Brother Fabian's Manuscript :: :: University of Virginia Library

Qui descendunt mare in navibus,
Tis David the Prophet who speaketh thus,
Viderunt opera Domini:—
And lo, forthwith he telleth us why;
For skyward up with a sudden sweep,
Then down they are borne to the yawning deep;—
Therefore he that hath sailed in a ship can tell
Of the things of Heaven and things of Hell.

Saint Brandon, Abbot of Inisfail,
Listened, we read, and wept at the tale

That was told in his cell by Beryn the sage,
Of Mernoc, his godson's pilgrimage:
How he sailed and sailed far away to the East,
Till he came to the land of the Lord's behest,
The promised land of the Saints, that lies
Full in front of the Gates of Paradise,
Where Enoch waits for the days of Doom
With Elias alone till the Lord shall come;—
A land of glory and life and light,
Where never is storm, nor winter, nor night,
And the air, with holy wings astir,
Breathes bridal incense of balm and myrrh,
And the strands are of ruby and diamond,
With cliffs of the virgin gold beyond,
Cloven by streams from the sheeny glades
Of fair palm copses and cedarn shades,
Where the herbs are all flower, the trees all fruit—
Heaven over the head, heaven under the foot—
Where the summers fly so swift, so sweet,
So happy that none may feel them fleet;

And the child might change to the dotard gray
Ere he weened he had dwelt there a single day.

And Brandon the Abbot heard and wept—
And lo, that night by his couch as he slept,
Stood One with wings, who looked to the North,
And pointed two fingers, and bade—“Go forth!”

And the Saint uprose, and two by two,
He called twelve brothers, trusty and true;
And, “Brothers,” he said, “will ye sail with me,
“For the love of God and His dear Ladye?”
And, “Father,” they answered, “all earthly good
“We have left for His sake who died on rood;
“Master art thou, and captain, and friend—
“We will sail with thee to the Mid-world's End!”

And they prayed evermore, and kept a fast,
With penance, till forty days were past;
And dight them a ship with tackle and gear,

And sails and anchors and helms to steer,
And seven years' provender, wine, and bread,
And prayed and toiled till the whole was sped.

And lo, as they marched with banners before,
And DOMINE DIRIGE forth to the shore,
Two brethren knelt and prayed by the road—
“Let us sail with you for the love of God!”
And the Abbot said, “Yea, ye may sail with us,
“Sith Christ the Father ordaineth it thus:
“Yet, mark!—of ye twain, there is one shall flit,
“Ere the bark turn homeward, alive to the Pit!”

So forth they sailed whither God might send,
Were it even to fare to the Mid-world's End.
And the wind blew fair and the waves rolled bright,
And they trusted in God and their hearts were light.

Now the marvels they met on the yeasty deep—
Of the fiends and fish, and the Land of Sheep,

And the fruits and flowers and gems therein;
Of the Worm of the world, hight Jascomyn,
Who wrestles and gnashes ever again
To grasp his tail in his teeth in vain,
So huge, that the mariners landed awhile
On the ridge of his spine, and deemed it an isle,
Till they lit them a fire, and felt it creep
And shudder and shrink to the whirling deep;
Of the Paradise isle, where the soft wing beat
Of God's white fowl maketh music sweet;
Of the wondrous stead in the summer sea,
Where the sharks lay slumbering peacefully,
Shoaled as close as the drifted snow,
Like a floor on the hidden strands below,
Of beast, and man, and vision divine,
And peril, and tempest, and holy sign;
Of lands and seas in a world unknown,
And all that they saw betwixt zone and zone,
I pass to tell, for the time would fail
Ere complines ring to finish the tale.

But to prove that the Psalmist's words be true
When he saith in my text that the mariner crew
Both mount to Heaven and sink to Hell,
Ye shall hear how the same to the Saint befell.

Incipit de Juda Iscariote.

Mightily ever the South wind blew,
And North, ever North, the good ship drew
With the holy Brandon, and Brandon's crew.

North, ever North, till a glimmering dun
That lighted the icebergs, one by one,
Was all they knew of the noon-day sun.

On, through the darkness, and mist and snow,
Or a grisly moonlight, that served to show
How the sea snakes writhed in the deep below.

They heard, in the night, the icebulks crash
With a thundering shock, and grind, and gnash,
And the waves hiss back with a seething plash.

Nor anchor was cast, nor sail was furled,
Till they neared and saw where the fringe of the world
Its arrows of flame through the welkin hurled.

And at Christmas, so near as they could count,
They came to an isle where a mighty mount
Spouted fire and smoke in a blazing fount.

Full many a mile there was smoke on the sea,
And the blaze ever leapt to the cloudracks free,
Rumbling and bellowing hideously.

And one cried, “Satanas calls—farewell!
For yonder mount is the mouth of Hell!”
And they saw him no more, but heard fiends yell.

And northward still, on that Christmas Day
They fared, till they saw where an iceberg lay
On the left, and the Saint bade steer that way.

And they saw One, naked, sit on a stone,
Worn by the waves to sinew and bone,
Wringing his hands with a dolorous moan.

A long loose cloth was thonged by his chin,
That flapped in the wind on his wet bare skin,
And ox tongues two were tied to his shin.

And now in the wave, and now in the wind,
Drenched, and pinched, and beaten, and blind,
The wretch ever sat on his stone and pined.

And the Saint said, “Speak, be thou man or ghost,
And tell what thou art, for a thing so lost
Never greeted I yet by wave or coast!”

And he answered:—“I, ere I went to pain,
Was the Lord's Iscariot chamberlain,
Judas, who sold the Christ for gain!”

Then the shipmates all were aghast for fear,
But the good Saint bade cast anchor near,
And asked of the ghost: “What dost thou here?”

And Judas answered: “By Christ's dear grace
“This day am I loosed from mine own due place
“With Herod and Pilate and Caiaphas;

“For He whom the Gates of the Hells obey
“Each winter hath granted me here to stay
“From Christmas Eve for a night and a day.

“And this is my Paradise, here alone
“To sit with my cloth and tongues and stone,
“The sole three things in the world mine own.

“This cloth I bought from the Lord's privy purse,
“But gave to a leper.—It hath this curse,
“That it beats on my skin, but it saves from worse.

“These tongues I gave to the poor for meat
“In the name of Christ,—and the fish that eat
“Thereon as they list, forbear my feet.

“This stone I found by a road where it lay
“And set for a step in a miry way,
“Therefore sit I on stone, not ice, this day!”

Then a rout of Fiends came flying amain
With a roar and a rush like a hurricane
To bear the Iscariot back to pain.

But their might was nought, for the Saint was nigh,
And round and round with a ghastly cry
And clapping of wings they flew harmless by.

“Flee hence, flee hence!” they howled and hissed:
“Already in Hell is its darling missed!
“Wilt thou save the traitor who sold the Christ?”

And the Saint said, “Nay, my might is none,
“But if Jesus will that ye leave him alone
“For another night, God's will be done!”

And they screamed and fled to their Hell once more.
And Judas thanked Brandon o'er and o'er
So piteously that all wept sore.

And they bided there through the dreary night,
And they knew't was morn by a fiendish flight
And the shriek as they fled of a tortured sprite.

And mightily, lo, the North Wind blew,
And South, ever South, the good ship drew
With the holy Brandon and Brandon's crew.

Explicit de Juda Iscariote.

In a year and a day Saint Brandon's sail
Was furled in the harbour of Inisfail,

And merrily thronged the brotherhood all,
Sacristan, Cellarer, great and small,
With welcome of laughter and welcome of tears
For the mariner Saint and his holy peers.
And huge was the feasting far and wide
Through the minster lands that Christmastide.
And the Saint sat at meat on the twelfth Yule-day,
And spake of the sea and the perilous way,
And told, with the rest, of the rock of ice,
And Judas Iscariot's Paradise;
And how for a night they had anchored by,
Lest the fiends who waited and watched should spy.

And the Sacristan spake: “'T was the very morn
“Next after the day that Christ was born,
“As I stepped in the gloaming to toll the bell
“For matins, behold, I stumbled and fell,
“With a broken shin and an arm bruised sore,
“On an anchor that clung by the chapel door.
“And I shouted, and, lo, at the noise of my shout,

“The half-clad brothers ran staring out;
“And there as we stood in a scared suspense,
“A cable, that hung from none knew whence,
“Hauled the anchor again up into the sky,
“And we deemed that we heard thy shipmates cry!”

And Saint Brandon answered:“It well may be,
“For I deem that we sailed in that upper sea
“Of waters which Moyses saith were pent
“At the first o'erarching the firmament.
“For the firmament standeth fast, we know,
“'Twixt the waters above and the waters below;
“And, certes, above the sphere of the sun
“We sailed that voyage, for day was none,
“Save a glimmer of grey in the misty air,
“Though I marvel much how the moon came there.

“Yet beware how ye seek too curiously
“To fathom Creation's mystery;
“For Science, ye know, is the cub that is yeaned

“By human Pride to the great Arch-Fiend;
“But Faith, an angel born in the shrine
“Of the child-like heart, by a grace Divine!
“Wherefore pray ye for faith, and the God of Love,
“After life's strange voyage, give rest above!
“Ut in æternali gaudio
“Benedicamus Domino!”

Amen.