The Legends of Saint Patrick | Page 9

monarchs from their thrones;?And lo! At Imber Boindi late there stept?A priest from roaring waves with Creed and Rite,?And men before him bow." Then Milcho spake:?"Not flesh enough from thy strong bones, Laeghaire,?These Druids, ravens of the woods, have plucked,?But they must pluck thine eyes! Ah priestly race,?I loathe ye! 'Twixt the people and their King?Ever ye rub a sore!" Last came a voice:?"This day in Eire thy saying is fulfilled,?Conn of the 'Hundred Battles,' from thy throne?Leaping long since, and crying, 'O'er the sea?The Prophet cometh, princes in his train,?Bearing for regal sceptres bended staffs,?Which from the land's high places, cliff and peak,?Shall drag the fair flowers down!'" Scoffing he heard:?"Conn of the 'Hundred Battles!' Had he sent?His hundred thousand kernes to yonder steep?And rolled its boulders down, and built a mole?To fence my laden ships from spring-tide surge,?Far kinglier pattern had he shown, and given?More solace to the land."
He rose and turned?With sideway leer; and printing with vague step?Irregular the shining sands, on strode?Toward his cold home, alone; and saw by chance?A little bird light-perched, that, being sick,?Plucked from the fissured sea-cliff grains of sand;?And, noting, said, "O bird, when beak of thine?From base to crown hath gorged this huge sea-wall,?Then shall that man of Creed and Rite make null?The strong rock of my will!" Thus Milcho spake,?Feigning the peace not his.
Next day it chanced?Women he heard in converse. Thus the first:?"If true the news, good speed for him, my boy!?Poor slaves by Milcho scourged on earth shall wear?In heaven a monarch's crown! Good speed for her?His little sister, not reserved like us?To bend beneath these loads." To whom her mate:?"Doubt not the Prophet's tidings! Not in vain?The Power Unknown hath shaped us! Come He must,?Or send, and help His people on their way.?Good is He, or He ne'er had made these babes!"?They passed, and Milcho said, "Through hate of me?All men believe!" And straightway Milcho's face?Grew bleaker than that crab-tree stem forlorn?That hid him, wanner than that sea-sand wet?That whitened round his foot down-pressed.
Time passed.?One morn in bitter mockery Milcho mused:?"What better laughter than when thief from thief?Pilfers the pilfered goods? Our Druid thief?Two thousand years hath milked and shorn this land;?Now comes the thief outlandish that with him?Would share milk-pail and fleece! O Bacrach old,?To hear thee shout 'Impostor!'" Straight he went?To Bacrach's cell hid in a skirt wind-shav'n?Of low-grown wood, and met, departing thence,?Three sailors sea-tanned from a ship late-beached.?Within a corner huddled, on the floor,?The Druid sat, cowering, and cold, and mazed:?Sudden he rose, and cried, by conquering joy?Clothed as with youth restored: "The God Unknown,?That God who made the earth, hath walked the earth!?This hour His Prophet treads the isle! Three men?Have seen him; and their speech is true. To them?That Prophet spake: 'Four hundred years ago,?Sinless God's Son on earth for sinners died:?Black grew the world, and graves gave up their dead.'?Thus spake the Seer. Four hundred years ago!?Mark well the time! Of Ulster's Druid race?What man but yearly, those four hundred years,?Trembled that tale recounting which with this?Tallies as footprint with the foot of man??Four hundred years ago--that self-same day -?Connor, the son of Nessa, Ulster's King,?Sat throned, and judged his people. As he sat,?Under clear skies, behold, o'er all the earth?Swept a great shadow from the windless east;?And darkness hung upon the air three hours;?Dead fell the birds, and beasts astonied fled.?Then to his Chief of Druids, Connor spake?Whispering; and he, his oracles explored,?Shivering made answer, 'From a land accursed,?O King, that shadow sweeps; therein, this hour,?By sinful men sinless God's Son is slain.'?Then Ulster's king, down-dashing sceptre and crown,?Rose, clamouring, 'Sinless! shall the sinless die?'?And madness fell on him; and down that steep?He rushed whereon the Emanian Palace stood,?And reached the grove, Lambraidhe, with two swords,?The sword of battle, and the sword of state,?And hewed and hewed, crying, 'Were I but there?Thus they should fall who slay that Sinless One;'?And in that madness died. Old Erin's sons?Beheld this thing; nor ever in the land?Hath ceased the rumour, nor the tear for him?Who, wroth at justice trampled, martyr died.?And now we know that not for any dream?He died, but for the truth: and whensoe'er?The Prophet of that Son of God who died?Sinless for sinners, standeth in this place,?I, Bacrach, oldest Druid in this Isle,?Will rise the first, and kiss his vesture's hem."
He spake; and Milcho heard, and without speech?Departed from that house.
A later day?When the wild March sunset, gone almost ere come,?By glacial shower was hustled out of life,?Under a blighted ash tree, near his house,?Thus mused the man: "Believe, or Disbelieve!?The will does both; Then idiot who would be?For profitless belief to sell himself??Yet disbelief not less might work our bane!?For, I remember, once a sickly slave?Ill shepherded my flock: I spake him plain;?'When next, through fault of thine,