The Legends of Saint Patrick | Page 9

come!
He'll toil ten years ere gold enough
he finds
To make a crooked torque."
From Tara next
The news: "Laeghaire, the King, sits close in cloud

Of sullen thought, or storms from court to court,
Because the chiefest
of the Druid race
Locru, and Luchat prophesied long since
That one
day from the sea a Priest would come
With Doctrine and a Rite, and
dash to earth
Idols, and hurl great 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