XI.
Than aught my highest hope could know
In this inspiring breath
Where wilding blossoms bloom and blow,
As life blooms out of death;
Yet fain, withal, my lips would wed
To song, for modern ears,
This chord from lyric days long dead,
This dream from epic years:
The Legend.
Quoth good Saint Mahee of Endrim,
“I shall build for Christ my master
Here a church, and here defend him
And His cause from all disaster.”
Seven score youths cut beam and wattle,
Seven score hands unseared in battle
Their unstinted aid did lend him,
Fast and ever faster.
But tho’ arm, and voice loud-ringing,
To a test of toil defied him,
Right and left the wattles flinging,
Not a tongue could dare deride him
For, before them all, he stood
Finished, waiting. Not a rood
From the spot a bird was singing
In a thorn beside him.
Sang no bird in ancient story
Half so sweet or loud a strain:
Seaward to the Lough of Rory,
Landward then, and back again,
Swelled the song, and trilled and trembled
O’er the toiling youths assembled,
Rang around ’mid Summer glory
There at Ballydrain.
Far more beautiful the bird was
Than the bright-plumed Bird of Bliss
And the Abbot’s feeling stirred was
To its deepest depths, I wis;
’Till, as from the fiery splendour
Moses saw, in accents tender
Spake the bird, and lo, the word was:
“Goodly work is this!”
“True,” quoth Saint Mahee of Endrim,
“’Tis required by Christ my master
Here to build, and here defend Him
And His cause from all disaster;
But my blood mounts high with weening
Of this goodly word the meaning?”
Nearer then the bird did tend him,
Fast and even faster.
“I shall answer. I descended
From mine angel-soul’s compeers,
From my home serene and splendid
To this haunt of toil and tears;
Came to cheer thee with a note
From an angel’s silvern throat.”
Then he sang three songs: each, ended,
Made a hundred years.
There, thro’ days that dawned and darkened,
With his wattles by his side,
Stood the island Saint and hearkened
To that silvery-flowing tide
Stood entranced, and ever wondr’éd,
Till had circled thrice a hundred
Years o’er fields, life-lade or stark, and
Strangford’s waters wide.
Then when came the final number,
Ceased the angel-bird its strain,
And, unheld by ills that cumber
Mortals, sought the heavenly plain.
Then the Saint, in mute amaze,
Round him turned an anxious gaze,
And from that far land of slumber
Came to Earth again.
Low his load, mid weed and flower,
Lay beside him all unbroken,
Till, with thrice augmented power,
From his holy dream awoken,
Up he bore it to his shoulder—
Broad and not a hand’s breath older.
Scarce, thought he, had passed an hour
Since the bird had spoken.
Toward his island church he bore it.
Lo, an oratory gleaming,
And “To Saint Mahee,” writ o’er it!
“Now,” quoth he, “in faith I’m dreaming!
Say, good monk, at whose consistory
Shall I solve this mighty mystery,
And to form of fact restore it
From this shadowy seeming?”
Thus he spake to one who faced him
With a look of mild surprise,
One who swiftly brought and placed him
’Neath the Abbot’s searching eyes.—
Leave him there: not mine to rhyme of
Deeds that filled the latter time of
Him who, fain tho’ years would waste him,
Ages not, nor dies.
. . . . . .
Such the wondrous old-time story
Of the bird’s long, lethal strain
Sung thro’ Summers hot and hoary,
Winters white on mount and main
And the monks, to mark the mission
Of the bird,—so tells tradition,—
Built a church to God’s great glory
There at Ballydrain.