch stood a change came o'er him:
 Old, exiled days in Alba as a dream
 Redawned upon his spirit, and that look
 In Aidan's eyes when, binding first that cross
 Long by his pupil craved, around his neck,
 He whispered: 'He who serveth Christ, his Lord,
 Must love his fellow-man.' As when a stream,
 The ice dissolved, grows audible once more,
 So came to him those words. They dragged him down:
 He knelt beside his wife, and beat his breast,
 And said, 'My sin, my sin!' Till earliest morn
 Glimmered through sleet that twain wept on, prayed on:—
 Was it the rising sun that lit at last
 The fair face upward lifted;—kindled there
 A lovelier dawn than o'er it blushed when first
 Dropped on her bridegroom's breast? Aloud she cried:
 'Our prayer is heard: our penitence finds grace:'
 Then added: 'Let it deepen till we die!
 A monastery build we on this grave:
 So from this grave, while fleet the years, that prayer
 Shall rise both day and night, till Christ returns
 To judge the world—a prayer for him who died;
 A prayer for one who sinned, but sins no more.'
Where Gilling's long and lofty hill o'erlooks
 For leagues the forest-girdled plain, ere long
 A monastery stood. That self-same day
 In tears the penitential work began;
 In tears the sod was turned. The rugged brows
 Of March relaxed 'neath April's flying kiss:
 Again the violet rose, the thrush was loud;
 Mayday had come. Around that hallowed spot
 Full many a warrior met; some Christians vowed;
 Some muttering low of Odin. Near to these
 Stood one of lesser stature, keener eye,
 More fiery gesture. Splenetic, he marked,
 Christian albeit himself, those Christian walls
 By Saxon converts raised:—he was a Briton.
 Invisibly that morn a dusky crape
 O'erstretched the sky; and slowly swayed the bough
 Heavy with midnight rains. Through mist the woods
 Let out the witchery of their young fresh green
 Backed by the dusk of ruddy oaks that still
 Reserved at heart the old year's stubbornness,
 Yet blent it with that purple distance glimpsed
 Beyond the forest alleys.
 In a tent
 Finan sang Mass: his altar was that stone
 Which told where Oswin died. Before it knelt
 The king, the queen: alone their angels know
 Their thoughts that hour! The sacred rite complete,
 They raised their brows, and, hand-in-hand, made way
 To where, beyond the portal, shone blue skies,
 Nature's long-struggling smile at last divulged.
 The throng—with passion it had prayed for each—
 Divided as they passed. In either face
 They saw the light of that conceded prayer,
 The peace of souls forgiven.
 From that day forth
 Hourly in Oswy's spirit soared more high
 The one true greatness. Flaming heats of soul,
 Through faith subjected to a law divine,
 Like fire, man's vassal, mastering iron ore,
 Learned their true work. The immeasurable strength
 Had found at once its master and its end,
 And, balanced thus while weighted, soared to God.
 In all his ways he prospered, work and word
 Yoked to one end. Till then the Kingdoms Seven,
 Opposed in interests as diverse in name,
 Had looked on nothing like him. Now, despite
 Mercia that frowned, they named him king of kings,
 Bretwalda; and the standard of the Seven
 In peace foreran his feet. The Spirits of might
 Before his vanguard winged their way in war,
 Scattering the foe; and in his peacefuller years
 Upon the aerial hillside high and higher
 The golden harvest clomb, waving delight
 On eyes upraised from winding rivers clear
 That shone with milky sails. His feet stood firm,
 For with his growing greatness ever grew
 His penitence. Still sang the cloistered choir,
 Year after year pleading o'er Oswin's tomb,
 'To him who perished grant thy Vision, Lord;
 To him the slayer, penitence and peace;
 Let Oswin pray for Oswy:' Oswin prayed.
What answered Penda when the tidings came
 Of Oswy glorying in the yoke of Christ,
 Of Oswy's victories next? Grinding his teeth,
 He spake what no man heard. Then rumour rose
 Of demon-magic making Oswy's tongue
 Fell as his sword. 'Within the sorcerer's court,'
 It babbled, 'stood the brave East Saxon king:
 Upon his shoulder Oswy laid a hand
 Accursed and whispered in his ear. The king,
 Down sank, perforce, a Christian!' Lightning flashed
 From under Penda's gray and shaggy brows;—
 'Forth to Northumbria, son,' he cried, 'and back;
 And learn if this be true.'
 That son obeyed,
 Peada, to whose heart another's heart,
 Alcfrid's, King Oswy's son, was knit long since
 As David's unto Jonathan's. One time
 A tenderer heart had leaned, or seemed to lean,
 Motioning that way, Alfleda's, Alcfrid's sister,
 Younger than he six years. 'Twas so no more:
 No longer on Peada's eyes her eyes
 Rested well-pleased: not now the fearless hand
 Tarried in his contented. 'Sir and king,'
 Peada thus to Oswy spake, 'of old
 Thy child—then child indeed—would mount my knee;
 Now, when I seek her, like a swan she fleets
 That arches back its neck 'twixt snowy wings,
 And, swerving, sideway drifts. My lord and king,
 The child is maiden: give her me for wife!'
 Oswy made answer: 'He that serves not Christ
 Can wed no child of mine.' Alfleda then
 Dropping her broidery lifted on her sire
 Gently the dewy light of childlike eyes
 And spake, 'But he in time will worship Christ!'
 Then, without blush or tremor, to her work
 Softly returned. Silent her mother smiled.
 That moment, warned of God, from Lindisfarne
 Finan, unlooked for, entered. Week by week
 Reverend and mild he preached the Saviour-Lord:
 Grave-eyed, with listening face and forehead bowed,
 The prince gave ear, not like that trivial race
 Who catch the sense ere spoken, smile assent,
 And in a moment lose it. On his brow
 At times the apprehension dawned, at times
 Faded. Oft turned he to his Mercian lords:—
 'How trow ye, friends? He speaks of what he knows!
 Good tidings these! Each evening while I muse
 Distinct they shine like yonder mountain range;
 Each morning, mists conceal them.' Passed a month;
 Then suddenly, as one that wakes from dream,
 Peada rose: 'Far rather would I serve
 Thy Christ,' he said, 'and thus Alfleda lose,
 Than win Alfleda, and reject thy Christ.'
 He spake: old Finan first gave thanks to God,
 Who grants the pure heart valour to believe,
 Then took his hand and led him to that Cross
 On Heaven-Field raised beneath the Roman Wall,
 That cross King Oswald's standard in the fight,
 That cross Cadwallon's sentence as he fell,
 'That cross which conquered;'—there to God baptized;
 Likewise his thanes and earls.
 Meantime, far off
 In Penda's palace-keep the revel raged,
 High feast of rites impure. At banquet sat
 The monarch and his chiefs; chant followed chant
 Bleeding with wars foregone. The day went by,
 And, setting ere its time, a sanguine sun
 Dipped into tumult vast of gathering storm
 That soon incumbent leant from tower to tower
 And shook them to their base. As high within
 The gladness mounted, meeting storm with storm,
 Till cried that sacrificial priest whose knife
 Had pierced the warrior victim's willing throat
 That morn, 'Already with the gods we feast!
 Hark! round Valhalla swell the phantom wars!'
 Ere ceased the shout applausive, from his seat
 Uprose the warrior Saxo, in his hand
 The goblet, in the other Alp, his sword,
 Pointing to heaven. 'To Odin health!' he cried;
 'Would that this hour he rode into this hall!
 He should not hence depart till blood of his
 Had reddened Sleipner's flank, his snow-white steed:
 This sword would shed that blood!' Warriors sixteen
 Leaped up in wrath, and for a moment rage
 Rocked the huge hall. But Saxo waved his sword,
 And, laughing, shouted, 'Odin's sons, be still!
 Count it no sin to battle with high gods!
 Great-hearted they! They give the blow and take!
 To Odin who was ever leal as I?'
 As sudden as it rose the tumult fell:
 So ceased the storm without: but with it ceased
 The rapture and the madness, and the shout:
 The wine-cup still made circuit; but the song
 Froze in mid-air. Strange shadow hung o'er all:
 Neighbour to neighbour whispered: courtiers slid
 Through doors scarce open. Rumour had arrived,
 If true or false none knew.
 The morrow morn
 From Penda's court the bravest fled in fear,
 Questioning with white lips, 'Will he slay his son?'
 Or skulked at distance. Penda by the throat
 Catching a white-cheeked courtier, cried: 'The truth!
 What whisper they in corners?' On his knees
 That courtier made confession. Penda then,
 'Live, since my son is yet a living man!
 A Christian, say'st thou? Let him serve his Christ!
 That man whom ever most I scorned is he
 Who vows him to the service of some god,
 Yet breaks his laws; for that man walks, a lie.
 My son shall live, and after me shall reign:
 Northumbrian realm shall die!'
 Thus Penda spake
 And sent command from tower and town to blow
 Instant the trumpet of his last of wars,
 Fanning from Odin's hall with airs ice-cold
 Of doom the foes of Odin. 'Man nor child,'
 He sware,'henceforth shall tread Northumbrian soil,
 Nor hart nor hind: I spare the creeping worm:
 My scavenger is he,' The Mercian realm
 Rose at his call, innumerable mass
 Of warriors iron-armed. East Anglia sent
 Her hosts in aid. Apostate Ethelwald,
 Though Oswy's nephew, joined the hostile league,
 And thirty chiefs beside that ruled by right
 Princedom or province. Mightier far than these
 Old Cambria, brooding o'er the ancestral wrong,
 The Saxon's sin original, met his call,
 And vowed her to the vengeance.
 Bravest hearts
 Hate most the needless slaughter. Oswy mused:
 'Long since too much of blood is on this hand:
 Shall I for pride or passion risk once more
 Northumbria, my mother;—rudely stain
 Her pretty babes with blood?' To Penda then,
 Camped on the confines of the adverse realms,
 He sent an embassage of reverend men,
 Warriors and priests. Before them, staff in hand,
 Peaceful, with hoary brows and measured tread,
 Twelve heralds paced. Twelve caskets bare they heaped
 With gems and gold, and thus addressed the King:
 'Lord of the Mercian realm, renowned in arms!
 Our lord, Northumbria's monarch, bids thee hail:
 He never yet in little thing or great
 Hath wronged thy kingdom; yet thy peace he woos:
 Accept the gifts he sends thee, and, thus crowned,
 Depart content.' Penda with backward hand
 Waved them far from him, and vouchsafed no word.
 In sadness they returned: but Oswy smiled
 Hearing their tale, and said: 'My part is done:
 Let God decide the event,' He spake, and took
 The caskets twelve, and placed them, side by side,
 Before the altar of his chiefest church,
 And vowed to raise to God twelve monasteries,
 In honour of our Lord's Apostles Twelve,
 On greenest upland, or in sylvan glade
 Where purest stream kisses the richest mead.
 His vow recorded, sudden through the church
 Ran with fleet foot a lady mazed with joy,
 Crying, 'A maiden babe! and lo, the queen
 Late dying lives and thrives!' That eve the king
 Bestowed on God the new-born maiden babe,
 Laying her cradled 'mid those caskets twelve,
 Six at each side; and said: 'For her nor throne
 Nor marriage bower! She in some holy house
 Shall dwell the Bride of Christ. But thou, just God,
 This day avenge my people!'
 Windwaed field
 Heard, distant still, that multitudinous foe
 Trampling the darksome ways. With pallid face
 Morning beheld their standards, raven-black—
 Penda had thus decreed, before him sending
 Northumbria's sentence. On a hill, thick-set
 Stood Oswy's army, small, yet strong in faith,
 A wedge-like phalanx, fenced by rocks and woods;
 A river in its front. His standards white
 Sustained the Mother-Maid and Babe Divine:
 From many a crag his altars rose, choir-girt,
 And crowned by incense wreath.
 An hour ere noon,
 That river passed, in thunder met the hosts;
 But Penda, straitened by that hilly tract,
 Could wield not half his force. Sequent as waves
 On rushed they: Oswy's phalanx like a cliff
 Successively down dashed them. Day went by:
 At last the clouds dispersed: the westering sun
 Glared on the spent eyes of those Mercian ranks
 Which in their blindness each the other smote,
 Or, trapped by hidden pitfalls, fell on stakes,
 And died blaspheming. Little help that day
 Gat they from Cambria. She on Heaven-Field height
 Had felt her death-wound, slow albeit to die.
 The apostate Ethelwald in panic fled:
 The East Anglians followed. Swollen by recent rains,
 And choked with dead, the river burst its bound,
 And raced along the devastated plain
 Till cry of drowning horse and shriek of man
 Rang far and farther o'er that sea of death,
 A battle-field but late. This way and that
 Briton or Mercian where he might escaped
 Through flood or forest. Penda scorned to fly:
 Thrice with extended arms he met and cursed
 The fugitives on rushing. As they passed
 He flung his crownèd helm into the wave,
 And bit his brazen shield, above its rim
 Levelling a look that smote with chill like death
 Their hearts that saw it. Yet one moment more
 He sat like statue on some sculptured horse
 With upraised hand, close-clenched, denouncing Heaven:
 Then burst his mighty heart. As stone he fell
 Dead on the plain. Not less in after times
 Mercian to Mercian said, 'Without a wound
 King Penda died, although on battle-field,
 Therefore with Odin Penda shares not feast.'
 Thus pagan died old Penda as he lived:
 Yet Penda's sons were Christian, kindlier none;
 His daughters nuns; and lamb-like Mercia's House,
 Lion one while, made end. King Oswy raised
 His monasteries twelve: benigner life
 Around them spread: wild waste, and robber bands
 Vanished: the poor were housed, the hungry fed:
 And Oswy sent his little new-born babe
 Dewed with her mother's tear-drops, Eanfleda,
 Like some young lamb with fillet decked and flower,
 Yet dedicated not to death, but life,
 To Hilda sent on Whitby's sea-washed hill,
 Who made her Bride of Christ. The years went by,
 And Oswy, now an old king, glory-crowned,
 His country from the Mercian thraldom loosed
 And free from north to south, in heart resolved
 A pilgrim, Romeward faring with bare feet,
 To make his rest by Peter's tomb and Paul's.
 God willed not thus: within his native realm
 The sickness unto death clasped him with hold
 Gentle but firm. Long sleepless, t'ward the close
 Amid his wanderings smiling, from the couch
 He stretched a shrivelled hand, and pointing said,
 'Who was it fabled she had died in age?
 In all her youthful beauty holy and pure,
 Lo, where she kneels upon the wintry ground,
 The snow-flakes circling round her, yet with face
 Bright as a star!' so spake the king, and taking
 Into his heart that vision, slept in peace.
 His daughter, abbess then on Whitby's height,
 Within her church interred her father's bones
 Beside her grandsire's, Edwin. Side by side
 They rested, one Bernicia's king, and one
 Dëira's—great Northumbrian sister realms;
 Long foes, yet blended by that mingling dust.

THE VENGEANCE OF THE MONKS OF BARDENEY.

Osthryda, Queen of Mercia, translates the relics of her uncle, Oswald of Northumberland, to the Abbey of Bardeney. The monks refuse them admittance because King Oswald had conquered and kept for one year Lindsay, a province of Mercia. Though hourly expecting the destruction of their Abbey, they will yield neither to threats nor to supplications, nor even to celestial signs and wonders. At last, being convinced by the reasoning of a devout man, they repent of their anger.

Silent, with gloomy brows in conclave sat
 The monks of Bardeney, nigh the eastern sea;—
 Rumour, that still outruns the steps of ill,
 Smote on their gates with news: 'Osthryda comes
 To bury here her royal uncle's bones,
 Northumbrian Oswald.' Oswald was a Saint;
 Had loosed from Pagan bonds that Christian land
 His own by right. But Oswald had subdued
 Lindsay, a Mercian province; and the monks
 Were sons of Mercia leal and true. Osthryda,
 Northumbrian born, had wedded Mercia's King;
 Therefore the monks of Bardeney pondered thus:
 'This Mercian Queen spurns her adopted country!
 Must Mercia therefore build her conqueror's tomb?
 Though earth and hell cried "Ay," it should not be!'
 Thus mused the brethren till the sun went down:
 Then lo! beyond a vista in the woods
 Drew nigh a Bier, black-plumed, with funeral train:
 Thereon the stern monks gazed, and gave command
 To close the Abbey's gate. Beside that gate
 Tent-roofed that Bier remained.
 Before them soon
 Stood up the royal herald. Thus he spake:
 'Ye sacred monks of Bardeney's Abbey, hail!
 Osthryda, wife of Ethelred our King,
 Prays that God's peace may keep this House forever.
 The Queen has hither brought, by help of God,
 King Oswald's bones, and sues for them a grave
 Within this hallowed precinct.' Answer came:
 'King Oswald, living, was Northumbria's King;
 King Oswald, by the pride of life seduced,
 Wrested from Mercia's sceptre Lindsay's soil;
 Therefore in Lindsay's soil King Oswald, dead,
 May never find repose.'
 Before them next
 Three earls advanced full-armed, and spake loud-voiced:
 'Our Queen is consort of the Mercian King;
 Ye, monks, are Mercian subjects! Sirs, beware!
 Our King and Queen have loved you well till now,
 And ranked your abbey highest in their realm:
 But hearts ingrate can sour the mood of love;
 And Ethelred, though mild as summer skies
 When mildly used, once angered'——Answer came:
 'We know it, and await our doom, content:
 If Mercia's King contemns his realm, more need
 That Mercia's priests her confessors should die:
 In Bardeney's church King Oswald ne'er shall rest:
 Ye have your answer, Earls!'
 Through that dim hall
 Ere long a gentler embassage made way,
 Three priests; arrived, they knelt, and, reverent, spake:
 'Fathers and brethren, Oswald was a Saint!
 He loosed his native land from pagan thrall:
 Churches and convents everywhere he built:
 His relics, year by year, grow glorious more
 Through miracles and signs. Fathers revered,
 Within this sanctuary beloved of God
 Vouchsafe his dust interment!' They replied:
 'We know that Oswald is a Saint with God:
 We know he freed his realm from pagan thrall;
 We know that churches everywhere he built;
 We know that from his relics Grace proceeds
 As light from sun and moon. In heaven a crown
 Rests on Saint Oswald's head: yet here on earth
 King Oswald's foot profaned our Mercian bound:
 Therefore in Mercian earth he finds not grave.'
 Silent those priests withdrew. An hour well-nigh
 Went by in silence. Then with forehead crowned
 And mourner's veil, and step of one that mourns,
 The Queen advanced, a lady at each side,
 And 'mid the circle stood, and thus implored:
 'Not as your Sovereign come I, holy Sirs,
 Since all are equal in the House of God;
 Nor stand I here a stranger. Many a day
 In this your church, I knelt, while yet a child;
 Then too, as now, within my breast there lived
 The tenderest of its ardours and the best,
 Zeal for my kinsman's fame. That time how oft
 I heard my Father, Oswy, cry aloud,
 "O Brother, had I walked but in thy ways
 My foot had never erred!" In maiden youth
 I met with one who shared my loyal zeal,
 Mercian himself: 'twas thus he won my heart:
 My royal husband shared it; shares this hour
 My trust that 'mid the altars reared by us
 To grace this chiefest Minster of our realm
 May rest the relics of our household Saint—
 To spurn them from your threshold were to shame.'
 She spake: benign and soft the answering voice:
 'Entreat us not, thou mourner true and kind,
 Lest we, by pity from the straight path drawn,
 Sin more than thou. Thou know'st what thing love is,
 Thus loving one who died before thy birth!
 Up to the measure of high love and fit
 Thou lov'st him for this cause, because thy heart
 Hath never rested on base love and bad:
 Lady, a sterner severance monks have made:
 Not base and bad alone do they reject,
 But lesser good for better and for best:
 Therefore what yet remains they love indeed:
 A single earthly love is theirs unblamed,
 Their Country! Lo, the wild-bird loves her nest,
 Lions their caves:—to us God gave a Country.
 What heart of man but loves that mother-land
 Whose omnipresent arms are round him still
 In vale and plain; whose voice in every stream;
 Whose breath his forehead cools; whose eyes with joy
 Regard her offspring issuing forth each morn
 On duteous tasks; to rest each eve returning?
 And who that loves her but must hate her foes?
 Lady, accept God's Will, nor strive by prayer
 To change it. In our guest-house rest this night,
 Thou, and thy train.'
Severe the Queen replied:
 'Yea, in thy guest-house I will lodge this night,
 Unvanquished, undiscouraged, not to cease
 From prayer: of that be sure. I make henceforth
 My prayer to God, not man. To Him I pray,
 That Lord of all, Who changes at His will
 The stony heart to flesh.'
 She spake: then turned
 On those old faces, keenlier than before,
 Her large slow eyes; and instant in her face
 The sadness deepened: but the wrath was gone.
 That sadness said, 'Love then as deep as mine,
 And grief like mine, in other breasts may spring
 From source how different!' Long she gazed, like child
 That knows not she is seen to gaze, with looks
 As though she took that hoary-headed band
 Into her sorrowing heart. Silent she sighed;
 Then passed into the guest-house with her train:
 There prayed all night for him, that Saint in heaven
 Ill-honoured upon earth.
 Within their church
 Meantime the monks the 'Dies Iræ' sang,
 The yellow tapers ranged as round a corse,
 And Penitential Psalms in order due.
 Their rite was for the living: ere the time
 They sang the obsequies of sentenced men,
 Foreboding wrath to come. Sad Fancy heard
 The flames up-rushing o'er their convent home,
 The ruin of their church late-built, the wreck
 It might be of their Order. Fierce they knew
 That Mercian royal House! Against their King
 They hurled no ban: venial they deemed his crime:
 'He moves within the limits of his right,
 Though wrongly measuring right. He sees but this,
 His subjects break his laws. Some sin of youth
 It may be hides from him a right more high:'—
 Thus spake they in their hearts.
 While rival thus
 The brethren and the Queen sent up their prayer,
 And sacred night hung midway in her course,
 Behold, there fell from God tempest and storm
 Buffeting that abbey's walls. The woods around,
 Devastated by stress of blast on blast,
 Howled like the howling of wild beasts when fire
 Invests their ambush, and their cubs late-born
 Blaze in red flame. Trembling, the strong-built towers
 Echoed the woodland moans. All night the Queen,
 Propped by those two fair Seraphs, Faith and Love,
 Prayed on in hope, or hearing not that storm,
 Or mindful that where danger most abounds
 There God is nearest still. Meantime the Tent
 Covering that royal Bier, unshaken stood
 Beside the unyielding abbey-gates close-barred,
 Like something shielded by a heavenly charm:
 When morning came, shattered all round it lay
 Both trunk and bough; but in the rising sun
 The storm-drop shook not on that snowy shrine.
Things wondrous more that Legend old records:
 An hour past sunrise from the meads and moors
 Came wide-eyed herdsmen thronging, with demand,
 'What means this marvel? All the long still night,
 While heaven and earth were dark, and peaceful sleep
 Closed in her arms the wearied race of men,
 Keeping our herds on meads and moorlands chill,
 We saw a glittering Tent beside your gates:
 Above it, and not far, a pillar stood,
 All light, and high as heaven!' The abbot answered,
 'Fair Sirs, ye dreamed a dream; and sound your sleep
 Untroubled by the terror of the storm
 Whereof those woodland fragments witness still,
 And many a forest patriarch prostrate laid:
 There rose no pillar by our gates: yon Tent
 Stood there, and stood alone.' In two hours' space
 Shepherds arrived, from hills remoter sped,
 Making the same demand. With eye ill pleased
 Thus answered brief the prior: 'Friends, ye jest!'
 And they in wrath departed. Once again
 Came foresters from Lindsay's utmost bound,
 On horses blown, and spake: 'O'er yonder Tent,
 Through all the courses of the long still night,
 Behold, a shining pillar hovering stood:
 It rained a glory on your convent walls:
 It flung a trail of splendour o'er your woods:
 We watched it hour by hour. Like Oswald's Cross
 On Heaven-Field planted in the days of old,
 It waxed in height:—the stars were quenched.' Replied
 With reddening brows the youngest of those monks,
 'Sirs, ye have had your bribe, and told your tale:
 Depart!' and they departed great in scorn.
Long time the brethren sat; discoursed long time
 Each with his neighbour. 'Craft of man would force
 Dishonest deed on this our holy House,
 By miracles suborned;' thus spake the first:
 The second answered, 'Ay, confederates they!
 The good Queen knew not of it:' then the third,
 'Not so! these men are simple folks, I ween:
 Nor time for fraud had they. What sail is yon
 So weather-worn that nears the headland?' Soon
 A pilot stood before them; at his side
 A priest, long years an inmate of their House,
 But late a pilgrim in the Holy Land.
 Their greetings over, greetings warm and kind,
 Thus spake the Pilgrim: 'Brothers mine, rejoice;
 Our God is with us! For our House I prayed
 Three times with forehead on the Tomb of Christ;
 Last night there came to me, in visible form,
 An answer to that prayer. All day our ship,
 Before a great wind rushed t'ward Mercian shores:
 To them I turned not: on the East I gazed:
 "O happy East," I mused, "O Land, true home
 Of every Christian heart! The Saviour's feet
 Thy streets, thy cornfields trod! With these compared
 Our country's self seems nothing!" In my heart
 Imaged successive, rose once more those sites
 Capernaum, Nain, Bethsaida, Bethlehem—
 Where'er my feet had strayed. At midnight, cries
 Of wonder rang around me, and I turned:
 I saw once more our convent on its hill:
 I saw beside its gate a Tent snow-white;
 I saw a glittering pillar o'er that Tent
 'Twixt heaven and earth suspense! Serene it shone,
 Such pillar as led forth the Chosen Race
 By night from Egypt's coasts. From wave to wave
 Moon-like it paved a path! I cried, "Thank God!
 For who shall stay yon splendour till it reach
 That Syrian shore? England," I said, "my country,
 Shall lay upon Christ's Tomb a hand all light,
 Whatever tempest shakes the world of men,
 Thenceforth His servant vowed!"'
 When ceased that voice
 There fell upon the monks a crisis strange;
 And where that Pilgrim looked for joy, behold,
 Doubt, wrath, and anguish! Faces old long since
 Grew older, stricken as by hectic spasm,
 So fierce a pang had clutched them by the throat;
 While drops of sweat on many a wrinkled brow
 Hung large like dewy beads condensed from mist
 On cliffs by torrents shaken. Mute they sat;
 Then sudden rose, uplifting helpless hands,
 As when from distant rock sore-wounded men,
 Who all day long have watched some dreadful fight,
 Behold it lost, or else foresee it lost,
 And with it lost their country's hearths and homes,
 And yet can bring no succour. Thus with them—
 They knew themselves defeated; deemed the stars
 Of heaven had fought against them in their course;
 Yet still believed, and could not but believe
 Their cause the cause of Justice, and its wreck
 The wreck of priestly honour, patriot faith:
 At last the youngest of the brethren spake:
 'Come what come may, God's monks must guard the Right.'
 Death-like a silence on that conclave fell—
 Then rose a monk white-headed, well-nigh blind,
 Esteemed a Saint, who had not uttered speech
 Since came the tidings of the Queen's resolve:
 Low-voiced he spake, with eyes upon the ground
 And inward smile that dimly reached his lips:
 'Brethren, be wary lest ye strive with God
 Through wrath, that blind incontinence of age,
 For what He wills He works. By passion warped
 Ye deem this trial strange, this conflict new,
 Yourselves doomed men that stand between two Fates,
 On one side right, on one side miracles!
 Brethren, the chief of miracles is this,
 That knowing what ye know ye know no more:
 Ye know long since that Oswald is a Saint:
 Ye know the sins of Saints are sins forgiven:
 What then? Shall man revenge where God forgives?
 Be wroth with those He loves? Ye, seeing much,
 See not the sun at noontide! God last night
 Sent you in love a miracle of love
 To quell in you a miracle of wrath:—
 Discern its import true!
 Sum up the past!
 Thus much is sure: we heard those thunder peals
 Unheard by hind or shepherd, near or far:
 'Tis sure not less that light the shepherds saw
 We saw not; neither we nor yet the Queen
 What then? Is God not potent to divulge
 The thing He wills, or hide it? Brethren, God
 Shrouding from us that beam far dwellers saw
 Admonished us perchance that far is near;
 That ofttimes distance makes intelligible
 What, nigh at hand, is veiled. This too He taught,
 That when Northumbrian foot our Mercia spurned
 The men who saw that ruin saw not all:
 The light of Christ drew near us in that hour;
 His pillar o'er us stood, and in our midst:
 The pang, the shame, were transient. See the whole!'
 The old man paused a space, and then resumed:
 'Brethren, that day our country suffered wrong:
 One day she may inflict it. Years may bring
 The aggressor of past time a penitent grief;
 The wronged may meet her penitence with scorn
 Guiltier through malice than her foe's worst rage:
 Were it not well to leave that time unborn
 Magnanimous ensample? Hard it were
 To lay in Mercian earth the unforgiven:
 Wholly to pardon—that I deem not hard.
 My voice is this: forgive we Oswald's sin,
 And lay his relics in our costliest shrine!'
 Thus spake the aged man. That self-same eve,
 The western sun descending, while the church,
 Grey shaft transfigured by the glow divine,
 Grey wall in flame of light pacific washed,
 Shone out all golden like that flower all gold
 Which shoots through sunset airs an arrowy beam,
 In charity perfected moved the monks,
 No longer sad, a long procession forth,
 With foreheads smoothed as by the kiss of death
 And eyes like eyes of Saints from death new risen,
 Bearing the relics of Northumbria's King,
 Oswald, the man of God. Behind them paced
 Warriors and chiefs; Osthryda last, the Queen,
 With face whereon that great miraculous light,
 By her all night unseen, appeared to rest,
 And foot that might have trod the ocean waves
 Unwetted save its palm. A shrine gem-wrought
 Received the royal relics. O'er them drooped
 Northumbria's standard, guest of Mercian airs
 Through which it once had sailed, a portent dire:
 And whosoe'er in after centuries knelt
 On Oswald's grave, and, praying, wooed his prayer,
 Departed, in his heart the peace of God,
 Passions corrupt expelled, and demon snares,
 Irreverent love, and anger past its bound.

HOW SAINT CUTHBERT KEPT HIS PENTECOST AT CARLISLE.