Thus to the blind chief sang that harper blind...

Thus to the blind chief sang that harper blind,

Hymning the vengeance; and the great hall roared

With wrath of those wild listeners. Many a heel

Smote the rough stone in scorn of them that died

Not three days past, so seemed it! Direful hands,

Together dashed, thundered the Avenger's praise.

At last the tide of that fierce tumult ebbed

O'er shores of silence. From her lowly seat

Beside her husband's spake the gentle Queen:

“My daughters, from your childhood ye were still

A voice of music in your father's house -

Not wrathful music. Sing that song ye made

Or found long since, and yet in forest sing,

If haply Power Unknown may hear and help.”

She spake, and at her word her daughters sang.

“Lost, lost, all lost! O tell us what is lost?

Behold, this too is hidden! Let him speak,

If any knows. The wounded deer can turn

And see the shaft that quivers in its flank;

The bird looks back upon its broken wing;

But we, the forest children, only know

Our grief is infinite, and hath no name.

What woman-prophet, shrouded in dark veil,

Whispered a Hope sadder than Fear? Long since,

What Father lost His children in the wood?

Some God? And can a God forsake? Perchance

His face is turned to nobler worlds new-made;

Perchance his palace owns some later bride

That hates the dead Queen's children, and with charm

Prevails that they are exiled from his eyes,

The exile's winter theirs — the exile's song.

“Blood, ever blood! The sword goes raging on

O'er hill and moor; and with it, iron-willed,

Drags on the hand that holds it and the man

To slake its ceaseless thirst for blood of men;

Fire takes the little cot beside the mere,

And leaps upon the upland village: fire

Up clambers to the castle on the crag;

And whom the fire has spared the hunger kills;

And earth draws all into her thousand graves.

“Ah me! the little linnet knows the branch

Whereon to build; the honey-pasturing bee

Knows the wild heath, and how to shape its cell;

Upon the poisonous berry no bird feeds;

So well their mother, Nature, helps her own.

Mothers forsake not;— can a Father hate?

Who knows but that He yearns — that Sire Unseen -

To clasp His children? All is sweet and sane,

All, all save man! Sweet is the summer flower,

The day-long sunset of the autumnal woods;

Fair is the winter frost; in spring the heart

Shakes to the bleating lamb. O then what thing

Might be the life secure of man with man,

The infant's smile, the mother's kiss, the love

Of lovers, and the untroubled wedded home?

This might have been man's lot. Who sent the woe?

Who formed man first? Who taught him first the ill way?

One creature, only, sins; and he the highest!

“O Higher than the highest! Thou Whose hand

Made us — Who shaped'st that hand Thou wilt not clasp,

The eye Thou open'st not, the sealed-up ear!

Be mightier than man's sin: for lo, how man

Seeks Thee, and ceases not: through noontide cave

And dark air of the dawn-unlighted peak

To Thee how long he strains the weak, worn eye

If haply he might see Thy vesture's hem

On farthest winds receding! Yea, how oft

Against the blind and tremulous wall of cliff

Tormented by sea surge, he leans his ear

If haply o'er it name of Thine might creep;

Or bends above the torrent-cloven abyss,

If falling flood might lisp it! Power unknown!

He hears it not: Thou hear'st his beating heart

That cries to Thee for ever! From the veil

That shrouds Thee, from the wood, the cloud, the void,

O, by the anguish of all lands evoked,

Look forth! Though, seeing Thee, man's race should die,

One moment let him see Thee! Let him lay

At least his forehead on Thy foot in death!”

So sang the maidens: but the warriors frowned;

And thus the blind king muttered, “Bootless weed

Is plaint where help is none!” But wives and maids

And the thick-crowding poor, that many a time

Had wailed on war-fields o'er their brethren slain,

Went down before that strain as river reeds

Before strong wind, went down when o'er them passed

Its last word, “Death;” and grief's infection spread

From least to first; and weeping filled the hall.

Then on Saint Patrick fell compassion great;

He rose amid that concourse, and with voice

And words now lost, alas, or all but lost,

Such that the chief of sight amerced, beheld

The imagined man before him crowned with light,

Proclaimed that God who hideth not His face,

His people's King and Father; open flung

The portals of His realm, that inward rolled,

With music of a million singing spheres

Commanded all to enter. Who was He

Who called the worlds from nought? His name is Love!

In love He made those worlds. They have not lost,

The sun his splendour, nor the moon her light:

THAT miracle survives. Alas for thee!

Thou better miracle, fair human love,

That splendour shouldst have been of home and hearth,

Now quenched by mortal hate! Whence come our woes

But from our lusts? O desecrated law

By God's own finger on our hearts engraved,

How well art thou avenged! No dream it was,

That primal greatness, and that primal peace:

Man in God's image at the first was made,

A God to rule below!

He told it all -

Creation, and that Sin which marred its face;

And how the great Creator, creature made,

God — God for man incarnate — died for man:

Dead, with His Cross he thundered on the gates

Of Death's blind Hades. Then, with hands outstretched

His Holy Ones that, in their penance prison

From hope in Him had ceased not, to the light

Flashed from His bleeding hands and branded brow

Through darkness soared: they reign with Him in heaven:

Their brethren we, the children of one Sire.

Long time he spake. The winds forbore their wail;

The woods were hushed. That wondrous tale complete,

Not sudden fell the silence; for, as when

A huge wave forth from ocean toiling mounts

High-arched, in solid bulk, the beach rock-strewn,

Burying his hoar head under echoing cliffs,

And, after pause, refluent to sea returns

Not all at once is stillness, countless rills

Or devious winding down the steep, or borne

In crystal leap from sea-shelf to sea-well,

And sparry grot replying; gradual thus

With lessening cadence sank that great discourse,

While round him gazed Saint Patrick, now the old

Regarding, now the young, and flung on each

In turn his boundless heart, and gazing longed

As only Apostolic heart can long

To help the helpless.

“Fair, O friends, the bourn

We dwell in! Holy King makes happy land:

Our King is in our midst. He gave us gifts;

Laws that are Love, the sovereignty of Truth.

What, sirs, ye knew Him not! But ye by signs

Foresaw His coming, as, when buds are red

Ye say,‘ The spring is nigh us.’ Him, unknown,

Each loved who loved his brother! Shepherd youths,

Who spread the pasture green beneath your lambs

And freshened it with snow-fed stream and mist?

Who but that Love unseen? Grey mariners,

Who lulled the rough seas round your midnight nets,

And sent the landward breeze? Pale sufferers wan,

Rejoice! His are ye; yea, and His the most!

Have ye not watched the eagle that upstirs

Her nest, then undersails her falling brood

And stays them on her plumes, and bears them up

Till, taught by proof, they learn their unguessed powers

And breast the storm? Thus God stirs up His people;

Thus proves by pain. Ye too, O hearths well-loved!

How oft your sin-stained sanctities ye mourned!

Wives! from the cradle reigns the Bethelem Babe!

Maidens! henceforth the Virgin Mother spreads

Her shining veil above you!

“Speak aloud,

Chieftains world-famed! I hear the ancient blood

That leaps against your hearts! What? Warriors ye!

Danger your birthright, and your pastime death!

Behold your foes! They stand before you plain:

Ill passions, base ambitions, falsehood, hate:

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;

Know well thy dignity, and hers: return,

And meet once more Thy Maker, for He walks

Once more within thy garden, in the cool

Of the world's eve!”

The words that Patrick spake

Were words of power, not futile did they fall:

But, probing, healed a sorrowing people's wound.

Round him they stood, as oft in Grecian days,

Some haughty city sieged, her penitent sons

Thronging green Pnyx or templed Forum hushed

Hung listening on that People's one true Voice,

The man that ne'er had flattered, ne'er deceived,

Nursed no false hope. It was the time of Faith;

Open was then man's ear, open his heart:

Pride spurned not then that chiefest strength of man

The power, by Truth confronted, to believe.

Not savage was that wild, barbaric race:

Spirit was in them. On their knees they sank,

With foreheads lowly bent; and when they rose

Such sound went forth as when late anchored fleet

Touched by dawn breeze, shakes out its canvas broad

And sweeps into new waters. Man with man

Clasped hands; and each in each a something saw

Till then unseen. As though flesh-bound no more,

Their souls had touched. One Truth, the Spirit's life,

Lived in them all, a vast and common joy.

And yet as when, that Pentecostal morn,

Each heard the Apostle in his native tongue,

So now, on each, that Truth, that Joy, that Life

Shone forth with beam diverse. Deep peace to one

Those tidings seemed, a still vale after storm;

To one a sacred rule, steadying the world;

A third exulting saw his youthful hope

Written in stars; a fourth triumphant hailed

The just cause, long oppressed. Some laughed, some wept:

But she, that aged chieftain's mournful wife

Clasped to her boding breast his hoary head

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;

And heralds sped from coast to coast to tell

How He the Lord of all, no Power Unknown

But like a man rejoicing in his house,

Ruled the glad earth. That demon-haunted wood,

Sad Erin's saddest region, yet, men say,

Tenderest for all its sadness, rang at last

With hymns of men and angels. Onward sailed

High o'er the long, unbreaking, azure waves

A mighty moon, full-faced, as though on winds

Of rapture borne. With earliest red of dawn

Northward once more the winged war-ships rushed

Swift as of old to that long hated shore -

Not now with axe and torch. His Name they bare

Who linked in one the nations.

On a cliff

Where Fochlut's Wood blackened the northern sea

A convent rose. Therein those sisters twain

Whose cry had summoned Patrick o'er the deep,

Abode, no longer weepers. Pallid still,

In radiance now their faces shone; and sweet

Their psalms amid the clangour of rough brine.

Ten years in praise to God and good to men

That happy precinct housed them. In their morn

Grief had for them her great work perfected;

Their eve was bright as childhood. When the hour

Came for their blissful transit, from their lips

Pealed forth ere death that great triumphant chant

Sung by the Virgin Mother. Ages passed;

And, year by year, on wintry nights, THAT song

Alone the sailors heard — a cry of joy.