“The City of God, by the water’s grace,
Ye see: alone, they behold His Face,
Who have washed in the baths of Death their eyes,
And tasted His Eucharist Sacrifice.”
“Give us the Sacrifice!” Each bright head
Bent toward it as sunflowers bend to the sun:
They ate; and the blood from the warm cheek fled:
The exile was over: the home was won:
A starry darkness o’erflowed their brain:
Far waters beat on some heavenly shore:
Like the dying away of a low, sweet strain,
The young life ebbed, and they breathed no more:
In death they smiled, as though on the breast
Of the Mother Maid they had found their rest.
The rumour spread: beside the bier
The King stood mute, and his chiefs and court:
The Druids dark-robed drew surlily near,
And the Bards storm-hearted, and humbler sort:
The “Staff of Jesus” Saint Patrick raised:
Angelic anthems above them swept:
There were that muttered; there were that praised:
But none who looked on that marvel wept.
For they lay on one bed, like Brides new-wed,
By Clebach well; and, the dirge days over,
On their smiling faces a veil was spread,
And a green mound raised that bed to cover.
Such were the ways of those ancient days—
To Patrick for aye that grave was given;
And above it he built a church in their praise;
For in them had Eire been spoused to heaven.
SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDREN OF FOCHLUT WOOD.
ARGUMENT.
Saint Patrick makes way into Fochlut wood by the sea, the oldest of Erin’s forests, whence there had been borne unto him, then in a distant land, the Children’s Wail from Erin. He meets there two young Virgins, who sing a dirge of man’s sorrowful condition. Afterwards they lead him to the fortress of the king, their father. There are sung two songs, a song of Vengeance and a song of Lament; which ended, Saint Patrick makes proclamation of the Advent and of the Resurrection. The king and all his chiefs believe with full contentment.
One day as Patrick sat upon a stone
Judging his people, Pagan babes flocked round,
All light and laughter, angel-like of mien,
Sueing for bread. He gave it, and they ate:
Then said he, “Kneel;” and taught them prayer: but lo!
Sudden the stag hounds’ music dinned the wind;
They heard; they sprang; they chased it. Patrick spake;
“It was the cry of children that I heard
Borne from the black wood o’er the midnight seas:
Where are those children? What avails though Kings
Have bowed before my Gospel, and in awe
Nations knelt low, unless I set mine eyes
On Fochlut Wood?” Thus speaking, he arose,
And, journeying with the brethren toward the West,
Fronted the confine of that forest old.
Then entered they that darkness; and the wood
Closed as a cavern round them. O’er its roof
Leaned roof of cloud, and hissing ran the wind,
And moaned the trunks for centuries hollowed out
Yet stalwart still. There, rooted in the rock,
Stood the huge growths, by us unnamed, that frowned
Perhaps on Partholan, the parricide,
When that first Pagan settler fugitive
Landed, a man foredoomed. Between the stems
The ravening beast now glared, now fled. Red leaves,
The last year’s phantoms, rattled here and there.
The oldest wood that ever grew in Eire
Was Fochlut Wood, and gloomiest. Spirits of Ill
Made it their palace, and its labyrinths sowed
With poisons. Many a cave, with horrors thronged
Within it yawned, and many a chasm unseen
Waited the unwary treader. Cry of wolf
Pierced the cold air, and gibbering ghosts were heard;
And o’er the black marsh passed those wandering lights
That lure lost feet. A thousand pathways wound
From gloom to gloom. One only led to light:
That path was sharp with flints.
Then Patrick mused,
“O life of man, how dark a wood art thou!
Erring how many track thee till Despair,
Sad host, receives them in his crypt-like porch
At nightfall.” Mute he paced. The brethren feared;
And fearing, knelt to God. Made strong by prayer
Westward once more they trod that dark, sharp way
Till deeper gloom announced the night, then slept
Guarded by angels. But the Saint all night
Watched, strong in prayer. The second day still on
They fared, like mariners o’er strange seas borne,
That keep in mist their soundings when the rocks
Vex the dark strait, and breakers roar unseen.
At last Benignus cried, “To God be praise!
He sends us better omens. See! the moss
Brightens the crag!” Ere long another spake:
“The worst is past! This freshness in the air
Wafts us a welcome from the great salt sea;
Fair spreads the fern: green buds are on the spray,
And violets throng the grass.”