The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere :: :: University of Virginia Library

SAINT PATRICK AT THE FEAST OF KNOCK CAE;

OR, THE FOUNDING OF MUNGRET.

ARGUMENT.

Saint Patrick, being bidden to a feast, discourses on the way against the pride of the Bards, for whom Fiacc pleads. Derball, a scoffer, requires the Saint to remove a mountain. He kneels down and prays, and Derball avers that the mountain moved. Notwithstanding, Derball believes not, but departs. The Saint declares that he saw not whether the mountain moved. He places Nessan over his convent at Mungret because he had given a little wether to the hungry. Nessan's mother grudged the gift; and Saint Patrick prophesies that her grave shall not be in her son's church.

In Limneach,

Limerick. The far-famed Monastery of Mungret was within three miles of Limerick.

ere he reached it, fame there ran
Of Patrick's words and works. Before his feet
Aileel had fallen, loud wailing, with his wife,
And cried, ‘Our child is slain by savage beasts;
But thou, O prophet, if that God thou serv'st

Be God indeed, restore him!’ Patrick turned
To Malach, praised of all men. ‘Brother, kneel,
And raise you child.’ But Malach answered, ‘Nay,
Lest, tempting God, His service I should shame.’
Then Patrick, ‘Answer of the base is thine;
And base shall be that house thou builds't on earth,
Little, and low. A man may fail in prayer:
What then? Thank God! the fault is ours not His,
And ours alone the shame.’ The Apostle turned
To Ibar, and to Ailbè, bishops twain,
And bade them raise the child. They heard and knelt:
And Patrick knelt between them; and these three
Upheaved a wondrous strength of prayer: and lo!
All pale, yet shining, rose the child, and sat,
Lifting small hands, and preached to those around,
And straightway they believed, and were baptized.

Thus with loud rumour all the land was full,
And some believed; some doubted; and a chief,
Lonan, the son of Eirc, that half believed,
Willing to draw from Patrick wonder and sign,
By messengers besought him, saying, ‘Come,
For in thy reverence waits thy servant's feast
Spread on Knock Cae.’ That pleasant hill ascends
Westward of Ara, girt by rivers twain,
Maigue, lily-lighted, and the ‘Morning Star’
Once ‘Samhair’ named, that eastward through the woods
Winding, upon its rapids earliest meets
The morn, and flings it far o'er mead and plain.

From Limneach therefore Patrick, while the dawn,
Still dusk, its joyous secret kept, went forth,

O'er dustless road soon lost in dewy fields,
And groves that, touched by wakening winds, began
To load damp airs with scent. That time it was
When beech leaves lose their silken gloss, and maids
From whitest brows depose the hawthorn white,
Red rose in turn enthroning. Earliest gleams
Glimmered on leaves that shook like wings of birds:
Saint Patrick marked them well. He turned to Fiacc—
‘God might have changed to Pentecostal tongues
The leaves of all the forests in the world,
And bade them sing His love! He wrought not thus:
A little hint He gives us and no more.
Alone the willing see. Thus they sin less
Who, if they saw, seeing would disbelieve.
Hark to that note! O foolish woodland choirs!
Ye sing but idle loves; and, idler far,
The bards sing war—war only!’

Answered thus
The monk bard-loving: ‘Sing it! Ay, and make!
The keys of all the tempests hang on zones
Of those cloud-spirits! They, too, can “bind and loose:”
A bard incensed hath proved a kingdom's doom!
Such Aidan. Upon cakes of meal his host,
King Aileach, fed him in a fireless hall:
The bard complained not—ay, but issuing forth,
Sang in dark wood a keen and venomed song
That raised on the king's countenance plague-spots three;
Who saw him named them Scorn, Dishonour, Shame,
And blighted those three oak trees nigh his door.
What next? Before a month that realm lay drowned

In blood; and fire went o'er the opprobrious house!’
Thus spake the youth, and blushed at his own zeal
For bardic fame: then added, ‘Strange the power
Of song! My father, do I vainly dream
Oft thinking that the bards, perchance the birds,
Sing something vaster than they think or know?
Some fire immortal lives within their strings:
Therefore the people love them. War divine,
God's war on sin—true love-song best and sweetest—
Perforce they chaunt in spirit, not wars of clans:
Yea, one day, conscious, they shall sing that song;
One day by river clear of south or north,
Pagan no more, the laurelled head shall rise,
And chaunt the Warfare of the Realm of Souls,
The anguish and the cleansing, last the crown—
Prelude of songs celestial!’

Patrick smiled:
‘Still, as at first, a lover of the bards!
Hard task was mine to win thee to the cowl!
Dubtach, thy master, sole in Tara's hall
Who made me reverence, mocked my quest. He said,
“Fiacc thou wouldst?—my Fiacc? Few days gone by
I sent the boy with poems to the kings;
He loves me: hardly will he leave the songs
To wear thy tonsure!” As he spake, behold,
Thou enter'dst. Sudden hands on Dubtach's head
I laid, as though to gird with tonsure crown:
Then rose thy clamour, “Erin's chief of bards
A tonsured man! Me, father, take, not him!
Far less the loss to Erin and the Songs!”
Down knelt'st thou; and, ere long, old Dubtach's floor
Shone with thy vernal locks, like forest paths

Made gold by leaves of autumn!’

As he spake,
The sun, new-risen, flashed on a breast of wood
That answered from a thousand jubilant throats:
Then Fiacc, with all their music in his face,
Resumed: ‘My father, upon Tara's steep
Patient thou sat'st whole months, sifting with care
The laws of Eire, recasting for all time,
Ill laws from good dissevering, as that Day
Shall sever tares from wheat. I see thee still,
As then we saw—thy clenched hand lost in beard
Propping thy chin; thy forehead wrinkle-trenched
Above that wondrous tome, the “Senchus Mohr,”
Like his, that Hebrew lawgiver's, who sat
Throned on the clouded Mount, while far below
The Tribes waited in awe. Now answer make!
Three bishops, and three brehons, and three kings,
Ye toiled—who helped thee best?’ ‘Dubtach, the bard,’
Patrick replied—‘Yea, wise was he, and knew
Man's heart like his own strings.’ ‘All bards are wise,’
Shouted the youth, ‘except when war they wage
On thee, the wisest. In their music bath
They cleanse man's heart, not less, and thus prepare,
Though hating thee, thy way. The bards are wise
For all except themselves. Shall God not save them,
He who would save the worst? Such grace were hard
Unless, death past, their souls to birds might change,
And in the darksomest grove of Paradise
Lament, amerced, their error, yet rejoice
In souls that walked obedient!’ ‘Darksomest grove,’
Patrick made answer; ‘darksome is their life;

Darksome their pride, their love, their joys, their hopes;
Darksome, though gleams of happier lore they have,
Their light! Seest thou yon forest floor, and o'er it,
The ivy's flash—earth-light? Such light is theirs:
By such can no man walk.’

Thus, gay or grave,
Conversed they, while the Brethren paced behind;
Till now the morn crowded each cottage door
With clustered heads. They reached ere long in woods
A hamlet small. Here on the weedy thatch
White fruit-bloom fell: through shadow, there, went round
The swinging mill-wheel tagged with silver fringe;
Here rang the mallet; there was heard remote
The one note of the love-contented bird.
Though warm the sun, in shade the young spring morn
Was edged with winter yet, and icy film
Glazed the deep ruts. The swarthy smith worked hard,
And working sang; the wheelwright toiled close by;
An armourer next to these: through flaming smoke
Glared the fierce hands that on the anvil fell
In thunder down. A sorcerer stood apart
Kneading Death's messenger, that missile ball,
The Lia Laimbhè. To his heart he clasped it,
And o'er it muttered spells with flatteries mixed:
‘Hail, little daughter mine! 'Twixt hand and heart
I knead thee! From the Red Sea came that sand
Which, blent with viper's poison, makes thy flesh!
Be thou no shadow wandering on the air!
Rush through the battle gloom as red-combed snake

Cleaves the blind waters! On! like Witch's glance,
Or forkèd flash, or shaft of summer pest,
And woe to him that meets thee! Mouth blood-red
My daughter hath:—not healing be her kiss!’
Thus he. In shade he stood, and phrensy-fired;
And yet he marked who watched him. Without word
Him Patrick passed; but spake to all the rest
With voice so kindly reverent, ‘Is not this,’
Men asked, ‘the preacher of the “Tidings Good?”’
‘What tidings? Has he found a mine?’ ‘He speaks
To princes as to brothers; to the hind
As we to princes' children! Yea, when mute,
Saith not his face “Rejoice”?’

At times the Saint
Laid on the head of age his strong right hand,
Gentle as touch of soft-accosting eyes;
And once before an open door he stopped,
Silent. Within, all glowing like a rose,
A mother stood for pleasure of her babes
That—in them still the warmth of couch late left—
Around her gambolled. On his face, as hers,
Their sport regarding, long time lay the smile;
Then crept a shadow o'er it, and he spake
In sadness: ‘Woman! when a hundred years
Have passed, with opening flower and falling snow,
Where then will be thy children?’ Like a cloud
Fear and great wrath fell on her. From the wall
She snatched a battle-axe and raised it high
In both hands, clamouring, ‘Wouldst thou slay my babes?’
He answered, ‘I would save them. Woman, hear!
Seest thou yon floating shape? It died a worm;
It lives, the blue-winged angel of spring meads:

Thy children, likewise, if they serve my King,
Death past, shall find them wings.’ Then to her cheek
The bloom returned, and splendour to her eye;
And catching to her breast, that larger swelled,
A child, she wept, ‘Oh, would that he might live
For ever! Prophet, speak! thy words are good!
Their father, too, must hear thee.’ Patrick said,
‘Not so; nor falls this seed on every road;’
Then added thus: ‘Yon child, by all the rest
Cherished as though he were some infant God,
Is none of thine.’ She answered, ‘None of ours;
A great chief sent him here for fosterage.’
Then he: ‘All men on earth the children are
Of One who keeps them here in fosterage:
They see not yet His face; but He sees them,
Yea, and decrees their seasons and their times:
Like infants, they must learn Him first by touch,
Through nature, and her gifts—by hearing next,
The hearing of the ear, and that is Faith—
By Vision last. Woman, these things are hard;
But thou to Limneach come in three days' time,
Likewise thy husband; there, by Sangul's Well,

Now called Saint Patrick's Well, close to Limerick.

Thou shalt know all.’

The Saint had reached ere long
That festal mount. Thousands with bannered line
Scaled it light-hearted. Never favourite lamb
In ribands decked shone brighter than that hour
The fair flank of Knock Cae. Heath-scented airs
Lightened the clambering toil. At times the Saint
Stayed on their course the crowds, and towards the Truth
Drew them by parable, or record old,
Oftener by question sage. Not all believed:
Of such was Derball. Man of wealth and wit,

Nor wise, nor warlike, toward the Saint he strode
With bubble-seething brain, and head high tossed,
And cried, ‘Great Seer! remove yon mountain blue,
Cenn Abhrat, by thy prayer! That done, to thee
Fealty I pledge.’ Saint Patrick knelt in prayer:
Soon Derball cried, ‘The central ridge descends;—
Southward, beyond it, Longa's lake shines out
In sunlight flashing!’ At his word drew near
The men of Erin. Derball homeward turned,
Mocking: ‘Believe who will, believe not I!
Me more imports it o'er my foodful fields
To draw the Maigue's rich waters than to stare
At moving hills.’ But certain of that throng,
Light men, obsequious unto Derball's laugh,
Questioned of Patrick if the mountain moved.
He answered, ‘On the ground mine eyes were fixed;
Nought saw I. Haply, through defect of mine,
It moved not. Derball said the mountain moved;
Yet kept he not his pledge, but disbelieved.
“Faith can move mountains.” Never said my King
That mountains moved could move reluctant faith
In unbelieving heart.’ With sad, calm voice
He spake; and Derball's laughter frustrate died.
Meantime, high up on that thyme-scented hill
By shadows swept, and lights, and rapturous winds,
Lonan prepared the feast, and, with that chief,
Mantan, a deacon. Tables fair were spread;
And tents with branches gay. Beside those tents
Stood the sweet-breathing, mournful, slow-eyed kine
With hazel-shielded horns, and gave their milk
Gravely to merry maidens. Low the sun
Had fallen, when, Patrick near the summit now,
There burst on him a wandering troop, wild-eyed,
With scant and quaint array. O'er sunburnt brows

They wore sere wreaths; their piebald vests were stained,
And lean their looks, and sad: some piped, some sang,
Some tossed the juggler's ball. ‘From far we came,’
They cried; ‘we faint with hunger; give us food!’
Upon them Patrick bent a pitying eye,
And said, ‘Where Lonan and where Mantan toil
Go ye, and pray them, for mine honour's sake,
To gladden you with meat.’ But Lonan said,
And Mantan, ‘Nay, but when the feast is o'er,
The fragments shall be yours.’ With darkening brow
The Saint of that denial heard, and cried,
‘He cometh from the North, even now he cometh,
For whom the Blessing is reserved; he cometh
Bearing a little wether at his back:’
And, straightway, through the thicket evening-dazed
A shepherd—by him walked his mother—pushed,
Bearing a little wether. Patrick said,
‘Give them to eat. They hunger.’ Gladly then
That shepherd youth gave them the wether small:
With both his hands outstretched, and liberal smile,
He gave it, though, with angry eye askance
His mother grudged it sore. The wether theirs,
As though earth-swallowed, vanished that wild tribe,
Fearing that mother's eye.

Then Patrick spake
To Lonan, ‘Zealous is thy service, friend;
Yet of thy house no king shall sit on throne,
No bishop bless the people.’ Turning then
To Mantan, thus he spake, ‘Careful art thou
Of many things; not less that church thou raisest
Shall not be of the honoured in the land;
And in its chancel waste the mountain kine
Shall couch above thy grave.’ To Nessan last

Thus spake he: ‘Thou that didst the hungry feed,
The poor of Christ, that know not yet His name,
And, helping them that cried to me for help,
Cherish mine honour, like a palm one day
Shall rise thy greatness.’ Nessan's mother old
For pardon knelt. He blessed her hoary head,
Yet added, mournful, ‘Not within the church
That Nessan serves shall lie his mother's grave.’
Then Nessan he baptized, and on him bound
Ere long the deacon's grade, and placed him, later,
Priest o'er his church at Mungret. Centuries ten
It stood, a convent round it as a star
Forth sending beams of glory and of grace
O'er woods Teutonic and the Tyrrhene Sea.
Yet Nessan's mother in her son's great church
Slept not; nor where the mass bell tinkled low:
West of the church her grave, to his—her son's—
Neighbouring, yet severed by the chancel wall.

Thus from the morning star to evening star
Went by that day. In Erin many such
Saint Patrick lived using well pleased the chance
Or great or small, since all things come from God:
And well the people loved him, being one
Who sat amid their marriage feasts, and saw,
Where sin was not, in all things beauty and love.
But, ere he passed from Munster, longing fell
On Patrick's heart to view in all its breadth
Her river-flood, and bless its western waves;
Therefore, forth journeying, to that hill he went,

Knock Patrick.

Highest among the wave-girt, heathy hills,
That still sustains his name, and saw the flood
At widest stretched, and that green Isle

Foynes Island.

hard by,

And northern Thomond. From its coasts her sons
Rushed countless forth in skiff and coracle
Smiting blue wave to white, till Sheenan's sound

The Shannon.

Ceased, in their clamour lost. That hour from God
Power fell on Patrick; and in spirit he saw,
Invisible to flesh, the western coasts,
And the ocean way, and, far beyond, that land
The Future's heritage, and prophesied
Of Brendan who ere long in wicker boat
Should over-ride the mountains of the deep,
Shielded by God, and tread—no fable then—
Fabled Hesperia. Last of all he saw
More near, thy hermit home, Senanus;—‘Hail,
Isle of blue ocean and the river's mouth!

Scattery. There were seven churches on this small island, of which considerable remains still exist.

The People's Lamp, their Counsel's Head, is thine!’
That hour shone out through cloud the westering sun
And paved the wave with fire: that hour not less
Strong in his God, westward his face he set,
Westward and north, and spread his arms abroad,
And drew the blessing down, and flung it far:
‘A blessing on the warriors, and the clans,
A blessing on high field, and golden vales,
On sea-like plain and on the showery ridge,
On river-ripple, cliff, and murmuring deep,
On seaward peaks, harbours, and towns, and ports;
A blessing on the sand beneath the ships:
On all descend the Blessing!’ Thus he prayed,
Great-hearted; and from all the populous hills
And waters came the People's vast ‘Amen!’

Now Limerick.

Foynes.