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.
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.