Then Patrick, on whose face the princess bent
The supplication softly strong of eyes
Like planets seen through mist, Eochaid’s heart
Knowing, which miracle had hardened more,
Made answer, “King, a man of jests art thou,
Claiming free range in heaven, and yet its gate
Thyself close barring! In thy daughter’s prayers
Belike thou trustest, that where others creep
Thou shalt its golden bastions over-fly.
Far otherwise than in that way thou ween’st,
That daughter’s prayers shall speed thee. With thy word
I close, that word to frustrate. God be with thee!
Thou living, I return not. Fare thee well.”
Thus speaking, by the hand he took the maid,
And led her through the concourse. At her feet
The poor fell low, kissing her garment’s hem,
And many brought their gifts, and all their prayers,
And old men wept. A maiden train snow-garbed,
Her steps attending, whitened plain and field,
As when at times dark glebe, new-turned, is changed
To white by flock of ocean birds alit,
Or inland blown by storm, or hunger-urged
To filch the late-sown grain. Her convent home
Ere long received her. There Ethembria ruled,
Green Erin’s earliest nun. Of princely race,
She in past years before the font of Christ
Had knelt at Patrick’s feet. Once more she sought him:
Over the lovely, lovelier change had passed,
As when on childish girlhood, ’mid a shower
Of lilies earthward wafted, maidenhood
In peacefuller state assumes her spotless throne;
So, from that maiden, vestal now had risen:—
Lowlier she seemed, more tender, soft, and grave,
Yet loftier; hushed in quiet more divine,
Yet wonder-awed. Again she knelt, and o’er
The bending queenly head, till then unbent,
He flung that veil which woman bars from man
To make her more than woman. Nigh to death
The Saint forgat not her. With her remained
Keinè; but Patrick dwelt far off at Saul.
Years came and went: yet neither chance nor change,
Nor war, nor peace, nor warnings from the priests,
Nor whispers ’mid the omen-mongering crowd,
Might from Eochaid charm his wayward will,
Nor reasonings of the wise that still preferred
Safe port to victory’s pride. He reasoned too,
For confident in his reasonings was the king,
Reckoning on pointed fingers every link
That clenched his mail of proof. “On Patrick’s word
Ye tell me Baptism is the gate of Heaven:
Attend, Sirs! I have Patrick’s word no less
That I shall enter Heaven. What need I more?
If, Death, truth-speaker, shows that Patrick lied,
Plain is my right against him! Heaven not won,
Patrick bare hence my daughter through a fraud:
He must restore her fourfold—daughters four,
As fair and good. If not, the prophet’s pledge
For honour’s sake his Master must redeem,
And unbaptized receive me. Dupes are ye!
Doomed ’mid the common flock, with branded fleece
Bleating to enter Heaven!”
The years went by;
And weakness came. No more his small light form
To reverent eyes seemed taller than it was:
No more the shepherd watched him from the hill
Heading his hounds, and hoped to catch his smile,
Yet feared his questions keen. The end drew near.
Some wept, some railed; restless the warriors tramped;
The Druids conned their late discountenanced spells;
The bard his lying harpstrings spurned, so long
Healing, unhelpful now. But far away,
Within that lonely convent tower from her
Who prayed for ever, mightier rose the prayer.
Within the palace, now by usage old
To all flung open, all were sore amazed,
All save the king. The leech beside the bed
Sobbed where he stood, yet sware, “The fit will pass:
Ten years the King may live.” Eochaid frowned:
“Shall I, to patch thy fame, live ten years more,
My death-time come? My seventy years are sped:
My sire and grandsire died at sixty-nine.
Like Aodh, shall I lengthen out my days
Toothless, nor fit to vindicate my clan,
Some losel’s song? The kingdom is my son’s!
Strike from my little milk-white horse the shoes,
And loose him where the freshets make the mead
Greenest in springtide. He must die ere long;
And not to him did Patrick open Heaven.
Praise be to Patrick’s God! May He my sins,
Known and unknown, forgive!”
Backward he sank
Upon his bed, and lay with eyes half closed,
Murmuring at times one prayer, five words or six;
And twice or thrice he spake of trivial things;
Then like an infant slumbered till the sun,
Sinking beneath a great cloud’s fiery skirt,
Smote his old eyelids. Waking, in his ears
The ripening cornfields whispered ’neath the breeze,
For wide were all the casements that the soul
By death delivered hindrance none might find
(Careful of this the king); and thus he spake:
“Nought ever raised my heart to God like fields
Of harvest, waving wide from hill to hill,
All bread-full for my people. Hale me forth:
When I have looked once more upon that sight
My blessing I will give them, and depart.”
Then in the fields they laid him, and he spake.
“May He that to my people sends the bread,
Send grace to all who eat it!” With that word
His hands down-falling, back once more he sank,
And lay as dead; yet, sudden, rising not,
Nor moving, nor his eyes unclosing, said,
“My body in the tomb of ancient kings
Inter not till beside it Patrick stands
And looks upon my brow.” He spake, then sighed
A little sigh, and died.
Three days, as when
Black thunder cloud clings fast to mountain brows,
So to the nation clung the grief: three days
The lamentation sounded on the hills
And rang around the pale blue meres, and rose
Shrill from the bleeding heart of vale and glen,
And rocky isle, and ocean’s moaning shore;
While by the bier the yellow tapers stood,
And on the right side knelt Eochaid’s son,
Behind him all the chieftains cloaked in black;
And on his left his daughter knelt, the nun,
Behind her all her sisterhood, white-veiled,
Like tombstones after snowstorm. Far away,
At “Saul of Patrick,” dwelt the Saint when first
The king had sickened. Message sent he none
Though knowing all; and when the end was nigh,
And heralds now besought him day by day,
He made no answer till o’er eastern seas
Advanced the third fair morning. Then he rose,
And took the Staff of Jesus, and at eve
Beside the dead king standing, on his brow
Fixed a sad eye. Aloud the people wept;
The kneeling warriors eyed their lord askance;
The nuns intoned their hymn. Above that hymn
A cry rang out: it was the daughter’s prayer;
And after that was silence. By the dead
Still stood the Saint, nor e’er removed his gaze.
Then—seen of all—behold, the dead king’s hands
Rose slowly, as the weed on wave upheaved
Without its will; and all the strengthless shape
In cerements wrapped, as though by mastering voice
From the white void evoked and realm of death,
Without its will, a gradual bulk half rose,
The hoar head gazing forth. Upon the face
Had passed a change, the greatest earth may know;
For what the majesty of death began
The majesties of worlds unseen, and life
Resurgent ere its time, had perfected,
All accidents of flesh and sorrowful years
Cancelled and quelled. Yet horror from his eyes
Looked out as though some vision once endured
Must cling to them for ever. Patrick spake:
“Soul from the dead sent back once more to earth
What seek’st thou from God’s Church?” He answer made,
“Baptism.” Then Patrick o’er him poured the might
Of healing waters in the Name Triune,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit;
And from his eyes the horror passed, and light
Went from them, as the light of eyes that rest
On the everlasting glory, while he spake:
“Tempest of darkness drave me past the gates
Celestial, and, a moment’s space, within
I heard the hymning of the hosts of God
That feed for ever on the Bread of Life
As feed the nations on the harvest wheat.
Tempest of darkness drave me to the gates
Of Anguish: then a cry came up from earth,
Cry like my daughter’s when her mother died,
That stayed the on-rushing whirlwind; yet mine eyes
Perforce looked in, and, many a thousand years,
Branded upon them lay that woful sight
Now washed from them for ever.” Patrick spake:
“This day a twofold choice I give thee, son;
For fifteen years the rule o’er Erin’s land,
Rule absolute, Ard-Righ o’er lesser kings;
Or instant else to die, and hear once more
That hymn celestial, and that Vision see
They see who sing that anthem.” Light from God
Over that late dead countenance streamed amain,
Like to his daughter’s now—more beauteous thrice—
Yet awful, more than beauteous. “Rule o’er earth,
Rule without end, were nought to that great hymn
Heard but a single moment. I would die.”
Then Patrick, on him gazing, answered, “Die!”
And died the king once more, and no man wept;
But on her childless breast the nun sustained
Softly her father’s head.
That night discourse
Through hall and court circled in whispers low.
First one, “Was that indeed our king? But where
The sword-scar and the wrinkles?” “Where,” rejoined,
Wide-eyed, the next, “his little cranks and girds
The wisdom, and the whim?” Then Patrick spake:
“Sirs, till this day ye never saw your king;
The man ye doted on was but his mask,
His picture—yea, his phantom. Ye have seen
At last the man himself.” That night nigh sped,
While slowly o’er the darkling woods went down,
Warned by the cold breath of the up-creeping morn
Invisible yet nigh, the August moon,
Two vestals, gliding past like moonlight gleams,
Conversed: one said, “His daughter’s prayer prevailed!”
The second, “Who may know the ways of God?
For this, may many a heart one day rejoice
In hope! For this, the gift to many a man
Exceed the promise; Faith’s invisible germ
Quickened with parting breath; and Baptism given,
It may be, by an angel’s hand unseen!”