Thou therefore kneel, and bless thy Land of Eire.”
Then Patrick knelt, and blessed the land, and said,
“Praise be to God who hears the sinner’s prayer.”
EPILOGUE.
THE CONFESSION OF SAINT PATRICK.
ARGUMENT.
Before his death, Saint Patrick makes confession to his brethren concerning his life; of his love for that land which had been his House of Bondage; of his ceaseless prayer in youth: of his sojourn at Tours, where St. Martin had made abode, at Auxerres with St. Germanus, and at Lerins with the Contemplatives: of that mystic mountain where the Redeemer Himself lodged the Crozier Staff in his hand; of Pope Celestine who gave him his Mission; of his Visions; of his Labours. His last charge to the sons of Erin is that they should walk in Truth; that they should put from them the spirit of Revenge; and that they should hold fast to the Faith of Christ.
At Saul then, by the inland-spreading sea,
There where began my labour, comes the end:
I, blind and witless, willed it otherwise:
God willed it thus. When prescience came of death
I said, “My Resurrection place I choose”—
O fool, for ne’er since boyhood choice was mine
Save choice to subject will of mine to God—
“At great Ardmacha.” Thitherward I turned;
But in my pathway, with forbidding hand,
Victor, God’s angel stood. “Not so,” he said,
“For in Ardmacha stands thy princedom fixed,
Age after age, thy teaching, and thy law,
But not thy grave. Return thou to that shore
Thy place of small beginnings, and thereon
Lessen in body and mind, and grow in spirit:
Then sing to God thy little hymn and die.”
Yea, Lord, my mouth would praise Thee ere I die,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit
Who knittest in His Church the just to Christ:
Help me, my sons—mine orphans soon to be—
Help me to praise Him; ye that round me sit
On those grey rocks; ye that have faithful been,
Honouring, despite dishonour of my sins,
His servant: I would praise Him yet once more,
Though mine the stammerer’s voice, or as a child’s;
For it is written, “Stammerers shall speak plain
Sounding Thy Gospel.” “They whom Christ hath sent
Are Christ’s Epistle, borne to ends of earth,
Writ by His Spirit, and plain to souls elect:”
Lord, am not I of Thine Apostolate?
Yea, by abjection Thine, by suffering Thine!
Till I was humbled I was as a stone
In deep mire sunk. Then, stretched from heaven, Thy hand
Slid under me in might, and lifted me,
And fixed me in Thy Temple where Thou wouldst.
Wonder, ye great ones, wonder, ye the wise!
On me, the last and least, this charge was laid
This crown, that I in humbleness and truth
Should walk this nation’s Servant till I die.
Therefore, a youth of sixteen years, or less,
With others of my land by pirates seized
I stood on Erin’s shore. Our bonds were just;
Our God we had forsaken, and His Law,
And mocked His priests. Tending a stern man’s swine
I trod those Dalaraida hills that face
Eastward to Alba. Six long years went by;
But—sent from God—Memory, and Faith, and Fear
Moved on my spirit as winds upon the sea,
And the Spirit of Prayer came down. Full many a day
Climbing the mountain tops, one hundred times
I flung upon the storm my cry to God.
Nor frost, nor rain might harm me, for His love
Burned in my heart. Through love I made my fast;
And in my fasts one night I heard this voice,
“Thou fastest well: soon shalt thou see thy Land.”
Later, once more thus spake it: “Southward fly,
Thy ship awaits thee.” Many a day I fled,
And found the black ship dropping down the tide,
And entered with those Gentiles by Thy grace
Vanquished, though first they spurned me, and was free.
It was Thy leading, Lord; the Hand was Thine!
For now when, perils past, I walked secure,
Kind greetings round me, and the Christian Rite,
There rose a clamorous yearning in my heart,
And memories of that land so far, so fair,
And lost in such a gloom. And through that gloom
The eyes of little children shone on me,
So ready to believe! Such children oft
Ran by me naked in and out the waves,
Or danced in circles upon Erin’s shores,
Like creatures never fallen! Thought of such
Passed into thought of others. From my youth
Both men and women, maidens most, to me
As children seemed; and O the pity then
To mark how oft they wept, how seldom knew
Whence came the wound that galled them! As I walked,
Each wind that passed me whispered, “Lo, that race
Which trod thee down! Requite with good their ill!
Thou know’st their tongue; old man to thee, and youth,
For counsel came, and lambs would lick thy foot;
And now the whole land is a sheep astray
That bleats to God.”