The Legends of Saint Patrick | Page 6

heart, the varying tact yet the fixed resolve, the large design taking counsel for all, yet the minute solicitude for each, the fiery zeal yet the genial temper, the skill in using means yet the reliance on God alone, the readiness in action with the willingness to wait, the habitual self-possession yet the outbursts of an inspiration which raised him above himself, the abiding consciousness of authority--an authority in him, but not of him--and yet the ever-present humility. Above all, there burned in him that boundless love, which seems the main constituent of the Apostolic character. It was love for God; but it was love for man also, an impassioned love, and a parental compassion. It was not for the spiritual weal alone of man that he thirsted. Wrong and injustice to the poor he resented as an injury to God. His vehement love for the poor is illustrated by his "Epistle to Coroticus," reproaching him with his cruelty, as well as by his denunciations of slavery, which piracy had introduced into parts of Ireland. No wonder that such a character should have exercised a talismanic power over the ardent and sensitive race among whom he laboured, a race "easy to be drawn, but impossible to be driven," and drawn more by sympathy than even by benefits. That character can only be understood by one who studies, and in a right spirit, that account of his life which he bequeathed to us shortly before its close--the "Confession of Saint Patrick." The last poem in this series embodies its most characteristic portions, including the visions which it records.
The "Tripartite Life" thus ends: --"After these great miracles, therefore, after resuscitating the dead, after healing lepers, and the blind, and the deaf, and the lame, and all diseases; after ordaining bishops, and priests, and deacons, and people of all orders in the Church; after teaching the men of Erin, and after baptising them; after founding churches and monasteries; after destroying idols and images and Druidical arts, the hour of death of Saint Patrick approached. He received the body of Christ from the Bishop Tassach, according to the counsel of the Angel Victor. He resigned his spirit afterwards to Heaven, in the one hundred and twentieth year of his age. His body is still here in the earth, with honour and reverence. Though great his honour here, greater honour will be to him in the Day of Judgment, when judgment will be given on the fruit of his teaching, as of every great Apostle, in the union of the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus; in the union of the Nine Orders of Angels, which cannot be surpassed; in the union of the Divinity and Humanity of the Son of God; in the union, which is higher than all unions, of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
1. DE VERE.
THE LEGENDS OF SAINT PATRICK.
THE BAPTISM OF ST. PATRICK.
"How can the babe baptised be?Where font is none and water none?"?Thus wept the nurse on bended knee,?And swayed the Infant in the sun.
"The blind priest took that Infant's hand:?With that small hand, above the ground?He signed the Cross. At God's command?A fountain rose with brimming bound.
"In that pure wave from Adam's sin?The blind priest cleansed the Babe with awe;?Then, reverently, he washed therein?His old, unseeing face, and saw!
"He saw the earth; he saw the skies,?And that all-wondrous Child decreed?A pagan nation to baptise,?To give the Gentiles light indeed."
Thus Secknall sang. Far off and nigh?The clansmen shouted loud and long;?While every mother tossed more high?Her babe, and glorying joined the song.
THE DISBELIEF OF MILCHO,?OR, SAINT PATRICK'S ONE FAILURE.
ARGUMENT.
Fame of St. Patrick goes ever before him, and men of?goodwill believe gladly; but Milcho, a mighty merchant,?and one given wholly to pride and greed, wills to?disbelieve. St. Patrick sends him greeting and gifts;?but he, discovering that the prophet welcomed by all?had once been his slave, hates him the more.?Notwithstanding, he fears that when that prophet?arrives, he, too, may be forced to believe, though?against his will. He resolves to set fire to his?castle and all his wealth, and make new fortunes in far?lands. The doom of Milcho, who willed to disbelieve.
When now at Imber Dea that precious bark?Freighted with Erin's future, touched the sands?Just where a river, through a woody vale?Curving, with duskier current clave the sea,?Patrick, the Island's great inheritor,?His perilous voyage past, stept forth and knelt?And blessed his God. The peace of those green meads?Cradled 'twixt purple hills and purple deep,?Seemed as the peace of heaven. The sun had set;?But still those summits twinned, the "Golden Spears,"?Laughed with his latest beam. The hours went by:?The brethren paced the shore or musing sat,?But still their Patriarch knelt and still gave thanks?For all the marvellous chances of his life?Since those his earlier years when, slave new-trapped,?He comforted on hills of Dalaraide?His