Chapter 11

To Patrick then, Thus Victor spake: “Depart from Cruachan, Since God hath given thee wondrous gifts, immense, 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. But get thee down From Cruachan, for mighty is thy prayer.” And Patrick made reply: “Not great thy boon! Watch have I kept, and wearied are mine eyes And dim; nor see they far o’er yonder deep.” And Victor: “Have thou Souls from coast to coast In cloud full-stretched; but, get thee down: this Mount God’s Altar is, and puissance adds to prayer.” And Patrick: “On this Mountain wept have I; And therefore giftless will I not depart: One said, ‘Although that People should believe Yet conqueror’s heel one day would quell their Faith.’” To whom the angel, mild of voice, and kind: “Conquerors are they that subjugate the soul: This also God concedes thee; conquering foe Trampling this land, shall tread not out her Faith Nor sap by fraud, so long as thou in heaven Look’st on God’s Face; nay, by that Faith subdued, That foe shall serve and live. But get thee down And worship in the vale.” Then Patrick said, “Live they that list! Full sorely wept have I, Nor will I hence depart unsatisfied: One said; ‘Grown soft, that race their Faith will shame;’ Say therefore what the Lord thy God will grant, Nor stint His hand; since never scanter grace Fell yet on head of nation-taming man 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.” And the angel thus: “At least from ‘Christum Illum’ let them sing, And keep thy Faith: when comes the Judge, the pains Shall take not hold of such. Is that enough?” And Patrick answered, “That is not enough.” Then Victor: “Likewise this thy God accords: The Dreadful Coming and the Day of Doom Thy land shall see not; for before that day Seven years, a great wave arched from out the deep, Ablution pure, shall sweep the isle and take Her children to its peace. Is that enough?” And Patrick answered, “That is not enough.”

Then spake once more that courteous angel kind: “What boon demand’st then?” And the Saint, “No less Than this. Though every nation, ere that day Recreant from creed and Christ, old troth forsworn, Should flee the sacred scandal of the Cross Through pride, as once the Apostles fled through fear, This Nation of my love, a priestly house, Beside that Cross shall stand, fate-firm, like him That stood beside Christ’s Mother.” Straightway, as one Who ends debate, the angel answered stern: “That boon thou claimest is too great to grant: Depart thou from this mountain, Cruachan, In peace; and find that Nation which thou lov’st, That like thy body is, and thou her head, For foes are round her set in valley and plain, And instant is the battle.” Then the Saint: “The battle for my People is not there, With them, low down, but here upon this height From them apart, with God. This Mount of God Dowerless and bare I quit not till I die; And dying, I will leave a Man Elect To keep its keys, and pray my prayer, and name Dying in turn, his heir, successive line, Even till the Day of Doom.”

Then heavenward sped Victor, God’s angel, and the Man of God Turned to his offering; and all day he stood Offering in heart that Offering Undefiled Which Abel offered, and Melchisedek, And Abraham, Patriarch of the faithful race, In type, and which in fulness of the times The Victim-Priest offered on Calvary, And, bloodless, offers still in Heaven and Earth, Whose impetration makes the whole Church one. Thus offering stood the man till eve, and still Offered; and as he offered, far in front Along the aërial summit once again Ran out that beam like fiery pillar prone Or sea-path sunset-paved; and by his side That angel stood. Then Patrick, turning not His eyes in prayer upon the West close held Demanded, “From the Maker of all worlds What answer bring’st thou?” Victor made reply: “Down knelt in Heaven the Angelic Orders Nine, And all the Prophets and the Apostles knelt, And all the Creatures of the hand of God Visible, and invisible, down knelt, While thou thy mighty Mass, though altarless, Offeredst in spirit, and thine Offering joined; And all God’s Saints on earth, or roused from sleep Or on the wayside pausing, knelt, the cause Not knowing; likewise yearned the Souls to God In that fire-clime benign that clears from sin; And lo! the Lord thy God hath heard thy prayer, Since fortitude in prayer—and this thou know’st,”— Smiling the Bright One spake, “is that which lays Man’s hand upon God’s sceptre. That thou sought’st Shall lack not consummation. Many a race Shrivelling in sunshine of its prosperous years, Shall cease from faith, and, shamed though shameless, sink Back to its native clay; but over thine God shall extend the shadow of His Hand, And through the night of centuries teach to her In woe that song which, when the nations wake, Shall sound their glad deliverance: nor alone This nation, from the blind dividual dust Of instincts brute, thoughts driftless, warring wills By thee evoked and shapen by thy hands To God’s fair image which confers alone Manhood on nations, shall to God stand true; But nations far in undiscovered seas, Her stately progeny, while ages fleet Shall wear the kingly ermine of her Faith, Fleece uncorrupted of the Immaculate Lamb, For ever: lands remote shall raise to God _Her_ fanes; and eagle-nurturing isles hold fast _Her_ hermit cells: thy nation shall not walk Accordant with the Gentiles of this world, But as a race elect sustain the Crown Or bear the Cross: and when the end is come, When in God’s Mount the Twelve great Thrones are set, And round it roll the Rivers Four of fire, And in their circuit meet the Peoples Three Of Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, fulfilled that day Shall be the Saviour’s word, what time He stretched Thy crozier-staff forth from His glory-cloud And sware to thee, ‘When they that with Me walked Sit with Me on their everlasting thrones Judging the Twelve Tribes of Mine Israel, Thy People thou shalt judge in righteousness.’

Thou therefore kneel, and bless thy Land of Eire.”

Then Patrick knelt, and blessed the land, and said, “Praise be to God who hears the sinner’s prayer.”

EPILOGUE.

THE CONFESSION OF SAINT PATRICK.

ARGUMENT.

Before his death, Saint Patrick makes confession to his brethren concerning his life; of his love for that land which had been his House of Bondage; of his ceaseless prayer in youth: of his sojourn at Tours, where St. Martin had made abode, at Auxerres with St. Germanus, and at Lerins with the Contemplatives: of that mystic mountain where the Redeemer Himself lodged the Crozier Staff in his hand; of Pope Celestine who gave him his Mission; of his Visions; of his Labours. His last charge to the sons of Erin is that they should walk in Truth; that they should put from them the spirit of Revenge; and that they should hold fast to the Faith of Christ.

AT Saul then, by the inland-spreading sea, There where began my labour, comes the end: I, blind and witless, willed it otherwise: God willed it thus. When prescience came of death I said, “My Resurrection place I choose”— 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.”

Yea, Lord, my mouth would praise Thee ere I die, The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit Who knittest in His Church the just to Christ: Help me, my sons—mine orphans soon to be— Help me to praise Him; ye that round me sit On those grey rocks; ye that have faithful been, Honouring, despite dishonour of my sins, His servant: I would praise Him yet once more, Though mine the stammerer’s voice, or as a child’s; For it is written, “Stammerers shall speak plain Sounding Thy Gospel.” “They whom Christ hath sent Are Christ’s Epistle, borne to ends of earth, Writ by His Spirit, and plain to souls elect:” Lord, am not I of Thine Apostolate?

Yea, by abjection Thine, by suffering Thine! Till I was humbled I was as a stone In deep mire sunk. Then, stretched from heaven, Thy hand Slid under me in might, and lifted me, And fixed me in Thy Temple where Thou wouldst. Wonder, ye great ones, wonder, ye the wise! On me, the last and least, this charge was laid This crown, that I in humbleness and truth Should walk this nation’s Servant till I die.

Therefore, a youth of sixteen years, or less, With others of my land by pirates seized I stood on Erin’s shore. Our bonds were just; Our God we had forsaken, and His Law, And mocked His priests. Tending a stern man’s swine I trod those Dalaraida hills that face Eastward to Alba. Six long years went by; But—sent from God—Memory, and Faith, and Fear Moved on my spirit as winds upon the sea, And the Spirit of Prayer came down. Full many a day Climbing the mountain tops, one hundred times I flung upon the storm my cry to God. Nor frost, nor rain might harm me, for His love Burned in my heart. Through love I made my fast; And in my fasts one night I heard this voice, “Thou fastest well: soon shalt thou see thy Land.” Later, once more thus spake it: “Southward fly, Thy ship awaits thee.” Many a day I fled, And found the black ship dropping down the tide, And entered with those Gentiles by Thy grace Vanquished, though first they spurned me, and was free. It was Thy leading, Lord; the Hand was Thine! For now when, perils past, I walked secure, Kind greetings round me, and the Christian Rite, There rose a clamorous yearning in my heart, And memories of that land so far, so fair, And lost in such a gloom. And through that gloom The eyes of little children shone on me, So ready to believe! Such children oft Ran by me naked in and out the waves, Or danced in circles upon Erin’s shores, Like creatures never fallen! Thought of such Passed into thought of others. From my youth Both men and women, maidens most, to me As children seemed; and O the pity then To mark how oft they wept, how seldom knew Whence came the wound that galled them! As I walked, Each wind that passed me whispered, “Lo, that race Which trod thee down! Requite with good their ill! Thou know’st their tongue; old man to thee, and youth, For counsel came, and lambs would lick thy foot; And now the whole land is a sheep astray That bleats to God.”

Alone one night I mused, Burthened with thought of that vocation vast. O’er-spent I sank asleep. In visions then, Satan my soul plagued with temptation dire. Methought, beneath a cliff I lay, and lo! Thick-legioned demons o’er me dragged a rock, That falling, seemed a mountain. Near, more near, O’er me it blackened. Sudden from my heart This thought leaped forth: “Elias! Him invoke!” That name invoked, vanished the rock; and I, On mountains stood watching the rising sun, As stood Elias once on Carmel’s crest, Gazing on heaven unbarred, and that white cloud, A thirsting land’s salvation.

Might Divine! Thou taught’st me thus my weakness; and I vowed To seek Thy strength. I turned my face to Tours, There where in years gone by Thy soldier-priest Martin had ruled, my kinsman in the flesh. Dead was the lion; but his lair was warm: In it I laid me, and a conquering glow Rushed up into my heart. I heard discourse Of Martin still, his valour in the Lord, His rugged warrior zeal, his passionate love For Hilary, his vigils, and his fasts, And all his pitiless warfare on the Powers Of darkness; and one day, in secrecy, With Ninian, missioned then to Alba’s shore, I peered into his branch-enwoven cell, Half-way between the river and the rocks, From Tours a mile and more.

So passed eight years Till strengthened was my heart by discipline: Then spake a priest, “Brother, thy will is good, Yet rude thou art of learning as a beast; Fare thee to great Germanus of Auxerres, Who lightens half the West!” I heard, and went, And to that Saint was subject fourteen years. He from my mind removed the veil; “Lift up,” He said, “thine eyes!” and like a mountain land The Queenly Science stood before me plain, From rocky buttress up to peak of snow: The great Commandments first, Edicts, and Laws That bastion up man’s life:—then high o’er these The forest huge of Doctrine, one, yet many, Forth stretching in innumerable aisles, At the end of each, the self-same glittering star:— Lastly, the Life God-hidden. Day by day, With him for guide, that first and second realm I tracked, and learned to shun the abyss flower-veiled, And scale heaven-threatening heights. This, too, he taught, Himself long time a ruler and a prince, The regimen of States from chaos won To order, and to Christ. Prudence I learned, And sageness in the government of men, By me sore needed soon. O stately man, In all things great, in action and in thought, And plain as great! To Britain called, the Saint Trod down that great Pelagian Blasphemy, Chief portent of the age. But better far He loved his cell. There sat he vigil-worn, In cowl and dusky tunic hued like earth Whence issued man and unto which returns; I marvelled at his wrinkled brows, and hands Still tracing, enter or depart who would, From morn to night his parchments.

There, once more, O God, Thine eye was on me, or my hand Once more had missed the prize. Temptation now Whispered in softness, “Wisdom’s home is here: Here bide untroubled.” Almost I had fallen; But, by my side, in visions of the night, God’s angel, Victor, stood as one that hastes, On travel sped. Unnumbered missives lay Clasped in his hands. One stretched he forth, inscribed “The wail of Erin’s Children.” As I read The cry of babes, from Erin’s western coast And Fochlut’s forest, and the wintry sea, Shrilled o’er me, clamouring, “Holy youth, return! Walk then among us!” I could read no more.

Thenceforth rose up renewed mine old desire: My kinsfolk mocked me. “What! past woes too scant! Slave of four masters, and the best a churl! Thy Gospel they will trample under foot, And rend thee! Late to them Palladius preached: They drave him as a leper from their shores.” I stood in agony of staggering mind And warring wills. Then, lo! at dead of night I heard a mystic voice, till then unheard, I knew not if within me or close by That swelled in passionate pleading; nor the words Grasped I, so great they seemed and wonderful, Till sank that tempest to a whisper:—“He Who died for thee is He that in thee groans.” Then fell, methought, scales from mine inner eyes: Then saw I—terrible that sight, yet sweet— Within me saw a Man that in me prayed With groans unutterable. That Man was girt For mission far. My heart recalled that word, “The Spirit helpeth our infirmities; That which we lack we know not, but the Spirit Himself for us doth intercession make With groanings which may never be revealed.” That hour my vow was vowed; and he approved, My master and my guide. “But go,” he said, “First to that island in the Tyrrhene Sea, Where live the high Contemplatives to God: There learn perfection; there that Inner Life Win thou, God’s strength amid the world’s loud storm: Nor fear lest God should frown on such delay, For Heavenly Wisdom is compassionate: Slowly before man’s weakness moves it on; Softly: so moved of old the Wise Men’s Star, Which curbed its lightning ardours and forbore Honouring the pensive tread of hoary Eld, Honouring the burthened slave, the camel line Long-linked, with level head and foot that fell As though in sleep, printing the silent sands.” Thus, smiling, spake Germanus, large in lore.

So in that island-Eden I sojourned, Lerins, and saw where Vincent lived, and his, Life fountained from on high. That life was Love; For all their mighty knowledge food became Of Love Divine, and took, by Love absorbed, Shape from his flame-like body. Hard their beds; Ceaseless their prayers. They tilled a sterile soil; Beneath their hands it blossomed like the rose: O’er thymy hollows blew the nectared airs; Blue ocean flashed through olives. They had fled From praise of men; yet cities far away Rapt those meek saints to fill the bishop’s throne. I saw the light of God on faces calm That blended with man’s meditative might Simplicity of childhood, and, with both The sweetness of that flower-like sex which wears Through love’s Obedience twofold crowns of Love. O blissful time! In that bright island bloomed The third high region on the Hills of God, Above the rock, above the wood, the cloud:— There laughs the luminous air, there bursts anew Spring bud in summer on suspended lawns; There the bell tinkles while once more the lamb Trips by the sun-fed runnel: there green vales Lie lost in purple heavens.

Transfigured Life! This was thy glory, that, without a sigh, Who loved thee yet could leave thee! Thus it fell: One morning I was on the sea, and lo! An isle to Lerins near, but fairer yet, Till then unseen! A grassy vale sea-lulled Wound inward, breathing balm, with fruited trees, And stream through lilies gliding. By a door There stood a man in prime, and others sat Not far, some grey; and one, a weed of years, Lay like a withered wreath. An old man spake: “See what thou seest, and scan the mystery well! The man who stands so stately in his prime Is of this company the eldest born. The Saviour in His earthly sojourn, Risen, Perchance, or ere His Passion, who can tell, Stood up at this man’s door; and this man rose, And let Him in, and made for Him a feast; And Jesus said, ‘Tarry, till I return.’ Moreover, others are there on this isle, Both men and maids, who saw the Son of Man, And took Him in, and shine in endless youth; But we, the rest, in course of nature fade, For we believe, yet saw not God, nor touched.” Then spake I, “Here till death my home I make, Where Jesus trod.” And answered he in prime, “Not so; the Master hath for thee thy task. Parting, thus spake He: ‘Here for Mine Elect Abide thou. Bid him bear this crozier staff; My blessing rests thereon: the same shall drive The foes of God before him.’” Answer thus I made, “That crozier staff I will not touch Until I take it from that nail-pierced Hand.” From these I turned, and clomb a mountain high, Hermon by name; and there—was this, my God, In visions of the Lord, or in the flesh?— I spake with Him, the Lord of Life, Who died; He from the glory stretched the Hand nail-pierced, And placed in mine that crozier staff, and said: “Upon that day when they that with Me walked Sit with Me on their everlasting Thrones, Judging the Twelve Tribes of Mine Israel, Thy People thou shalt judge in righteousness.”

Forthwith to Rome I fled; there knelt I down Above the bones of Peter and of Paul, And saw the mitred embassies from far, And saw Celestine with his head high held As though it bore the Blessed Sacrament; Chief Shepherd of the Saviour’s flock on earth. Tall was the man, and swift; white-haired; with eye Starlike and voice a trumpet clear that pealed God’s Benediction o’er the city and globe; Yea, and whene’er his palm he lifted, still Blessing before it ran. Upon my head He laid both hands, and “Win,” he said, “to Christ One realm the more!” Moreover, to my charge Relics he gave, unnumbered, without price; And when those relics lost had been, and found, And at his feet I wept, he chided not; But, smiling, said, “Thy glorious task fulfilled, House them in thy new country’s stateliest church By cresset girt of ever-burning lamps, And never-ceasing anthems.”

Northward then Returned I, missioned. Yet once more, but once, That old temptation proved me. When they sat, The Elders, making inquest of my life, Sudden a certain brother rose, and spake, “Shall this man be a Bishop, who hath sinned?” My dearest friend was he. To him alone One time had I divulged a sin by me Through ignorance wrought when fifteen years of age; And after thirty years, behold, once more, That sin had found me out! He knew my mission: When in mine absence slander sought my name, Mine honour he had cleared. Yet now—yet now— That hour the iron passed into my soul: Yea, well nigh all was lost. I wept, “Not one, No heart of man there is that knows my heart, Or in its anguish shares.”

Yet, O my God! I blame him not: from Thee that penance came: Not for man’s love should Thine Apostle strive, Thyself alone his great and sole reward. Thou laid’st that hour a fiery hand of love Upon a faithless heart; and it survived.

At dead of night a Vision gave me peace. Slowly from out the breast of darkness shone Strange characters, a writing unrevealed: And slowly thence and infinitely sad, A Voice: “Ill-pleased, this day have we beheld The face of the Elect without a name.” It said not, “Thou hast grieved,” but “We have grieved;” With import plain, “O thou of little faith! Am I not nearer to thee than thy friends? Am I not inlier with thee than thyself?” Then I remembered, “He that touches you Doth touch the very apple of mine eye.” Serene I slept. At morn I rose and ran Down to the shore, and found a boat, and sailed.