Chapter 12

That hour true life’s beginning was, O Lord, Because the work Thou gav’st into my hands Prospered between them. Yea, and from the work The Power forth issued. Strength in me was none, Nor insight, till the occasion: then Thy sword Flamed in my grasp, and beams were in mine eyes That showed the way before me, and nought else. Thou mad’st me know Thy Will. As taper’s light Veers with a wind man feels not, o’er my heart Hovered thenceforth some Pentecostal flame That bent before that Will. Thy Truth, not mine, Lightened this People’s mind; Thy Love inflamed Their hearts; Thy Hope upbore them as on wings. Valiant that race, and simple, and to them Not hard the godlike venture of belief: Conscience was theirs: tortuous too oft in life Their thoughts, when passionate most, then most were true, Heart-true. With naked hand firmly they clasped The naked Truth: in them Belief was Act. A tribe from Thy far East they called themselves: 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.

I to that people all things made myself For Christ’s sake, building still that good they lacked On good already theirs. In courts of kings I stood: before mine eye their eye went down, For Thou wert with me. Gentle with the meek, I suffered not the proud to mock my face: Thus by the anchors twain of Love and Fear, Since Love, not perfected, gains strength from Fear, I bound to thee This nation. Parables I spake in; parables in act I wrought Because the people’s mind was in the sense. At Imbher Dea they scoffed Thy word: I raised Thy staff, and smote with barrenness that flood: Then learned they that the world was Thine, not ruled By Sun or Moon, their famed “God-Elements:” Yea, like Thy Fig-tree cursed, that river banned Witnessed Thy Love’s stern pureness. From the grass The little three-leaved herb, I stooped and plucked, And preached the Trinity. Thy Staff I raised, And bade—not ravening beast—but reptiles foul Flee to the abyss like that blind herd of old; Then spake I: “Be not babes, but understand: Thus in your spirit lift the Cross of Christ: Banish base lusts; so God shall with you walk As once with man in Eden.” With like aim Convents I reared for holy maids, then sought The marriage feast, and cried, “If God thus draws Close to Himself those virgin hearts, and yet Blesses the bridal troth, and infant’s font, How white a thing should be the Christian home!” Marvelling, they learned what heritage their God Possessed in them! how wide a realm, how fair.

Lord, save in one thing only, I was weak— I loved this people with a mother’s love, For their sake sanctified my spirit to thee In vigil, fast, and meditation long, On mountain and on moor. Thus, Lord, I wrought, Trusting that so Thy lineaments divine, Deeplier upon my spirit graved, might pass Thence on that hidden burthen which my heart Still from its substance feeding, with great pangs Strove to bring forth to Thee. O loyal race! Me too they loved. They waited me all night On lonely roads; and, as I preached, the day To those high listeners seemed a little hour. Have I not seen ten thousand brows at once Flash in the broad light of some Truth new risen, 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! How many a maid— O not in narrowness, but Love’s sweet pride And love-born shyness—jealous for a mate Himself not jealous—spurned terrestrial love, Glorying in heavenly Love’s fair oneness! Race High-dowered! God’s Truth seemed some remembered thing To them; God’s Kingdom smiled, their native haunt Prophesied then their daughters and their sons: Each man before the face of each upraised His hand on high, and said, “The Lord hath risen!” Then, like a stream from ice released, forth fled And wafted far the tidings, flung them wide, Shouted them loud from rocky ridge o’er bands Marching far down to war! The sower sowed With happier hope; the reaper bending sang, “Thus shall God’s Angels reap the field of God When we are ripe for heaven.” Lovers new-wed Drank of that water changed to wine, thenceforth Breathing on earth heaven’s sweetness. Unto such More late, whate’er of brightness time or will Infirm had dimmed, shone back from infant brows By baptism lit. Each age its garland found: Fair shone on trustful childhood faith divine: Eld, once a weight of wrinkles now upsoared In venerable lordship of white hairs, Seer-like and sage. Healed was a nation’s wound: All men believed who willed not disbelief; And sat in that oppugnancy steel-mailed: They cried, “Before thy priests our bards shall bow, And all our clans put on thy great Clan Christ!”

For your sake, O my brethren, and my sons These things have I recorded. Something I wrought: Strive ye in loftier labours; strive, and win: Your victory shall be mine: my crown are ye. My part is ended now. I lived for Truth: I to this people gave that truth I knew; My witnesses ye are I grudged it not: Freely did I receive, freely I gave; Baptising, or confirming, or ordaining, I sold not things divine. Of mine own store Ofttimes the hire of fifteen men I paid For guard where bandits lurked. When prince or chief Laid on God’s altar ring, or torque, or gold, I sent them back. Too fortunate, too beloved, I said, “Can he Apostle be who bears Such scanty marks of Christ’s Apostolate, Hunger, and thirst, and scorn of men?” For this, Those pains they spared I spared not to myself, The body’s daily death. I make not boast: What boast have I? If God His servant raised, He knoweth—not ye—how oft I fell; how low; How oft in faithless longings yearned my heart For faces of His Saints in mine own land, Remembered fields far off. This, too, He knoweth, How perilous is the path of great attempts, How oft pride meets us on the storm-vexed height, Pride, or some sting its scourge. My hope is He: His hand, my help so long, will loose me never: And, thanks to God, the sheltering grave is near.

How still this eve! The morn was racked with storm: ’Tis past; the skylark sings; the tide at flood Sighs a soft joy: alone those lines of weed Report the wrath foregone. Yon watery plain Far shines, a mingled sea of glass and fire, Even as that Beatific Sea outspread Before the Throne of God. ’Tis Paschal Tide;— O sorrowful, O blissful Paschal Tide! Fain would I die on Holy Saturday; For then, as now, the storm is past—the woe; And, somewhere ’mid the shades of Olivet Lies sealed the sacred cave of that Repose Watched by the Holy Women. Earth, that sing’st, 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! My years are gone: Sweet were they with a sweetness felt but half Till now;—not half discerned. Those blessèd years I would re-live, deferring thus so long The Vision of Thy Face, if thus with gaze Cast backward I might _see_ that guiding hand Step after step, and kiss it.

Happy isle! Be true; for God hath graved on thee His Name: God, with a wondrous ring, hath wedded thee; God on a throne divine hath ’stablished thee:— Light of a darkling world! Lamp of the North! My race, my realm, my great inheritance, To lesser nations leave inferior crowns; Speak ye the thing that is; be just, be kind; Live ye God’s Truth, and in its strength be free!

This day to Him, the Faithful and the True, For Whom I toiled, my spirit I commend. That which I am, He knoweth: I know not now: But I shall know ere long. If I have loved Him I seek but this for guerdon of my love With holier love to love Him to the end: If I have vanquished others to His love Would God that this might be their meed and mine In witness for His love to pour our blood A glad stream forth, though vultures or wild beasts Rent our unburied bones! Thou setting sun, That sink’st to rise, that time shall come at last When in thy splendours thou shalt rise no more; And, darkening with the darkening of thy face, Who worshipped thee with thee shall cease; but those Who worshipped Christ shall shine with Christ abroad, Eternal beam, and Sun of Righteousness, In endless glory. For His sake alone I, bondsman in this land, re-sought this land. All ye who name my name in later times, Say to this People, since vindictive rage Tempts them too often, that their Patriarch gave Pattern of pardon ere in words he preached That God who pardons. Wrongs if they endure In after years, with fire of pardoning love Sin-slaying, bid them crown the head that erred: For bread denied let them give Sacraments, For darkness light, and for the House of Bondage The glorious freedom of the sons of God: This is my last Confession ere I die.

NOTES.

{10a} Cotton MSS., Nero, E.’; Codex Salisburiensis; and a MS. in the Monastery of St. Vaast.

{10b} The Book of Armagh, preserved at Trinity College, Dublin, contains a Life of St. Patrick, with his writings, and consists in chief part of a description of all the books of the New Testament, including the Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans. Traces found here and there of the name of the copyist and of the archbishop for whom the copy was made, fix its date almost to a year as 807 or 811–812.

{77} The Isle of Man.

{101} Now Limerick.

{111} Foynes.

{116} The Giant’s Causeway.