The Legends of Saint Patrick

by Aubrey De Vere

Alone one night I mused,
Burthened with thought of that vocation vast.
O’er-spent I sank asleep. In visions then,
Satan my soul plagued with temptation dire.
Methought, beneath a cliff I lay, and lo!
Thick-legioned demons o’er me dragged a rock,
That falling, seemed a mountain. Near, more near,
O’er me it blackened. Sudden from my heart
This thought leaped forth: “Elias! Him invoke!”
That name invoked, vanished the rock; and I,
On mountains stood watching the rising sun,
As stood Elias once on Carmel’s crest,
Gazing on heaven unbarred, and that white cloud,
A thirsting land’s salvation.

Might Divine!
Thou taught’st me thus my weakness; and I vowed
To seek Thy strength. I turned my face to Tours,
There where in years gone by Thy soldier-priest
Martin had ruled, my kinsman in the flesh.
Dead was the lion; but his lair was warm:
In it I laid me, and a conquering glow
Rushed up into my heart. I heard discourse
Of Martin still, his valour in the Lord,
His rugged warrior zeal, his passionate love
For Hilary, his vigils, and his fasts,
And all his pitiless warfare on the Powers
Of darkness; and one day, in secrecy,
With Ninian, missioned then to Alba’s shore,
I peered into his branch-enwoven cell,
Half-way between the river and the rocks,
From Tours a mile and more.

So passed eight years
Till strengthened was my heart by discipline:
Then spake a priest, “Brother, thy will is good,
Yet rude thou art of learning as a beast;
Fare thee to great Germanus of Auxerres,
Who lightens half the West!” I heard, and went,
And to that Saint was subject fourteen years.
He from my mind removed the veil; “Lift up,”
He said, “thine eyes!” and like a mountain land
The Queenly Science stood before me plain,
From rocky buttress up to peak of snow:
The great Commandments first, Edicts, and Laws
That bastion up man’s life:—then high o’er these
The forest huge of Doctrine, one, yet many,
Forth stretching in innumerable aisles,
At the end of each, the self-same glittering star:—
Lastly, the Life God-hidden. Day by day,
With him for guide, that first and second realm
I tracked, and learned to shun the abyss flower-veiled,
And scale heaven-threatening heights. This, too, he taught,
Himself long time a ruler and a prince,
The regimen of States from chaos won
To order, and to Christ. Prudence I learned,
And sageness in the government of men,
By me sore needed soon. O stately man,
In all things great, in action and in thought,
And plain as great! To Britain called, the Saint
Trod down that great Pelagian Blasphemy,
Chief portent of the age. But better far
He loved his cell. There sat he vigil-worn,
In cowl and dusky tunic hued like earth
Whence issued man and unto which returns;
I marvelled at his wrinkled brows, and hands
Still tracing, enter or depart who would,
From morn to night his parchments.

There, once more,
O God, Thine eye was on me, or my hand
Once more had missed the prize. Temptation now
Whispered in softness, “Wisdom’s home is here:
Here bide untroubled.” Almost I had fallen;
But, by my side, in visions of the night,
God’s angel, Victor, stood as one that hastes,
On travel sped. Unnumbered missives lay
Clasped in his hands. One stretched he forth, inscribed
“The wail of Erin’s Children.” As I read
The cry of babes, from Erin’s western coast
And Fochlut’s forest, and the wintry sea,
Shrilled o’er me, clamouring, “Holy youth, return!
Walk then among us!” I could read no more.

Thenceforth rose up renewed mine old desire:
My kinsfolk mocked me. “What! past woes too scant!
Slave of four masters, and the best a churl!
Thy Gospel they will trample under foot,
And rend thee! Late to them Palladius preached:
They drave him as a leper from their shores.”
I stood in agony of staggering mind
And warring wills. Then, lo! at dead of night
I heard a mystic voice, till then unheard,
I knew not if within me or close by
That swelled in passionate pleading; nor the words
Grasped I, so great they seemed and wonderful,
Till sank that tempest to a whisper:—“He
Who died for thee is He that in thee groans.”
Then fell, methought, scales from mine inner eyes:
Then saw I—terrible that sight, yet sweet—
Within me saw a Man that in me prayed
With groans unutterable. That Man was girt
For mission far. My heart recalled that word,
“The Spirit helpeth our infirmities;
That which we lack we know not, but the Spirit
Himself for us doth intercession make
With groanings which may never be revealed.”
That hour my vow was vowed; and he approved,
My master and my guide. “But go,” he said,
“First to that island in the Tyrrhene Sea,
Where live the high Contemplatives to God:
There learn perfection; there that Inner Life
Win thou, God’s strength amid the world’s loud storm:
Nor fear lest God should frown on such delay,
For Heavenly Wisdom is compassionate:
Slowly before man’s weakness moves it on;
Softly: so moved of old the Wise Men’s Star,
Which curbed its lightning ardours and forbore
Honouring the pensive tread of hoary Eld,
Honouring the burthened slave, the camel line
Long-linked, with level head and foot that fell
As though in sleep, printing the silent sands.”
Thus, smiling, spake Germanus, large in lore.

So in that island-Eden I sojourned,
Lerins, and saw where Vincent lived, and his,
Life fountained from on high. That life was Love;
For all their mighty knowledge food became
Of Love Divine, and took, by Love absorbed,
Shape from his flame-like body. Hard their beds;
Ceaseless their prayers. They tilled a sterile soil;
Beneath their hands it blossomed like the rose:
O’er thymy hollows blew the nectared airs;
Blue ocean flashed through olives. They had fled
From praise of men; yet cities far away
Rapt those meek saints to fill the bishop’s throne.
I saw the light of God on faces calm
That blended with man’s meditative might
Simplicity of childhood, and, with both
The sweetness of that flower-like sex which wears
Through love’s Obedience twofold crowns of Love.
O blissful time! In that bright island bloomed
The third high region on the Hills of God,
Above the rock, above the wood, the cloud:—
There laughs the luminous air, there bursts anew
Spring bud in summer on suspended lawns;
There the bell tinkles while once more the lamb
Trips by the sun-fed runnel: there green vales
Lie lost in purple heavens.

Transfigured Life!
This was thy glory, that, without a sigh,
Who loved thee yet could leave thee! Thus it fell:
One morning I was on the sea, and lo!
An isle to Lerins near, but fairer yet,
Till then unseen! A grassy vale sea-lulled
Wound inward, breathing balm, with fruited trees,
And stream through lilies gliding. By a door
There stood a man in prime, and others sat
Not far, some grey; and one, a weed of years,
Lay like a withered wreath. An old man spake:
“See what thou seest, and scan the mystery well!
The man who stands so stately in his prime
Is of this company the eldest born.
The Saviour in His earthly sojourn, Risen,
Perchance, or ere His Passion, who can tell,
Stood up at this man’s door; and this man rose,
And let Him in, and made for Him a feast;
And Jesus said, ‘Tarry, till I return.’
Moreover, others are there on this isle,
Both men and maids, who saw the Son of Man,
And took Him in, and shine in endless youth;
But we, the rest, in course of nature fade,
For we believe, yet saw not God, nor touched.”
Then spake I, “Here till death my home I make,
Where Jesus trod.” And answered he in prime,
“Not so; the Master hath for thee thy task.
Parting, thus spake He: ‘Here for Mine Elect
Abide thou. Bid him bear this crozier staff;
My blessing rests thereon: the same shall drive
The foes of God before him.’” Answer thus
I made, “That crozier staff I will not touch
Until I take it from that nail-pierced Hand.”
From these I turned, and clomb a mountain high,
Hermon by name; and there—was this, my God,
In visions of the Lord, or in the flesh?—
I spake with Him, the Lord of Life, Who died;
He from the glory stretched the Hand nail-pierced,
And placed in mine that crozier staff, and said:
“Upon that day when they that with Me walked
Sit with Me on their everlasting Thrones,
Judging the Twelve Tribes of Mine Israel,
Thy People thou shalt judge in righteousness.”

Forthwith to Rome I fled; there knelt I down
Above the bones of Peter and of Paul,
And saw the mitred embassies from far,
And saw Celestine with his head high held
As though it bore the Blessed Sacrament;
Chief Shepherd of the Saviour’s flock on earth.
Tall was the man, and swift; white-haired; with eye
Starlike and voice a trumpet clear that pealed
God’s Benediction o’er the city and globe;
Yea, and whene’er his palm he lifted, still
Blessing before it ran. Upon my head
He laid both hands, and “Win,” he said, “to Christ
One realm the more!” Moreover, to my charge
Relics he gave, unnumbered, without price;
And when those relics lost had been, and found,
And at his feet I wept, he chided not;
But, smiling, said, “Thy glorious task fulfilled,
House them in thy new country’s stateliest church
By cresset girt of ever-burning lamps,
And never-ceasing anthems.”

Northward then
Returned I, missioned. Yet once more, but once,
That old temptation proved me. When they sat,
The Elders, making inquest of my life,
Sudden a certain brother rose, and spake,
“Shall this man be a Bishop, who hath sinned?”
My dearest friend was he. To him alone
One time had I divulged a sin by me
Through ignorance wrought when fifteen years of age;
And after thirty years, behold, once more,
That sin had found me out! He knew my mission:
When in mine absence slander sought my name,
Mine honour he had cleared. Yet now—yet now—
That hour the iron passed into my soul:
Yea, well nigh all was lost. I wept, “Not one,
No heart of man there is that knows my heart,
Or in its anguish shares.”

Yet, O my God!
I blame him not: from Thee that penance came:
Not for man’s love should Thine Apostle strive,
Thyself alone his great and sole reward.
Thou laid’st that hour a fiery hand of love
Upon a faithless heart; and it survived.