Chapter II: Part 2

Yet Patrick grieved for Milcho, nor that hour
Passed further north. Three days on Sleemish hill
He dwelt in prayer. To Tara’s royal halls
Then turned he, and subdued the royal house
And host to Christ, save Erin’s king, Laeghaire.
But Milcho’s daughters twain to Christ were born
In baptism, and each Emeria named:
Like rose-trees in the garden of the Lord
Grew they and flourished. Dying young, one grave
Received them at Cluanbrain. Healing thence
To many from their relics passed; to more
The spirit’s happier healing, Love and Faith.

SAINT PATRICK AT TARA.

THE King is wroth with a greater wrath
Than the wrath of Nial or the wrath of Conn!
From his heart to his brow the blood makes path,
And hangs there, a red cloud, beneath his crown.

Is there any who knows not, from south to north,
That Laeghaire to-morrow his birthday keeps?
No fire may be lit upon hill or hearth
Till the King’s strong fire in its kingly mirth
Up rushes from Tara’s palace steeps!

Yet Patrick has lighted his Paschal fire
At Slane—it is holy Saturday—
And blessed his font ’mid the chaunting choir!
From hill to hill the flame makes way;
While the king looks on it his eyes with ire
Flash red, like Mars, under tresses grey.

The chiefs and the captains with drawn swords rose:
To avenge their Lord and the Realm they swore;
The Druids rose and their garments tore;
“The strangers to us and our Gods are foes!”
Then the king to Patrick a herald sent,
Who spake, “Come up at noon and show
Who lit thy fire and with what intent:
These things the great king Laeghaire would know.”

But Laeghaire had hid twelve men by the way,
Who swore by the sun the Saint to slay.

When the waters of Boyne began to bask
And fields to flash in the rising sun
The Apostle Evangelist kept his Pasch,
And Erin her grace baptismal won:
Her birthday it was: his font the rock,
He blessed the land, and he blessed his flock.

Then forth to Tara he fared full lowly:
The Staff of Jesus was in his hand:
Twelve priests paced after him chaunting slowly,
Printing their steps on the dewy land.
It was the Resurrection morn;
The lark sang loud o’er the springing corn;
The dove was heard, and the hunter’s horn.

The murderers twelve stood by on the way;
Yet they saw nought save the lambs at play.

A trouble lurked in the monarch’s eye
When the guest he counted for dead drew nigh:
He sat in state at his palace gate;
His chiefs and nobles were ranged around;
The Druids like ravens smelt some far fate;
Their eyes were gloomily bent on the ground.
Then spake Laeghaire: “He comes—beware!
Let none salute him, or rise from his chair!”

Like some still vision men see by night,
Mitred, with eyes of serene command,
Saint Patrick moved onward in ghostly white:
The Staff of Jesus was in his hand;
Twelve priests paced after him unafraid,
And the boy, Benignus, more like a maid;
Like a maid just wedded he walked and smiled,
To Christ new plighted, that priestly child.

They entered the circle; their anthem ceased;
The Druids their eyes bent earthward still:
On Patrick’s brow the glory increased
As a sunrise brightening some sea-beat hill.
The warriors sat silent: strange awe they felt:
The chief bard, Dubtach, rose and knelt:

Then Patrick discoursed of the things to be
When time gives way to eternity,
Of kingdoms that fall, which are dreams not things,
And the Kingdom built by the King of kings.
Of Him he spake who reigns from the Cross;
Of the death which is life, and the life which is loss;
How all things were made by the Infant Lord,
And the small hand the Magian kings adored.
His voice sounded on like a throbbing flood
That swells all night from some far-off wood,
And when it ended—that wondrous strain—
Invisible myriads breathed “Amen!”

While he spake, men say that the refluent tide
On the shore by Colpa ceased to sink:
They say that the white stag by Mulla’s side
O’er the green marge bending forbore to drink:
That the Brandon eagle forgat to soar;
That no leaf stirred in the wood by Lee:
Such stupor hung the island o’er,
For none might guess what the end would be.

Then whispered the king to a chief close by,
“It were better for me to believe than die!”

Yet the king believed not; but ordinance gave
That whoso would might believe that word:
So the meek believed, and the wise, and brave,
And Mary’s Son as their God adored.
And the Druids, because they could answer nought,
Bowed down to the Faith the stranger brought.
That day on Erin God poured His Spirit:
Yet none like the chief of the bards had merit,
Dubtach! He rose and believed the first,
Ere the great light yet on the rest had burst.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE TWO PRINCESSES. FEDELM “THE RED ROSE,” AND ETHNA “THE FAIR.”

LIKE two sister fawns that leap,
Borne, as though on viewless wings,
Down bosky glade and ferny steep
To quench their thirst at silver springs,
From Cruachan palace through gorse and heather,
Raced the Royal Maids together.
Since childhood thus the twain had rushed
Each morn to Clebach’s fountain-cell
Ere earliest dawn the East had flushed
To bathe them in its well:
Each morn with joy their young hearts tingled;
Each morn as, conquering cloud or mist,
The first beam with the wavelet mingled,
Mouth to mouth they kissed!

They stand by the fount with their unlooped hair—
A hand each raises—what see they there?
A white Form seated on Clebach stone;
A kinglike presence: the monks stood nigh:
Fronting the dawn he sat alone;
On the star of morning he fixed his eye:
That crozier he grasped shone bright; but brighter
The sunrise flashed from Saint Patrick’s mitre!
They gazed without fear. To a kingdom dear
From the day of their birth those Maids had been;
Of wrong they had heard; but it came not near;
They hoped they were dear to the Power unseen.
They knelt when that Vision of Peace they saw;
Knelt, not in fear, but in loving awe:
The “Red Rose” bloomed like that East afar;
The “Fair One” shone like that morning star.

Then Patrick rose: no word he said,
But thrice he made the sacred Sign:
At the first, men say that the demons fled;
At the third flocked round them the Powers divine
Unseen. Like children devout and good,
Hands crossed on their bosoms, the maidens stood.

“Blessed and holy! This land is Eire:
Whence come ye to her, and the king our sire?”

“We come from a Kingdom far off yet near
Which the wise love well, and the wicked fear:
We come with blessing and come with ban,
We come from the Kingdom of God with man.”

“Whose is that Kingdom? And say, therein
Are the chiefs all brave, and the maids all fair?
Is it clean from reptiles, and that thing, sin?
Is it like this kingdom of King Laeghaire?”

“The chiefs of that kingdom wage war on wrong,
And the clash of their swords is sweet as song;
Fair are the maids, and so pure from taint
The flash of their eyes turns sinner to saint;
There reptile is none, nor the ravening beast;
There light has no shadow, no end the feast.”

“But say, at that feast hath the poor man place?
Is reverence there for the old head hoar?
For the cripple that never might join the race?
For the maimed that fought, and can fight no more?”

“Reverence is there for the poor and meek;
And the great King kisses the worn, pale cheek;
And the King’s Son waits on the pilgrim guest;
And the Queen takes the little blind child to her breast:
There with a crown is the just man crowned;
But the false and the vengeful are branded and bound
In knots of serpents, and flung without pity
From the bastions and walls of the saintly City.”

Then the eyes of the Maidens grew dark, as though
That judgment of God had before them passed:
And the two sweet faces grew dim with woe;
But the rose and the radiance returned at last.

“Are gardens there? Are there streams like ours?
Is God white-headed, or youthful and strong?
Hang there the rainbows o’er happy bowers?
Are there sun and moon and the thrush’s song?”

“They have gardens there without noise or strife,
And there is the Tree of immortal Life:
Four rivers circle that blissful bound;
And Spirits float o’er it, and Spirits go round:
There, set in the midst, is the golden throne;
And the Maker of all things sits thereon:
A rainbow o’er-hangs him; and lo! therein
The beams are His Holy Ones washed from sin.”

As he spake, the hearts of the Maids beat time
To music in heaven of peace and love;
And the deeper sense of that lore sublime
Came out from within them, and down from above;
By degrees came down; by degrees came out:
Who loveth, and hopeth, not long shall doubt.

“Who is your God? Is love on His brow?
Oh how shall we love Him and find Him? How?”
The pure cheek flamed like the dawn-touched dew:
There was silence: then Patrick began anew.
“The princes who ride in your father’s train
Have courted your love, but sued in vain;—
Look up, O Maidens; make answer free:
What boon desire you, and what would you be?”

“Pure we would be as yon wreath of foam,
Or the ripple which now yon sunbeams smite:
And joy we would have, and a songful home;
And one to rule us, and Love’s delight.”

“In love God fashioned whatever is,
The hills, and the seas, and the skiey fires;
For love He made them, and endless blis
Sustains, enkindles, uplifts, inspires:
That God is Father, and Son, and Spirit;
And the true and spotless His peace inherit:
And God made man, with his great sad heart,
That hungers when held from God apart.
Your sire is a King on earth: but I
Would mate you to One who is Lord on high:
There bride is maid: and her joy shall stand,
For the King’s Son hath laid on her head His hand.”
As he spake, the eyes of that lovely twain
Grew large with a tearful but glorious light,
Like skies of summer late cleared by rain,
When the full-orbed moon will be soon in sight.

“That Son of the King—is He fairest of men?
That mate whom He crowns—is she bright and blest?
Does she chase the red deer at His side through the glen?
Does she charm Him with song to His noontide rest?”

“That King’s Son strove in a long, long war:
His people He freed; yet they wounded Him sore;
And still in His hands, and His feet, and His side,
The scars of His sorrow are ’graved, deep-dyed.”

Then the breasts of the Maidens began to heave
Like harbour waves when beyond the bar
The great waves gather, and wet winds grieve,
And the roll of the tempest is heard afar.

“We will kiss, we will kiss those bleeding feet;
On the bleeding hands our tears shall fall;
And whatever on earth is dear or sweet,
For that wounded heart we renounce them all.

“Show us the way to His palace-gate:”—
“That way is thorny, and steep, and straight;
By none can His palace-gate be seen,
Save those who have washed in the waters clean.”

They knelt; on their heads the wave he poured
Thrice in the name of the Triune Lord:
And he signed their brows with the Sign adored.
On Fedelm the “Red Rose,” on Ethna “The Fair,”
God’s dew shone bright in that morning air:
Some say that Saint Agnes, ’twixt sister and sister,
As the Cross touched each, bent over and kissed her.

Then sang God’s new-born Creatures, “Behold!
We see God’s City from heaven draw nigh:
But we thirst for the fountains divine and cold:
We must see the great King’s Son, or die!
Come, Thou that com’st! Our wish is this,
That the body might die, and the soul, set free,
Swell out, like an infant’s lips, to the kiss
Of the Lover who filleth infinity!”

“The City of God, by the water’s grace,
Ye see: alone, they behold His Face,
Who have washed in the baths of Death their eyes,
And tasted His Eucharist Sacrifice.”

“Give us the Sacrifice!” Each bright head
Bent toward it as sunflowers bend to the sun:
They ate; and the blood from the warm cheek fled:
The exile was over: the home was won:
A starry darkness o’erflowed their brain:
Far waters beat on some heavenly shore:
Like the dying away of a low, sweet strain,
The young life ebbed, and they breathed no more:
In death they smiled, as though on the breast
Of the Mother Maid they had found their rest.

The rumour spread: beside the bier
The King stood mute, and his chiefs and court:
The Druids dark-robed drew surlily near,
And the Bards storm-hearted, and humbler sort:
The “Staff of Jesus” Saint Patrick raised:
Angelic anthems above them swept:
There were that muttered; there were that praised:
But none who looked on that marvel wept.

For they lay on one bed, like Brides new-wed,
By Clebach well; and, the dirge days over,
On their smiling faces a veil was spread,
And a green mound raised that bed to cover.
Such were the ways of those ancient days—
To Patrick for aye that grave was given;
And above it he built a church in their praise;
For in them had Eire been spoused to heaven.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDREN OF FOCHLUT WOOD.

ARGUMENT.

Saint Patrick makes way into Fochlut wood by the sea, the oldest of Erin’s forests, whence there had been borne unto him, then in a distant land, the Children’s Wail from Erin. He meets there two young Virgins, who sing a dirge of man’s sorrowful condition. Afterwards they lead him to the fortress of the king, their father. There are sung two songs, a song of Vengeance and a song of Lament; which ended, Saint Patrick makes proclamation of the Advent and of the Resurrection. The king and all his chiefs believe with full contentment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE LAY OF THE HEADS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SAINT PATRICK AND KING LAEGHAIRE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mac Kyle, a child of death, dwells in a forest with other men like unto himself, that slay whom they will. Saint Patrick coming to that wood, a certain Impostor devises how he may be deceived and killed; but God smites the Impostor through his own snare, and he dies. Mac Kyle believes, and demanding penance is baptised. Afterwards he preaches in Manann {77} Isle, and becomes a great Saint.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ARGUMENT.