His musing step; and slow his hand to wrath,
A massive hand, but soft, that many a time
Had succored man and woman, child and beast;
Ay, yet could fiercely grasp the sword! At times
As mightily it clutched his ashen goad
When like an eagle on him swooped some thought:
Then stood he as in dream, his pallid front
Brightening like eastern sea-cliffs when a moon
Unrisen is near its rising.
Round the bay Meantime with deepening eve full many a fire Up-sprung, and horns were heard. Around the steep With bannered pomp and many a dancing plume Ere long a cavalcade made way. Whence came it? Oswy, Northumbria’s king, the foremost rode, Oswy triumphant o’er the Mercian host, To sue for blessing on his sceptre new; With him an Anglian prince, student long time In Bangor of the Irish, and a monk Of Gallic race far wandering from the Marne: They came to look on Hilda, hear her words Of far-famed wisdom on the Interior Life: For Hilda thus discoursed: “True life of man Is life within: inward immeasurably The being winds of all who walk the earth; But he whom sense hath blinded nothing knows Of that wide greatness: like a boy is he That clambers round some castle’s wall extern In search of nests—the outward wall of seven— Yet nothing knows of those great courts within, The hall where princes banquet, or the bower Where royal maidens touch the lyre and lute, Much less its central church, and sacred shrine Wherein God dwells alone.”[[159]] Thus Hilda spake; And they that gazed upon her widening eyes Low whispered, each to each, “She speaks of things Which she hath seen and known.”