The Legends of Saint Patrick | Page 7

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 hungry heart with God, and, cleansed by pain,
In
exile found the spirit's native land.
Eve deepened into night, and still
he prayed:
The clear cold stars had crowned the azure vault;
And,
risen at midnight from dark seas, the moon
Had quenched those stars,
yet Patrick still prayed on:
Till from the river murmuring in the vale,

Far off, and from the morning airs close by
That shook the alders
by the river's mouth,
And from his own deep heart a voice there came,

"Ere yet thou fling'st God's bounty on this land
There is a debt to
cancel. Where is he,
Thy five years' lord that scourged thee for his
swine?
Alas that wintry face! Alas that heart
Joyless since earliest
youth! To him reveal it!
To him declare that God who Man became

To raise man's fall'n estate, as though a man,
All faculties of man

unmerged, undimmed,
Had changed to worm and died the prey of
worms,
That so the mole might see!"
Thus Patrick mused
Not ignorant that from low beginnings rise

Oftenest the works of greatness; yet of this
Unweeting, that his
failure, one and sole
Through all his more than mortal course, even
now
Before that low beginning's threshold lay,
Betwixt it and that
Promised Land beyond
A bar of scandal stretched. Not otherwise

Might whatsoe'er was mortal in his strength
Dying, put on the
immortal.
With the morn
Deep sleep descended on him. Waking soon,
He
rose a man of might, and in that might
Laboured; and God His
servant's toil revered;
And gladly on that coast Erin to Christ
Paid
her firstfruits. Three days he preached his Lord:
The fourth
embarking, cape succeeding cape
They passed, and heard the lowing
herds remote
In hollow glens, and smelt the balmy breath
Of gorse
on golden hillsides; till at eve,
The Imber Domnand reached, on silver
sands
Grated their keel. Around them flocked at dawn
Warriors
with hunters mixed, and shepherd youths
And maids with lips as red
as mountain berries
And eyes like sloes, or keener eyes, dark-fringed

And gleaming like the blue-black spear. They came
With milk-pail,
and with kid, and kindled fire
And spread the genial board. Upon that
shore
Full many knelt and gave themselves to Christ,
Strong men,
and men at midmost of their hopes
By sickness felled; old chiefs, at
life's dim close
That oft had asked, "Beyond the grave what hope?"

Worn sailors weary of the toilsome seas,
And craving rest; they, too,
that sex which wears
The blended crowns of Chastity and Love;

Wondering, they hailed the Maiden-Motherhood;
And listening
children praised the Babe Divine,
And passed Him, each to each.
Ere long, once more

Their sails were spread. Again by grassy marge

They rowed, and sylvan glades. The branching deer
Like flying
gleams went by them. Oft the cry
Of fighting clans rang out: but

oftener yet
Clamour of rural dance, or mart confused
With
many-coloured garb and movements swift,
Pageant sun-bright: or on
the sands a throng
Girdled with circle glad some bard whose song

Shook the wild clan as tempest shakes the woods.
Still north the
wanderers sailed: at evening, mists
Cumbered the shore and on them
leaned the blast,
And fierce rain flashed mingling with dim-lit sea.

All night they toiled; next day at noon they kenned
A seaward stream
that shone like golden tress
Severed and random-thrown. That river's
mouth
Ere long attained was all with lilies white
As April field with
daisies. Entering there
They reached a wood, and disembarked with
joy:
There, after thanks to God, silent they sat
In thought, and
watched the ripples, dusk yet bright,
That lived and died like things
that laughed at time,
On gliding 'neath those many-centuried boughs.

But, midmost, Patrick slept. Then through the trees,
Shy as a fawn
half-tamed now stole, now fled
A boy of such bright aspect faery
child
He seemed, or babe exposed of royal race:
At last assured
beside the Saint he stood,
And dropped on him a flower, and
disappeared:
Thus flower on flower from the great wood he brought

And hid them in the bosom of the Saint.
The monks forbade him,
saying, "Lest thou wake
The master from his sleep." But Patrick
woke,
And saw the boy, and said, "Forbid him not;
The heir of all
my kingdom is this child."
Then spake the brethren, "Wilt thou walk
with us?"
And he, "I will:" and so for his sweet face
They called his
name Benignus: and the boy
Thenceforth was Christ's. Beneath his
parent's roof
At night they housed. Nowhere that child would sleep

Except at Patrick's feet. Till Patrick's death
Unchanged to him he
clave, and after reigned
The second at Ardmacha.
Day by day
They held their course; ere long the hills of Mourne


Loomed through sea-mist: Ulidian summits next
Before them rose:
but nearer at their left
Inland with westward channel wound the wave

Changed to sea-lake. Nine miles with chant and hymn
They
tracked the gold path of the sinking sun;
Then southward ran 'twixt

headland and green