Books: The Legends of Saint Patrick
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Aubrey de Vere >> The Legends of Saint Patrick
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His place he chose
Beside that blighted ash, fronting those towers
Palled with red smoke, and muttered low, "So be it!
Worse to be vassal to the man I hate,"
With hueless lips. His whole white face that hour
Was scorched; and blistered was the dead tree's bark;
Yet there he stood; and in that fiery light
His life, no more triumphant, passed once more
In underthought before him, while on spread
The swift, contagious madness of that fire,
And muttered thus, not knowing it, the man,
"The mighty flame into itself takes all,"
Mechanic iteration. Not alone
Stood he that hour. The Demon of his House
By him once more and closer than of old,
Stood, whispering thus, "Thy game is now played out;
Henceforth a byword art thou--rich in youth -
Self-beggared in old age." And as the wind
Of that shrill whisper cut his listening soul,
The blazing roof fell in on all his wealth,
Hard-won, long-waited, wonder of his foes;
And, loud as laughter from ten thousand fiends,
Up rushed the fire. With arms outstretched he stood;
Stood firm; then forward with a wild beast's cry
He dashed himself into that terrible flame,
And vanished as a leaf.
Upon a spur
Of Sleemish, eastward on its northern slope,
Stood Patrick and his brethren, travel-worn,
When distant o'er the brown and billowy moor
Rose the white smoke, that changed ere long to flame,
From site unknown; for by the seaward crest
That keep lay hidden. Hands to forehead raised,
Wondering they watched it. One to other spake:
"The huge Dalriad forest is afire
Ere melted are the winter's snows!" Another,
"In vengeance o'er the ocean Creithe or Pict,
Favoured by magic, or by mist, have crossed,
And fired old Milcho's ships." But Patrick leaned
Upon his crosier, pale as the ashes wan
Left by a burned out city. Long he stood
Silent, till, sudden, fiercelier soared the flame
Reddening the edges of a cloud low hung;
And, after pause, vibration slow and stern
Troubling the burthened bosom of the air,
Upon a long surge of the northern wind
Came up--a murmur as of wintry seas
Far borne at night. All heard that sound; all felt it;
One only know its import. Patrick turned;
"The deed is done: the man I would have saved
Is dead, because he willed to disbelieve."
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.
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