Aubrey De Vere

“ Beside the font Aengus stood; his face
Sweet as a child’s, yet grave as front of eld:
For reverence he had laid his crown aside,
And from the deep hair to the unsandalled feet
Was raimented in white. With mitred head
And massive book, forward Saint Patrick leaned,
Stayed by the gem-wrought crosier. Prayer on prayer
Went up to God; while gift on gift from God,
All Angel-like, invisibly to man,
Descended. Thrice above that princely brow
Patrick the cleansing waters poured, and traced
Three times thereon the Venerable Sign,
Naming the Name Triune. ”

“ Wage war on these! A King is in your host!
His hands no roses plucked but on the Cross:
He came not hand of man in woman’s tasks
To mesh. In woman’s hand, in childhood’s hand,
Much more in man’s, He lodged His conquering sword;
Them too His soldiers named, and vowed to war.
Rise, clan of Kings, rise, champions of man’s race,
Heaven’s sun-clad army militant on earth,
One victory gained, the realm decreed is ours.
The bridal bells ring out, for Low with High
Is wed in endless nuptials. It is past,
The sin, the exile, and the grief. O man,
Take thou, renewed, thy sister-mate by hand ”

“ Where Dairè dwelt, its lord.
Saint Patrick sent
To Dairè embassage, vouchsafing prayer
As sire might pray of son; “Give thou yon hill
To Christ, that we may build His church thereon.”
And Dairè answered with a brow of storms
Bent forward darkly, and long, sneering lips,
“Your master is a mighty man, we know.
Garban, that lied to God, he slew through prayer,
And banned full many a lake, and many a plain,
For trespass there committed! Let it be!
A Chief of souls he is! No signs we work,
Rulers earth-born: yet somewhat are we here—
Depart! By others answer we will send.” ”

“ Give them God’s War! Yon star is militant!
Its splendour ’gainst the dark must fight or die:
So wars that Faith I preach against the world;
And nations fitted least for this world’s gain
Can speed Faith’s triumph best. Three hundred years,
Well used, should make of Eire a northern Rome.
Criemther! her destiny is this, or nought;
Secknall! the highest only can she reach;
Alone the Apostle’s crown is hers: for this,
A Rule I give her, strong, yet strong in Love;
Monastic households build I far and wide;
Monastic clans I plant among her clans,
With abbots for their chiefs. ”

“ O fool, for ne’er since boyhood choice was mine
Save choice to subject will of mine to God—
“At great Ardmacha.” Thitherward I turned;
But in my pathway, with forbidding hand,
Victor, God’s angel stood. “Not so,” he said,
“For in Ardmacha stands thy princedom fixed,
Age after age, thy teaching, and thy law,
But not thy grave. Return thou to that shore
Thy place of small beginnings, and thereon
Lessen in body and mind, and grow in spirit:
Then sing to God thy little hymn and die.” ”

“ With face of one who notes not shapes around,
But dreams some happy dream. The king drew nigh,
And on her golden head the sceptre staff
Leaning, but not to hurt her, thus began:
“Your prophets of the day, I trust them not!
If sent from God, why came they not long since?
Our Druids came before them, and, belike,
Shall after them abide! With these new seers
I count not Patrick. Things that Patrick says
I ofttimes thought. His lineage too is old—
Wide-browed, grey-eyed, with downward lessening face,
Not like your baser breeds, with questing eyes
And jaw of dog. ”

“ Making all good one good. Eternal Love!
Not thine the will that love should cease with life,
Or, living, cease from service, barren made,
A stagnant gall eating the mourner’s heart
That hour when love should stretch a hand of might
Up o’er the grave to heaven. O great in love,
Perfect love’s work: for well, sad heart, I know,
Hadst thou not trained thy son in virtuous ways,
Christian he ne’er had been.”
Those later words
That solitary mourner understood,
The earlier but in part, and answered thus:
“A loftier Cross, and farther seen, shall rise
Upon this grave new-found! ”

“ Death-sick three days on his throne he sate;
Then died, as his father died, great in hate.
They buried their king upon Tara’s hill,
In his grave upright—there stands he still:
Upright there stands he as men that wade
By night through a castle-moat, undismayed;
On his head is the crown, the spear in his hand;
And he looks to the hated Lagenian land.
Such rites in the time of wrath and wrong
Were Eire’s: baptised, they were hers no longer:
For Patrick had taught her his sweet new song,
“Though hate is strong, yet love is stronger.”
SAINT PATRICK AND THE IMPOSTOR ”

“ Not a few have a character of the sublime; many are pathetic; some have a profound meaning under a strange disguise; but their predominant character is their brightness and gladsomeness. A large tract of Irish history is dark: but the time of Saint Patrick, and the three centuries which succeeded it, were her time of joy. That chronicle is a song of gratitude and hope, as befits the story of a nation’s conversion to Christianity, and in it the bird and the brook blend their carols with those of angels and of men. It was otherwise with the later legends connecting Ossian with Saint Patrick. ”

“ Loud clamouring, “Death is dead; and not for long
That dreadful grave can part us.” Last of all,
He too believed. That hoary head had shaped
Full many a crafty scheme:—behind them all
Nature held fast her own.
O happy night!
Back through the gloom of centuries sin-defaced
With what a saintly radiance thou dost shine!
They slept not, on the loud-resounding shore
In glory roaming. Many a feud that night
Lay down in holy grave, or, mockery made,
Was quenched in its own shame. Far shone the fires
Crowning dark hills with gladness: soared the song ”

“ Solace of Christian hope.
With Dichu bode
Patrick somewhile, intent from him to learn
The inmost of that people. Oft they spake
Of Milcho. “Once his thrall, against my will
In earthly things I served him: for his soul
Needs therefore must I labour. Hard was he;
Unlike those hearts to which God’s Truth makes way
Like message from a mother in her grave:
Yet what I can I must. Not heaven itself
Can force belief; for Faith is still good will.”
Dichu laughed aloud: “Good will! Milcho’s good will
Neither to others, nor himself, good will
Hath Milcho! ”

“ In marvel gazed the twelve: yea, clans far off
Stared from their hills, deeming the site aflame.
That glory passed away, discourse arose
On Secknall’s hymn. Its radiance from his face
Had, like the sunset’s, vanished as he spake.
“Father, what sayst thou?” Patrick made reply,
“My son, the hymn is good; for Truth is gold;
And Fame, obsequious often to base heads,
For once is loyal, and its crown hath laid
Where honour’s debt was due.” ”

“ A fount of bale and chalice brimmed with death—
For oft a thought chance-born more racks than truth
Proven and sure—and, weeping, still he wept
Till drenched was all his sad monastic cowl
As sea-weed on the dripping shelf storm-cast
Latest, and tremulous still.
As thus he wept
Sudden beside him on that summit broad,
Ran out a golden beam like sunset path
Gilding the sea: and, turning, by his side
Victor, God’s angel, stood with lustrous brow
Fresh from that Face no man can see and live. ”

“ That hour was strong in prayer. “From God he came,”
Thus cried they; “and we worked a work accursed,
Tempting God’s prophet.” Patrick heard, and spake;
“Not me ye tempted, but the God I serve.”
At last Mac Kyle made answer: “I have sinned;
I, and this people, whom I made to sin:
Now therefore to thy God we yield ourselves
Liegemen henceforth, his thralls as slave to Lord,
Or horse to master. That which thou command’st
That will we do.” And Patrick said, “Believe;
Confess your sins; and be baptised to God,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit,
And live true life.” ”

“ And felt like him, that Saint who cried, flame-girt,
“At last do I begin to be a Christian?”
Have I not seen old foes embrace? Seen him,
That white-haired man who dashed him on the ground,
Crying aloud, “My buried son, forgive!
Thy sire hath touched the hand that shed thy blood?”
Fierce chiefs knelt down in penance! Lord! how oft
Shook I their tear-drop sparkles from my gown!
’Twas the forgiveness taught them all the debt,
Great-hearted penitents! How many a youth
Contemned the praise of men! ”

“ 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! ”

“ Since first He made thee, thy Creator’s praise,
Sing, sing, thy Saviour’s! Myriad-minded sea,
How that bright secret thrills thy rippling lips
Which shake, yet speak not! Thou that mad’st the worlds,
Man, too, Thou mad’st; within Thy Hands the life
Of each was shapen, and new-wov’n ran out,
New-willed each moment. What makes up that life?
Love infinite, and nothing else save love!
Help ere need came, deliverance ere defeat;
At every step an angel to sustain us,
An angel to retrieve! ”

“ And bind the boat chain thrice around thy feet,
And fling the key with strength into the main,
Far as thou canst: and wheresoe’er the breath
Of God shall waft thee, there till death abide
Working the Will Divine.” Then spake that chief,
“I, that commanded others, can obey;
Such lore alone is mine: but for this man
That sinned my sin, alas, to see him thus!”
To whom the Saint, “For him, when thou art gone,
My prayer shall rise. If God will raise the dead
He knows: not I.”
Then rose that chief, and rushed
Down to the shore, as one that flies his foe ”

“ Than thou to me hast portioned till this hour.”
Then answer made the angel, soft of voice:
“Not all men stumble when a Nation falls;
There are that stand upright. God gives thee this:
They that are faithful to thy Faith, that walk
Thy way, and keep thy covenant with God,
And daily sing thy hymn, when comes the Judge
With Sign blood-red facing Jehosaphat,
And fear lays prone the many-mountained world,
The same shall ’scape the doom.” And Patrick said,
“That hymn is long, and hard for simple folk,
And hard for children.” ”

“ God grant I work my work. That which I am
He knows Who made me. Saints He hath, good store:
Their names are written in His Book of Life;
Kneel down, my sons, and pray that if thus long
I seem to stand, I fall not at the end.”
Then in a circle kneeling prayed the twelve.
But when they rose, Secknall with serious brow
Advanced, and knelt, and kissed Saint Patrick’s foot,
And said, “O Father, at thy hest that hymn
I made, long labouring, and thy crown it stands:
Thou, therefore, grant me gifts, for strong thy prayer.” ”

“ Their clans were Patriarch households, rude through war:
Old Pagan Rome had known them not; their Isle
Virgin to Christ had come. Oh how unlike
Her sons to those old Roman Senators,
Scorn of Germanus oft, who breathed the air
Fouled by dead Faiths successively blown out,
Or Grecian sophist with his world of words,
That, knowing all, knew nothing! Praise to Thee,
Lord of the night-time as the day, Who keep’st
Reserved in blind barbaric innocence,
Pure breed, when boastful lights corrupt the wise,
With healthier fruit to bless a later age. ”

“ Caught warmth yet scarcely flamed, Aengus stood
With Patrick in a westward-facing tower
Which overlooked far regions town-besprent,
And lit with winding waters. Thus he spake:
“My Father! what is sovereignty of man?
Say, can I shield yon host from death, from sin,
Taking them up into my breast, like God?
I trow not so! Mine be the lowliest place
Following thy King who left his Father’s throne
To walk the lowliest!” Patrick answered thus:
“Best lot thou choosest, son. If thine that lot
Thou know’st not yet; nor I. The Lord, thy God,
Will teach us.” ”

“ And through thy prayer routed that rebel host.”
And Patrick, “Till the last of all my prayers
Be granted, I depart not though I die:—
One said, ‘Too fierce that race to bend to faith.’”
Then spake God’s angel, mild of voice, and kind:
“Not all are fierce that fiercest seem, for oft
Fierceness is blindfold love, or love ajar.
Souls thou wouldst have: for every hair late wet
In this thy tearful cowl and habit drenched
God gives thee myriads seven of Souls redeemed
From sin and doom; and Souls, beside, as many
As o’er yon sea in legioned flight might hang
Far as thine eye can range. ”

“ In splendour o’er it, like the stars of God.’”
Then Patrick said, “A boon! I crave a boon!”
The angel answered, “Speak;” and Patrick said,
“Let them that with me toiled, or in the years
To come shall toil, building o’er all this land
The Fortress-Temple and great House of Christ,
Equalled with me my name in Erin share.”
And Victor answered, “Half thy prayer is thine;
With thee shall they partake. Not less, thy name
Higher than theirs shall rise, and wider spread,
Since thus more plainly shall His glory shine
Whose glory is His justice.” ”

“ Save Garban. Crafty he, and full of lies,
That thing which Patrick hated. Sideway first
Glancing, as though some secret foe were nigh,
He spake: “Mac Kyle! a counsel for thine ear!
A man of counsel I, as thou of war!
The people love this stranger. Patrick slain,
Their wrath will blaze against us, and demand
An eric for his head. Let us by craft
Unravel first his craft: then safe our choice;
We slay a traitor, or great ransom take:
Impostors lack not gold. ”

“ 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 ”