University of Virginia Library

THE DEDICATION

St Patrick's first Miracle

Sunny France, Scotia gray—
It is not known to this day
Which gave us Patrick. Which it was,
To that land glory and grace
From Patrick's sons and Bride's daughters!
They brought him to the baptismal waters.
Calphurnus was his father's name,
Conchessa, his mother without blame.
When to the priest they brought their son—
The old priest blind as Simeon—
There was no water for his head.
With his small hand the Sign was made,
And lo! the healing water flowed,
And the blind saw by the grace of God.
The baby hand, so small and soft,
Made fountain waters spring aloft.

St Patrick is taken into Slavery

There were pirates then, I trow,
With vultures at their ship's prow:
Great bearded men with eyes so fierce,
Armed with cutlasses and spears.
That was an evil day's surprise,
Or so it seemed to human eyes,
When on the peaceful place they swooped—
A blight on the good land new-cropped—
Burnt and slew ladies and their lords.
God save us from such pirate hordes!
Nor little ones nor old did spare:
Fiercer than Goths and Huns they were.
They took Patrick, the fair child,
From the arms of his mother mild,
And carried him into slavery
To Erin set in the Western Sea.

St Patrick keeps the Sheep

On Slemish Mountain in the Braid Valley,
Patrick like any slave of the galley
Toiled for the chieftain, Milcho, a sinner,—
Went without breakfast, and without dinner;
Herded sheep on the hill-slope,
A poor child without joy, without hope,
Until God sent His angel to cheer him.
Then, in snow, in rain, and hard weather,
He and his angel were glad together,
Because God bade His angel keep near him.
A hundred prayers he said in a day,
Nor yet his silly charges might stray.
Not every sheep has a winged shepherd
To guide them past pit-falls to the green sward:
Where Patrick went the angel went,
So he and his sheep had great content.

Milcho's Dream

Milcho dreamt of Patrick by night
That all encircled with leaping light,
The sheep's herd came to him in his bed,
All on fire that would not be stayed;
And the dream made Milcho sore afraid.
Then “Patrick, Patrick,” he cried, “come in
And riddle thy lord what this may mean.”
“The fire,” said Patrick, “is fire of faith
That lights my soul from darkness and death.
The faith, O Chieftain, you will refuse,
Nor have for your soul's saving and use.
There shall be two yet to be born,
Two fair roses on a gray thorn,
Will make amends for your blindness and scorn:
They shall bloom for aye in the heavenly morn.”

St Patrick called to his own Country

At last his slavery was done.
In great patience for Mary's Son
He had endured so long to keep
Through the hard weather Milcho's sheep,
But hungered still for his own country.
At last a Voice called him that he
Make ready, for the good ship was ready,
The sail was filled and the wind steady.
Two hundred miles from Slemish lay
The unknown ship in Killala Bay;
And Patrick did not know the way,
But his dear Angel guided him.
There were mountains to cross, rivers to swim,
Evil places and dangerous places,
Quaking bogs, unplumbed morasses.
He needs no compass for a guide
Who has an Angel by his side.

St Patrick rests with St Martin

St Martin of Tours, the story ran,
Shared his cloak with a beggar man;
And afterwards in a vision saw
The King of Heaven on His Throne of awe
In the half of the cloak the beggar had.
(Doubtless said Martin then, dismayed,
“I wish I had given the other half.”)
He was St Patrick's cousin and staff.
His monastery, Marmoutiers,
Brought many pilgrim feet that way;
Upon the banks of Loire it lay.
There for awhile Patrick abode,
Had sweetest rest upon his road,
And there was made a priest of God.

St Patrick hears the Voice of the Irish

Patrick perchance had tarried long
In that quiet home of prayer and song,
But there came that angel who before
Had comforted him: and letters he bore.
Patrick, taking a letter, read
“The Voice of the Irish,” writ at the head,
And suddenly over land and sea
From Foclut Wood in Tirawley,
There came the Voices of children dear,
Calling him: “Holy one, now hear!
Come to us here in our darkness drear.”
So sad, so sweet, the Voices cried,
His heart began to bleed in his side,
And he awoke in the morning gray.
The Voices stayed with him night and day.

St Patrick returns to Ireland

Yet many a year must go before
His feet should touch the Irish shore.
He fought heresies black and grim;
Hewed the Evil One head and limb,
Loved the sinner, hated the sin;
And still the Voices called him between
The night and day, and would not cease.
The crying Voices gave him no peace.
Sixty years he had when at last
Pope Celestine bade him make haste
Over sea, over land, travelling fast,
To bring the Irish to Mary's Son.
Said Patrick: “Amen, God's Will be done,”
And landed at last by the river Nanny,
Of Irish rivers the least of any.
Though she be little, she shall be great,
Great her honour, proud her estate.
May nothing ever defile or pollute her,
May she harbour birds and fish and the otter;
May flowers fringe her, and trees shade her,
Nor aught of evil hurt or invade her;
Crystal waters o'er sands of gold,
So may she run till her tale be told!

St Patrick and the dear Benignus

One day Patrick was lying asleep,
Tired with gathering Christ His sheep—
So many now would run to the Fold;
Though fiery his spirit, his body was old.
Came by a youth, comely and ruddy,
And strewed white flowers on the weary body,
Till the Saint lay under a fragrant pall.
“Desist or you wake him,” the people call.
But Patrick opened his eyes and smiled,
“Great thanks for this kindness, O lovely child.
Behold I see the crown on your head,
Heir to my kingdom when I am dead.”
They called him Benignus, dear and pleasant,
Courteous to noble and to peasant.
He was to Patrick a dear son.
Benignus, pray for us every one!

St Patrick's first Ulster Convert

He sailed with white sails, he sailed away
To Strangford, ringed with the mountains grey.
The fertile plains run down to its edges;
Green are its fields, flowery its hedges.
Dicho the Chieftain let loose his hounds,
But they came to Patrick with leaps and bounds
And licked the blessed hands that caressed.
The man was foolish; wise was the beast.
He raised his sword against Patrick to slay him;
But alike his sword and his dogs betray him;
His arm fell useless; the useless sword
Twisted and shivered. Then turned to the Lord
Dicho. He gave to Patrick lands,
Received the baptism at his hands.
He was first fruit of the Ulster men.
Would we had Patrick to-day as then!

St Patrick banishes Snakes

St Patrick by his holy hand
Banished all snakes from Ireland;
All foul things that wriggle and crawl,
Spotted, striped, he banished them all,
Excepting only the useful worm
That opens the earth after winter's storm:
Bade them, snake and adder, that they
Come no more till the Judgement Day.
Snakes barred and snakes ringed,
Snakes hooded and snakes winged,
Came creeping and crawling from bank and byre,
Lest he give them all to the Judgement fire.
Snakes young and snakes old,
Snakes crimson and snakes gold,
All in a mighty pother and hurry,
For that deep lake in the hills of Kerry,
Which holds them all till the Judgement Day.
St Patrick, keep all evil away!

St Patrick comes to Tara

Patrick lit the fire at Moy-Breagh.
The day it was Holy Saturday,
And the fire of the Druids was not yet lit.
There should be no fire in the land ere it.
The Druids were angry. “Who lit that fire?”
Asked the King. And the Druids answered, “Sire,
Should it burn to-night we shall never quench it,
Though mountains fall on it, rivers drench it.
The old gods will pass like the hour that's vernal,
The new God reign for ever, eternal.”
Terrible then was King Laoghaire's wrath;
He swore Patrick should die the death.
The Saint found him in Tara Hall
Mid the grim knights with their swords in stall,
Where the bearded Druids sat fierce and tall,
Angry for their spoilt festival.
Chanting the hymns of Christ and Mary,
Patrick came like a King in Eire.

St Patrick escapes his Enemies

There were nine clerics with Patrick that day,
Whom the King's men were sent to slay;
But lo, where men were one and nine,
Were now no men, but amid the kine
Nine tall deer feeding and one white fawn,
Mild and tender against the dawn.
So they returned to the King and said:
“We saw no men, O King, but instead
Nine stately deer and a fawn snow white.”
And the Druid: “Enchantment was on their sight—
The fawn was Patrick, the deer were his men;
A great magician is Patrick then.”

The Test of the Druids

They poisoned Patrick's Cup. With the Sign
He changed the poison to life-giving wine.
They offered a test—that Benignus lie
In the Druid's mantle on faggots dry;
And the Druid wrapped in St Patrick's cloak
Lie on green faggots of beech and oak,
And the pyres be lighted. “We shall see, then,”
The Druids said, “if these Christian men
Have help of their God.” The fires were lit,
And the green wood smoked of the fire of the Pit.
Roars the fire over and under,
Consumes the Druid, but (part of the wonder)
Spares the cloak that the Saint encloses.
Benignus lies as on bed of roses:
Amid the flames smiling he lay,
While the fierce tongues licked him like beasts at play.
There was not a scorch from his hair to his sole,
But the mantle shrank like a withered scroll.

St Patrick takes the Shamrock for a Text

The King at last his Druids spurned;
Gave Patrick the word for which he burned,
To preach the Gospel of Christ, unfearing,
Up and down through the land of Erin;
Yet chose darkness himself. It was
At Tara that Patrick sought in the grass,
Found the dear Shamrock, and preached: Lo, see
The Miracle of the Trinity!
Lo, “Three in One and One in Three!”
Great numbers there received the Faith,
Ransomed to Christ from darkness and death.
Great honour that little shamrock has,
That grows so green in the Irish grass.

St Patrick vanquishes Idols

He went Northwards where the false god,
Crom Cruach, to whom the people bowed,
Stood with twelve lesser idols about him.
With the staff of Patrick the Saint then smote him
Full in the face; and the evil spirit
Shrieked in the idol for all to hear it,
And fled in a smoke for all to see.
The lesser idols next vanquished he.
The earth opened and did receive them,—
Buried to their necks now leave them.
He made an altar to the Lord,
Where Crom Cruach was long adored.
(Great shame and disgrace be his
That Archbishop of Heresies,
Who in Dublin burnt the Staff—
Black Shame be his epitaph!)

St Patrick converts the two Princesses

Ethne the Fair, Fedelm the Ruddy,
The High-King's daughters, lovely in body,
Chaste in heart and wise in mind,
Mild as the dove, slight as the hind:—
They met with Patrick as they went down
To bathe their limbs in the waters brown,
And asked what manner of God was his.
The two were white as the white lilies.
Patrick preached them the One True God.
“And where,” they asked, “is His white abode,
So we may see Him this very day?”
“Dying,” he said, “is the only way.”
He saw those children were lovely all,
And the world is full of snare and pitfall;
So he laid white veils on each golden head,
Poured them the water, brake them the Bread.
They praised God, and they closed their eyes,
And opened them next in Paradise.

First and second of St Patrick's Prayers

On Croagh Patrick he fought with an angel,
As the prophet once in the old Evangel;
The holy mountain beheld his passion,
His prayer, his fasting, his consolation:
For forty days he had earned the price,
For Erin's children, of Paradise:
He made four prayers that the Irish be
Free from a barbarous slavery
For ever and ever. After that prayer
The angel of God was standing there.
“Your prayer is granted,” he said; “now go
Down from the Mountain.” But Patrick, “No.
'Twas not for this I fasted in pain
Forty days in the snow and rain.
Ask my God that He grant salvation
To everyone of the Irish nation
Who says my prayer from the ‘Christ be with me!’
And doeth penance upon his knee.”
And the angel said, “Your prayer is granted;
You have had enough. Had you all you wanted,
You would ask for heaven: go from the hill.”
But Patrick: “Prayers I have others still.”

Third and fourth of St Patrick's Prayers

He said, “I have suffered much in this place—
Rain on my cowl, tears on my face.
I have fought and fasted: here shall I be
Till the fruit of my labour is given me.
I ask—that I, on the dreadful Day
When the goats from the sheep are driven away,
Shall sit on the High Judge's right hand
And judge the people of Ireland.
Also give me that Ireland never
Shall lose the blessed Faith for ever.”
Then the Angel left him, and came instead
Hordes of demons who buffeted
And fought him, and he was sore bested.
All the long day he fought the fight
And overcame them at dead of night.
Then came the Angel with comfort from heaven,
And told him all that he asked was given.
“Praise,” said he, “to the Generous One!
I have enough now: I will go down.”

The Children who called him to Ireland

In the Wood of Foclut he met two maidens.
Low their voices of tender cadence.
These were the daughters of the Chief Garan,
There were no damsels sweeter in Erin.
Their voices made music so soft
That Patrick stood as one in a croft
Hearing the blackbird sing in the dew
His exquisite numbers. Sudden he knew
These were the Voices he heard of old,
Bidding him bring the sheep to the fold,
Crying and calling across the wild.
He was like a mother that finds her child,
Long-lost. He gave them the Baptism blest,
And went away with his heart at rest.

St Patrick raises the Dead

He found black Dublin in grief profound,
For the son of the King was dead and drowned,
And his young sister lay on her bier.
“Daughter, why are you sleeping here?”
Said Patrick, took her hand and she rose
The water dripped from the Prince's clothes,
Water-weed was over his hair,
Grey and dim were his eyes astare.
“Rise up,” says Patrick; “your father grieves.”
The dead boy opens his eyes and lives.
There was great joy in Dublin town.
The King would have given Patrick his crown.
“What use,” says the Saint, “to a shaven head?”
So the King gave him a church instead.
And he and his men were baptized to God
In a well which the Saint struck out of the sod.

The Baptism of Angus

At Cashel the idols fell when he came,—
And Angus, the King, who had heard his fame,
Came out to meet him with music and ditty,
Led him with honour into the city.
When Patrick baptized him, he struck his Crozier—
Shod with iron—my faith, no osier!—
In earth; it pierced the King's foot through,
Through bone and sinew, and no one knew.
When the great sermon was done and said,
Patrick saw that the ground was red:—
Indeed that wound was a grievous sight.
Patrick wept for the good King's plight.
“You should have shouted with might and main.”
But the King: “I thought that the piercing pain
Was a thing of naught compared with the gain.
Was not Christ Jesus, our Master, slain?”
Patrick, going upon his knees,
Praised God for such words as these.

Gradzicum

He cured Daire and made him whole,
And the Chief sent him a silver bowl.
The Saint received it, as was his use,
With “Gaudeamus.” “Now what news?
What did he say?” asked the King of his men.
“He saith, ‘Gradzicum,’ saith it again,”
They answered, being Latinless churls.
The colour came into the Chief's cheek:
“If that is the only thanks he can speak,
Bring me my bowl. Shall a pig have pearls?”
They brought him back his gift and they said,
“He murmurs ‘Gradzicum’ with a bent head.”
“What,” cried the chief, “the same word still,
For giving, receiving! It cannot be ill.
It must be a good word, a word without harm;
I think I shall say it myself for a charm.
And when we have built him a church he will say
‘Gradzicum! Gradzicum!’ all the long day.”

St Patrick chooses his Cathedral Site

St Patrick walked with the King to choose
The site for the church to the King of the Jews.
He saw where a doe and a fawn lay,
Mother and child sweetly at play;
And the King's men were eager to slay.
“Nay,” said Patrick, “these two I claim.”
He took the fawn, bright as a blossom,
Dappled and silky into his bosom;
And the doe trotting beside him came.
Where he put down the fawn on the hill,
His great Cathedral honours him still.
And still 'tis said of Patrick the blest
That he carries the Irish Church in his breast.

St Patrick's Death

St Bridget sat with Patrick and listened,
When suddenly a great light glistened
Over the churchyard; and some one said,
“Tell us, Bridget, what this portends.”
“It means,” said Bridget, “that one of God's friends,
The greatest in Ireland, will soon be dead.”
Patrick bowed his head, and he saith,
“Gaudeamus!” for his death.
“I would wish,” said Bridget aloud,
“That I might wrap him in the fine shroud
Fashioned of mine own fingers' skill.”
And Patrick, “Daughter, do as you will.”
He took the Lord's Body and died
Full of years and labours, well satisfied.
He lay in Bridget's shroud at Down.
And while he lay unburied,
The Lord's glory wrapped his head.
They laid him under the earth brown
Under the green and springing grass:
DEO GRATIAS!

THE ENVOY