Thus, gay or grave,Conversed they, while the Brethren paced behind;Till now the morn crowded each cottage doorWith clustered heads. They reached ere long in woodsA hamlet small. Here on the weedy thatchWhite fruit-bloom fell: through shadow, there, went roundThe swinging mill-wheel tagged with silver fringe;Here rang the mallet; there was heard remoteThe one note of the love-contented bird.Though warm the sun, in shade the young spring mornWas edged with winter yet, and icy filmGlazed the deep ruts. The swarthy smith worked hard,And working sang; the wheelwright toiled close by;An armourer next to these: through flaming smokeGlared the fierce hands that on the anvil fellIn thunder down. A sorcerer stood apartKneading Death’s messenger, that missile ball,TheLia Laimbhè. To his heart he clasped it,And o’er it muttered spells with flatteries mixed:“Hail, little daughter mine! ’Twixt hand and heartI knead thee! From the Red Sea came that sandWhich, blent with viper’s poison, makes thy flesh!Be thou no shadow wandering on the air!Rush through the battle gloom as red-combed snakeCleaves the blind waters! On! like Witch’s glance,Or forkèd flash, or shaft of summer pest,And woe to him that meets thee! Mouth blood-redMy daughter hath:—not healing be her kiss!”Thus he. In shade he stood, and phrensy-fired;And yet he marked who watched him. Without wordHim Patrick passed; but spake to all the restWith voice so kindly reverent, “Is not this,”Men asked, “the preacher of the ‘Tidings Good?’”“What tidings? Has he found a mine?” “He speaksTo princes as to brothers; to the hindAs we to princes’ children! Yea, when mute,Saith not his face ‘Rejoice’?”
At times the SaintLaid on the head of age his strong right hand,Gentle as touch of soft-accosting eyes;And once before an open door he stopped,Silent. Within, all glowing like a rose,A mother stood for pleasure of her babesThat—in them still the warmth of couch late left—Around her gambolled. On his face, as hers,Their sport regarding, long time lay the smile;Then crept a shadow o’er it, and he spakeIn sadness: “Woman! when a hundred yearsHave passed, with opening flower and falling snow,Where then will be thy children?” Like a cloudFear and great wrath fell on her. From the wallShe snatched a battle-axe and raised it highIn both hands, clamouring, “Wouldst thou slay my babes?”He answered, “I would save them. Woman, hear!Seest thou yon floating shape? It died a worm;It lives, the blue-winged angel of spring meads.Thy children, likewise, if they serve my King,Death past, shall find them wings.” Then to her cheekThe bloom returned, and splendour to her eye;And catching to her breast, that larger swelled,A child, she wept, “Oh, would that he might liveFor ever! Prophet, speak! thy words are good!Their father, too, must hear thee.” Patrick said,“Not so; nor falls this seed on every road;”Then added thus: “You child, by all the restCherished as though he were some infant God,Is none of thine.” She answered, “None of ours;A great chief sent him here for fosterage.”Then he: “All men on earth the children areOf One who keeps them here in fosterage:They see not yet His face; but He sees them,Yea, and decrees their seasons and their times:Like infants, they must learn Him first by touch,Through nature, and her gifts—by hearing next,The hearing of the ear, and that is Faith—By Vision last. Woman, these things are hard;But thou to Limneach come in three days’ time,Likewise thy husband; there, by Sangul’s Well,Thou shalt know all.”
The Saint had reached ere longThat festal mount. Thousands with bannered lineScaled it light-hearted. Never favourite lambIn ribands decked shone brighter than that hourThe fair flank of Knock Cae. Heath-scented airsLightened the clambering toil. At times the SaintStayed on their course the crowds, and towards the TruthDrew them by parable, or record old,Oftener by question sage. Not all believed:Of such was Derball. Man of wealth and wit,Nor wise, nor warlike, toward the Saint he strodeWith bubble-seething brain, and head high tossed,And cried, “Great Seer! remove yon mountain blue,Cenn Abhrat, by thy prayer! That done, to theeFealty I pledge.” Saint Patrick knelt in prayer:Soon Derball cried, “The central ridge descends;—Southward, beyond it, Longa’s lake shines outIn sunlight flashing!” At his word drew nearThe men of Erin. Derball homeward turned,Mocking: “Believe who will, believe not I!Me more imports it o’er my foodful fieldsTo draw the Maigue’s rich waters than to stareAt moving hills.” But certain of that throng,Light men, obsequious unto Derball’s laugh,Questioned of Patrick if the mountain moved.He answered, “On the ground mine eyes were fixed;Nought saw I. Haply, through defect of mine,It moved not. Derball said the mountain moved;Yet kept he not his pledge, but disbelieved.‘Faith can move mountains.’ Never said my KingThat mountains moved could move reluctant faithIn unbelieving heart.” With sad, calm voiceHe spake; and Derball’s laughter frustrate died.
Meantime, high up on that thyme-scented hillBy shadows swept, and lights, and rapturous winds,Lonan prepared the feast, and, with that chief,Mantan, a deacon. Tables fair were spread;And tents with branches gay. Beside those tentsStood the sweet-breathing, mournful, slow-eyed kineWith hazel-shielded horns, and gave their milkGravely to merry maidens. Low the sunHad fallen, when, Patrick near the summit now,There burst on him a wandering troop, wild-eyed,With scant and quaint array. O’er sunburnt browsThey wore sere wreaths; their piebald vests were stained,And lean their looks, and sad: some piped, some sang,Some tossed the juggler’s ball. “From far we came,”They cried; “we faint with hunger; give as food!”Upon them Patrick bent a pitying eye,And said, “Where Lonan and where Mantan toilGo ye, and pray them, for mine honour’s sake,To gladden you with meat.” But Lonan said,And Mantan, “Nay, but when the feast is o’er,The fragments shall be yours.” With darkening browThe Saint of that denial heard, and cried,“He cometh from the North, even now he cometh,For whom the Blessing is reserved; he comethBearing a little wether at his back:”And, straightway, through the thicket evening-dazedA shepherd—by him walked his mother—pushed,Bearing a little wether. Patrick said,“Give them to eat. They hunger.” Gladly thenThat shepherd youth gave them the wether small:With both his hands outstretched, and liberal smile,He gave it, though, with angry eye askanceHis mother grudged it sore. The wether theirs,As though earth-swallowed, vanished that wild tribe,Fearing that mother’s eye.
Then Patrick spakeTo Lonan, “Zealous is thy service, friend;Yet of thy house no king shall sit on throne,No bishop bless the people.” Turning thenTo Mantan, thus he spake, “Careful art thouOf many things; not less that church thou raisestShall not be of the honoured in the land;And in its chancel waste the mountain kineShall couch above thy grave.” To Nessan lastThus spake he: “Thou that didst the hungry feed,The poor of Christ, that know not yet His name,And, helping them that cried to me for help,Cherish mine honour, like a palm, one day,Shall rise thy greatness.” Nessan’s mother oldFor pardon knelt. He blessed her hoary head,Yet added, mournful, “Not within the ChurchThat Nessan serves shall lie his mother’s grave.”Then Nessan he baptized, and on him boundEre long the deacon’s grade, and placed him, later,Priest o’er his church at Mungret. Centuries tenIt stood, a convent round it as a starForth sending beams of glory and of graceO’er woods Teutonic and the Tyrrhene Sea.Yet Nessan’s mother in her son’s great churchSlept not; nor where the mass bell tinkled low:West of the church her grave, to his—her son’s—Neighbouring, yet severed by the chancel wall.
Thus from the morning star to evening starWent by that day. In Erin many suchSaint Patrick lived, using well pleased the chance,Or great or small, since all things come from God:And well the people loved him, being oneWho sat amid their marriage feasts, and saw,Where sin was not, in all things beauty and love.But, ere he passed from Munster, longing fellOn Patrick’s heart to view in all its breadthHer river-flood, and bless its western waves;Therefore, forth journeying, to that hill he went,Highest among the wave-girt, heathy hills,That still sustains his name, and saw the floodAt widest stretched, and that green Isle[111]hard by,And northern Thomond. From its coasts her sonsRushed countless forth in skiff and coracleSmiting blue wave to white, till Sheenan’s soundCeased, in their clamour lost. That hour from GodPower fell on Patrick; and in spirit he saw,Invisible to flesh, the western coasts,And the ocean way, and, far beyond, that landThe Future’s heritage, and prophesiedOf Brendan who ere long in wicker boatShould over-ride the mountains of the deep,Shielded by God, and tread—no fable then—Fabled Hesperia. Last of all he sawMore near, thy hermit home, Senanus;—“Hail,Isle of blue ocean and the river’s mouth!The People’s Lamp, their Counsel’s Head, is thine!”That hour shone out through cloud the westering sunAnd paved the wave with fire: that hour not lessStrong in his God, westward his face he set,Westward and north, and spread his arms abroad,And drew the blessing down, and flung it far:“A blessing on the warriors, and the clans,A blessing on high field, and golden vales,On sea-like plain and on the showery ridge,On river-ripple, cliff, and murmuring deep,On seaward peaks, harbours, and towns, and ports;A blessing on the sand beneath the ships:On all descend the Blessing!” Thus he prayed,Great-hearted; and from all the populous hillsAnd waters came the People’s vast “Amen!”
King Eochaid submits himself to the Christian Law because Saint Patrick has delivered his son from bonds, yet only after making a pact that he is not, like the meaner sort, to be baptized. In this stubbornness he persists, though otherwise a kindly king; and after many years, he dies. Saint Patrick had refused to see his living face; yet after death he prays by the death-bed. Life returns to the dead; and sitting up, like one sore amazed, he demands baptism. The Saint baptizes him, and offers him a choice either to reign over all Erin for fifteen years, or to die. Eochaid chooses to die, and so departs.
Eochaid, son of Crimther, reigned, a KingNorthward in Clochar. Dearer to his heartThan kingdom or than people or than lifeWas he, the boy long wished for. Dear was she,Keinè, his daughter. Babyhood’s white star,Beauteous in childhood, now in maiden dawnShe witched the world with beauty. From her eyesA light went forth like morning o’er the sea;Sweeter her voice than wind on harp; her smileCould stay men’s breath. With wingèd feet she trodThe yearning earth that, if it could, like wavesHad swelled to meet their pressure. Ah, the pang!Beauty, the immortal promise, like a cheatIf unwed glides into the shadow land,Childless and twice defeated. Beauty wedTo mate unworthy, suffers worse eclipse—“Ill choice between two ills!” thus spleenfull criedEochaid; but not his the pensive grief:He would have kept his daughter in his houseFor ever; yet, since better might not be,Himself he chose her out a mate, and frowned,And said, “The dog must have her.” But the maidWished not for marriage. Tender was her heart;Yet though her twentieth year had o’er her flown,And though her tears had dewed a mother’s grave,In her there lurked, not flower of womanhood,But flower of angel texture. All aroundTo her was love. The crown of earthly loveSeemed but its crown of mockery. Love Divine—For that she yearned, and yet she knew it not;Knew less that love she feared.
She walked in woodsWhile all the green leaves, drenched by sunset’s gold,Upon a shower-bespangled sycamoreShivered, and birds among them choir on choirChanted her praise—or spring’s. “Ill sung,” she laughed,“My dainty minstrels! Grant to me your wings,And I for them will teach you song of mine:Listen!” A carol from her lip there gushedThat, ere its time, might well have called the springFrom winter’s coldest cave. It ceased; she turned.Beside her Patrick stood. His hand he raisedTo bless her. Awed, though glad, upon her kneesThe maiden sank. His eye, as if through air,Saw through that stainless soul, and, crystal-shrinedTherein, its inmate, Truth. That other TruthInstant to her he preached—the Truth Divine—(For whence is caution needful, save from sin?)And those two Truths, each gazing upon each,Embraced like sisters, thenceforth one. For herNo arduous thing was Faith, ere yet she heardIn heart believing: and, as when a babeMarks some bright shape, if near or far, it knows not,And stretches forth a witless hand to claspPhantom or form, even so with wild surmiseAnd guesses erring first, and questions apt,She chased the flying light, and round it closedAt last, and found it substance. “This is He.”Then cried she, “This, whom every maid should love,Conqueror self-sacrificed of sin and death:How shall we find, how please Him, how be nigh?”Patrick made answer: “They that do His willAre nigh Him.” And the virgin: “Of the nigh,Say, who is nighest?” Thus, that wingèd heartRushed to its rest. He answered: “Nighest theyWho offer most to Him in sacrifice,As when the wedded leaves her father’s houseAnd cleaveth to her husband. Nighest theyWho neither father’s house nor husband’s houseDesire, but live with Him in endless prayer,And tend Him in His poor.” Aloud she cried,“The nearest to the Highest, that is love;—I choose that bridal lot!” He answered, “Child,The choice is God’s. For each, that lot is bestTo which He calls us.” Lifting then pure hands,Thus wept the maiden: “Call me, Virgin-born!Will not the Mother-Maid permit a maidTo sit beside those nail-pierced feet, and wipe,With hair untouched by wreaths of mortal love,The dolorous blood-stains from them? Stranger guest,Come to my father’s tower! Against my will,Against his own, in bridal bonds he binds me:My suit he might resist: he cannot thine!”
She spake; and by her Patrick paced with feetTo hers accordant. Soon they reached that fort:Central within a circling rath earth-builtIt stood; the western tower of stone; the rest,Not high, but spreading wide, of wood compact;For thither many a forest hill had sentHis wind-swept daughter brood, relinquishingConverse with cloud and beam and rain foreverTo echo back the revels of a Prince.Mosaic was the work, beam laced with beamIn quaint device: high up, o’er many a doorShone blazon rich of vermeil, or of green,Or shield of bronze, glittering with veinèd boss,Chalcedony or agate, or whate’erThe wave-lipped marge of Neagh’s broad lake might boast,Or ocean’s shore, northward from Brandon’s HeadTo where the myriad-pillared cliffs hang forthTheir stony organs o’er the lonely main.And trembles yet the pilgrim, noting at eveThe pride Fomorian, and that Giant Way[116]Trending toward eastern Alba. From his throneAbove the semicirque of grassy seatsWhereon by Brehons and by Ollambs girtDaily be judged his people, rose the kingAnd bade the stranger welcome.
Day to dayAnd night to night succeeded. In fit time,For Patrick, sometimes sudden, oft was slow,He spoke his Master’s message. At the close,As though in trance, the warriors circling stoodWith hands outstretched; the Druids downward frowned,Silent; and like a strong man awed for once,Eochaid round him stared. A little while,And from him passed the amazement. Buoyant once more,And bright like trees fresher for thunder-shower,With all his wonted aspect, bold and keen,He answered: “O my prophet, words, words, words!We too have Prophets. Better thrice our Bards;Yet, being no better these than trumpet’s blast,The trumpet more I prize. Had words been work,Myself in youth had led the loud-voiced clan!Deeds I preferred. What profit e’er had IFrom windy marvels? Once with me in warA seer there camped that, bending back his head,Fit rites performed, and upward gazing, blewWith rounded lips into the heaven of heavensDruidic breath. That heaven was changed to cloud,Cloud that on borne to Clairè’s hated boundDown fell, a rain of blood! To me what gain?Within three weeks my son was trapped and snaredBy Aodh of Hy Brinin, king whose hostsNumber my warriors fourfold. Three long yearsBeyond those purple mountains in the westHostage he lies.” Lightly Eochaid spake,And turned: but shaken chin betrayed that griefWhich lived beneath his lightness.
Sudden throngedHigh on the neighbouring hills a jubilant troop,Their banners waving, while the midway valeWith harp and horn resounded. Patrick spake:“Rejoice! thy son returns! not sole he comes,But in his hand a princess, fair and good,A kingdom for her dowry. Aodh’s realm,By me late left, welcomedmyKing with joy:All fire the mountains shone. ‘The God I serve,’Thus spake I, Aodh pointing to those fires,‘In mountains of rejoicing hath no joyWhile sad beyond them sits a childless man,His only son thy captive. Captive groanedCreation; Bethlehem’s Babe set free the slave.For His sake loose thy thrall!’ A sweeter voicePleaded with mine, his daughter’s ’mid her tears.‘Aodh,’ I said, ‘these two each other love!What think’st thou? He who shaped the linnet’s nest,Indifferent unto Him are human loves?Arise! thy work make perfect! Righteous deedsAre easier whole than half.’ In thought awhileOld Aodh sat; then to his daughter turned,And thus, imperious even in kindness, spake:‘Well fought the youth ere captured, like the sonOf kings, and worthy to be sire of kings:Wed him this hour: and in three days, at eve,Restore him to his father!’ King, this hourThou know’st if Christ’s strong Faith be empty words,Or truth, and armed with power.”
That night was passedIn feasting and in revel, high and lowRich with a common gladness. Many a torchFlared in the hand of servitors hill-sent,That standing, each behind a guest, retainedBeneath that roof clouded by banquet steamTheir mountain wildness. Here, the splendour glancedOn goblet jewel-chased and dark with wine,Swift circling; there, on walls with antlers spread,And rich with yew-wood carvings, flower or bud,Or clustered grape pendent in russet gleamAs though from nature’s hand. A hall hard byEchoed the harp that now nor kindled rage,Nor grief condoled, nor sealed with slumber’s balmTempestuous spirits, triumphs three of song,But raised to rapture, mirth. Far shone that hallGlowing with hangings steeped in every tinctThe boast of Erin’s dyeing-vats, now plain,Now pranked with bird or beast or fish, whate’erFast-flying shuttle from the craftsman’s thoughtCatching, on bore through glimmering warp and woof,A marvellous work; now traced by broiderer’s handWith legends of Ferdìadh and of Meave,Even to the golden fringe. The warriors pacedExulting. Oft they showed their merit’s prize,Poniard or cup, tribute ordained of tribesFrom age to age, Eochaid’s right, on themWith equal right devolving. Slow they movedIn mantle now of crimson, now of blue,Clasped with huge torque of silver or of goldJust where across the snowy shirt there strayedTendril of purple thread. With jewelled frontsBeauteous in pride ’mid light of winsome smiles,Over the rushes green with slender footIn silver slipper hid, the ladies passed,Answering with eyes not lips the whispered praise,Or loud the bride extolling—“When was seenSuch sweetness and such grace?”
Meantime the kingConversed with Patrick. Vexed he heard announcedHis daughter’s high resolve: but still his looksWent wandering to his son. “My boy! Behold him!His valour and his gifts are all from me:My first-born!” From the dancing throng apartHis daughter stood the while, serene and pale,Down-gazing on that lily in her handWith face of one who notes not shapes around,But dreams some happy dream. The king drew nigh,And on her golden head the sceptre staffLeaning, but not to hurt her, thus began:“Your prophets of the day, I trust them not!If sent from God, why came they not long since?Our Druids came before them, and, belike,Shall after them abide! With these new seersI count not Patrick. Things that Patrick saysI ofttimes thought. His lineage too is old—Wide-browed, grey-eyed, with downward lessening face,Not like your baser breeds, with questing eyesAnd jaw of dog. But for thy Heavenly Spouse,I like not Him! At least, wed Cormac first!If rude his ways, yet noble is his name,And being but poor the man will bide with me:He’s brave, and likeliest soon in fight may fall!When Cormac dies, wed next—” a music clashForth bursting drowned his words.
Three days passed by:To Patrick, then preparing to depart,Thus spake Eochaid in the ears of all:“Herald Heaven-missioned of the Tidings Good!Those tidings I have pondered. They are true:I for that truth’s sake, and in honour boundBy reason of my son set free, resolveThe same, upon conditions, to believe,And suffer all my people to believe,Just terms exacted. Briefly these they are:First, after death, I claim admittance frankInto thy Heavenly Kingdom: next, till deathFor me exemption from that Baptism Rite,Imposed on kerne and hind. Experience-taught,I love not rigid bond and written pledge:’Tis well to brand your mark on sheep or lamb:Kings are of lion breed; and of my house’Tis known there never yet was king baptized.This pact concluded, preach within my realmThy Faith; and wed my daughter to thy God.Not scholarly am I to know what joyA maid can find in psalm, and cell, and spouseUnseen: yet ever thus my sentence stood,‘Choose each his way.’ My son restored, her lossTo me is loss the less.” Thus spake the king.
Then Patrick, on whose face the princess bentThe supplication softly strong of eyesLike planets seen through mist, Eochaid’s heartKnowing, which miracle had hardened more,Made answer, “King, a man of jests art thou,Claiming free range in heaven, and yet its gateThyself close barring! In thy daughter’s prayersBelike thou trustest, that where others creepThou shalt its golden bastions over-fly.Far otherwise than in that way thou ween’st,That daughter’s prayers shall speed thee. With thy wordI close, that word to frustrate. God be with thee!Thou living, I return not. Fare thee well.”
Thus speaking, by the hand he took the maid,And led her through the concourse. At her feetThe poor fell low, kissing her garment’s hem,And many brought their gifts, and all their prayers,And old men wept. A maiden train snow-garbed,Her steps attending, whitened plain and field,As when at times dark glebe, new-turned, is changedTo white by flock of ocean birds alit,Or inland blown by storm, or hunger-urgedTo filch the late-sown grain. Her convent homeEre long received her. There Ethembria ruled,Green Erin’s earliest nun. Of princely race,She in past years before the font of ChristHad knelt at Patrick’s feet. Once more she sought him:Over the lovely, lovelier change had passed,As when on childish girlhood, ’mid a showerOf lilies earthward wafted, maidenhoodIn peacefuller state assumes her spotless throne;So, from that maiden, vestal now had risen:—Lowlier she seemed, more tender, soft, and grave,Yet loftier; hushed in quiet more divine,Yet wonder-awed. Again she knelt, and o’erThe bending queenly head, till then unbent,He flung that veil which woman bars from manTo make her more than woman. Nigh to deathThe Saint forgat not her. With her remainedKeinè; but Patrick dwelt far off at Saul.
Years came and went: yet neither chance nor change,Nor war, nor peace, nor warnings from the priests,Nor whispers ’mid the omen-mongering crowd,Might from Eochaid charm his wayward will,Nor reasonings of the wise that still preferredSafe port to victory’s pride. He reasoned too,For confident in his reasonings was the king,Reckoning on pointed fingers every linkThat clenched his mail of proof. “On Patrick’s wordYe tell me Baptism is the gate of Heaven:Attend, Sirs! I have Patrick’s word no lessThat I shall enter Heaven. What need I more?If, Death, truth-speaker, shows that Patrick lied,Plain is my right against him! Heaven not won,Patrick bare hence my daughter through a fraud:He must restore her fourfold—daughters four,As fair and good. If not, the prophet’s pledgeFor honour’s sake his Master must redeem,And unbaptized receive me. Dupes are ye!Doomed ’mid the common flock, with branded fleeceBleating to enter Heaven!”
The years went by;And weakness came. No more his small light formTo reverent eyes seemed taller than it was:No more the shepherd watched him from the hillHeading his hounds, and hoped to catch his smile,Yet feared his questions keen. The end drew near.Some wept, some railed; restless the warriors tramped;The Druids conned their late discountenanced spells;The bard his lying harpstrings spurned, so longHealing, unhelpful now. But far away,Within that lonely convent tower from herWho prayed for ever, mightier rose the prayer.
Within the palace, now by usage oldTo all flung open, all were sore amazed,All save the king. The leech beside the bedSobbed where he stood, yet sware, “The fit will pass:Ten years the King may live.” Eochaid frowned:“Shall I, to patch thy fame, live ten years more,My death-time come? My seventy years are sped:My sire and grandsire died at sixty-nine.Like Aodh, shall I lengthen out my daysToothless, nor fit to vindicate my clan,Some losel’s song? The kingdom is my son’s!Strike from my little milk-white horse the shoes,And loose him where the freshets make the meadGreenest in springtide. He must die ere long;And not to him did Patrick open Heaven.Praise be to Patrick’s God! May He my sins,Known and unknown, forgive!”
Backward he sankUpon his bed, and lay with eyes half closed,Murmuring at times one prayer, five words or six;And twice or thrice he spake of trivial things;Then like an infant slumbered till the sun,Sinking beneath a great cloud’s fiery skirt,Smote his old eyelids. Waking, in his earsThe ripening cornfields whispered ’neath the breeze,For wide were all the casements that the soulBy death delivered hindrance none might find(Careful of this the king); and thus he spake:“Nought ever raised my heart to God like fieldsOf harvest, waving wide from hill to hill,All bread-full for my people. Hale me forth:When I have looked once more upon that sightMy blessing I will give them, and depart.”
Then in the fields they laid him, and he spake.“May He that to my people sends the bread,Send grace to all who eat it!” With that wordHis hands down-falling, back once more he sank,And lay as dead; yet, sudden, rising not,Nor moving, nor his eyes unclosing, said,“My body in the tomb of ancient kingsInter not till beside it Patrick standsAnd looks upon my brow.” He spake, then sighedA little sigh, and died.
Three days, as whenBlack thunder cloud clings fast to mountain brows,So to the nation clung the grief: three daysThe lamentation sounded on the hillsAnd rang around the pale blue meres, and roseShrill from the bleeding heart of vale and glen,And rocky isle, and ocean’s moaning shore;While by the bier the yellow tapers stood,And on the right side knelt Eochaid’s son,Behind him all the chieftains cloaked in black;And on his left his daughter knelt, the nun,Behind her all her sisterhood, white-veiled,Like tombstones after snowstorm. Far away,At “Saul of Patrick,” dwelt the Saint when firstThe king had sickened. Message sent he noneThough knowing all; and when the end was nigh,And heralds now besought him day by day,He made no answer till o’er eastern seasAdvanced the third fair morning. Then he rose,And took the Staff of Jesus, and at eveBeside the dead king standing, on his browFixed a sad eye. Aloud the people wept;The kneeling warriors eyed their lord askance;The nuns intoned their hymn. Above that hymnA cry rang out: it was the daughter’s prayer;And after that was silence. By the deadStill stood the Saint, nor e’er removed his gaze.Then—seen of all—behold, the dead king’s handsRose slowly, as the weed on wave upheavedWithout its will; and all the strengthless shapeIn cerements wrapped, as though by mastering voiceFrom the white void evoked and realm of death,Without its will, a gradual bulk half rose,The hoar head gazing forth. Upon the faceHad passed a change, the greatest earth may know;For what the majesty of death beganThe majesties of worlds unseen, and lifeResurgent ere its time, had perfected,All accidents of flesh and sorrowful yearsCancelled and quelled. Yet horror from his eyesLooked out as though some vision once enduredMust cling to them for ever. Patrick spake:“Soul from the dead sent back once more to earthWhat seek’st thou from God’s Church?” He answer made,“Baptism.” Then Patrick o’er him poured the mightOf healing waters in the Name Triune,The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit;And from his eyes the horror passed, and lightWent from them, as the light of eyes that restOn the everlasting glory, while he spake:“Tempest of darkness drave me past the gatesCelestial, and, a moment’s space, withinI heard the hymning of the hosts of GodThat feed for ever on the Bread of LifeAs feed the nations on the harvest wheat.Tempest of darkness drave me to the gatesOf Anguish: then a cry came up from earth,Cry like my daughter’s when her mother died,That stayed the on-rushing whirlwind; yet mine eyesPerforce looked in, and, many a thousand years,Branded upon them lay that woful sightNow washed from them for ever.” Patrick spake:“This day a twofold choice I give thee, son;For fifteen years the rule o’er Erin’s land,Rule absolute, Ard-Righ o’er lesser kings;Or instant else to die, and hear once moreThat hymn celestial, and that Vision seeThey see who sing that anthem.” Light from GodOver that late dead countenance streamed amain,Like to his daughter’s now—more beauteous thrice—Yet awful, more than beauteous. “Rule o’er earth,Rule without end, were nought to that great hymnHeard but a single moment. I would die.”
Then Patrick, on him gazing, answered, “Die!”And died the king once more, and no man wept;But on her childless breast the nun sustainedSoftly her father’s head.
That night discourseThrough hall and court circled in whispers low.First one, “Was that indeed our king? But whereThe sword-scar and the wrinkles?” “Where,” rejoined,Wide-eyed, the next, “his little cranks and girdsThe wisdom, and the whim?” Then Patrick spake:“Sirs, till this day ye never saw your king;The man ye doted on was but his mask,His picture—yea, his phantom. Ye have seenAt last the man himself.” That night nigh sped,While slowly o’er the darkling woods went down,Warned by the cold breath of the up-creeping mornInvisible yet nigh, the August moon,Two vestals, gliding past like moonlight gleams,Conversed: one said, “His daughter’s prayer prevailed!”The second, “Who may know the ways of God?For this, may many a heart one day rejoiceIn hope! For this, the gift to many a manExceed the promise; Faith’s invisible germQuickened with parting breath; and Baptism given,It may be, by an angel’s hand unseen!”
Saint Patrick repairs to Ardmacha, there to found the chief church of Erin. For that purpose he demands of Dairè, the king, a certain woody hill. The king refuses it, and afterwards treats him with alternate scorn and reverence; while the Saint, in each event alike, makes the same answer, “Deo Gratias.” At last the king concedes to him the hill; and on the summit of it Saint Patrick finds a little white fawn asleep. The men of Erin would have slain that fawn; but the Saint carries it on his shoulder, and restores it to its dam. Where the fawn lay, he places the altar of his cathedral.
AtCluain Cain, in Ross, unbent yet old,Dwelt Patrick long. Its sweet and flowery swardHe to the rock had delved, with fixed resolveTo build thereon Christ’s chiefest church in Eire.Then by him stood God’s angel, speaking thus:“Not here, but northward.” He replied, “O, wouldThis spot might favour find with God! Behold!Fair is it, and as meet to clasp a churchAs is a true heart in a virgin breastTo clasp the Faith of Christ. The hinds aroundName it ‘the beauteous meadow.’” “Fair it is,”The angel answered, “nor shall lack its crown.Another’s is its beauty. Here, one dayA pilgrim from the Britons sent shall build,And, later, what he builds shall pass to thine;But thou to Macha get thee.”
Patrick then,Obedient as that Patriarch Sire who facedAt God’s command the desert, northward wentIn holy silence. Soon to him was lostThat green and purple meadow-sea, embayed’Twixt two descending woody promontories,Its outlet girt with isles of rock, its shoresCream-white with meadow-sweet. Not once he turned,Climbing the uplands rough, or crossing streamsSwoll’n by the melted snows. The Brethren pacedBehind; Benignus first, his psalmist; nextSecknall, his bishop; next his brehon Erc;Mochta, his priest; and Sinell of the Bells;Rodan, his shepherd; Essa, Bite, and Tassach,Workers of might in iron and in stone,God-taught to build the churches of the FaithWith wisdom and with heart-delighting craft;Mac Cairthen last, the giant meek that oftOn shoulders broad bare Patrick through the floods:His rest was nigh. That hour they crossed a stream;’Twas deep, and, ’neath his load, the giant sighed.Saint Patrick said, “Thou wert not wont to sigh!”He answered, “Old I grow. Of them my matesHow many hast thou left in churches housedWherein they rule and rest!” The Saint replied,“Thee also will I leave within a churchFor rule and rest; not to mine own too nearFor rarely then should we be seen apart,Nor yet remote, lest we should meet no more.”At Clochar soon he placed him. There, long yearsMac Cairthen sat, its bishop.
As they went,Oft through the woodlands rang the battle-shout;And twice there rose above the distant hillThe smoke of hamlet fired. Yet, none the less,Spring-touched, the blackbird sang; the cowslip changedGreen lawn to green and golden; and grey rockAnd river’s marge with primroses were starred;Here shook the windflower; there the blue-bells gleamed,As though a patch of sky had fallen on earth.
Then to Benignus spake the Saint: “My son,If grief were lawful in a world redeemedThe blood-stains on a land so strong in faith,So slack in love, might cloud the holiest brow,Yea, his whose head lay on the breast of Christ.Clan wars with clan: no injury is forgiven;Like to the joy in stag-hunts is the war:Alas! for such what hope!” Benignus answered“O Father, cease not for this race to hope,Lest they should hope no longer! Hope they have;Still say they, ‘God will snare us in the endThough wild.’” And Patrick, “Spirits twain are theirs:The stranger, and the poor, at every doorThey meet, and bid him in. The youngest childOfficious is in service; maids prepareThe bath; men brim the wine-cup. Then, forth borne,Cities they fire and rich in spoil depart,Greed mixed with rage—an industry of blood!”He spake, and thus the younger made reply:“Father, the stranger is the brother-manTo them; the poor is neighbour. Septs remoteTo them are alien worlds. They know not yetThat rival clans are men.”
“That know they shall,”Patrick made answer, “when a race far offTramples their race to clay! God sends abroadHis plague of war that men on earth may knowBrother from foe, and anguish work remorse.”He spake, and after musings added thus:“Base of God’s kingdom is Humility—I have not spared to thunder o’er their pride;Great kings have I rebuked and signs sent forth,And banned for their sake fruitful plain, and bay;Yet still the widow’s cry is on the air,The orphan’s wail!” Benignus answered mild,“O Father, not alone with sign and banHast thou rebuked their madness. Oftener farThy sweetness hath reproved them. Once in woodsNorthward of Tara as we tracked our wayRound us there gathered slaves who felled the pinesFor ship-masts. Scarred their hands, and red with blood,Because their master, Trian, thus had sworn,‘Let no man sharpen axe!’ Upon those handsGazing, they wept soon as thy voice they heard,Because that voice was soft. Thou heard’st their tale;Straight to that chieftain’s castle went’st thou up,And bound’st him with thy fast, beside his gateSitting in silence till his heart should melt;And since he willed it not to melt, he died.Then, in her arms two babes, came forth the queenBlack-robed, and freed her slaves, and gave them hire;And, we returning after many years,Filled was that wood with homesteads; plots of cornRustled around them; here were orchards; thereIn trench or tank they steeped the bright blue flax;The saw-mill turned to use the wanton brook;Murmured the bee-hive; murmured household wheel;Soft eyes looked o’er it through the dusk; at workThe labourers carolled; matrons glad and maidsBare us the pail head-steadied, children flowers:Last, from her castle paced the queen, and ledIn either hand her sons whom thou hadst blest,Thenceforth to stand thy priests. The land believed;And not through ban, or word, sharp-edged or soft,But silence and thy fast the ill custom died.”
He answered, “Christ, in Christ-like life expressed,This, this, not words, subdues a land to Christ;And in this best Apostolate all have part.Ah me! that flower thou hold’st is strong to preachCreative Love, because itself is lovely;But we, the heralds of Redeeming Love,Because we are unlovely in our lives,Preach to deaf ears! Yet theirs, theirs too, the sin.”Benignus made reply: “The race is old;Not less their hearts are young. Have patience with them!For see, in spring the grave old oaks push forthImpatient sprays, wine-red: their strength matured,These sober down to verdure.” Patrick paused,Then, brooding, spake, as one who thinks, not speaks:“A priest there walked with me ten years and more;Warrior in youth was he. One day we heardThe shock of warring clans—I hear it still:Within him, as in darkening vase you noteThe ascending wine, I watched the passion mount:—Sudden he dashed him down into the fight,Nor e’er to Christ returned.” Benignus answered;“I saw above a dusky forest roofThe glad spring run, leaving a track sea-green:Not straight she ran; and yet she reached her goal:Later I saw above green copse of thornThe glad spring run, leaving a track foam-white:Not straight she ran; yet soon she conquered all!O Father, is it sinful to be gladHere amid sin and sorrow? Joy is strong,Strongest in spring-tide! Mourners I have knownThat, homeward wending from the new-dug grave,Against their will, where sang the happy birdsHave felt the aggressive gladness stir their hearts,And smiled amid their tears.” So babbled he,Shamed at his spring-tide raptures.
As they went,Far on their left there stretched a mighty landOf forest-girdled hills, mother of streams:Beyond it sank the day; while round the westLike giants thronged the great cloud-phantoms towered.Advancing, din they heard, and found in woodsA hamlet and a field by war unscathed,And boys on all sides running. Placid satThe village Elders; neither lacked that hourThe harp that gently tranquillises age,Yet wakes young hearts with musical unrest,Forerunner oft of love’s unrest. Ere longThe measure changed to livelier: maid with maidDanced ’mid the dancing shadows of the trees,And youth with youth; till now, the strangers near,Those Elders welcomed them with act benign;And soon was slain the fatted kid, and soonThe lamb; nor any asked till hunger’s rageWas quelled, “Who art thou?” Patrick made reply,“A Priest of God.” Then prayed they, “Offer thouTo Him our sacrifice! Belike ’tis HeWho saves from war this hamlet hid in woods:Unblest be he who finds it!” Thus they spake,The matrons, not the youths. In friendly talkThe hours went by with laughter winged and tale;But when the moon, on rolling through the heavens,Showered through the leaves a dew of sprinkled lightO’er the dark ground, the maidens garments broughtWoven in their quiet homes when nights were long,Red cloak and kirtle green, and laid them soft,Still with the wearers’ blameless beauty warm,For coverlet upon the warm dry grass,Honouring the stranger guests. For these they deemedTheir low-roofed cots too mean. Glad-hearted roseThe Christian hymn, not timid: far it rangAbove the woods. Ere long, their blissful ritesFulfilled, the wanderers laid them down and slept.
At midnight by the side of Patrick stoodVictor, God’s Angel, saying, “Lo! thy workHath favour found and thou ere long shalt die:Thus therefore saith the Lord, ‘So long as seaGirdeth this isle, so long thy name shall hangIn splendour o’er it, like the stars of God.’”Then Patrick said, “A boon! I crave a boon!”The angel answered, “Speak;” and Patrick said,“Let them that with me toiled, or in the yearsTo come shall toil, building o’er all this landThe Fortress-Temple and great House of Christ,Equalled with me my name in Erin share.”And Victor answered, “Half thy prayer is thine;With thee shall they partake. Not less, thy nameHigher than theirs shall rise, and wider spread,Since thus more plainly shall His glory shineWhose glory is His justice.”
With the mornThose pilgrims rose, and, prime entoned and lauds,Poured out their blessing on that woodland clanWhich, round them pressing, kissed them, robe and knee;Then on they journeyed till at set of sunShone out the roofs of Macha, and that towerWhere Dairè dwelt, its lord.
Saint Patrick sentTo Dairè embassage, vouchsafing prayerAs sire might pray of son; “Give thou yon hillTo Christ, that we may build His church thereon.”And Dairè answered with a brow of stormsBent forward darkly, and long, sneering lips,“Your master is a mighty man, we know.Garban, that lied to God, he slew through prayer,And banned full many a lake, and many a plain,For trespass there committed! Let it be!A Chief of souls he is! No signs we work,Rulers earth-born: yet somewhat are we here—Depart! By others answer we will send.”
So Dairè sent to Patrick men of might,Fierce men, the battle’s nurslings. Thus they spake:“High region for high heads! If build ye must,Build on the plain: the hill is Dairè’s right:Church site he grants you, and the field around.”And Patrick, glancing from his Office Book,Made answer, “Deo Gratias,” and no more.
Upon that plain he built a little churchEre long, a convent likewise, girt with moundBanked from the meadow loam, and deftly setWith stone, and fence, and woody palisade,That neither warring clans, far heard by day,Might hurt his cloistered charge, nor wolves by night,Howling in woods; and there he served the Lord.
But Dairè scorned the Saint, and grudged his gift,Though small; and half in spleen, and half in greed,Sent down two stately coursers all night longTo graze the deep sweet pasture round the church:Ill deed:—and so, for guerdon of that sin,Dead lay the coursers twain at the break of dawn.
Then fled the servants back, and told their lord,Fearing for negligence rebuke and scath,“Thy Christian slew the coursers!” and the kingGave word to slay or bind him. But from GodA sickness fell on Dairè nigh to deathThat day and night. When morning brake, the queen,A woman leal with kind barbaric heart,Her bosom from the sick man’s head withdrewA moment while he slept; and, round her gazing,Closed with both hands upon a liegeman’s arm,And sped him to the Saint for pardon and peace.Then Patrick, dipping in the inviolate fountA chalice, blessed the water, with command“Sprinkle the stately coursers and the king;”And straightway as from death the king arose,And rose from death the coursers.
Dairè then,His tall frame boastful with that life renewed,Took with him men, and down the stone-paved hillRode from his tower, and through the woodlands green,And bare with him an offering of those days,A brazen cauldron vast. Embossed it shoneWith sculptured shapes. On one side hunters rode:Low stretched their steeds: the dogs pulled down the stagUnseen, except the branching horns that roseLike hands in protest. Feasters, on the other,Raised high the cup pledging the safe return.This offering Dairè brought, and, entering, spake:“A gift for guerdon and for grace, O Priest!”And Patrick, upward glancing from his book,Made answer, “Deo Gratias!” and no more.
King Dairè, homeward riding with knit browMuttered, “Churl’s welcome for a kingly boon!”And, drinking late that night the stormy breathOf others’ anger blent with his, commanded,“Ride forth at morn and bring me back my gift!Spurn it he shall not, though he prize it not.”They heard him, and obeyed. At noon the kingDemanded thus, “What answer made the Saint?”They said, “His eyes he raised not from his book,But answered, ‘Deo Gratias!’ and no more.”
Then Dairè stamped his foot, like war-horse stungBy gadfly: musing next, and mute he satA space, and lastly roared great laughter pealsTill roared in mockery back the raftered roof,And clashed his hands together shouting thus:“A gift, and ‘Deo Gratias!’—gift withdrawn,And ‘Deo Gratias!’ Sooth, the word is good!Madman is this, or man of God? We’ll know!”So from his frowning fortress once againAdown the resonant road o’er street and bridgeRode Dairè, at his right the queen in fear,With dumbly pleading countenance; close behind,With tangled locks and loose-hung battle-axeRan the wild kerne; and loud the bull-horn blew.The convent reached, King Dairè from his horseFlung his great limbs, and at the doorway toweredIn gazing stern: the queen beside him stood,Her lustrous violet eyes all lost in tears:One hand on Dairè’s garment lay like lightWandering on dusky ripple; one, upraised,Held in the high-necked horse that champed the bit,His head near hers. Within, the man of God,Sole-sitting, read his office book unmoved,And ending fixed his keen eye on the king,Not rising from his seat.
Then fell from GodInsight on Dairè, and aloud he cried,“A kingly man, of mind unmovableArt thou; and as the rock beneath my towerShakes not in storm so shakes not heart of thine:Such men are of the height and not the plain:Therefore that hill to thee I grant unsoughtWhich whilome I refused. Possession takeThis day, lest hostile demon warp my mood;And build thereon thy church. The same shall standStrong mother-church of all thy great clan Christ!”
Thus Dairè spake; and Patrick, at his wordRising, gave thanks to God, and to the kingHigh blessing heard in heaven; and making signWent forth, attended by his priestly train,Benignus first, his dearest, then the rest.In circuit thrice they girt that hill, and sangAnthem first heard when unto God was vowedThat House which David offered in his heartHis son in act, and hymn of holy ChurchHailing that city like a bride attired,From heaven to earth descending. With them sangAn angel choir above them borne. The birdsForbore their songs, listening that angel strain,Ethereal music and by men unheardExcept the Elect. The king in reverence pacedBehind, his liegemen next, a mass confusedWith saffron standard gay and spears upheldFlashing through thickets green. These kept not line,For Alp was still recounting battles old,Aodh of wizards sang, and Ir of love;While bald-pate Conan, sharpening from his eyeThe sneering light, shot from his plastic mouthShrill taunt and biting gibe. The younger sortEyed the dense copse and launched full many a shaftThrough it at flying beast. From ledge to ledgeClomb Angus, keen of sight, with hand o’er brow,Forth gazing on some far blue ridge of warWith nostril wide outblown, and snorting cried,“Would I were there!”
Meantime, the man of GodHad reached the fair crown of that sacred hill,A circle girt with woodland branching low,And roofed with heaven. Beyond its tonsure fringe,Birch trees and oaks, there pushed a thorn milk-white,And close beside it slept in shade a fawnWhiter. The startled dam had left its side,And through the dark stems fled like flying gleam.Minded they were, the kernes, to kill that fawn,And all the priests stood silent; but the SaintPut forth his hand, and o’er her signed the Cross,And, stooping, on his shoulder placed her firm,And bade the brethren mark with stones her lairDewless and dusk: then, singing as he went“Like as the hart desires the water brooks,”He walked, that hill descending. Light from GodO’ershone his face. Meantime the awakened fawnNow rolled her dark eye on the silver headClose by, now turning licked the wrinkled hand,Unfearing. Soon, with little whimpering sob,The doe drew near and paced at Patrick’s side.At last they reached a little field low downBeneath that hill: there Patrick laid the fawn.
King Dairè questioned Patrick of that deed,Incensed; and scornful asked, “Shall mitred manPlay thus the shepherd and the forester?”And Patrick answered, “Aged men, O king,Forget their reasons oft. Benignus seek,If haply God has shown him for what causeI wrought this thing.” Then Dairè turned him backAnd faced Benignus; and with lifted hand,Pure as a maid’s, and dimpled like a child’s,Picturing his thoughts on air, the little monkThus glossed that deed. “Great mystery, king, is Love:Poets its worthiness have sung in laysUnread by ruder ones like me; and yetThus much the simplest and the rudest know,Dear is the fawn to her that gave it birth,And to the sceptred monarch dear the childThat mounts his knee. Nor here the marvel ends;For, like yon star, the great Paternal HeartThrough all the unmeted, unimagined years,While yet Creation uncreated hung,A thought, a dawn-streak on the verge extremeOf lonely Godhead’s inner Universe,Panted and pants with splendour of its love,The Eternal Sire rejoicing in the SonAnd Both in Him Who still from Both proceeds,Bond of their love. Moreover, king, that SonWho, Virgin-born, raised from the ruinous gulfOur world, and made it footstool to God’s throne,The same is Love, and died for Love, and reigns:Loveless, His Church were but a corse stone-cold;Loveless, her creed were but a winter leafNetwork of barren thoughts, the cerement wanOf Faith extinct. Therefore our Saint reveredThe love and anguish of that mother doe,And inly vowed that where her offspring couchedChrist’s chiefest church should stand, from age to ageConfession plain ’mid raging of the clansThat God is Love;—His worship void and vainDisjoined from Love that, rising to the heightsEven to the depths descends.”
Conversing thus,Macha they reached. Ere long where lay the fawnStood God’s new altar; and, ere many years,Far o’er the woodlands rose the church high-towered,Preaching God’s peace to still a troubled world.The Saint who built it found not there his graveThough wished for; him God buried otherwhere,Fulfilling thus the counsels of His Will:But old, and grey, when many a winter’s frostTo spring had yielded, bent by wounds and woesUpon that church’s altar looked once moreKing Dairè; at its font was joined to Christ;And, midway ’twixt that altar and that font,Rejoined his beauteous mate a later day.
Secknall, the poet, brings, in sport, three heavy charges against Saint Patrick, who, supposing them to be serious, defends himself against them. Lastly Secknall sings a hymn written in praise of a Saint. Saint Patrick commends it, affirming that for once Fame has dispensed her honours honestly. Upon this, Secknall recites the first stave, till then craftily reserved, which offers the whole homage of that hymn to Patrick, who, though the humblest of men, has thus arrogated to himself the saintly Crown. There is laughter among the brethren.
WhenPatrick now was old and nigh to deathUndimmed was still his eye; his tread was strong;And there was ever laughter in his heart,And music in his laughter. In a woodNigh to Ardmacha dwelt he with his monks;And there, like birds that cannot stay their songsLove-touched in Spring, or grateful for their nests,They to the woodsmen preached of Christ, their King,To swineherds, and to hinds that tended sheep,Yea, and to pilgrim guests from distant clans;His shepherd-worshipped birth when breath of kineWent o’er the Infant; all His wondrous worksOr words from mount, or field, or anchored boat,And Christendom upreared for weal of menAnd Angel-wonder. Daily preached the monksAnd daily built their convent. Wildly sweetThe season, prime of unripe spring, when MarchDistils from cup half gelid yet some dropsOf finer relish than the hand of MayPours from her full-brimmed beaker. Frost, though gone,Had left its glad vibration on the air;Laughed the blue heavens as though they ne’er had frowned,Through leafless oak-boughs; limes of kindlier graceAnd swifter to believe Spring’s “tidings good”Took the sweet lights upon a breast bud-swoll’n,And crimson as the redbreast’s; while, as whenClear rings a flute-note through sea-murmurs harsh,At intervals ran out a streak of greenAcross the dim-hued forest.
From their woodThe strong arms of the monks had hewn them spaceFor all their convent needed; farmyard storedWith stacks that all the winter long had clutchedTheir hoarded harvest sunshine; pasture greenWhitened with sheep; fair garden fenceless stillWith household herbs new-sprouting: but, as oftSome conquered race, forth sallying in its spleenWhen serves the occasion, wins a province back,Or flouts at least the foe, so here once moreWild flowers, a clan unvanquished, raised their heads’Mid sprouting wheat; and where from craggy heightPushed the grey ledge, the woodland host recoiledAs though in Parthian flight; while many a bird,Barbaric from the inviolate forest launchedWild warbled scorn on all that life reclaimed,Mute garth-still orchard. Child of distant hills,A proud stream, swollen by midnight rains, down leapedFrom rock to rock. It spurned the precinct nowWith airy dews silvering the bramble greenAnd redd’ning more the beech-stock.
’Twas the hourOf rest, and every monk was glad at heart,For each had wrought with might. With hands upheld,Mochta, the priest, had thundered against sin,Wrath-roused, as when some prince too late returnedStares at his sea-side village all in flames,The slave-thronged ship escaped. The bishop, Erc,Had reconciled old feuds by Brehon LawWhere Brehon Law was lawful. Boys wild-eyedHad from Benignus learned the church’s song,Boys brightened now, yet tempered, by that ageGracious to stripling as to maid, that bringsValour to one and modesty to bothWhere youth is loyal to the Virgin-born.The giant meek, Mac Cairthen, on bent neckHad carried beam on beam, while Criemther felledThe oaks, and from the anvil Laeban dashedThe sparks in showers. A little way removed,Beneath a pine three vestals sat close-veiled:A song these childless sang of Bethlehem’s Child,Low-toned, and worked their Altar-cloth, a LambAll white on golden blazon; near it bledThe bird that with her own blood feeds her young:Red drops affused her holy breast. These threeWere daughters of three kings. The best and fairest,King Dairè’s daughter, Erenait by name,Had loved Benignus in her Pagan years.He knew it not: full sweet to her his voiceChaunting in choir. One day through grief of loveThe maiden lay as dead: Benignus shookDews from the font above her, and she wokeWith heart emancipate that outsoared the larkLost in blue heavens. She loved the Spouse of Souls.It was as though some child that, dreaming, weptIts childish playthings lost, awaked by bells,Bride-bells, had found herself a queen new wedUnto her country’s lord.
While monk with monkConversed, the son of Patrick’s sister sat,Secknall by name, beside the window soleAnd marked where Patrick from his hill of prayerApproached, descending slowly. At the sightHe, maker blithe of songs, and wild as hawkAlbeit a Saint, whose wont it was at timesOr shy, or strange, or shunning flattery’s taint,To attempt with mockery those whom most he loved,Whispered a brother, “Speak to Patrick thus:‘When all men praised thee, Secknall made reply“A blessed man were Patrick save for this,Alms deeds he preaches not.”’” The brother went:Ere long among them entered Patrick, wroth,Or, likelier, feigning wrath:—“What man is heWho saith I preach not alms deeds?” Secknall rose:“I said it, Father, and the charge is true.”Then Patrick answered, “Out of CharityI preach not Charity. This people, wonTo Christ, ere long will prove a race of Saints;To give will be its passion, not to gain:Its heart is generous; but its hand is slackIn all save war: herein there lurks a snare:The priest will fatten, and the beggar feast:But the lean land will yield nor chief nor princeHire of two horses yoked to chariot beam.”Then Secknall spake, “O Father, dead it liesMine earlier charge against thee. Hear my next,Since in our Order’s equal BrotherhoodCensure uncensured is the right of all.You press to the earth your converts! gold you spurn;Yet bind upon them heavier load than whenConqueror his captive tasks. Have shepherds threeBowed them to Christ? ‘Build up a church,’ you cry;So one must draw the sand, and one the stoneAnd one the lime. Honouring the seven great Gifts,You raise in one small valley churches seven.Who serveth you fares hard!” The Saint replied,“Second as first! I came not to this landTo crave scant service, nor with shallow ploughCleave I this glebe. The priest that soweth muchFor here the land is fruitful, much shall reap:Who soweth little nought but weeds shall bindAnd poppies of oblivion.” Secknall next:“Yet man to man will whisper, and the faceOf all this people darken like a seaWhen pipes the coming storm.” He answered, “Son,I know this people better. Fierce they areIn anger; neither flies their thought direct;For some, though true to Nature, lie to men,And others, true to men, are false to God:Yet as the prince’s is the poor man’s heart;Burthen for God sustained no burden isTo him; and those who most have given to ChristLargeliest His fulness share.”
Secknall replied,“Low lies my second charge; a third remains,Which, as a shaft from seasoned bow, not green,Shall pierce the marl. With convents still you sowThe land: in other countries sparse and smallThey swell to cities here. A hundred monksOn one late barren mountain dig and pray:A hundred nuns gladden one woodland lawn,Or sing in one small island. Well—’tis well!Yet, balance lost and measure, nought is well.The Angelic Life more common will becomeThan life of mortal men.” The Saint replied,“No shaft from homicidal yew-tree bowIs thine, but winged of thistle-down! Now hear!Measure is good; but measure’s law with scaleChangeth; nor doth the part reflect the whole.Each nation hath its gift, and each to allNot equal ministers. If all were eye,Where then were ear? If all were ear or hand,Where then were eye? The nation is the part;The Church the whole”—But Criemther where he stood,Old warrior, shouted like a chief war-waked,“This land is Eire! No nation lives like her!A part! Who portions Eire?” The Saint, with smileResumed: “The whole that from the part receives,Repaying still that part, till man’s whole raceGrow to the fulness of Mankind redeemed.What gift hath God in eminence given to Eire?Singly, her race is feeble; strong when knit:Nought knits them truly save a heavenly aim.I knit them as an army unto God,Give them God’s War! Yon star is militant!Its splendour ’gainst the dark must fight or die:So wars that Faith I preach against the world;And nations fitted least for this world’s gainCan speed Faith’s triumph best. Three hundred years,Well used, should make of Eire a northern Rome.Criemther! her destiny is this, or nought;Secknall! the highest only can she reach;Alone the Apostle’s crown is hers: for this,A Rule I give her, strong, yet strong in Love;Monastic households build I far and wide;Monastic clans I plant among her clans,With abbots for their chiefs. The same shall live,Long as God’s love o’errules them.”
Secknall thenKnelt, reverent; yet his eye had in it mirth,And round the full bloom of the red rich mouth,No whit ascetic, ran a dim half smile.“Father, my charges three have futile fallen,And thrice, like some great warrior of the bards,Your conquering wheels above me you have driven.Brought low, I make confession. Once, in woodsWandering, we heard a sound, now loud, now low,As he that treads the sand-hills hears the seaHigh murmuring while he climbs the seaward slope,Low, as he drops to landward. ’Twas a throngAwed, yet tumultuous, wild-eyed, wondering, fierce,That, standing round a harper, stave on staveAcclaimed as each had ending. ‘War, still war!’Thou saidst; ‘the bards but sing of War and Death!Ah! if they sang that Death which conquered Death,Then, like a tide, this people, music-drawn,Would mount the shores of Christ! Bards love not us,Prescient that power, that power wielded elsewhereBy priest, but here by them, shall pass to us:Yet we love them for good one day their gift.’Then didst thou turn on me an eye of mightSuch as on Malach, when thou had’st him raiseBy miracle of prayer that babe boar-slain,And said’st, ‘Go, fell thy pine, and frame thy harp,And in the hearing of this people singSome Saint, the friend of Christ.’ Too long the attemptShame-faced, I shunned; at last, like him of old,That better brother who refused, yet went,I made my hymn. ’Tis called ‘A Child of Life.’”Then Patrick, “Welcome is the praise of Saints:Sing thou thy hymn.”
From kneeling Secknall roseAnd stood, and singing, raised his hand as whenHer cymbal by the Red Sea Miriam raisedWhile silent stood God’s hosts, and silent layThose host-entombing waters. Shook, like hers,His slight form wavering ’mid the gusts of song.He sang the Saint of God, create from noughtTo work God’s Will. As others gaze on earth,Her vales, her plains, her green meads ocean-girt,So gazed the Saint for ever upon GodWho girds all worlds—saw intermediate nought—And on Him watched the sunshine and the storm,And learned His Countenance, and from It alone,Drew in upon his heart its day and night.That contemplation was for him no dream:It hurled him on his mission. As a swordHe lodged his soul within the Hand DivineAnd wrought, keen-edged, God’s counsel. Next to GodNext, and how near, he loved the souls of men:Yea, men to him were Souls; the unspiritual herdHe saw as magic-bound, or chained to beast,And groaned to free them. For their sakes, unfearing,He faced the ravening waves, and iron rocks,Hunger, and poniard’s edge, and poisoned cup,And faced the face of kings, and faced the hostOf demons raging for their realm o’erthrown.This was the Man of Love. Self-love cast out,The love made spiritual of a thousand heartsMet in his single heart, and kindled thereA sun-like image of Love Divine. WithinThat Spirit-shadowed heart was Christ conceivedHourly through faith, hourly through Love was born;Sole secret this of fruitfulness to Christ.Who heard him heard with his a lordlier Voice,Strong as that Voice which said, “Let there be light,”And light o’erflowed their beings. He from eachHis secret won; to each God’s secret told:He touched them, and they lived. In each, the fleshSubdued to soul, the affections, vassals proudBy conscience ruled, and conscience lit by Christ,The whole man stood, planet full-orbed of powersIn equipoise, Image restored of God.A nation of such men his portion was;That nation’s Patriarch he. No wrangler loud;No sophist; lesser victories knew he none:No triumph his of sect, or camp, or court;The Saint his great soul flung upon the world,And took the people with him like a windMissioned from God that with it wafts in springSome wingèd race, a multitudinous night,Into new sun-bright climes.
As Secknall sang,Nearer the Brethren drew. On Patrick’s rightBenignus stood; old Mochta on his left,Slow-eyed, with solemn smile and sweet; next Erc,Whose ever-listening countenance that hourBeyond its wont was listening; Criemther nearThe workman Saint, his many-wounded handsTogether clasped: forward each mighty armOn shoulders propped of Essa and of Bite,Leaned the meek giant Cairthen: twelve in allClustering they stood and in them was one soul.When Secknall ceased, in silence still they hungEach upon each, glad-hearted since the meedOf all their toils shone out before them plain,Gold gates of heaven—a nation entering in.A light was on their faces, and withoutSpread a great light, for sunset now had fallenA Pentecostal fire upon the woods,Or else a rain of angels streamed o’er earth.In marvel gazed the twelve: yea, clans far offStared from their hills, deeming the site aflame.That glory passed away, discourse aroseOn Secknall’s hymn. Its radiance from his faceHad, like the sunset’s, vanished as he spake.“Father, what sayst thou?” Patrick made reply,“My son, the hymn is good; for Truth is gold;And Fame, obsequious often to base heads,For once is loyal, and its crown hath laidWhere honour’s debt was due.” Then Secknall raisedIn triumph both his hands, and chaunted loudThat hymn’s first stave, earlier through craft withheld,Stave that to Patrick’s name, and his alone,Offered that hymn’s whole incense! Ceasing, he stoodLow-bowed, with hands upon his bosom crossed.Great laughter from the brethren came, their ChiefThus trapped, though late—he meekest man of men—To claim the saintly crown. First young, then old,Later the old, and sore against their will,That laughter raised. Last from the giant chestOf Cairthen forth it rolled its solemn bass,Like sea-sound swallowing lighter sounds hard by.But Patrick laughed not: o’er his face there passedShade lost in light; and thus he spake, “O friendsThat which I have to do I know in part:God grant I work my work. That which I amHe knows Who made me. Saints He hath, good store:Their names are written in His Book of Life;Kneel down, my sons, and pray that if thus longI seem to stand, I fall not at the end.”
Then in a circle kneeling prayed the twelve.But when they rose, Secknall with serious browAdvanced, and knelt, and kissed Saint Patrick’s foot,And said, “O Father, at thy hest that hymnI made, long labouring, and thy crown it stands:Thou, therefore, grant me gifts, for strong thy prayer.”
And Patrick said, “The house wherein thy hymnIs sung at morn or eve shall lack not bread:And if men sing it in a house new-built,Where none hath dwelt, nor bridegroom yet, nor bride,Nor hath the cry of babe been heard therein,Upon that house the watching of the SaintsOf Eire, and Patrick’s watching, shall be fixedEven as the stars.” And Secknall said, “What more?”