THE DAWN.
A thrilling, heavenly harmony
From silvern harps and lutes divine:
The Leper, prostrate on his face,
Drinks in the glorious draught like wine;
Then, rising, reels like drunken wight,
Into the starlight’s wondrous shine.
For strange, unearthly lustres fill
The frosty air. To Ragnal blown,
Across Lough Erne, there comes the breath
Of sweetest blossoms ever grown;
Yet, right or left, above, below,
No living thing or shape is shown.
All wordless, o’er the sparkling Lough,
The music steals again—but hark!
“Gloria in excelsis!” sings
A voice, up-soaring like a lark;
While: “Et in terra pax!” (strange words!)
Drop down to Ragnal thro’ the dark.
His breast heaves with a mighty fear,
The strong man trembles like a reed:
The while the minstrels float before,
(Tho’ ulcer’d feet and ankles bleed),
Straight onward through the shining wood,
He needs must follow where they lead;
And walks, and walks, and walks, and walks,
His bare feet buried in the snow;
While flaming eyes of savage beasts
From bog and thicket, glare and glow.
He sees the stars slide down the east,
He hears the cocks begin to crow.
Yet walks, and walks, and walks, and walks,
Till ev’ry nerve and sinew aches,
And sweat and blood and loathly scales
Mark ev’ry painful step he takes—
When, suddenly, the rapturous sound
That lured him on—his path forsakes!
And with his burning forehead bared,
The hoar-frost on his yellow locks,
The Leper finds himself before
An open cave, wherein an ox
And ass are stalled—dumb, placid brutes,—
Their manger rooted in the rocks.
And in the midst—O Vision strange!—
A Woman glorious as the moon,
Upon whose breast, a radiant Child
Lies, like a rosebud blown in June,
His eyes (twin-lamps of Paradise!)
Making the night a brilliant noon.
They look on Ragnal sweet, yet sad,
And Ragnal bends his aching knee;
He stretches forth his wasted arms,
And cries: “Eternal praise to Thee!
O Blessed Christ! Thine hour is come—
Complete the work begun in me!”
And then, he swoons—how long—how short
A space, he knows not—till his eyes
He, languid, opens to the dawn,
Faint-blushing in the eastern skies;
And sees the cavern full of shapes,
And blazing with a glad surprise!