The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

Saint Patrick finds an aged Pagan Woman making great lamentation above a tomb which she believes to be that of her son. He kneels beside her in prayer, while around them a wondrous tempest sweeps. After a long time, he declares unto her the Death of Christ, and how, through that Death, the Dead are blessed. Lastly, he dissuades her from her rage of grief, and admonishes her to pray for her son on a tomb hard by. which is his indeed. The woman believes, and, being consoled by a Sign of Heaven, departs in peace.

Across his breast one hundred times each day
Saint Patrick drew the Venerable Sign,
And sixty times by night: and whensoe'er
In travel Cross was seen far off or nigh
On lonely moor, or rock, or heathy hill,
For Erin then was sown with Christian seed,
He sought it, and before it knelt. Yet once,
While cold in winter shone the star of eve
Upon their board, thus spake a youthful monk:
‘Three times this day, my father, didst thou pass
The Cross of Christ unmarked. At morn thou saw'st
A last year's lamb that by it sheltered lay,
At noon a dove that near it sat and mourned,
At eve a little child that round it raced,

Well pleased with each; yet saw'st thou not that Cross,
Nor mad'st thou any reverence!’ At that word
Wondering, the Saint arose, and left the meat,
And, wondering, went to venerate that Cross.
Dark was the earth and dank ere yet he reached
That spot; and lo! where lamb had lain, and dove
Had mourned, and child had raced, there stood indeed
High-raised, the Cross of Christ. Before it long
He prayed, and kneeling, marked that on a tomb
That Cross was raised. Then, inly moved by God,
The Saint demanded, ‘Who, of them that walked
The sun-warmed earth lies here in darkness hid?’
And answer made a lamentable Voice:
‘Pagan I lived, my own soul's bane:—when dead,
Men buried here my body.’ Patrick then:
‘How stands the Cross of Christ on Pagan grave?’
And answered thus the lamentable Voice:
‘A woman's work. She had been absent long;
Her son had died: near mine his grave was made;
Half blind was she through fleeting of her tears,
And, erring, raised the Cross upon my tomb,
Misdeeming it for his. Nightly she comes,
Wailing as only Pagan mothers wail;
So wailed my mother once, while pain tenfold
Ran through my bodiless being. For her sake,
If pity dwells on earth or highest heaven,
May it this mourner comfort! Christian she,
And capable of pity.’

Then the Saint
Cried loud, ‘O God, Thou seest this Pagan's heart,
That love within it dwells: therefore not his
That doom of Souls all hate, and self-exiled

To whom Thy Presence were a woe twice told.
Eternal Pity! pity Thou Thy work;—
Sole Peace of them that love Thee, grant him peace.’
Thus Patrick prayed; and in the heaven of heavens
God heard His servant's prayer. Then Patrick mused:
‘Now know I why I passed that Cross unmarked;
It was not that it seemed.’

As thus he knelt,
Behold, upon the cold and bitter wind
Rang wail on wail; and o'er the moor there moved
What seemed a woman's if a human form.
That miserable phantom onward came
With cry succeeding cry that sank or swelled
As dipped or rose the moor. Arrived at last,
She heeded not the Saint, but on that grave
Dashed herself down. Long time that woman wailed;
And Patrick, long, for reverence of her woe
Forbore. At last he spake low-toned as when
Best listener knows not when the strain begins.
‘Daughter! the sparrow falls not to the ground
Without his Maker. He that made thy son
Hath sent His Son to bear all woes of men,
And vanquish every foe—the latest, Death.’
Then rolled that woman on the Saint an eye
As when the last survivor of a host
Glares on some pitying conqueror. ‘Ho! the man
That treads upon my grief! He ne'er had sons;
And thou, O son of mine, hast left no sons,
Though oft I said, “When I am old, his babes
Shall climb my knees.” My boast was mine in youth;
But now mine age is made a barren stock
And as a blighted briar.’ In grief she turned;
And as on blackening tarn gust follows gust,

Again came wail on wail. On strode the night:
The jagged forehead of that forest old
Alone was seen: all else was gloom. At last
With voice, though kind, upbraiding, Patrick spake:
‘Daughter, thy grief is wilful and it errs;
Errs like those sad and tear-bewildered eyes
That for a Christian's take a Pagan's grave,
And for a son's a stranger's. Ah! poor child,
Thy pride it was to raise, where lay thy son,
A Cross, his memory's honour. By thee close
All dewed and glimmering in yon rising moon,
Low lies a grave unhonoured, and unknown:
No cross stands on it; yet upon its breast
Graved shalt thou find what Christian tomb ne'er lacks,
The Cross of Christ. Woman, there lies thy son.’

She rose; she found that other tomb; she knelt;
And o'er it went her wandering palms, as though
Some stone-blind mother o'er an infant's face
Should spread an agonising hand, intent
To choose betwixt her own and counterfeit;
She found that cross deep-grav'n, and further sign
Close by, to her well known. One piercing shriek—
Another moment, and her body lay
Along that grave with kisses, and wild hands
As when some forest beast tears up the ground,
Seeking its prey there hidden. Then once more
Rang the wild wail above that lonely heath,
While roared far off the vast invisible woods,
And with them strove the blast, in eddies dire
Whirling both branch and bough. Through hurrying clouds
The scared moon rushed like ship that naked glares

One moment, lightning-lighted in the storm,
Anon in wild waves drowned. An hour went by:
Still wailed that woman, and the tempest roared;
While in the heart of ruin Patrick prayed.
He loved that woman. Unto Patrick dear,
Dear as God's Church was still the single Soul,
Dearest the suffering Soul. He gave her time;
He let the floods of anguish spend themselves:
But when her wail sank low; when woods were mute,
And where the skiey madness late had raged
Shone the blue heaven, he spake with voice in strength
Gentle like that which calmed the Syrian lake:
‘My sister, God hath shown me of thy wound,
And wherefore with the blind old Pagan's cry
Hopeless thou mourn'st. Returned from far, thou found'st
Thy son had Christian died, and saw'st the Cross
On Christian graves: and ill thy heart endured
That tomb so dear should lack its reverence meet.
To him thou gav'st the Cross, albeit that Cross
Inly thou know'st not yet. That knowledge thine,
Thou hadst not left thy son amerced of prayer,
And given him tears, not succour.’ ‘Yea,’ she said,
‘Of this new Faith I little understand,
Being an aged woman and in woe:
But since my son was Christian, such am I;
And since the Christian tomb is decked with Cross
He shall not lack his right.’

Then Patrick spake:
‘O woman, hearken, for through me thy son
Invokes thee. All night long for thee, unknown,
My hands have risen: but thou hast raised no prayer
For him, thy dearest; nor from founts of God,
Though brimful, hast thou drawn for lips that thirst.

Arise, and kneel, and hear thy loved one's cry:
Too long he waiteth. Blessed are the dead:
They rest in God's high Will. But more than peace,
The rapturous vision of the Face of God,
Won by the Cross of Christ—for that they thirst
As thou, if viewless stood thy son close by,
Wouldst thirst to see his countenance. Eyes sin-scaled
Not yet can see their God. Prayer speeds the time:
The living help the dead; all praise to Him
Who blends His children in a league of help,
Making all good one good. Eternal Love!
Not thine the will that love should cease with life,
Or, living, cease from service, barren made,
A stagnant gall eating the mourner's heart
That hour when love should stretch a hand of might
Up o'er the grave to heaven. O great in love,
Perfect love's work: for well, sad heart, I know,
Hadst thou not trained thy son in virtuous ways,
Christian he ne'er had been.’

Those later words
That solitary mourner understood,
The earlier but in part, and answered thus:
‘A loftier Cross, and farther seen, shall rise
Upon this grave new-found! No hireling hands—
Mine own shall raise it; yea, though thirty years
Should sweat beneath the task.’ And Patrick said:
‘What means the Cross? That lore thou lack'st now learn.’
Then that which Kings desired to know, and seers
And prophets vigil-blind—that Crown of Truths,
Scandal of fools, yet conqueror of the world,
To her, that midnight mourner, he divulged,
Record authentic: how in sorrow and sin
The earth had groaned; how pity, like a sword,

Had pierced the great Paternal Heart in heaven;
How He, the Light of Light, and God of God,
Had man become, and died upon the Cross,
Vanquishing thus both sorrow and sin, and risen,
The might of death o'erthrown; and how the gates
Of heaven rolled inwards as the Anointed King
Resurgent and ascending through them passed
In triumph with His Holy Dead; and how
The just, thenceforth death-freed, the self-same gates
Entering, shall share the everlasting throne.
Thus Patrick spake, and many a stately theme
Rehearsed beside, higher than heaven, and yet
Near as the farthest can alone be near.
Then in that grief-worn creature's bosom old
Contentions rose, and fiercer fires than burn
In sultry breasts of youth: and all her past,
Both good and evil, woke, in sleep long sealed;
And all the powers and forces of her soul
Rushed every way through darkness seeking light,
Like winds or tides. Beside her Patrick prayed,
And mightier than his preaching was his prayer,
Sheltering that crisis dread. At last beneath
The great Life-Giver's breath that Human Soul,
An inner world vaster than planet worlds,
In undulation swayed, as when of old
The Spirit of God above the waters moved
Creative, while the blind and shapeless void
Yearned into form, and form grew meet for life,
And downward through the abysses Law ran forth
With touch soul-soft, and seas from lands retired,
And light from dark, and wondering Nature passed
Through storm to calm,and all things found their home.

Silence long time endured; at last, clear-voiced

Her head not turning, thus the woman spake:
‘That God who Man became—who died, and lives,—
Say, died He for my son?’ And Patrick said,
‘Yea, for thy son He died. Kneel, woman, kneel!
Nor doubt, for mighty is a mother's prayer,
That He who in the eternal light is throned,
Lifting the roseate and the nail-pierced palm,
Will make in heaven the Venerable Sign,
For He it is prays in us, and that Soul
Thou lov'st pass on to glory.’

At his word
She knelt, and unto God, with help of God,
Uprushed the strength of prayer, as when the cloud
Uprushes past some beetling mountain wall
From billowy deeps unseen. Long time she prayed;
While heaven and earth grew silent as that night
When rose the Saviour. Sudden ceased the prayer:
And rang upon the night her jubilant cry,
‘I saw a Sign in Heaven. Far inward rolled
The gates; and glory flashed from God; and he
I love his entrance won.’ Then, fair and tall,
That woman stood with hands upraised to heaven,
The dusky shadow of her youth renewed,
And instant Patrick spake, ‘Give thanks to God,
And speed thee home, and sleep; and since thy son
No children left, take to thee orphans twain
And rear them, in his honour, unto Christ;
And yearly, when the death-day of thy son
Returns, his birth-day name it; call thy friends;
Give alms; and range the poor around thy door,
So shall they feast, and pray. Woman, farewell:
All night the dark upon thy face hath lain;
Yet shall we know each other, met in heaven.’

Then blithe of foot that Mother crossed the moor;
And when she reached her door a zone of white
Loosening along a cloud that walled the east
Revealed the coming dawn. That dawn ere long
Lay, unawaking, on a face serene,
On tearless lids, and quiet, open palms,
On stormless couch and raiment calm that hid
A breast if faded now, yet happier far
Than when in prime its youthful wave first heaved
Rocking a sleeping Infant.

University of Virginia Library

SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDLESS MOTHER.

ARGUMENT.