The Legends of Saint Patrick

by Aubrey De Vere

The happy years went by. When Patrick now
And all his company were housed with God
That hymn, at morning sung, and noon, and eve,
Even as it lulled the waves of warring clans
So lulled with music lives of toil-worn men
And charmed their ebbing breath. One time it chanced
When in his convent Kevin with his monks
Had sung it thrice, the board prepared, a guest,
Foot-sore and hungered, murmured, “Wherefore thrice?”
And Kevin answered, “Speak not thus, my son,
For while we sang it, visible to all,
Saint Patrick was among us. At his right
Benignus stood, and, all around, the Twelve,
God’s light upon their brows; while Secknall knelt
Demanding meed of song. Moreover, son,
This self-same day and hour, twelve months gone by,
Patrick, our Patriarch, died; and happy Feast
Is that he holds, by two short days alone
Severed from his of Hebrew Patriarchs last,
And Chief. The Holy House at Nazareth
He ruled benign, God’s Warder with white hairs;
And still his feast, that silver star of March,
When snows afflict the hill and frost the moor,
With temperate beam gladdens the vernal Church—
All praise to God who draws that Twain so near.”

THE STRIVING OF SAINT PATRICK ON MOUNT CRUACHAN.

ARGUMENT.

Saint Patrick, seeing that now Erin believes, desires that the whole land should stand fast in belief till Christ returns to judge the world. For this end he resolves to offer prayer on Mount Cruachan; but Victor, the Angel who has attended him in all his labours, restrains him from that prayer as being too great. Notwithstanding, the Saint prays three times on the mountain, and three times all the demons of Erin contend against him, and twice Victor, the Angel, rebukes his prayers. In the end Saint Patrick scatters the demons with ignominy, and God’s Angel bids him know that his prayer hath conquered through constancy.

From realm to realm had Patrick trod the Isle;
And evermore God’s work beneath his hand,
Since God had blessed that hand, ran out full-sphered,
And brighter than a new-created star.
The Island race, in feud of clan with clan
Barbaric, gracious else and high of heart,
Nor worshippers of self, nor dulled through sense,
Beholding, not alone his wondrous works;
But, wondrous more, the sweetness of his strength
And how he neither shrank from flood nor fire,
And how he couched him on the wintry rocks,
And how he sang great hymns to One who heard,
And how he cared for poor men and the sick,
And for the souls invisible of men,
To him made way—not simple hinds alone,
But chiefly wisest heads, for wisdom then
Prime wisdom saw in Faith; and, mixt with these,
Chieftains and sceptred kings. Nigh Tara, first,
Scorning the king’s command, had Patrick lit
His Paschal fire, and heavenward as it soared,
The royal fire and all the Beltaine fires
Shamed by its beam had withered round the Isle
Like fires on little hearths whereon the sun
Looks in his greatness. Later, to that plain
Central ’mid Eire, “of Adoration” named,
Down-trampled for two thousand years and more
By erring feet of men, the Saint had sped
In Apostolic might, and kenned far off
Ill-pleased, the nation’s idol lifting high
His head, and those twelve vassal gods around
All mailed in gold and shining as the sun,
A pomp impure. Ill-pleased the Saint had seen them,
And raised the Staff of Jesus with a ban:
Then he, that demon named of men Crom-dubh,
With all his vassal gods, into the earth
That knew her Maker, to their necks had sunk
While round the island rang three times the cry
Of fiends tormented.

Not for this as yet
Had Patrick perfected his strength: as yet
The depths he had not trodden; nor had God
Drawn forth His total forces in the man
Hidden long since and sealed. For this cause he,
Who still his own heart in triumphant hour
Suspected most, remembering Milchoe’s fate,
With fear lest aught of human mar God’s work,
And likewise from his handling of the Gael
Knowing not less their weakness than their strength,
Paused on his conquering way, and lonely sat
In cloud of thought. The great Lent Fast had come:
Its first three days went by; the fourth, he rose,
And meeting his disciples that drew nigh
Vouchsafed this greeting only: “Bide ye here
Till I return,” and straightway set his face
Alone to that great hill “of eagles” named
Huge Cruachan, that o’er the western deep
Hung through sea-mist, with shadowing crag on crag,
High-ridged, and dateless forest long since dead.

That forest reached, the angel of the Lord
Beside him, as he entered, stood and spake:
“The gifts thy soul demands, demand them not;
For they are mighty and immeasurable,
And over great for granting.” And the Saint:
“This mountain Cruachan I will not leave
Alive till all be granted, to the last.”

Then knelt he on the shrouded mountain’s base,
And was in prayer; and, wrestling with the Lord,
Demanded wondrous things immeasurable,
Not easy to be granted, for the land;
Nor brooked repulse; and when repulse there came,
Repulse that quells the weak and crowns the strong,
Forth from its gloom like lightning on him flashed
Intelligential gleam and insight winged
That plainlier showed him all his people’s heart,
And all the wound thereof: and as in depth
Knowledge descended, so in height his prayer
Rose, and far spread; nor roused alone those Powers
Regioned with God; for as the strength of fire
When flames some palace pile, or city vast,
Wakens a tempest round it dragging in
Wild blast, and from the aggression mightier grows,
So wakened Patrick’s prayer the demon race,
And drew their legions in upon his soul
From near and far. First came the Accursed encamped
On Connact’s cloudy hills and watery moors;
Old Umbhall’s Heads, Iorras, and Arran Isle,
And where Tyrawley clasps that sea-girt wood
Fochlut, whence earliest rang the Children’s Cry,
To demons trump of doom. In stormy rack
They came, and hung above the invested Mount
Expectant. But, their mutterings heeding not,
When Patrick still in puissance rose of prayer,
O’er all their armies round the realm dispersed
There ran prescience of fate; and, north and south,
From all the mountain-girdled coasts—for still
Best site attracts worst Spirit—on they came,
From Aileach’s shore and Uladh’s hoary cliffs,
Which held the aeries of that eagle race
More late in Alba throned, “Lords of the Isles”—
High chiefs whose bards, in strong transmitted line,
Filled with the name of Fionn, and thine, Oiseen,
The blue glens of that never-vanquished land—
From those purpureal mountains that o’ergaze
Rock-bowered Loch Lene broidered with sanguine bead,
They came, and many a ridge o’er sea-lake stretched
That, autumn-robed in purple and in gold,
Pontific vestment, guard the memories still
Of monks who reared thereon their mystic cells,
Finian and Kieran, Fiacre, and Enda’s self
Of hermits sire, and that sea-facing Saint
Brendan, who, in his wicker boat of skins
Before that Genoese a thousand years
Found a new world; and many more that now
Under wind-wasted Cross of Clonmacnoise
Await the day of Christ.

So rushed they on
From all sides, and, close met, in circling storm
Besieged the enclouded steep of Cruachan,
That scarce the difference knew ’twixt night and day
More than the sunless pole. Him sought they, him
Whom infinitely near they might approach,
Not touch, while firm his faith—their Foe that dragged,
Sole-kneeling on that wood-girt mountain’s base,
With both hands forth their realm’s foundation stone.
Thus ruin filled the mountain: day by day
The forest torment deepened; louder roared
The great aisles of the devastated woods;
Black cave replied to cave; and oaks, whole ranks,
Colossal growth of immemorial years,
Sown ere Milesius landed, or that race
He vanquished, or that earliest Scythian tribe,
Fell in long line, like deep-mined castle wall,
At either side God’s warrior. Slowly died
At last, far echoed in remote ravines,
The thunder: then crept forth a little voice
That shrilly whispered to him thus in scorn:
“Two thousand years yon race hath walked in blood
Neck-deep; and shall it serve thy Lord of Peace?”
That whisper ceased. Again from all sides burst
Tenfold the storm; and as it waxed, the Saint
Waxed in strong heart; and, kneeling with stretched hands,
Made for himself a panoply of prayer,
And wound it round his bosom twice and thrice,
And made a sword of comminating psalm,
And smote at them that mocked him. Day by day,
Till now the second Sunday’s vesper bell
Gladdened the little churches round the isle,
That conflict raged: then, maddening in their ire,
Sudden the Princedoms of the Dark, that rode
This way and that way through the tempest, brake
Their sceptres, and with one great cry it fell:
At once o’er all was silence: sunset lit
The world, that shone as though with face upturned
It gazed on heavens by angel faces thronged
And answered light with light. A single bird
Carolled; and from the forest skirt down fell,
Gem-like, the last drops of the exhausted storm.

Then bowed the Saint his forehead to the ground
Thanking his God; and there in sacred trance,
Which was not sleep, abode not hours alone
But silent nights and days; and, ’mid that trance,
God fed his heart with unseen Sacraments,
Immortal food. Awaking, Patrick felt
Yearnings for nearer commune with his God,
Though great its cost; and gat him on his feet,
And, mile by mile, ascended through the woods
Till stunted were its growths; and still he clomb
Printing with sandalled foot the dewy steep:
But when above the mountain rose the moon
Brightening each mist, while sank the prone morass
In double night, he came upon a stone
Tomb-shaped, that flecked that steep: a little stream
Dropped by it from the summits to the woods:
Thereon he knelt; and was once more in prayer.