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 BY THE LATE SIR AUBREY DE VERE, BART. 
 Mary Tudor : an Historical Drama. 
 Julian the Apostate and the Duke of Mercia. 
 A Song of Faith, Devout Exercises and Sonnets. 
 B. M. PICKERING. 
 
LEGENDS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SAXON SAINTS 
 
 BY 
 
 AUBREY DE VERE 
 
 ' Hie sunt in fossa Bedae Venerabilis ossa 
 
 (Old Inscription 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1879 
 
(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved] 
 
fie 
 
 TO 7W.E 
 
 VENERABLE BEDE 
 
 'Mid quiet vale or city lulled by night 
 Well-pleased the wanderer, wakeful on his bed, 
 Hears from far Alps on fitful breeze the sound 
 Of torrents murmuring down their rocky glens, 
 Strange voice from distant regions, alien climes : 
 Should these far echoes from thy legend -roll 
 Delight of loftier years, these echoes faint, 
 Thus waken, thus make calm, one restless heart 
 In our distempered day, to thee the praise, 
 Voice of past times, O Venerable Bede ! 
 
/ 
 
 ((UNIVERSITY' 
 
 v&i 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 MANY YEARS AGO a friend remarked to me on the 
 strangeness of the circumstance that the greatest 
 event in the history of a nation, its conversion to 
 Christianity, largely as it is often recorded in 
 national legends, has never been selected as a 
 theme for poetry. That event may indeed not 
 supply the materials necessary for an Epic or a 
 Drama, yet it can hardly fail to abound in details 
 significant and pathetic, which especially invite 
 poetic illustration. With the primary interest 
 of that great crisis, many others, philosophical, 
 social, and political, generally connect themselves. 
 Antecedent to a nation's conversion, the events 
 of centuries have commonly either conduced to it, 
 or thrown obstacles in its way ; while the history 
 as well as the character of that nation in the 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 subsequent ages is certain to have been in a principal 
 measure modified by that event. Looking back 
 consequently on that period in which the moral 
 influences of ages, early and late, are imaged, a 
 people recognises its own features as in a mirror, 
 but sees them such as they were when their expres- 
 sion was still undetermined ; and it may well be 
 struck by the resemblance at once to what now 
 exists, and also by the dissimilitude. Many coun- 
 tries have unhappily lost almost all authentic 
 records connected with their conversion. Such 
 would have been the fate of England also, had it 
 not been for a single book, ' Bede's Ecclesiastical 
 History.' In the following poems I have endea- 
 voured to walk in the footsteps of that great master. 
 Their scope will best be indicated by some remarks 
 upon the character of that wonderful age which 
 he records. 
 
 St. Augustine landed in the Isle of Thanet 
 A.D. 597, and Bede died A.D. 735. The inter- 
 vening period, that of his chronicle, is the golden 
 age of Anglo-Saxon sanctity. Notwithstanding 
 some twenty or thirty years of pagan reaction, it 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 was a time of rapid though not uninterrupted 
 progress, and one of an interest the more touching 
 when contrasted with the calamities which followed 
 so soon. Between the death of Bede and the first 
 Danish invasion, were eighty years, largely years of 
 decline, moral and religious. Then followed eighty 
 years of retribution, those of the earlier Danish wars, 
 till, with the triumph of Alfred, England's greatest 
 king, came the Christian restoration. Once more 
 periods of relaxed morals and sacrilegious princes 
 alternated with intervals of reform ; again and 
 again the Northmen over-swept the land, The 
 460 years of Anglo-Saxon Christianity constituted 
 a period of memorable achievements and sad vicis- 
 situdes ; but that period included more than a 
 hundred years of high sanctity, belonging for the 
 most part to the seventh century, a century to 
 England as glorious as was the thirteenth to 
 Mediaeval Europe. 
 
 Within that century the kingdoms of the 
 Heptarchy successively became Christian, and those 
 among them which had relapsed returned to the 
 Faith. Sovereigns, many of whom had boasted a 
 descent from Odin himself, stood as interpreters 
 
x Preface. 
 
 beside the missionaries when they preached, and 
 rivalled each other in the zeal with which they 
 built churches, some of which were founded on the 
 sites of ancient temples, though, in other cases, with 
 a charitable prudence, the existing fanes were 
 spared, purified, and adapted to Christian worship. 
 At Canterbury and York, cathedrals rose, and on 
 many a site besides; and when the earlier had been 
 destroyed by fire, or had fallen through decay, 
 fabrics on a vaster scale rose above their ruins, and 
 maintained a succession which lasts to this day. 
 Monasteries unnumbered lifted their towers above 
 the forests of a land in which the streams still ran 
 unstained and the air of which had not yet been 
 dimmed by smoke, imparting a dignity to fen and 
 flat morass. Round them ere long cities gathered, 
 as at St. Albans, Malmesbury, Sherborne, and 
 Wimborne ; the most memorable of those monas- 
 teries being that at Canterbury, and that at 
 Westminister, dedicated to St. Peter, as the 
 cathedral church near it had been dedicated to 
 St. Paul. In the North they were at least as 
 numerous. The University of Oxford is also asso- 
 ciated with that early age. It was beside the Isis 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 that St. Frideswida raised her convent, occupied at 
 a later date by canons regular, and ultimately trans- 
 formed into Christ Church by Cardinal Wolsey 
 becoming thus the chief, as it had been the earliest, 
 among the schools in that great seat of learning 
 which within our own days has exercised a religious 
 influence over England not less remarkable than 
 that which belonged to its most palmy preceding 
 period. 
 
 During that century England produced most 
 of those saintly kings and queens whose names still 
 enrich the calendar of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 
 sovereigns who ruled their kingdoms with justice, 
 lived in mortification, went on pilgrimages, died in 
 cloisters. The great missionary work had also begun. 
 Within a century from the death of St. Augustine, 
 apostles from England had converted multitudes 
 in Germany, and St. Wilfrid had preached to the 
 inhabitants of Friesland. Something, moreover, 
 had been done to retrieve the past. The Saxon 
 kings made amends for the wrongs inflicted by 
 their ancestors upon the British Celts, endowing 
 with English lands the churches and convents 
 founded by them in Brittany. King Kenwalk 
 
xii Preface. 
 
 of Wessex showed thus also a royal munificence 
 to the Celtic monastery of Glastonbury, only 
 stipulating in return that the British monks there, 
 condoning past injuries, should offer a prayer for 
 him when they knelt at the tomb of King Arthur. 
 
 The England of the seventh century had been 
 very gradually prepared for that drama of many 
 ages which had then its first rehearsal. In it three 
 races had a part. They were those of the native 
 Britons, the Saxons who had over-run the land, and 
 the Irish missionaries. Rome, the last and greatest 
 of the old-world empires, had exercised more of an 
 enfeebling and less of an elevating influence among 
 the British than among her other subject races ; but 
 her great military roads still remained the witnesses 
 of her military genius ; and many a city, some in 
 ruin, were records of her wealth and her arts. The 
 Teutonic race in England, which for centuries had 
 maintained its independence against Rome, could 
 not forgive the Britons for having submitted to their 
 hated foe, and trampled on them the more ruthlessly 
 because they despised them. Yet they at least might 
 well have learned to respect that race. It has been 
 well remarked that if the Britons submitted easily 
 
Preface. xiii 
 
 to Rome, yet of all her subject races they made 
 far the most memorable fight against that barbaric 
 irruption which swept over the ruins of her empire. 
 For two centuries that race had fought on. It still 
 retained the whole of Western Britain, Cornwall, 
 Wales, and Strathclyde ; while in other parts of Eng- 
 land it possessed large settlements. On the other 
 hand, in matters of spiritual concern the British race 
 contrasted unfavourably with the other races sub- 
 jected by the barbarians. In France, Spain, and 
 Italy, the conquered had avenged a military defeat 
 by a spiritual victory, bringing over their con- 
 querors to Christianity ; and, as a consequence, 
 they had often risen to equality with them. In 
 those parts of England, on the contrary, where the 
 British had submitted to the Pagan conquerors, 
 they by degrees abandoned their Christian faith ; l 
 and where they retained their independence, they 
 hated the Saxon conquerors too much to share their 
 
 1 See Montalembert's 'Moines de 1'Occident, ' vol. iii. p. 343; 
 and also Burke : ' On the Continent the Christian religion, after the 
 northern irruptions, not only remained but flourished. ... In 
 England it was so entirely extinguished that when Augustine un- 
 dertook his mission, it does not appear that among all the Saxons 
 there was a single person professing Christianity.' 
 
xiv Preface. 
 
 Christianity with them. Far from desiring their 
 conversion, they resisted all the overtures made 
 to them by the Roman missionaries who ardently 
 desired their aid ; and as a consequence of that 
 refusal, they eventually lost their country. The 
 chief cause of that refusal was hatred of the in- 
 vader. The Irish as well as the British had a 
 passionate devotion to their own local traditions 
 in a few matters not connected with doctrine ; 
 but they notwithstanding worked cordially with 
 the Benedictines from St. Gregory's convent for 
 the spread of the Christian Faith. Had the Britons 
 converted the Anglo-Saxon race they would pro- 
 bably have blended with them, as at a later time that 
 race blended with their Norman conquerors. Three 
 successive waves of the Teuton-Scandinavian race 
 swept over their ancient land, the Anglo-Saxon, 
 the Danish, and the Norman : against them all the 
 British Celts fought on. They fell back toward 
 their country's western coasts, like the Irish of a 
 later day ; and within their Cambrian mountains 
 they maintained their independence for eight 
 centuries. 
 
 Yet the Anglo-Saxons' victory was not an 
 
Preface. xv 
 
 unmixed one. Everywhere throughout England 
 they maintained during the seventh century two 
 different battles, a material and a spiritual one, 
 and with opposite results. Year by year that race 
 pushed further its military dominion ; but yearly the 
 Christian Faith effected new triumphs over that of 
 Odin. For this there were traceable causes. The 
 character of the Teutonic invader included two very 
 different elements, and the nobler of these had its 
 affinities with Christianity. If, on the one hand, 
 that character was fierce, reckless, and remorseless, 
 and so far in natural sympathy with a religion 
 which mocked at suffering and till the ninth 
 century offered up human sacrifices, it was marked 
 no less by robustness, simplicity, honesty, sincerity, 
 an unexcitable energy and an invincible endurance. 
 It possessed also that characteristic which essen- 
 tially contradistinguishes the ordo equestris from 
 the ordo pedestris in human character, viz., the 
 spirit of reverence. It had aspirations ; and, as a 
 background to all its musings and all its hopes there 
 remained ever the idea of the Infinite. As a con- 
 sequence, it retained a large measure of self-respect, 
 purity, and that veneration for household ties attri- 
 
xvi Preface. 
 
 buted to it by the Roman historian 1 at a time 
 when that virtue was no longer a Roman one. 
 Such a character could not but have its leanings 
 toward Christianity; and, when brought under 
 its influences, it put forth at once new quali- 
 ties, like a wild flower which, on cultivation, 
 acquires for the first time a perfume. Its spirit 
 of reverence developed into humility, and its 
 natural fortitude into a saintly patience ; while its 
 fierceness changed into a loyal fervour ; and the 
 crimes to which its passions still occasionally 
 hurried it were voluntarily expiated by penances 
 as terrible. Even King Penda, the hater of Chris- 
 tianity, hated an insincere faith more. ' Of all men/ 
 he said, ' he that I have ever most despised is the 
 man who professes belief in some God and yet does 
 not obey his laws/ Such was that character destined 
 to produce under the influences of faith such noble 
 specimens of Christian honour and spiritual heroism. 
 From the beginning its greatness was one 
 
 True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home ; 
 
 1 Tacitus. The German's wife might well be called his ' help- 
 mate.' His wedding gift to his bride consisted of a horse, a yoke of 
 oxen, a lance and a sword. 
 
Preface. xvii 
 
 and in later ages it became yet more eminently 
 domestic, combining household ties with the pursuit 
 of letters and science in colleges which still pre- 
 served a family life. Its monks had no vocation 
 to the life of the desert ; in this unlike the Irish 
 saints, who, like those of Eastern lands, delighted 
 in the forest hermitage and the sea-beat rock. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon race was but a branch of that 
 great Teuton-Scandinavian race, generically one 
 whether it remained in the German forests or 
 wandered on to the remoter coasts of Denmark, 
 Sweden and Norway. It was the race which the 
 Romans called 'the Barbarians,' but which they could 
 never conquer. A stern history had trained it for 
 a wonderful destiny. Christianity in mastering the 
 Greek had possessed itself of the intellect of the 
 world, and in mastering Rome had found access 
 to all those vast regions conquered by Roman arms, 
 opened out by Roman roads, governed by Roman 
 law, and by it helped to the conception of a higher 
 law. But the Greek and the Roman civilisations 
 had, each of them, corrupted its way, and yielded 
 to the seductions of pride, sense, and material 
 prosperity ; and, as a consequence, both had become 
 
 a 
 
xviii Preface. 
 
 incapable of rendering full justice to much that is 
 highest in Christianity. That which they lacked 
 the ' Barbaric ' race alone was capable of supplying. 
 In its wanderings under darkened skies and amid 
 pitiless climates it had preserved an innocence and 
 simplicity elsewhere lost. Enriched by the union of 
 the new element, thus introduced, with what it had 
 previously derived from Greek thought and Roman 
 law, that authentic Religion which had been pro- 
 spectively sown within the narrow precinct of Judea 
 extended its branches over the world. Had the 
 Barbaric race shared in the Greek sciences and arts, 
 and clothed itself in the Roman civilisation, it must 
 have learned their corruptions. The larger destiny of 
 man could thus, humanly speaking, never have been 
 accomplished, and neither the mediaeval world, the 
 modern world, nor that yet higher order of human 
 society which doubtless lies beyond both, could have 
 existed. It was necessary that in some region, 
 exacting, yet beneficent, civilisation should be 
 retarded, that a remedy might be found for the 
 abuses of civilisation ; and races whose present 
 backward condition we are accustomed to deplore 
 may likewise be intended for a similar purpose. 
 
Preface. xix 
 
 Plants are thus kept in the dark in order to re- 
 serve their fruitage for a fitter season. 
 
 But what had been the earlier history of a race 
 before which such destinies lay? What training 
 had prepared it for its work the last that might 
 have been expected from it? On this subject there 
 remains a tradition, the profoundly significant cha- 
 racter of which ought to have made it more widely 
 known. Mallet, in his ' Northern Antiquities/ 
 translated by Bishop Percy, to whom our ballad 
 literature is so deeply indebted, records it thus : 
 ' A celebrated tradition, confirmed by the poems of 
 all the northern nations, by their chronicles, by 
 institutions and customs, some of which subsist to 
 this day, informs us that an extraordinary person 
 named Odin formerly reigned in the north. . . . All 
 their testimonies are comprised in that of Snorri, 
 the ancient historian of Norway, and in the com- 
 mentaries and explications which Torphseus added 
 to his narrative. The Roman Commonwealth was 
 arrived at the highest pitch of power, and saw all 
 the then known world subject to its laws, when an 
 unforeseen event raised up enemies against it from 
 the very bosom of the forests of Scythia and on the 
 
 a 2 
 
XX -Preface. 
 
 banks of the Tanais. Mithridates by flying had 
 drawn Pompey after him into those deserts. The 
 King of Pontus sought there for refuge and new 
 means of vengeance. He hoped to arm against the 
 ambition of Rome all the barbarous nations his 
 neighbours, whose liberty she threatened. He 
 succeeded in this at first, but all those peoples, ill 
 united as allies, ill armed as soldiers, and still worse 
 disciplined, were forced to yield to the superior 
 genius of Pompey. Odin is said to have been of 
 their number. . . . Odin commanded the ^Esir, 
 whose country must have been situated between the 
 Pontus Euxinus and the Caspian Sea. Their prin- 
 cipal city was Asgard. The worship there paid to 
 their supreme God. was famous throughout the 
 circumjacent countries. Odin, having united under 
 his banners the youth of the neighbouring nations, 
 marched towards the north and west of Europe, 
 subduing, as we are told, all the people he found in 
 his passage, and giving them to one or other of his 
 sons for subjects. Many sovereign families of the 
 North are said to be descended from these princes. 
 Thus Horsa and Hengist, the chiefs of those Saxons 
 who conquered Britain in the fifth century, counted 
 
Preface. xxi 
 
 Odin or Wodin in the number of their ancestors ; 
 it was the same with the other Anglo-Saxon princes 
 as well as the greatest part of those of lower Ger- 
 many and the North.' l 
 
 Gibbon refers to this ancient tradition, though 
 not as accepting it for a part of ascertained history, 
 yet in a spirit less sceptical than was usual to him. 
 He writes thus : * It is supposed that Odin was 
 chief of a tribe of barbarians which dwelt on the 
 banks of the lake Mceotis, till the fall of Mithridates 
 and the arms of Pompey menaced the north with 
 servitude. That Odin, yielding with indignant fury 
 to a power which he was unable to resist, conducted 
 his tribe from the frontiers of the Asiatic Sarmatia 
 into Sweden, with the great design of forming, in 
 that inaccessible retreat of freedom, a religion and 
 a people which, in some remote age, might be sub- 
 servient to his immortal revenge ; when his invin- 
 cible Goths, armed with martial fanaticism, should 
 issue in numerous swarms from the neighbourhood 
 of the Polar circle to chastise the oppressors of 
 
 1 Mallet's Northern Antiquities, pp. 79, 80. (Bell and Daldy, 
 1873.) Burke records this tradition with an entire credence. See 
 note in p. 288. 
 
xxii Prejace. 
 
 mankind. . . . Notwithstanding the mysterious 
 obscurity of the Edda, we can easily distinguish 
 two persons confounded under the name of Odin ; 
 the god of war, and the great legislator of Scandi- 
 navia. The latter, the Mahomet of the north, 
 instituted a religion adapted to the climate and to 
 the people. Numerous tribes on either side of the 
 Baltic were subdued by the invincible valour of 
 Odin, by his persuasive eloquence, and by the fame 
 which he acquired of a most skilful magician. The 
 faith that he had propagated during a long and 
 prosperous life he confirmed by a voluntary death. 
 Apprehensive of the ignominious approach of 
 disease and infirmity, he resolved to expire as 
 became a warrior. In a solemn assembly of the 
 Swedes and Goths he wounded himself in nine 
 mortal places, hastening away (as he asserted with 
 his dying voice) to prepare the feast of heroes in 
 the palace of the great god of war.' l 
 
 In a note Gibbon adds, referring to the Roman 
 and Oriental part of the legend : * This wonderful 
 expedition of Odin, which, by deducing the enmity 
 of the Goths and Romans from so memorable a 
 
 1 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire t chap. x. 
 
Preface. xxiii 
 
 cause, might supply the noble groundwork of an 
 epic poem, cannot safely be received as authentic 
 history. According to the obvious sense of the 
 Edda, and the interpretation of the most skilful 
 critics, Asgard, instead of denoting a real city of 
 the Asiatic Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation of 
 the mystic abode of the gods, the Olympus of 
 Scandinavia. 1 Whether the emigration of the Bar- 
 baric race from the East be or be not historical, 
 certainly the grounds upon which Gibbon bases his 
 distrust of it are slender. He forgot that there 
 might well have been both an earthly Asgard and 
 also, according to the religion of the north, an 
 Asgard in heaven, the destined abode of warriors 
 faithful to Odin. Those who after his death 
 changed their king into a god would, by necessity, 
 have provided him with a celestial mansion ; nor 
 could they have assigned to it a name more accept- 
 able to a race which blended so closely their religion 
 with their patriotic love than that of their ancient 
 capital, from which their great deliverer and prophet 
 had led them forth in pilgrimage. Let us hope that 
 Gibbon's remark as to the fitness of this grand 
 legend for the purposes of epic poetry may yet prove 
 
xxiv Preface. 
 
 prophecy. It has had one chance already : for we 
 learn from the first book of The Prelude that the 
 theme was one of those on which the imagination 
 of Wordsworth rested in youth, when he was seeking 
 a fit subject for epic song. 
 
 It is difficult to imagine a historical legend 
 invested with a greater moral weight or dignity 
 than belongs to this one. The mighty Republic 
 was soon to pass into an Empire mightier and more 
 ruthless still, the heir of all those ancient empires 
 which from the earliest had represented a dominion 
 founded on the pride of this world, and had 
 trampled upon human right. A race is selected to 
 work the retribution. It is qualified for its work 
 by centuries of adversity, only to be paralleled by 
 the prosperity of its rival. Yet when at last that 
 retribution comes, it descends more in mercy than 
 in judgment ! Great changes had prepared the 
 world for a new order of things. The centre 
 of empire had moved eastward from Rome to 
 Constantinople : the spiritual centre had moved 
 westward from Jerusalem to Rome. The empire 
 had herself become Christian, and was allowed after 
 that event nearly a century more of gradual decline. 
 
Preface. xxv 
 
 The judgment was not thus averted ; but it was 
 ennobled. Her children were enabled to become 
 the spiritual instructors of those wild races by 
 which the ' State Universal' had been over- 
 whelmed. That empire indeed, was not so much 
 destroyed as transformed and extended, a grace 
 rendered possible by her having submitted to the 
 yoke of Christ ; the new kingdoms which consti- 
 tuted the Christian ' Orbis Terrarum ' being, for the 
 most part, fragments of it, while its laws made 
 way into regions wider far, and exercised over 
 them a vast though modified authority not yet 
 extinct. Here, if anywhere, we catch glimpses 
 of a hand flashing forth between the clouds, 
 pointing their way to the nations, and con- 
 ducting Humanity forward along its arduous and 
 ascending road. There is a Providence or there 
 could be no Progress. 
 
 For the fulfilment of that part assigned to the 
 * Barbarians ' in this marvellous drama of the ages, 
 it was necessary that many things should combine ; 
 an exemption from the temptations which had ma- 
 terialised the races of the south ; the severe life that 
 perfects strength ; a race endowed with the physical 
 
xxvi Preface. 
 
 strength needed to render such sufferings endurable ; 
 and lastly, an original spiritual elevation inherent 
 in that race, and capable of making them under- 
 stand the lesson, and accept their high destiny. The 
 last and greatest of these qualifications had not 
 been wanting. Much as the religion of the Bar- 
 baric race had degenerated by the time when it 
 deified its great deliverer, it had inherited the 
 highest traditions of the early world. Mallet 
 thus describes their religion in its purity : * It 
 taught the being of a " Supreme God, master of the 
 universe, to whom all things are submissive and 
 obedient." Such, according to Tacitus, was the 
 supreme God of the Germans. The ancient Ice- 
 landic mythology calls him " the Author of every- 
 thing that existeth ; the eternal, the ancient, the 
 living and awful Being, the searcher into concealed 
 things, the Being that never changeth." This 
 religion attributed to the Supreme Deity "an 
 infinite power, a boundless knowledge, an incor- 
 ruptible justice," and forbade its followers to repre- 
 sent Him under any corporeal form. They were 
 not even to think of confining Him within the 
 enclosure of walls, but were taught that it was 
 
Preface. xxvii 
 
 within woods and consecrated forests that they 
 could serve Him properly. There He seemed to 
 reign in silence, and to make Himself felt by the 
 respect which He inspired. 1 . . . From this Supreme 
 God were sprung (as it were emanations from His 
 divinity) an infinite number of subaltern deities 
 and genii, of which every part of the visible world 
 was the seat and the temple. ... To serve this 
 divinity with sacrifices and prayers, to do no wrong 
 to others, and to be brave and intrepid in them- 
 selves, were all the moral consequences they 
 derived from these doctrines. Lastly, the belief of 
 a future state cemented and completed the whole 
 building. 2 . . . Perhaps no religion ever attributed 
 so much to a Divine Providence as that of the 
 northern nations/ 3 
 
 It was not among the Scandinavians only that 
 the religion of the North retained long these 
 vestiges of its original purity, and elevation. 'All 
 the Teutonic nations held the same opinions, and 
 it was upon these that they founded the obli- 
 gation of serving the gods, and of being valiant 
 
 1 Mallet's Northern Antiquities, pp. 88, 89. 
 
 2 P. 89. P. ioo. 
 
Xxviii Preface. 
 
 in battle. . . . One ought to regard in this respect 
 the Icelandic mythology as a precious monument, 
 without which we can know but very imperfectly 
 this important part of the religion of our fathers^ 
 The earlier and purer doctrine seems to have 
 long survived the incrustations of later times in the 
 case of a select few. Harold Harfraga, the first 
 king of all Norway, thus addressed an assembly of 
 his people : ' I swear and protest in the most 
 sacred manner that I will never offer sacrifice to 
 any of the gods adored by the people, but to Him 
 only who hath formed this world, and everything 
 we behold in it.' A belief in the divine Love, as 
 well as the divine power, knowledge and justice, 
 though probably not held by the many at a later 
 day, is yet distinctly expressed, as well as the 
 kindred belief in an endless reign of peace, by the 
 earliest and most sacred document of the Northern 
 religion, viz. the 'Voluspa Prophecy/ That 
 prophecy, after foretelling the destruction of all 
 things, including the Odin gods themselves, by 
 the Supreme God and His ministers, proceeds : 
 'There will arise out of the sea, another earth 
 
 1 Mallet's Northern Antiquities , p. 103. 
 
Preface. xxix 
 
 most lovely and verdant with pleasant fields where 
 the grain shall grow unsown. Vidar and Vali, 
 shall survive ; neither the flood nor Surtur's fire 
 shall harm them. They shall dwell on the plain 
 of Ida where Asgard formerly stood. . . . Baldur 
 and Hodur shall also repair thither from the abode 
 of death. There they shall sit and converse to- 
 gether, and call to mind their former knowledge 
 and the perils they underwent/ * 
 
 The similarity between the higher doctrines of 
 the northern faith and the religion of ancient Persia 
 is at once accounted for by the tradition of the 
 Odin migration from the East. A writer the reverse 
 of credulous expresses himself thus on that sub- 
 ject : ' We know that the Scandinavians came 
 from some country of Asia. . . . This doctrine was 
 in many respects the same with that of the Magi. 
 Zoroaster had taught that the conflict between 
 Ormuzd and Ahriman (i.e. light and darkness, the 
 Good and Evil Principle) should continue to the last 
 day ; and that then the Good Principle should be 
 reunited to the Supreme God, from whom it had first 
 issued ; the Evil should be overcome and subdued ; 
 1 The Prose Edda. 
 
xxx Preface. 
 
 darkness should be destroyed ; and the world, 
 purified by a universal conflagration, should become 
 a luminous and shining abode, into which evil should 
 never be permitted to enter.' 1 The same writer 
 continues thus : ' Odin and the ^Esir may be com- 
 pared to Ormuzd and the Amshaspands ; Loki and 
 his evil progeny, the Wolf Fenrir and the Midgard 
 Serpent, together with the giants and monsters of 
 Jotunheim and Hvergelmir, to Ahriman and the 
 Devs. 2 . . . We will not deny that some of these 
 doctrines may have been handed down by oral 
 tradition to the pontiff-chieftains of the Scandina- 
 vian tribes, and that the Skalds who composed the 
 mythic poems of the elder Edda may have had an 
 obscure and imperfect knowledge of them. Be this 
 as it may, we must not forget that the higher 
 doctrines of the Scandinavian system were confined 
 to the few, whereas those of the Zendavesta were 
 the religious belief of the whole nation. 3 . . . The 
 Persian system was calculated to form an energetic, 
 intellectual and highly moral people ; the Scandi- 
 navian a semi-barbarous troop of crafty and re- 
 
 1 Northern Antiquities: the Editor, T. A. Blackwell. 
 ' P. 474. ' P. 475- 
 
Preface. xxxi 
 
 morseless warriors. . . . Yet, such as they were, 
 these Scandinavians seemed to have been destined 
 by the inscrutable designs of Providence to invigo- 
 rate at least one of the nations of which they were 
 for centuries the scourge, in order, as we pre- 
 viously had occasion to observe, that the genial 
 blending of cognate tribes might form a people the 
 most capable of carrying on the great work of 
 civilisation, which in some far distant age may 
 finally render this world that abode of peace and 
 intellectual enjoyment dimly shadowed forth in 
 ancient myths as only to be found in a renovated 
 and fresh emerging universe/ l 
 
 The inferiority of the later Scandinavian to the 
 earlier Persian religion may be sufficiently accounted 
 for by the common process of gradual degenera- 
 tion. That degeneration was not confined to the 
 great emigrant race. Centuries before Odin had left 
 the East, the Persian religion had degenerated upon 
 its native soil. Its Magi retained a pure doctrine, 
 which led them later to the Bethlehem crib ; but 
 its vulgar had in part yielded to the seduction of 
 Greek poets, and worshipped in temples like theirs. 
 
 1 T. A. Blackwell. See Mallet's Northern Antiquities^ p. 476. 
 
xxxii Preface. 
 
 It is remarkable that that 'one of the nations' with 
 which the hopes of the future are so singularly con- 
 nected is that one upon which the discipline of ad- 
 versity had fallen with double force. When the 
 ancient enemy of the ' Barbaric races/ Rome, had 
 passed away, a new enemy, and one to it more for- 
 midable, rose up against England in her own kinsfolk, 
 the Scandinavian branch of the same stock. The 
 Danish invaders expected to set kingdom against 
 kingdom throughout the Heptarchy, and subject 
 them all to the sceptre of Odin. On the contrary, 
 it united them in one ; and that union was facili- 
 tated by the bond of a common Christianity. 1 
 
 That the belief of the Anglo-Saxons, though 
 less developed by poetry and romance, was sub- 
 stantially the same as that recorded in the Scan- 
 dinavian Edda, appears to be certain. It is thus 
 that Mr. Kemble speaks \ 
 
 ' On the Continent as well as in England, it is 
 only by the collection of minute and isolated facts 
 often preserved to us in popular superstitions, 
 
 1 * This (Christianity), as it introduced great mildness into the 
 tempers of the people, made them less warlike, and consequently 
 prepared the way to their forming one body.' Burke, An Abridg- 
 ment of English History, book ii. chap. iii. 
 
Preface. xxxiii 
 
 legends, and even nursery tales that we can render 
 probable the prevalence of a religious belief iden- 
 tical in its most characteristic features with that 
 which we know to have been entertained in 
 Scandinavia. Yet whatsoever we can thus recover 
 proves that, in all main points, the faith of the Island 
 Saxons was that of their Continental brethren.' 
 ' The early period at which Christianity triumphed 
 in England, adds to the difficulties which naturally 
 beset the subject. Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, 
 had entered into public relations with the rest of 
 Europe long before the downfall of their ancient 
 creed ; here the fall of heathendom, and the com- 
 mencement of history were contemporaneous. We 
 too had no Iceland to offer a refuge to those who 
 fled from the violent course of a conversion.' 1 
 
 Among the proofs of identity between the Anglo- 
 Saxon and the Scandinavian religion, Mr. Kemble 
 refers to the fact that ' genealogies of the Anglo- 
 Saxon kings contain a multitude of the ancient 
 gods, reduced indeed into the family relations, 
 but still capable of identification with the deities of 
 the North, and of Germany. In this relation we 
 
 1 Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 330. 
 
 b 
 
xxxiv Preface. 
 
 find Odin, Bceldceg, Geat, Wig, and Frea. The 
 days of the week, also dedicated to gods, supply us 
 further with the names of Tiw, Dunor, Friege, and 
 Scetere ; and the names of places in all parts of 
 England attest the wide dispersion of the worship. 1 
 
 Mr. Kemble shows also that among the Anglo- 
 Saxons and the Scandinavians there existed a 
 common belief respecting monsters, especially the 
 wolf Fenrir, the Midgard snake, evil spirits and 
 giants ; respecting Loki, the accursed spirit, and 
 Hela, the queen of Hades. To the same effect Mr. 
 Sharon Turner speaks : ' The Voluspa and the 
 Edda are the two great repositories of the oldest 
 and most venerated traditions of pagan Scandinavia. 
 The Voluspa opens abruptly, and most probably 
 represents many of the ancient Saxon traditions or 
 imaginations.' 2 The authority of these eminent 
 writers accounts for and justifies the frequent 
 references to the Scandinavian mythology in the 
 following ' Saxon Legends.' 
 
 We have thus seen that in the religion of the 
 ' Barbaric ' race there were blended two different 
 elements : a higher one derived from its eastern 
 
 1 Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 335. 
 2 History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 241. 
 
Preface. xxxy 
 
 origin, and a lower one the result of gradual de- 
 generation. We had previously seen that a re- 
 markable duality was to be found in the character of 
 that race ; and without understanding this duality 
 and its root in their religion, no just conception 
 can be formed of the relations' of that race with 
 Christianity. Had the ' Barbarians ' possessed 
 nothing deeper than is indicated by their fiercer 
 traits, the history of the seventh century in 
 England must have been very different. It was 
 characterised by rapid conversions to Christianity 
 on a large scale, and often, after the lapse of a 
 few years, by sanguinary revolts against the Faith. 
 The chief reason of such fluctuation seems to have 
 been this, viz. because all that was profound, 
 and of venerable antiquity in the Northern religion, 
 was in sympathy with Christianity, as the religion 
 of sanctity and self-sacrifice ; while all that was 
 savage in it opposed itself to a religion of humility 
 and of charity. The Northern religion was an 
 endless warfare, and so was that early Persian 
 religion from which its higher element was derived ; 
 but by degrees that warfare had, for the many, 
 ceased to be the warfare between light and dark- 
 
 b2 
 
xxxvi Preface. 
 
 ness, between Good and Evil. To the specu- 
 lative it had become a conflict between all the 
 wild and illimitable forces of Nature and some 
 unknown higher Law ; but to the common herd it 
 meant only an endless feud between race and race. 
 Thus understood it could have no affinities with 
 Christianity, either in her militant character, or 
 as the religion of peace. 
 
 In explanation of the frequent outbreaks against 
 Christianity on the part of the Anglo-Saxons, 
 after their conversion, Montalembert assigns an- 
 other cause, viz. that the Roman missionaries had 
 sometimes relied too much upon the converted 
 kings, and their authority over their subjects. The 
 work had in such cases to be done again ; and it 
 was largely done by Irish missionaries, who had left 
 lona only to seek as lonely a retreat in Lindisfarne. 
 They shunned cities, drew the people to them, and 
 worked upwards through that people to the great. 
 
 The Irish mission in England during the seventh 
 century was one among the great things of history, 
 and has met with an inadequate appreciation. 
 The ancient name of the Irish, ' Scoti/ commemo- 
 rative of their supposed Scythian origin, the name 
 
Preface. xxxvii 
 
 by which Bede always designates them, had been 
 frequently translated ' Scottish ' by modern his- 
 torians ; and those who did not know that an Irish 
 immigrant body had entered Scotland, then called 
 Alba, about the close of the second century, had 
 conquered its earlier inhabitants, the Picts, after a 
 war of centuries, and had eventually given to that 
 heroic land, never since subdued, its own name and 
 its royal house, naturally remained ignorant that 
 those ' Scottish ' missionaries were Irish. A glance 
 at Bede, 1 or such well known recent works as Sir W. 
 Scott's ' History of Scotland,' 2 makes this matter 
 plain ; yet the amount of work done in England 
 by those Irish missionaries is still known to few. 
 
 They came from a country the fortunes, the 
 character, and the institutions of which were singu- 
 
 1 In process of time, Britain, besides the Britons and Picts, 
 received a third nation, the Scots, who migrating from Ireland, 
 under their leader Reuda, either by fair means or by force of arms 
 secured to themselves those settlements among the Picts which they 
 still possess.' Bede's Ecclesiastical Hist, book i. cap. i. 
 
 2 ' In the fifth century there appear in North Britain two powerful 
 and distinct tribes, who are not before named in history. These 
 are the Picts and the Scots. . . . The Scots, on the other hand, 
 were of Irish origin ; for, to the great confusion of ancient history, 
 the inhabitants of Ireland, those at least of the conquering and 
 predominating caste, were called Scots. A colony of these Irish 
 
xxxviii Preface. 
 
 larly unlike those of England ; one in which ancient 
 Rome had had no part ; which, in the form of clan- 
 life, retained as its social type the patriarchal 
 customs of its native East, all authority being an 
 expansion of domestic authority, and the idea of a 
 family, rather than that of a state, ruling over the 
 hearts of men. About two centuries previously, Ire- 
 land had become Christian ; and an image of its im- 
 memorial clan-system was reproduced in the vast 
 convents which ere long covered the land, and sent 
 forth their missionaries over a large part of Europe. 
 It might well have been thought doubtful whether 
 
 Scots, distinguished by the name of Dalriads, or Dalreudini, natives 
 of Ulster, had early attempted a settlement on the coast of Argyle- 
 shire ; they finally established themselves there under Fergus, the 
 son of Eric, about the year 503, and, recruited by colonies from 
 Ulster, continued to multiply and increase until they formed a 
 nation which occupied the western side of Scotland.' Sir Walter 
 Scott's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 7. Scott proceeds to record 
 the eventual triumph of the Iri^h or Scotic race over the Pictish in 
 the ninth century. c So complete must have been the revolution 
 that the very language of the Picts is lost. . . . The country united 
 under his sway (that of Kenneth Mac Alpine) was then called for 
 the first time Scotland.' The same statement is made by 
 Burke : * The principal of these were the Scots, a people of ancient 
 settlement in Ireland, and who had thence been transplanted into 
 the northern part of Britain, which afterwards derived its name from 
 that colony.' Burke, Abridgment of English History, book i. 
 cap. iv. 
 
Preface. xxxix 
 
 JJ-.SJ :ISITY) 
 
 these were likely to work successfully among a race 
 so dissimilar as the Anglo-Saxon ; but the event 
 proved that in this instance dissimilar qualities 
 meant qualities complemental to each other, and 
 that sympathy was attracted by unlikeness. 
 
 The Irish mission in England began at a criti- 
 cal time, just when the reaction against the earlier 
 successes of the Roman mission had set in. At 
 York, under Paulinus, Christianity had triumphed ; 
 but eight years after that event Edwin, the Christian 
 king of Deira, perished in battle, and northern 
 England was forced back by king Penda into pa- 
 ganism. Southern England, with the exception of 
 Canterbury and a considerable part of Kent, had 
 also lost the Gospel, after possessing it for thirty 
 years. Nearly at the same time East Anglia and 
 Essex, at the command of pagan-kings, had dis- 
 carded it likewise. It was then that Oswald, on 
 recovering his kingdom of Northumbria, besought 
 the Irish monks of lona to reconvert it, or rather 
 to complete a conversion which had been but 
 begun. Their work prospered ; by degrees the 
 largest kingdom of the Heptarchy became solidly 
 and permanently Christian, its See being fixed 
 
xl Preface. 
 
 in the Island of Lindisfarne, whence the huge 
 diocese of the north was ruled successively 
 by three of St. Columba's order, Aidan, Finan, 
 and Colman. But the labours of St. Columba's 
 sons were not confined to the north. In East 
 Anglia an Irish monk, St. Fursey, founded on 
 the coast of Suffolk the monastery of Burghcastle, 
 in which King Sigebert became a monk. An 
 Irish priest, Maidulphus, built that of Malmes- 
 bury in Wessex. Glastonbury was an older Celtic 
 monastery inhabited partly by Irish monks, and 
 partly by British. Peada, king of Mercia, son 
 of the terrible Penda, was baptized by St. Finan 
 close to the Roman Wall, as was also Sigebert, 
 king of the East Saxons. Diama, an Irish monk, 
 was first bishop of all Mercia, its second, Ceolach, 
 being Irish also, and also its fourth. 
 
 Montalembert, in his Moines d 'Occident ', has 
 given us the most delightful history that exists of 
 the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England, a work 
 combining the depth of a Christian philosopher with 
 the sagacity of a statesman, and a dramatist's appre- 
 ciation of character, while in it we miss nothing of 
 that picturesque vividness and engaging simplicity 
 
Preface. xli 
 
 which belong to our early chroniclers ; thus confer- 
 ring upon England a boon if possible greater than 
 that bestowed upon Ireland in his lives of St. Co- 
 lumba, St. Columbanus and other saints. It is thus 
 that he apportions the share which the Irish mission- 
 aries and the Roman had in that great enterprise. 
 
 'En resumantl'histoire des efforts tentes pendant 
 les soixante ans ecoules depuis le debarquement 
 d'Augustin jusqu'a la mort de Penda,pourintroduire 
 le Christianisme en Angleterre, on constate les 
 resultats que void.- Des huit royaumes de la 
 confederation Anglo-Saxonne, celui de Kent fut 
 seul exclusivement conquis et conserve par les 
 moines remains, dont les premieres tentatives, 
 chez les Est-Saxons et les Northumbriens, se 
 terminerent par un echec. En Wessex et en Est- 
 Anglie les Saxons a Fouest et les Angles & Test 
 furent convertis par Faction combinee de mission- 
 naires continentaux et de moines celtiques. Quant 
 aux deux royaumes Northumbriens ' (Deira and 
 Bernicia), 'a 1'Essex et a la Mercie, comprenant 
 a eux seuls plus de deux tiers du territoire occupe 
 par les conquerants germains, ces quatre pays 
 durent leur conversion definitive exclusivement i 
 
xlii Preface. 
 
 Tinvasion pacifique des moines celtiques, qui n'avai- 
 ent pas seulement rivalise de zele avec les moines 
 remains, mais qui, une fois les premiers obstacles 
 surmontes, avaient montre bien plus de perseve- 
 rance et obtenu bien plus de succes.' l The only 
 effort made at that early period to introduce 
 Christianity into the kingdom of the South-Saxons 
 was that of an Irish monk, Dicul, who founded a 
 small monastery at Bosham. It did not however 
 prove successful. 
 
 There is something profoundly touching in the 
 religious ties which subsisted between England and 
 Ireland during the seventh century, when compared 
 with the troubled relations of those two countries 
 during many a later age. If the memory of 
 benefits received produces a kindly feeling on the 
 part of the recipient, that of benefits conferred 
 should exert the same influence on the heart of the 
 bestower. To remember the past, however disas- 
 trous or convulsed, is a nation's instinct, and its duty 
 no less, since a tribute justly due is thus paid to 
 great actions and to great sufferings in times gone 
 by ; nor among the wise and the generous can the 
 
 1 Moines d? Occident, vol. iv. pp. 127-8. Par le Comte de 
 Montalembert. 
 
Preface. xliii 
 
 discharge of that patriotic duty ever engender an 
 enmity against the living : but there is a special 
 satisfaction in turning to those recollections with 
 which no human infirmity can connect any feeling 
 save that of good will ; and it is scarcely possible 
 to recall them in this instance without a hope that 
 the sacred bonds which united those two countries 
 at that remote period may be a pledge for recipro- 
 cated benefits in the ages yet before us. For both 
 countries that early time was a time of wonderful 
 spiritual greatness. In noble rivalry with Ireland 
 England also sent her missionaries to far lands ; 
 and a child of Wessex, St. Boniface, brought the 
 Faith to Germany, by which it was eventually 
 diffused over Scandinavia, thus, by anticipation, 
 bestowing the highest of all gifts on that terrible 
 race the Northmen, in later centuries the scourge of 
 his native land. 
 
 At home both islands were filled with saints 
 whose names have ever since resounded throughout 
 Christendom. Both islands, as a great writer l 
 has told us, 'had been the refuge of Christi- 
 anity, for a time almost exterminated in Chris- 
 tendom, and the centres of its propagation in 
 
xliv Preface. 
 
 countries still heathen. Secluded from the rest 
 of Europe by the stormy waters in which they lay, 
 they were converted just in time to be put in 
 charge with the sacred treasures of Revelation, and 
 with the learning of the old world, in that dreary 
 time which intervened between Gregory and Charle- 
 magne. They formed schools, collected libraries, 
 and supplied the Continent with preachers and 
 teachers.' He remarks also that ' There was a 
 fitness in the course of things that the two peoples 
 who had rejoiced in one prosperity should drink 
 together the same cup of suffering : Amabiles, et 
 decori in vita sud y in morte non dimsi ; ' and he 
 proceeds to remind us that, immediately after 
 their participation in that common religious great- 
 ness, they partook also a tragic inheritance. In 
 England for two centuries and a half, in Ireland 
 for a longer period, the Northmen were repulsed 
 but to reappear. Again and again the sons of 
 Odin blackened the river-mouths of each land with 
 their fleets ; wherever they marched they left 
 behind them the ashes of burned churches and 
 
 1 Cardinal Newman's Historical Sketches, vol. i. p. 266 : The 
 Northmen and Normans in England and Ireland. 
 
Preface. xlv 
 
 monasteries, till, in large parts of both, Christianity 
 and learning had well nigh perished, and barbarism 
 had all but returned. In both countries domestic 
 dissensions had favoured the invader ; eventually 
 in both the Danish power broke down ; but in 
 both and in each case claiming a spiritual sanction 
 another branch of the same Scandinavian stock 
 succeeded to the Dane, viz. the only one then 
 Christianised, the Norman. In that seventh 
 century how little could Saxon convert or Irish 
 missionary have foreseen that the destinies of their 
 respective countries should be at once so unlike yet 
 so like, so antagonistic yet so interwoven ! 
 
 The aim of the * Legends of Saxon Saints,' as 
 the reader will perhaps have inferred from the 
 preceding remarks, is to illustrate England, her 
 different races and predominant characteristics, 
 during the century of her conversion to Christianity, 
 and in doing this to indicate what circumstances 
 had proved favourable or unfavourable to the 
 reception of the Faith. It became desirable thus to 
 revert to the early emigration of that ' Barbaric ' 
 race of which the Anglo-Saxon was a scion, making 
 
xlvi Preface. 
 
 the shadow of Odin pass in succession over the 
 background of the several pictures presented (the 
 Heroic being thus the unconscious precursor of the 
 Spiritual), and to show how the religion which bore 
 his name was fitted at once to predispose its nobler 
 votaries to Christianity and to infuriate against it 
 those who but valued their faith for what it con- 
 tained of degenerate. It seemed also expedient to 
 select for treatment not only those records most 
 abounding in the picturesque and poetic, but like- 
 wise others useful as illustrating the chief represen- 
 tatives of a many-sided society ; the pagan king and 
 the British warrior, the bard of Odin and the 
 prophetess of Odin, the Gaelic missionary and the 
 Roman missionary, the poet and the historian of 
 Anglo-Saxon Christianity. In a few instances, as 
 in the tales of Oswald and of Oswy, where the early 
 chronicle was copious in detail, it has been followed 
 somewhat closely; but more often, where the 
 original record was brief, all except the fundamental 
 facts had to be supplied. On these occasions I 
 found encouragement in the remark of a writer at 
 once deep and refined. * Stories to be versified 
 should not be already nearly complete, having 
 
Preface. xlvii 
 
 the beauty in themselves, and gaining from the poet 
 but a garb. They should be rough, and with but 
 a latent beauty. The poet should have to supply 
 the features and limbs as well as the dress.' l 
 
 Bede has been my guide. His records are, 
 indeed, often ' rough,' as rough as the crab-tree, but, 
 at the same time, as fresh as its blossom. Their 
 brief touches reveal all the passions of the Barbaric 
 races ; but the chief human affections, things far 
 deeper than the passions, are yet more abundantly 
 illustrated by them. 2 It was a time when those 
 affections were not frozen by conventionalities and 
 forced to conceal themselves until they forgot to 
 exist. In the narrative of Bede we find also 
 invaluable illustrations of a higher but not less real 
 range of human affections, viz. the affections of 
 ' Christianised Humanity/ affections grounded on 
 divine truths and heavenly hopes, and yet in 
 entire harmony with affections of a merely human 
 order, which lie beneath them in a parallel plane. 
 Occasionally the two classes enter into conflict, as 
 
 1 Sara Coleridge. 
 
 2 As the illustration ol an Age, Bede's History has been well 
 compared by Cardinal Manning with the Fioretti di S. Francesco, 
 that exquisite illustration of the thirteenth century. 
 
xlviii Preface. 
 
 in the case of the monks of Bardeney who found it so 
 difficult to reconcile their reverence for a Saint with 
 their patriotic hatred of a foreign invader ; but 
 almost invariably the earthly and the heavenly emo- 
 tions are mutually supplemental, as in those tender 
 friendships of monk with monk, of king and bishop, 
 grounded upon religious sympathy and co-operation ; 
 so that the lower sentiment without the higher 
 would present, compared with the pictures now 
 bequeathed to us, but an unfinished and trun- 
 cated image of Humanity. Here, again, the semi- 
 barbaric age described by Bede rendered the 
 delineation more vivid. In ages of effeminate 
 civilisation the Christian emotions, even more than 
 those inherent in unassisted human nature, lose 
 that ardour which belongs to them when in a 
 healthy condition an ardour which especially 
 reveals itself during that great crisis, a nation's 
 conversion, when, beside a throng of new feelings 
 and new hopes, a host of new Truths has descended 
 upon the intelligence of a whole people, and when a 
 sense of new knowledge and endless progress is thus 
 communicated to it, far exceeding that which is the 
 boast of nations devoted chiefly to physical science. 
 The sense of progress, indeed, when such a period 
 
Preface. xlix 
 
 reaches its highest, is a rapture. It is as though 
 the motion of the planet which carries us through 
 space, a motion of which we are cognisant but which 
 v/e yet cannot feel, could suddenly become, like 
 the speed of a racehorse, a thing brought home to 
 our consciousness. 
 
 Such ardours are scarcely imaginable in the 
 later ages of a nation ; but in Bede's day a people 
 accepting the 'glad tidings' was glad; and, unam- 
 bitious as his style is of the ornamental or the 
 figurative, it is brightened by that which it so 
 faithfully describes. His chronicle is often poetry, 
 little as he intended it to be such ; nay, it is 
 poetry in her ' humanities ' yet more than in her 
 distinctively spiritual province, and better poetry 
 than is to be found in the professed poetry of a 
 materialistic age, when the poet is tempted to take 
 refuge from the monotony of routine life, either 
 amid the sensational accidents to be found on the 
 byeways, not the highways, of life, or in some sickly 
 dreamland that does not dare to deal with life, and 
 belongs neither to the real nor to the ideal. In no- 
 thing is Bede's history of that great age, to which 
 our own owes all that it possesses of real greatness, 
 
 c 
 
1 Preface. 
 
 more striking than in that spirit of unconscious 
 elevation and joyousness which belongs to the 
 Christian life it records, a joyousness often so 
 strikingly contrasted with the sadness some- 
 times a heroic sadness to be found in portions of 
 his work describing pagan manners. With all its 
 violences and inconsistencies, the seventh century 
 was a noble age an age of strong hearts which 
 were gentle as well as strong, of a childhood that 
 survived in manhood, of natures that had not lost 
 their moral unity, of holy lives and of happy deaths. 
 Bede's picture of it is a true one ; and for that 
 reason it comes home to us. 
 
 To some it may seem a profaneness to turn 
 those old legends into verse. I should not have 
 attempted the enterprise if they were much read 
 in prose. The verse may at least help to direct the 
 attention of a few readers to them. From them 
 the thoughtful will learn how to complete a 
 ' half-truth' often reiterated. Those who have de- 
 clared that ' the wars of the Heptarchy are as dull 
 as the battles of kites and crows,' have not always 
 known that the true interest of her turbulent days 
 belonged to peace, not to war, and is to be found in 
 the spiritual development of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ODIN THE MAN I 
 
 KING ETHELBERT OF KENT AND ST. AUGUSTINE . 13 
 THE CONSECRATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY . 32 
 
 THE PENANCE OF ST. LAURENCE . . -47 
 
 KING SIGEBERT OF EAST ANGLIA, AND HEIDA THE 
 
 PROPHETESS ^ . . . .66 
 
 KING SIGEBERT OF ESSEX, OR A FRIEND AT NEED 84 
 
 KING OSWALD OF NORTHUMBRIA, OR THE BRITON'S 
 
 REVENGE . . . . .100 
 
 CEADMON THE COWHERD, THE FIRST ENGLISH 
 
 POET . . . . . .H7 
 
 KING OSWY OF NORTHUMBRIA, OR THE WIFE'S 
 
 VICTORY . . . . .142 
 
 THE VENGEANCE OF THE MONKS OF BARDENEY . 162 
 
 HOW SAINT CUTHBERT KEPT HIS PENTECOST AT 
 
 CARLISLE . . . . .176 
 
Hi Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SAINT FRIDESWIDA, OR THE FOUNDATIONS OF 
 
 OXFORD ..... 2C8 
 
 
 
 THE BANQUET HALL OF WESSEX, OR THE KING 
 
 WHO COULD SEE . . . .223 
 
 EPILOGUE : BEDE'S LAST MAY . . . 259 
 
 NOTES . .... 283 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 ODIN, THE MAN. 
 
 Odin, a Prince who reigned near the Caspian Sea, after a vain 
 resistance to the Roman arms, leads forth his people to the forests 
 north of the Danube, that, serving God in freedom on the limits of 
 the Roman Empire, and being strengthened by an adverse climate, 
 they may one day descend upon that empire in just revenge ; which 
 destiny was fulfilled by the sack of Rome, under Alaric, Christian 
 King of the Goths, a race derived, like the Saxon, from that Eastern 
 people. _ 
 
 FORTH with those missives, Chiron, to the Invader ! 
 Hence, and make speed : they scathe mine eyes like fire : 
 Pompeius, thou hast conquered ! What remains ? 
 Vengeance ! Man's race has never dreamed of such ; 
 So slow, so sure. Pompeius, I depart : 
 I might have held these mountains yet four days : 
 The fifth had seen them thine 
 
 B 
 
 m 
 
2 Odin, the Man. 
 
 I look beyond the limit of this night : 
 
 Four centuries I need ; then comes mine hour. 
 
 What saith the Accursed One of the Western World ? 
 I hear even now her trumpet ! Thus she saith : 
 ' I have enlarged my borders : iron reaped 
 Earth's field all golden. Strenuous fight we fought : 
 I left some sweat-drops on that Carthage shore, 
 Some blood on Gallic javelins. That is past ! 
 My pleasant days are come : my couch is spread 
 Beside all waters of the Midland Sea ; 
 By whispers lulled of nations kneeling round ; 
 Illumed by light of balmiest climes ; refreshed 
 By winds from Atlas and the Olympian snows : 
 Henceforth my foot is in delicious ways ; 
 Bathe it, ye Persian fountains ! Syrian vales, 
 All roses, make me sleepy with perfumes ! 
 Caucasian cliffs, with martial echoes faint 
 Flatter light slumbers ; charm a Roman dream ! 
 I send you my Pompeius ; let him lead 
 Odin in chains to Rome ! ' Odin in chains ! 
 Were Odin chained, or dead, that God he serves 
 Could raise a thousand Odins 
 Rome's Founder- King beside his Augur standing 
 Noted twelve ravens borne in sequent flight 
 O'er Alba's crags. They emblem'd centuries twelve, 
 
Odin, the Man./^ f 
 
 The term to Rome conceded. Eight are flown ; 
 Remain but four. Hail, sacred brood of night ! 
 Hencefore my standards bear the Raven Sign, 
 The bird that hoarsely haunts the ruined tower ; 
 The bird sagacious of the field of blood 
 Albeit far off. Four centuries I need : 
 Then comes my day. My race and I are one. 
 
 O Race beloved and holy ! From my youth 
 Where'er a hungry heart impelled my feet, 
 Whatever I found of glorious, have I not 
 Claimed it for thee, deep-musing? Ignorant, first, 
 For thee I wished the golden ingots piled 
 In Susa and Ecbatana : ah fool ! 
 At Athens next, treading where Plato trod, 
 For thee all triumphs of the mind of man, 
 And Phidian hand inspired ! Ah fool, that hour 
 Athens lay bound, a slave ! Later to Rome 
 In secrecy by Mithridates sent 
 To search the inmost of his hated foe, 
 For thee I claimed that discipline of Law 
 Which made her State one camp. Fool, fool once more ! 
 Soon learned I what a heart-pollution lurked 
 Beneath that mask of Law. As Persia fell, 
 By softness sapped, so Rome. Behold, this day, 
 Following the Pole Star of my just revenge, 
 I lead my people forth to clearer fates 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Odin, the Man. 
 
 ' 
 
 Through cloudier fortunes. They are brave and strong : 
 
 'Tis but the rose-breath of their vale that rots 
 
 Their destiny's bud unblown. I lead them forth, 
 
 A race war- vanquished, not a race of slaves ; 
 
 Lead them, not southward to Euphrates' bank, 
 
 Not Eastward to the realms of rising suns, 
 
 Not West to Rome, and bondage. Hail, thou North ! 
 
 Hail, boundless woods, by nameless oceans girt, 
 
 And snow-robed mountain islets, founts of fire ! 
 
 Four hundred years ! I know that awful North : 
 I sought it when the one flower of my life 
 Fell to my foot. That anguish set me free : 
 It dashed me on the iron side of life : 
 I woke, a man. My people too shall wake : 
 They shall have icy crags for myrtle banks, 
 Sharp rocks for couches. Strength ! I must have 
 
 strength ; 
 
 Not splenetic sallies of a woman's courage, 
 But hearts to which self-pity is unknown : 
 Hard life to them must be as mighty wine 
 Gladdening the strong : the death on battle fields 
 Must seem the natural, honest close of life ; 
 Their fear must be to die without a wound 
 And miss Life's after-banquet. Wooden shield 
 Whole winter nights shall lie their covering sole : 
 Thereon the boy shall stem the ocean wave ; 
 
Odin, the Man. 5 
 
 Thereon the youth shall slide with speed of winds 
 Loud-laughing down the snowy mountain-slope : 
 To him the Sire shall whisper as he bleeds, 
 ' Remember the revenge ? Thy son must prove 
 More strong, more hard than thou ! ' 
 
 Four hundred years ! 
 Increase is tardy in that icy clime, 
 For Death is there the awful nurse of Life : 
 Death rocks the cot Why meet we there no wolf 
 Save those huge-limbed ? Because weak wolf-cubs die. 
 'Tis thus with man ; 'tis thus with all things strong : 
 Rise higher on thy northern hills, my Pine ! 
 That Southern Palm shall dwindle. 
 
 House stone-walled 
 
 Ye shall not have it ! Temples cedar-roofed 
 Ye shall not build them ! Where the Temple stands 
 The City gathers. Cities ye shall spurn : 
 Live in the woods; live singly, winning each, 
 Hunter or fisher by blue lakes, his prey : 
 Abhor the gilded shrine : the God Unknown 
 In such abides not. On the mountain's top 
 Great Persia sought Him in her day of strength : 
 With her ye share the kingly breed of Truths, 
 The noblest inspirations man hath known, 
 Or can know ay, unless the Lord of all 
 Should come, Man's Teacher. Pray as Persia prayed ; 
 
> Odin, the Man. 
 
 And see ye pray for Vengeance ! Leave till then 
 To Rome her Idol fanes and pilfered Gods. 
 
 I see you, O my People, year by year 
 Strengthened by sufferings ; pains that crush the weak, 
 Your helpers. Men have been that, poison-fed, 
 Grew poison-proof: on pain and wrong feed ye ! 
 The wild-beast rage against you ! frost and fire 
 Rack you in turn ! Fll have no gold among you ; 
 With gold come wants; and wants mean servitude. 
 Edge, each, his spear with fish-bone or with flint, 
 Leaning for prop on none. I want no Nations ! 
 A Race I fashion, playing not at States: 
 I take the race of Man, the breed that lifts 
 Alone its brow to heaven : I change that race 
 From clay to stone, from stone to adamant 
 Through slow abrasion, such as leaves sea-shelves 
 Lustrous at last and smooth. To be, not have, 
 A man to be ; no heritage to clasp 
 Save that which simple manhood, at its will, 
 Or conquers or re-conquers, held meanwhile 
 In trust for Virtue ; this alone is greatness. 
 Remain ye Tribes, not Nations ; led by Kings, 
 Great onward-striding Kings, above the rest 
 High towering, like the keel-compelling sail 
 That takes the topmost tempest. Let them die, 
 
Odin, the Man. 7 
 
 Each for his people ! I will die for mine 
 
 Then when my work is finished ; not before. 
 
 That Bandit King who founded Rome, the Accursed, 
 
 Vanished in storm. My sons shall see me die, 
 
 Die, strong to lead them till my latest breath, 
 
 Which shall not be a sigh ; shall see and say, 
 
 'This Man far-marching through the mountainous world, 
 
 No God, but yet God's Prophet of the North, 
 
 Gave many crowns to others : for himself 
 
 His people were his crown/ 
 
 Four hundred years 
 Ye shall find savage races in your path : 
 Be ye barbaric, ay, but savage not : 
 Hew down the baser lest they drag you down ; 
 Ye cannot raise them : they fulfil their fates : 
 Be terrible to foes, be kind to friend: 
 Be just; be true. Revere the Household Hearth; 
 This knowing, that beside it dwells a God : 
 Revere the Priest, the King, the Bard, the Maid, 
 The Mother of the heroic race five strings 
 Sounding God's Lyre. Drive out with lance for goad 
 That idiot God by Rome called Terminus, 
 Who standing sleeps, and holds his reign o'er fools. 
 The earth is God's, not Man's: that Man from Him 
 Holds it whose valour earns it. Time shall come, 
 It may be, when the warfare shall be past, 
 
Odin, the Man. 
 
 The reign triumphant of the brave and just 
 
 In peace consolidated. Time may come 
 
 When that long winter of the Northern Land 
 
 Shall find its spring. Where spreads the black morass 
 
 Harvest all gold may glitter ; cities rise 
 
 Where roamed the elk; and nations set their thrones ; 
 
 Nations not like those empires known till now, 
 
 But wise and pure. Let such their temples build 
 
 And worship Truth, if Truth should e'er to Man 
 
 Show her full face. Let such ordain them laws 
 
 If Justice e'er should mate with laws of men. 
 
 Above the mountain summits of Man's hope 
 
 There spreads, I know, a land illimitable, 
 
 The table land of Virtue trial-proved, 
 
 Whereon one day the nations of the world 
 
 Shall race like emulous Gods. A greater God 
 
 Served by our sires, a God unknown to Rome, 
 
 Above that shining level sits, high-towered : 
 
 Millions of Spirits wing His flaming light, 
 
 And fiery winds among His tresses play : 
 
 When comes that hour which judges Gods and men. 
 
 That God shall plague the Gods that filched His name, 
 
 And cleanse the Peoples. 
 
 When ye hear, my sons, 
 That God uprising in His judgment robes 
 And see their dreadful crimson in the West, 
 
Odin, the Man. 9 
 
 Then know ye that the knell of Rome is nigh ; 
 
 Then stand, and listen ! When His Trumpet sounds 
 
 Forth from your forests and your snows, my sons, 
 
 Forth over Ister, Rhenus, Rhodonus, 
 
 To Moesia forth, to Thrace, Illyricum, 
 
 Iberia, Gaul ; but, most of all, to Rome ! 
 
 Who leads you thither leads you not for spoil : 
 
 A mission hath he, fair though terrible ; 
 
 He makes a pure hand purer, washed in blood : 
 
 On, Scourge of God ! the Vengeance Hour is come. 
 
 I know that hour, and wait it. Odin's work 
 Stands then consummate. Odin's name thenceforth 
 Goes down to darkness. 
 
 Farewell, Ararat ! 
 
 How many an evening, still and bright as this, 
 In childhood, youth, or manhood's sorrowing years, 
 Have I not watched the sunset hanging red 
 Upon thy hoary brow ! Farewell for ever ! 
 A legend haunts thee that the race of man 
 In earliest days, a sad and storm-tossed few, 
 From thy wan heights descended, making way 
 Into a ruined world. A storm-tossed race, 
 But not self-pitying, once again thou seest 
 Into a world all ruin making way 
 Whither they know not, yet without a fear. 
 This hour lo, there, they pass yon valley's verge ! 
 
io Odin, the Man. 
 
 In sable weeds that pilgrimage moves on, 
 
 Moves slowly like thy shadow, Ararat, 
 
 That eastward creeps. Phantom of glory dead ! 
 
 Image of greatness that disdains to die ! 
 
 Move Northward thou ! Whatever thy fates decreed, 
 
 At least that shadow shall be shadow of man, 
 
 And not of beast gold-weighted ! On, thou Night 
 
 Cast by my heart ! Thou too shalt meet thy morn ! 
 
LEGENDS 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 KING ETHELBERT OF KENT AND 
 SAINT A UG USTINE. 
 
 Ethelbert, King of Kent, converses first with his Pagan Thanes, 
 and next with Saint Augustine, newly landed on the shores of 
 Thanet Island. The Saint, coming in sight of Canterbury, rejoices 
 greatly, and predicts the future greatness of that city. 
 
 FAR through the forest depths of Thanet Isle, 
 That never yet had heard the woodman's axe, 
 Rang the glad clarion on the May-day morn, 
 Blent with the cry of hounds. The rising sun 
 Flamed on the forests' dewy jewelry, 
 While, under rising mists, a host with plumes 
 Rode down a broad oak alley t' wards the sea. 
 
 King Ethelbert rode first : he reigned in Kent, 
 Least kingdom of the Seven yet Head of all 
 Through his desert. That morn the royal train, 
 While sang the invisible lark her song in heaven, 
 Pursued the flying stag. At times the creature, 
 
1 4 King Ethelbert of Kent 
 
 As though he too had pleasure in the sport, 
 Vaulted at ease through sunshine and through shade, 
 Then changed his mood, and left the best behind him. 
 Five hours they chased him ; last, upon a rock 
 High up in scorn he held his antlered front, 
 Then took the wave and vanished. 
 
 Many a frown 
 
 Darkened that hour on many a heated brow ; 
 And many a spur afflicted that poor flank 
 Which panted hard and smoked. The King alone 
 Laughed at mischance. ' The stag, with God to aid, 
 Has left our labour fruitless ! Give him joy ! 
 He lives to yield us sport some later morn : 
 So be it ! Waits our feast, and not far off : 
 On to the left, 'twixt yonder ash and birch ! ' 
 
 V 
 
 He spake, and anger passed : they praised their sport ; 
 And many an outblown nostril seemed to snuff 
 That promised feast. They rode through golden furze 
 So high the horsemen only were descried ; 
 And glades whose centuried oaks their branches laid 
 O'er violet banks ; and fruit trees, some snow- veiled 
 Like bridesmaid, others like the bride herself 
 Behind her white veil blushing. Glad, the thrush 
 Carolled ; more glad, the wood-dove moaned ; close by 
 A warbling runnel led them to the bay : 
 
and Saint Augustine. 1 5 
 
 Two chestnuts stood beside it snowy-coned : 
 The banquet lay beneath them. 
 
 Feasting o'er, 
 
 The song succeeded. Boastful was the strain, 
 Each Thane his deeds extolling, or his sire's ; 
 But one, an aged man, among them scoffed : 
 ' When I was young ; when Sigbert on my right 
 To battle rode, and Sefred on my left ; 
 That time men stood not worsted by a stag ! 
 Not then our horses swerved from azure strait 
 Scared by the ridged sea- wave ! ' Next spake a chief, 
 Pirate from Denmark late returned : ' Our skies, 
 Good friends, are all too soft to build the man ! 
 We fight for fame : the Northman fights for sport ; 
 Their annals boast they fled but once : 'twas thus : 
 In days of old, when Rome was in her pride, 
 Huge hosts of hers had fallen on theirs, surprised, 
 And way-worn : long they fought : a remnant spent, 
 Fled to their camp. Upon its walls their wives 
 Stood up, black-garbed, with axes heaved aloft, 
 And fell upon the fugitives, and slew them ; 
 Slew next their little ones ; slew last themselves, 
 Cheating the Roman Triumph. Never since then 
 Hath Northman fled the foemen.' 
 
 Egfrid rose : 
 ' Who saith our kinsfolk of the frozen North 
 
1 6 King Ethelbert of Kent 
 
 One stock with us, one faith, one ancient tongue, 
 
 Pass us in valour ? Three days since I saw 
 
 Crossing the East Saxon's border and our own 
 
 Two boys that strove. The Kentish wounded fell; 
 
 The East Saxon on him knelt; then made demand : 
 
 " My victim art thou by the laws of war ! 
 
 Yonder my dagger lies ; till I return 
 
 Wilt thou abide ? " The vanquished answered, " Yea ! " 
 
 A minute more, and o'er that dagger's edge 
 
 His life-blood rushed/ The pirate chief demurred ; 
 
 ' A gallant boy ! Not less I wager this, 
 
 The glitter of that dagger ere it smote 
 
 Made his eye blink. Attend ! Three years gone by, 
 
 Sailing with Hakon on Norwegian fiords 
 
 We fought the Jomsburg Rovers, at their head 
 
 Sidroc, oath-pledged to marry Hakon's child 
 
 Despite her father's best. In mist we met : 
 
 Instant each navy at the other dashed 
 
 Like wild beast, instinct-taught, that knows its foe ; 
 
 Chained ship to ship, and clashed their clubs all day, 
 
 Till sank the sun : then laughed the white peaks forth, 
 
 And reeled, methought, above the reeling waves ! 
 
 The victory was with us. Hakon, next morn, 
 
 Bade slay his prisoners. Thirty on one bench 
 
 Waited their doom : their leader died the first ; 
 
 He winked not as the sword upon him closed ! 
 
and Saint Augustine. 1 7 
 
 No, nor the second ! Hakon asked the third, 
 
 " What think'st thou, friend, of Death ? " He tossed his 
 
 head : 
 
 " My Father perished ; I fulfil my turn." 
 The fourth, " Strike quickly, Chief ! An hour this morn 
 We held contention if, when heads are off, 
 The hand can hold its dagger : I would learn." 
 The dagger and the head together fell. 
 The fifth, " One fear is mine lest yonder slave 
 Finger a Prince's hair ! Command some chief, 
 Thy best beloved, to lift it in his hands ; 
 Then strike and spare not ! " Hakon struck. That youth, 
 Sigurd by name, his forehead forward twitched, 
 Laughing, so deftly that the downward sword 
 Shore off those luckless hands that raised his hair. 
 All laughed ; and Hakon's son besought his sire 
 To loosen Sigurd's bonds : but Sigurd cried, 
 " Unless the rest be loosed I will not live ! " 
 Thus all escaped save four/ 
 
 In graver mood 
 
 That chief resumed : ' A Norland King dies well ! 
 His bier is raised upon his stateliest ship ; 
 Piled with his arms ; his lovers and his friends 
 Rush to their monarch's pyre, resolved with him 
 To share in death, and with becoming pomp 
 Attend his footsteps to Valhalla's Hall. 
 
 c 
 
1 8 King Ethelbert of Kent 
 
 The torch is lit : forth sails the ship, black-winged, 
 Facing the midnight seas. From beach and cliff 
 Men watch all night that slowly lessening flame : 
 Yet no man sheds a tear/ 
 
 Earconwald, 
 
 An aged chief, made answer, ' Tears there be 
 Of divers sorts : a wise and valiant king 
 Deserves that tear which praises, not bewails, 
 Greatness gone by/ The pirate shouted loud, 
 ' A land it is of laughter, not of tears ! ' 
 Know ye the tale of Harald ? He had sailed 
 Round southern coasts and eastern sacked or burned 
 A hundred Christian cities. One he found 
 So girt with giant walls and brazen gates 
 His sea-kings vainly dashed themselves thereon, 
 And died beneath them, frustrate. Harald sent 
 A herald to that city proffering terms : 
 " Harald is dead : Christian was he in youth : 
 He sends you spoils from many a city burnt, 
 And craves interment in your chiefest church." 
 Next day the masked procession wound in black 
 Through streets defenceless. When the church was 
 
 reached 
 
 They laid their chief before the altar-lights : 
 Anon to heaven rang out the priestly dirge, 
 And incense-smoke upcurled. Forth from its cloud 
 
and Saint Aiigustine. 
 
 Sudden upleaped the dead man, club in hand, 
 Spurning his coffin's gilded walls, and smote 
 
 The hoary pontiff down, and brake his neck ; 
 And all those maskers doffed their weeds of woe 
 And showed the mail beneath, and raised their swords, 
 And drowned that pavement in a sea of blood, 
 While raging rushed their mates through portals wide, 
 And, since that city seemed but scant of spoil, 
 Fired it and sailed. Ofttimes old Harald laughed 
 That tale recounting/ 
 
 Many a Kentish chief 
 
 Re-echoed Harald's laugh ; not Ethelbert : 
 The war-scar reddening on his brow he rose 
 And spake : ' My Thanes, ye laugh at deeds accurst ! 
 An old King I, and make my prophecy 
 One day that northern race which smites and laughs, 
 Our kith and kin albeit, shall smite our coasts : 
 That day ye will not laugh ! ' Earconwald, 
 Not rising, likewise answer made, heart-grieved : 
 ' Six sons had I : all these are slain in war ; 
 Yet I, an unrejoicing man forlorn, 
 Find solace ofttimes thinking of their deeds : 
 They laughed not when they smote. No God, be sure, 
 Smiles on the jest red-handed.' Egfrid rose, 
 And three times cried with lifted sword unsheathed, 
 * Behold my God ! No God save him I serve ! ' 
 
2o King Ethelbert of Kent 
 
 While thus they held discourse, where blue waves 
 
 danced 
 
 Not far from land, behold, there hove in sight, 
 Seen 'twixt a great beech silky yet with Spring 
 And pine broad-crested, round whose head old storms 
 Had wov'n a garland of his own green boughs, 
 A bark both fair and large ; and hymn was heard. 
 Then laughed the King, * The stag-hunt and our songs 
 So drugged my memory, I had nigh forgotten 
 Why for our feast I chose this heaven-roofed hall : 
 Missives I late received from friends in France ; 
 They make report of strangers from the South 
 Who, tarrying in their coasts have learned our tongue, 
 And northward wend with tidings strange and new 
 Of some celestial Kingdom by their God 
 Founded for men of Faith. Nor churl am I 
 To frown on kind intent, nor child to trust 
 This sceptre of Seven Realms to magic snare 
 That puissance hath who knows not ? greater thrice 
 In house than open field. I therefore chose 
 For audience hall this precinct/ 
 
 Muttered low 
 
 Murdark, the scoffer with the cave-like mouth 
 And sidelong eyes, ' Queen Bertha's voice was that ! 
 A woman's man ! Since first from Gallic shores 
 That dainty daughter of King Charibert 
 
and Saint Augustine. 2 1 
 
 Pressed her small foot on England's honest shore 
 The whole land dwindles ! ' 
 
 In seraphic hymns 
 
 Ere long that serpent hiss was lost : for soon, 
 In raiment white, circling a rocky point, 
 O'er sands still glistening with a tide far-ebbed, 
 On drew, preceded by a silver Cross, 
 A long procession. Music, as it moved, 
 Floated on sea-winds inland, deadened now 
 By thickets, echoed now from cliff or cave : 
 Ere long before them that procession stood. 
 The King addressed them : * Welcome, Heralds sage ! 
 And if from God I welcome you the more, 
 Since great is God, and therefore great His gifts : 
 God grant He send them daily, heaped and huge ! 
 Speak without fear, for him alone I hate 
 Who brings ill news, or makes inept demand 
 Unmeet for Kings. I know that Cross ye bear ; 
 And in my palace sits a Christian wife, 
 Bertha, the sweetest lady in this land ; 
 Most gracious in her ways, in heart most leal. 
 I knew her yet a child : she knelt whene'er 
 The Queen, her mother, entered : then I said, 
 A maid so reverent will be reverent wife, 
 And wedded her betimes. Morning and eve 
 She in her wood-girt chapel sings her prayer, 
 
2 2 King Ethelbert of Kent 
 
 Which wins us kindlier harvest, and, some think, 
 Success in war. She strives not with our Gods : 
 Confusion never wrought she in my house, 
 Nor minished Hengist's glory. Had her voice, 
 Clangorous or strident, drawn upon my throne 
 Deserved opprobrium ' here the monarch's brows 
 Flushed at the thought, and fire was in his eyes 
 * The hand that clasps this sceptre had not spared 
 To hunt her forth, an outcast in the woods, 
 Thenceforth with beasts to herd ! More lief were I 
 To take the lioness to my bed and board 
 Than house a rebel wife.' Remembering then 
 The mildness of his Queen, King Ethelbert 
 Resumed, appeased, for placable his heart ; 
 4 But she no rebel is, and this I deem 
 Fair auspice for her Faith.' 
 
 A little breeze 
 
 Warm from the sea that moment softly waved 
 The standard from its staff, and showed thereon 
 The Child Divine. Upon His mother's knee 
 Sublime He stood. His left hand clasped a globe 
 Crowned with a golden Cross ; and with His right, 
 Two fingers heavenward raised, o'er all the earth 
 He sent His Blessing. 
 
 Of that band snow-stoled 
 One taller by the head than all the rest 
 
and Saint Augustine. 23 
 
 Obeisance made ; then, pointing to the Cross, 
 
 And forward moving t'ward the monarch's seat, 
 
 Opened the great commission of the Faith : 
 
 ' Behold the Eternal Maker of the worlds ! 
 
 That Hand which shaped the earth and blesses earth 
 
 Must rule the race of man ! ' 
 
 Majestic then 
 
 As when, far winding from its mountain springs, 
 City and palm-grove far behind it left, 
 Some Indian river rolls, while mists dissolved 
 Leave it in native brightness unobscured, 
 And kingly navies share its sea-ward sweep, 
 Forward on-flowed in Apostolic might 
 Augustine's strong discourse. With God beginning, 
 He showed the Almighty All-compassionate, 
 Down drawn from distance infinite to man 
 By the Infinite of Love. Lo, Bethlehem's crib ! 
 There lay the Illimitable in narrow bound : 
 Thence rose that triumph of a world redeemed ! 
 Last, to the standard pointing, thus he spake : 
 ' Yon Standard tells the tale ! Six hundred years 
 Westward it speeds from subject realm to realm : 
 First from the bosom of God's Race Elect, 
 His People, till they slew Him, mild it soared : 
 Rejected, it returned. Above their walls 
 While ruin rocked them, and the Roman fire, 
 Dreadful it hung. When Rome had shared that guilt, 
 
24 King Ethelbert of Kent 
 
 Mocking that Saviour's Brethren, and His Bride, 
 Above the conquered conqueror of all lands 
 In turn this Standard flew. Who raised it high ? 
 A son of this your island, Constantine ! 
 In these, thine English oakwoods, Helena, 
 'Twas thine to nurse thy warrior. He had seen 
 Star-writ in heaven the words this Standard bears, 
 " Through Me is victory." Victory won, he raised 
 High as his empire's queenly head, and higher, 
 This Standard of the Eternal Dove thenceforth 
 To fly where eagle standard never flew, 
 God's glory in its track, goodwill to man. 
 Advance for aye, great Emblem ! Light as now 
 Famed Asian headlands, and Hellenic isles ! 
 O'er snow-crowned Alp and citied Apennine 
 Send forth a breeze of healing ! Keep thy throne 
 For ever on those western peaks that watch 
 The setting sun descend the Hesperean wave, 
 Atlas and Calpe ! These, the old Roman bound, 
 Build but the gateway of the Rome to be ; 
 Till Christ returns, thou Standard, hold them fast : 
 But never till the North, that, age by age, 
 Dashed back the Pagan Rome, with Christian Rome 
 Partakes the spiritual crown of man restored, 
 From thy strong flight above the world surcease, 
 And fold thy wings in rest ! ' 
 
and Saint Augustine. 25 
 
 Upon the sod 
 
 He knelt, and on that Standard gazed, and spake, 
 Calm-voiced, with hand to heaven : ( I promise thee, 
 Thou vSign, another victory, and thy best 
 This island shall be thine ! ' 
 
 Augustine rose 
 
 And took the right hand of King Ethelbert, 
 And placed therein the Standard's staff, and laid 
 His own above the monarch's, speaking thus : 
 * King of this land, I bid thee know from God 
 That kings have higher privilege than they know, 
 The standard-bearers of the King of kings/ 
 
 Long time he clasped that royal hand ; long time 
 The King, that patriarch's hand at last withdrawn, 
 His own withdrew not from that Standard's staff 
 Committed to his charge. His hand he deemed 
 Thenceforth its servant vowed. With large, meek eyes 
 Fixed on that Maid and Babe, he stood as child 
 That, gazing on some reverent stranger's face, 
 Nor loosening from that stranger's hold his palm, 
 Listens his words attent. 
 
 The man of God 
 
 Meantime as silent gazed on Thanet's shore 
 Gold-tinged, with sunset spray to crimson turned 
 In league-long crescent. Love was in his face, 
 That love which rests on Faith. He spake : * Fair land, 
 
26 King Ethelbert of Kent 
 
 I know thee what thou art, and what thou lack'st ! 
 
 The Master saith, " I give to him that hath : " 
 
 Thy harvest shall be great.' Again he mused, 
 
 And shadow o'er him crept. Again he spake : 
 
 ' That harvest won, when centuries have gone by, 
 
 What countenance wilt thou wear ? How oft on brows 
 
 Brightened by Baptism's splendour, sin more late 
 
 Drags down its cloud ! The time may come when thou 
 
 This day, though darkling, yet so innocent, 
 
 Barbaric, not depraved, on greater heights 
 
 May'st sin in malice sin the great offence, 
 
 Changing thy light to darkness, knowing God, 
 
 Yet honouring God no more ; that time may come 
 
 When, rich as Carthage, great in arms as Rome, 
 
 Keen-eyed as Greece, this isle, to sensuous gaze 
 
 A sun all gold, to angels may present 
 
 Aspect no nobler than a desert waste, 
 
 Some blind and blinding waste of sun-scorched sands, 
 
 Trod by a race of pigmies not of men, 
 
 Pigmies by passions ruled ! ' 
 
 Once more he mused ; 
 
 Then o'er his countenance passed a second change ; 
 And from it flashed the light of one who sees, 
 Some hill-top gained, beyond the incumbent night 
 The instant foot of morn. With regal step, 
 Martial yet measured, to the King he strode, 
 
and Saint A ugustine. 2 7 
 
 And laid a strong hand on him, speaking thus : 
 
 ' Rejoice, my son, for God hath sent thy land 
 
 This day Good Tidings of exceeding joy, 
 
 And planted in her breast a Tree divine 
 
 Whose leaves shall heal far nations. Know besides, 
 
 Should sickness blight that Tree, or tempest mar, 
 
 The strong root shall survive : the winter past, 
 
 Heavenward once more shall rush both branch and bough, 
 
 And over-vault the stars/ 
 
 He spake, and took 
 
 The sacred Standard from that monarch's hand, 
 And held it in his own, and fixed its point 
 Deep in the earth, and by it stood. Then lo ! 
 Like one disburthened of some ponderous charge, 
 King Ethelbert became himself again, 
 And round him gazed well pleased. Throughout his train 
 Sudden a movement thrilled : remembrance had 
 Of those around, his warriors and his thanes, 
 That eve,r on his wisdom waiting hung, 
 Thus he replied discreet : ' Stranger and friend, 
 Thou bear'st good tidings ! That thou earnest thus far 
 To fool us, knave and witling may believe : 
 I walk not with their sort ; yet, guest revered, 
 Kings are not as the common race of men ; 
 Counsel they take, lest honour heaped on one 
 Dishonour others. Odin holds on us 
 
2 8 King Ethelbert of Kent 
 
 Prescriptive right, and special claims on me, 
 
 The son of Hengist's grandson. Preach your Faith ! 
 
 The man who wills I suffer to believe : 
 
 The man who wills not, let him moor his skiff 
 
 Where anchorage likes him best. The day declines : 
 
 This night with us you harbour, and our Queen 
 
 Shall lovingly receive you.' 
 
 Staid and slow 
 
 The King rode homewards, while behind him paced 
 Augustine and his Monks. The ebb had left 
 'Twixt Thanet and the mainland narrow space 
 Marsh-land more late : beyond the ford there wound 
 A path through flowery meads ; and, as they passed, 
 Not herdsmen only, but the broad-browed kine 
 Fixed on them long their meditative gaze ; 
 And oft some blue-eyed boy with flaxen locks 
 Ran, fearless, forth, and plucked them by the sleeve, 
 Some boy clear-browed as those Saint Gregory marked, 
 Poor slaves, new-landed on the quays of Rome, 
 That drew from him that saying, ' " Angli " nay, 
 Call them henceforward " Angels " ! ' 
 
 From a wood 
 
 Issuing, before them lustrous they beheld 
 King Ethelbert's chief city, Canterbury, 
 Strong-walled, with winding street, and airy roofs, 
 And high o'er all the monarch's palace pile 
 
and Saint Augustine. 29 
 
 Thick-set with towers. Then fire from God there fell 
 Upon Augustine's heart; and thus he sang 
 Advancing ; and the brethren sang < Amen ; : 
 
 1 Hail, City loved of God, for on thy brow 
 Great Fates are writ. Thou cumberest not His earth 
 For petty traffic reared, or petty sway ; 
 I see a heavenly choir descend, thy crown 
 Henceforth to bind thy brow. Forever hail ! 
 
 6 1 see the basis of a kingly throne 
 In thee ascending ! High it soars and higher, 
 Like some great pyramid o'er Nilus kenned 
 When vapours melt the Apostolic Chair ! 
 Doctrine and Discipline thence shall hold their course, 
 Like Tigris and Euphrates, through all lands 
 That face the Northern Star. Forever hail ! 
 
 6 Where stands yon royal keep, a church shall rise 
 Like Incorruption clothing the Corrupt 
 On the resurrection morn ! Strong House of God, 
 To Him exalt thy walls, and nothing doubt, 
 For lo ! from thee like lions from their lair 
 Abroad shall pace the Primates of this land : 
 They shall not lick the hand that gives and smites, 
 Doglike, nor snakelike on their bellies creep 
 
3<D King Ethelbert of Kent 
 
 In indirectness base. They shall not fear 
 
 The people's madness, nor the rage of kings 
 
 Reddening the temple's pavement. They shall lift 
 
 The strong brow mitred, and the crosiered hand 
 
 Before their presence sending Love and Fear 
 
 To pave their steps with greatness. From their fronts 
 
 Stubborned with marble from Saint Peter's Rock 
 
 The sunrise of far centuries forth shall flame : 
 
 He that hath eyes shall see it, and shall say, 
 
 " Blessed who cometh in the name of God ! " ' 
 
 Thus sang the Saint, advancing ; and, behold, 
 At every pause the brethren sang ' Amen ! ' 
 While down from window and from roof the throng 
 Eyed them in silence. As their anthem ceased, 
 Before them stood the palace clustered round 
 By many a stalwart form. Midway the gate 
 On the first step, like angel newly lit, 
 Queen Bertha stood. Back from her forehead meek, 
 The meeker for its crown, a veil descended, 
 While streamed the red robe to the foot snow-white 
 Sandalled in gold. The morn was on her face, 
 The star of morn within those eyes upraised 
 That flashed all dewy with the grateful light 
 Of many a granted prayer. O'er that sweet shape 
 Augustine signed the Venerable Sign ; 
 The lovely vision sinking, hand to breast, 
 
and Saint Augustine. 3 1 
 
 Received it; while, by sympathy surprised, 
 
 Or taught of God, the monarch and his thanes 
 
 Knelt as she knelt, and bent like her their heads, 
 
 Sharing her blessing. Like a palm the Faith 
 
 Thenceforth o'er England rose, those saintly men 
 
 Preaching by life severe, not words alone, 
 
 The doctrine of the Cross. Some Power divine, 
 
 Stronger than patriot love, more sweet than Spring, 
 
 Made way from heart to heart, and daily God 
 
 Joined to His Church the souls that should be saved, 
 
 Thousands, where Medway mingles with the Thames, 
 
 Rushing to Baptism. In his palace cell 
 
 High-nested on that Vaticanian Hill 
 
 Which o'er the Martyr-gardens kens the world, 
 
 Gregory, that news receiving, or from men, 
 
 Or haply from that God with whom he walked, 
 
 The Spirit's whisper ever in his ear, 
 
 Rejoiced that hour, and cried aloud, * Rejoice, 
 
 Thou Earth ! that North which from its cloud but flung 
 
 The wild beasts' cry of anger or of pain, 
 
 Redeemed from wrath, its Hallelujahs sings ; 
 
 Its waves by Roman galleys feared, this day 
 
 Kiss the bare feet of Christ's Evangelists; 
 
 That race whose oak-clubs brake our Roman swords 
 
 Glories now first in bonds the bond of Truth : 
 
 At last it fears ; but fears alone to sin, 
 
 Striving through faith for Virtue's heavenly crown. 
 
THE CONSECRATION OF WESTMINSTER 
 ABBE Y. 
 
 Sebert, King of the East Saxons, having built the great church 
 of Saint Peter at Westminster, Mellitus the Bishop prepares to 
 consecrate it, but is warned in a vision that it has already been con- 
 secrated by one greater than he. 
 
 As morning brake, Sebert, East Saxon king, 
 Stood on the winding shores of Thames alone, 
 And fixed a sparkling eye upon Saint Paul's : 
 The sun new-risen had touched its roofs that laughed 
 Their answer back. Beyond it London spread ; 
 But all between the river and that church 
 Was slope of grass and blossoming orchard copse 
 Glittering with dews dawn-reddened. Bertha here, 
 That church begun, had thus besought her Lord, 
 * Spare me this bank which God has made so fair ! 
 Here let the little birds have leave to sing, , 
 The bud to blossom! Here, the vespers o'er, 
 
The Consecration of Westminster Abbey. 33 
 
 Lovers shall sit; and here, in later days, 
 
 Children shall question, " Who was he Saint Paul ? 
 
 What taught, what wrought he that his name should 
 
 shine 
 Thus like the stars in heaven ?" 5 
 
 As Sebert stood, 
 
 The sweetness of the morning more and more 
 Made way into his heart. The pale blue smoke, 
 Rising from hearths by woodland branches fed, 
 Dimmed not the crystal matin air; not yet 
 From clammy couch had risen the mist sun- warmed: 
 All things distinctly showed ; the rushing tide, 
 The barge, the trees, the long bridge many-arched, 
 And countless huddled gables, far away, 
 Lessening, yet still descried. 
 
 A voice benign 
 
 Dispersed the Prince's trance: ' I marked, my King, 
 Your face in yonder church ; you took, I saw, 
 A blessing thence ; and Nature's here you find: 
 The same God sends them both.' The man who spake, 
 Though silver-tressed, was countenanced like a child ; 
 Smooth-browed, clear-eyed. That still and luminous 
 
 mien 
 
 Predicted realms where Time shall be no more ; 
 W T here gladness, like some honey-dew divine, 
 Freshens an endless present. Mellitus, 
 
 D 
 
34 The Consecration of 
 
 From Rome late missioned and the Ccelian Hill, 
 Made thus his greeting. 
 
 Westward by the Thames 
 
 The King and Bishop paced, and held discourse 
 Of him whose name that huge Cathedral bore, 
 Israel's great son, the man of mighty heart, 
 The man for her redemption zealous more 
 Than for his proper crown. Not task for her 
 God gave him : to the Gentiles still he preached, 
 And won them to the Cross* ' That Faith once spurned,' 
 Thus cried the Bishop with a kindling eye, 
 ' Lo, how it raised him as on eagle's wings, 
 And past the starry gates ! The Spirit's Sword 
 He wielded well ! Save him who bears the Keys, 
 Save him who made confession, " Thou art Christ," 
 Saint Paul had equal none ! Hail, Brethren crowned ! 
 Hail, happy Rome, that guard'st their mingled dust ! ' 
 
 Next spake the Roman of those churches twain 
 
 By Constantine beside the Tyber built 
 
 To glorify their names. With sudden turn, 
 
 Sebert, the crimson mounting to his brow, 
 
 Made question, c Is your Tyber of the South 
 
 Ampler than this, our Thames ? ' The old man smiled ; 
 
 4 Tyber to Thames is as that willow-stock 
 
 To yonder oak.' The Saxon cried with joy: 
 
Westminster Abbe 
 
 c How true thy judgment is ! how jusV thy tongue ! 
 What hinders, O my Father, but that Th^4- : 
 Huge river from the forests rolled by God, 
 Should image, like that Tyber, churches twain, 
 Honouring those Princes of the Apostles' Band ? 
 King Ethelbert, my uncle, built Saint Paul's; 
 Saint Peter's Church be mine ! ' 
 
 An hour's advance 
 
 Left them in thickets tangled. Low the ground, 
 Well-nigh by waters dipt, a savage haunt 
 With briar and bramble thick, and ' Thorny Isle ' 
 For that cause named. Sebert around him gazed, 
 A maiden blush upon him thus he spake : 
 ' I know this spot ; I stood here once, a boy : 
 'Twas winter then : the swoll'n and turbid flood 
 Rustled the sallows. Far I fled from men : 
 A youth had done me wrong, and vengeful thoughts 
 Burned in my heart : I warred with them in vain : 
 I prayed against them ; yet they still returned : 
 O'erspent at last, I cast me on my knees 
 And cried, " Just God, if Thou despise my prayer, 
 Faithless, thence weak, not less remember well 
 How many a man in this East Saxon land 
 Stands up this hour, in wood, or field, or farm, 
 Like me sore tempted, but with loftier heart : 
 To these be helpful yea, to one of these ! " 
 
36 The Consecration of 
 
 And lo, the wrathful thoughts, like routed fiends, 
 Left me, and came no more ! ' 
 
 Discoursing thus, 
 
 The friends a moment halted in a space 
 Where stood a flowering thorn. Ad own it trailed 
 In zigzag curves erratic here and there 
 Long lines of milky bloom, like rills of foam 
 Furrowing the green back of some huge sea wave 
 Refluent from cliffs. Ecstatic minstrelsy 
 Swelled from its branches. Birds as thick as leaves 
 Thronged them ; and whether joy was theirs that hour 
 Because the May had come, or joy of love, 
 Or tenderer gladness for their young new-fledged, 
 So piercing was that harmony, the place 
 Eden to Sebert looked, while brake and bower 
 Shone like the Tree of Life. ' What minster choir,' 
 The Bishop cried, ' could better chant God's praise ? 
 Here shall your church ascend : its altar rise 
 Where yonder thorn tree stands ! ' The old man spake; 
 Yet in him lived a thought unbreathed : ' How oft 
 Have trophies risen to blazon deeds accursed ! 
 Angels this church o'er- winging, age on age 
 Shall see that boy at prayer ! ' 
 
 In peace, in war, 
 
 Daily the work advanced. The youthful King 
 Kneeling, himself had raised the earliest sod, 
 
Westminster A bbey. 3 7 
 
 Made firm the corner stone. Whate'er of gold 
 
 Sun-ripened harvests of the royal lands 
 
 Yielded from Thames to Stour, or tax and toll 
 
 From quays mast-thronged to loud-resounding sea, 
 
 Save what his realm required by famine vexed 
 
 At times, or ravage of the Mercian sword, 
 
 Went to the work. His Queen her jewels brought, 
 
 Smiling, huge gift in slenderest hands up-piled \ 
 
 His thanes their store ; the poor their labour free. 
 
 Some clave the quarry's ledges : from its depths 
 
 Some haled the blocks ; from distant forests some 
 
 Dragged home the oak-beam on the creaking wain : 
 
 Alas, that arms in noble tasks so strong 
 
 Should e'er have sunk in dust ! Ere ten years passed 
 
 Saint Peter's towers above the high-roofed streets 
 
 Smiled on Saint Paul's. That earlier church had risen 
 
 Where stood, in Roman days, Apollo's fane: 
 
 Upon a site to Dian dedicate 
 
 Now rose its sister. Erring Faith had reached 
 
 In those twin Powers that ruled the Day and Night, 
 
 To Wisdom witnessing and Chastity, 
 
 Her loftiest height, and perished. Phoenix-like, 
 
 From ashes of dead rites and truths abused 
 
 Now soared unstained Religion. 
 
 What remained ? 
 The Consecration. On its eve, the King 
 
38 The Consecration of 
 
 Held revel in its honour, solemn feast, 
 And wisely-woven dance, where beauty and youth, 
 Through loveliest measures moving, music-winged, 
 And winged not less by gladness, interwreathed 
 Brightness with brightness, glance turned back on 
 
 glance, 
 
 And smile on smile a courtseying graciousness 
 Of stateliest forms that, winding, sank or rose 
 As if on heaving seas. In groups apart 
 Old warriors clustered. Eadbaid discussed 
 And Snorr, that truce with Wessex signed, and said, 
 4 Fear nought : it cannot last ! ' A shadow sat 
 That joyous night upon one brow alone, 
 Redwald's, East Anglia's King. In generous youth 
 He, guest that time with royal Ethelbert, 
 Had gladly bowed to Christ. From shallowest soil 
 Faith springs apace, but springs to die. Returned 
 To plains of Ely, all that sweetness past 
 Seemed but a dream while scornful spake his wife, 
 Upon whose brow beauty from love divorced 
 Made beauty's self unbeauteous : ' Lose why not ? 
 Thwarting your liegeful subjects, lose at will 
 Your Kingdom ; you that might have reigned ere now 
 Bretwalda ot the Seven ! ' In hour accursed 
 The weak man with his Faith equivocated: 
 Fraudful, beneath the self-same roofs he raised 
 
Westminster Abbey. 39 
 
 Altars to Christ and idols. By degrees 
 That Truth he mocked forsook him. Year by year 
 His face grew dark, and barbed his tongue though smooth, 
 Manner and mind like grass-fields after thaw, 
 Silk-soft above, yet iron-hard below : 
 Spleenful that night at Sebert's blithe discourse 
 He answered thus, with seeming-careless eye 
 Wandering from wall to roof: 
 
 1 1 like your Church : 
 Would it had rested upon firmer ground, 
 Adorned some airier height : its towers are good, 
 Though dark the stone : three quarries white have I ; 
 You might have used them gratis had you willed : 
 At Ely, Elmham, and beside the Cam 
 Where Felix rears even now his cloistral Schools, 
 I trust to build three churches soon: my Queen, 
 That seconds still my wishes, says, " Beware 
 Lest overhaste, your people still averse, 
 Frustrate your high intent." A woman's wit 
 Yet here my wife is wiser than her wont. 
 I miss your Bishop : grandly countenanced he. 
 Save for that mole. He shuns our revel : ay 1 
 Monastic virtue never feels secure 
 Save when it skulks in corners ! ' As he spake, 
 Despite that varnish on his brow clear-cut, 
 Stung by remembrance, from the tutored eye 
 
4O The Consecration of 
 
 Forth flashed the fire barbaric : race and heart 
 A moment stood confessed. 
 
 Old Mellitus, 
 
 That night how fared he ? In a fragile tent 
 Facing that church expectant, low he knelt 
 On the damp ground. More late, like youthful knight 
 In chapel small watching his arms untried, 
 He kept his consecration vigil still, 
 With hoary hands screening a hoary head, 
 And thus made prayer : ' Thou God to Whom all worlds 
 Form one vast temple : Thou Who with Thyself, 
 Ritual eterne, dost consecrate that Church, 
 For aye creating, hallowing it forever ; 
 Thou Who in narrowest heart of man or child 
 Makest not less Thy dwelling, turn Thine eyes 
 To-morrow on our rite. The work we work 
 Work it Thyself! Thy storm shall try it well; 
 Consummate first its strength in righteousness; 
 So shall beginning just, whate'er befall, 
 Or guard it, or restore/ 
 
 So prayed the man, 
 
 Nor ever raised his head saw nought heard nought 
 Nor knew that on the night had come a change, 
 111 Spirits, belike, whose empire is the air, 
 Grudging its glories to that pile new raised, 
 And, while they might, assailing. Through the clouds 
 
Westminster A bbey. 4 1 
 
 A panic-stricken moon stumbled and fled, 
 
 And wildly on the waters blast on blast 
 
 Ridged their dark floor. A spring-tide from the sea 
 
 Breasted the flood descending. Woods of Shene 
 
 And Hampton's groves had heard that flood all day, 
 
 No more a whisperer soft ; and meadow banks, 
 
 Not yet o'er-gazed by Windsor's crested steep 
 
 Or Reading's tower, had yielded to its wave 
 
 Blossom and bud. More high, near Oxenford, 
 
 Isis and Cherwell with precipitate stream 
 
 Had swelled the current. Gathering thus its strength 
 
 Far off and near, allies and tributaries, 
 
 That night by London onward rolled the Thames 
 
 Beauteous and threatening both. 
 
 Its southern bank 
 
 Fronting the church had borne a hamlet long 
 Where fishers dwelt. Upon its verge that night 
 Perplexed the eldest stood : his hand was laid 
 Upon the gunwale of a stranded boat ; 
 His knee was crooked against it. Shrinking still 
 And sad, his eye pursued that racing flood, 
 Here black like night, dazzled with eddies there, 
 Eddies by moonshine glazed. In doubt he mused : 
 Sudden a Stranger by him stood and spake : 
 ' Launch forth, and have no fear/ The fisher gazed 
 Once on his face ; and launched. Beside the helm 
 
42 The Consecration of 
 
 That Stranger sat. Then lo ! a watery lane 
 
 Before them opening, through the billows curved, 
 
 Level, like meadow-path. As when a weed 
 
 Drifts with the tide, so softly o'er that lane 
 
 Oarless the boat advanced, and instant reached 
 
 The northern shore, dark with that minster's shade ; 
 
 Before them close it frowned. 
 
 6 Where now thou stand'st 
 Abide thou : ' thus the Stranger spake : anon 
 Before the church's southern gate he stood : 
 Then lo ! a marvel. Inward as he passed, 
 Its threshold crossed, a splendour as of God 
 Forth from the bosom of that dusky pile 
 Through all its kindling windows streamed, and blazed 
 From wave to wave, and spanned that downward tide 
 With many a fiery bridge. The moon was quenched ; 
 But all the edges of the headlong clouds 
 Caught up the splendour till the midnight vault 
 Shone like the noon. The fisher knew, that hour, 
 That with vast concourse of the Sons of God 
 That church was thronged ; for in it many a head 
 Sun-bright, and hands lifted like hands in prayer, 
 High up he saw : meantime harmonic strain, 
 As though whatever moves in earth or skies, 
 Winds, waters, stars, had joined in one their song, 
 Above him floated like a breeze from God 
 
Westminster Abbey. 43 
 
 And heaven-born incense. Louder swelled that 
 
 strain ; 
 
 And still the Bride of God, that church late dark, 
 Glad of her saintly spousals, laughed and shone 
 In radiance ever freshening. By degrees 
 That vision waned. At last the fisher turned : 
 The matin star shook on the umbered wave ; 
 Along the East there lay a pallid streak, 
 That streak which preludes dawn. 
 
 Beside the man 
 
 Once more that Stranger stood : ' Seest thou yon tent ? 
 My Brother kneels within it. Thither speed 
 And bid him know I sent thee, speaking thus, 
 " He whom the Christians name ' the Rock ' am I : 
 My Master heard thy prayer : I sought thy church, 
 And sang myself her Consecration rite : 
 Close thou that service with thanksgiving psalm." ' 
 
 Thus spake the Stranger, and was seen no more : 
 But whether o'er the waters, as of old 
 Footing that Galilean Sea, with faith 
 Not now infirm he reached the southern shore, 
 Or passed from sight as one whom crowds conceal, 
 The fisher knew not. At the tent arrived, 
 Before its little door he bent, and lo ! 
 Within, there knelt a venerable man 
 
44 The Consecration of 
 
 With hoary hands screening a hoary head, 
 Who prayed, and prayed. His tale the fisher told : 
 With countenance unamazed, yet well content, 
 That kneeler answered, ' Son, thy speech is true ! 
 Hence, and announce thy tidings to the King, 
 Who leaves his couch but now/ 
 
 ' How beautiful ' 
 
 That old man sang, as down the Thames at morn 
 In multitudinous pomp the barges dropped, 
 Following those twain that side by side advanced, 
 One royal, one pontific, bearing each 
 The Cross in silver blazoned or in gold 
 c How beautiful, O Sion, are thy courts ! 
 Lo, on thy brow thy Maker's name is writ : 
 Fair is this place and awful ; porch of heaven : 
 Behold, God's Church is founded on a rock : 
 It stands, and shall not fall : the gates of Hell 
 Shall not prevail against it.' 
 
 From the barge 
 
 Of Sebert and his Queen, antiphonal 
 Rapturous response was wafted : * I beheld 
 Jerusalem, the City sage and blest ; 
 From heaven I saw it to the earth descending 
 In sanctity gold-vested, as a Bride 
 Decked for her Lord. I heard a voice which sang, 
 Behold the House where God will dwell with men : 
 
Westminster Abbey. 45 
 
 And God shall wipe the tears from off their face ; 
 And death shall be no more.' 
 
 Old Thames that day 
 
 Brightened with banners of a thousand boats 
 Winnowed by winds flower-scented. Countless hands 
 Tossed on the brimming river chaplets wov'n 
 On mead or hill, or branches lopped in woods 
 With fruit-bloom red, or white with clustering cone, 
 Changing clear stream to garden. Mile on mile 
 Now song was heard, now bugle horn that died 
 Gradual 'mid sedge and reed. Alone the swan 
 High on the western waters kept aloof; 
 Remote she eyed the scene with neck thrown back, 
 Her ancient calm preferring, and her haunt 
 Crystalline still. Alone the Julian Tower 
 Far down the eastern stream, though tapestries waved 
 From every window, every roof o'er-swarmed 
 With anthem-echoing throngs, maintained, unmoved, 
 Roman and Stoic, her Csesarean pride : 
 On Saxon feasts she fixed a cold, grey gaze ; 
 'Mid Christian hymns heard but the old acclaim 
 * Consul Romanus.' 
 
 When the sun had reached 
 Its noonday height, a people and its king 
 Around their minster pressed. With measured tread 
 And Introit chanted, up the pillared nave 
 
46 The Consecration of Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Reverent they moved : then knelt. Between their 
 
 . ranks 
 
 Their Bishop last advanced with mitred brow 
 And in his hand the Cross, at every step 
 Signing the benediction of his Lord. 
 The altar steps he mounted. Turning then 
 Westward his face to that innumerous host, 
 Thus spake he unastonished : ' Sirs, ere now 
 This church's Consecration rite was sung : 
 Be ours to sing thanksgiving to our God, 
 " Ter-Sanctus," and "Te Deum."' 
 
47 
 
 THE PENANCE OF SAINT LAURENCE. 
 
 Eadbald, King of Kent, persecuting the Church, Laurence the 
 Bishop deems himself the chief of sinners because he has consented, 
 like the neighbouring bishops,, to depart ;. but, being consoled by a 
 wonderful reprimand, faces the King, and offers himself up to 
 death. The King reproves them that gave him evil counsel. 
 
 THE day was dying on the Kentish downs 
 
 And in the oakwoods by the Stour was dead, 
 
 While sadly shone o'er snowy plains of March 
 
 Her comfortless, cold star. The daffodil 
 
 That year was past its time. The leaden stream 
 
 Had waited long that lamp of river-beds 
 
 Which, when the lights of Candlemas are quenched, 
 
 Looks forth through February mists. A film 
 
 Of ice lay brittle on the shallows : dark 
 
 And swift the central current rushed : the wind 
 
 Sighed through the tawny sedge. 
 
 ' So fleets our life 
 Like yonder gloomy stream ; so sighs our age 
 
48 The Penance of Saint Laurence. 
 
 Like yonder sapless sedge ! ' Thus Laurence mused 
 Standing on that sad margin all alone, 
 His twenty years of gladsome English toil 
 Ending at last abortive. ' Stream well-loved, 
 Here on thy margin standing saw I first, 
 My head by chance uplifting from my book, 
 King Ethelbert's strong countenance ; he is dead ; 
 And, next him, riding through the April gleams, 
 Bertha, his Queen, with face so lit by love 
 Its lustre smote the beggar as she passed . 
 And changed his sigh to song. She too is dead ; 
 And half their thanes that chased the stag that day, 
 Like echoes of their own glad bugle-horn, 
 Have passed and are not. Why must I abide ? 
 And why must age, querulous and coward both, 
 Past days lamenting, fear not less that stroke 
 Which makes an end of grief? Base life of man ! 
 How -sinks thy slow infection through our bones ; 
 Then when you fawned upon us, high-souled youth 
 Heroic in its gladness, spurned your gifts, 
 Yearning for noble death. In age, in age 
 We kiss the hand that nothing holds but dust, 
 Murmuring, " Not yet ! " ' 
 
 A tear, ere long ice-glazed, 
 
 Hung on the old man's cheek. ' What now remains ? ' 
 Some minutes passed ; then, lifting high his head, 
 
The Penance of Saint Laurence. 49 
 
 He answered, ' God remains/ His faith, his heart, 
 Were unsubverted. ; Twas the weight of grief, 
 The exhausted nerve, the warmthless blood of age, 
 That pressed him down like sin, where sin was none 
 Not sin, but weakness only. Long he mused, 
 Then slowly walked, and feebly, through the woods 
 Towards his house monastic. Vast it loomed 
 Through ground-fog seen ; and vaster, close beside, 
 That convent's church by great Augustine reared 
 Where once old woodlands clasped a temple old, 
 Vaunt of false Gods, To Peter and to Paul 
 That church was dedicate, albeit so long 
 High o'er the cloudy rack of fleeting years 
 It bore, and bears, its founder's name, not theirs. 
 Therein that holy founder slept in Christ, 
 And Ethelbert, and Bertha. All was changed : 
 King Eadbald, new-crowned and bad of life, 
 Who still, whate'er was named of great or good, 
 Made answer, ' Dreams ! I say the flesh rules all ! ' 
 Hated the Cross. His Queen, that portent crowned, 
 She that with name of wife was yet no wife, 
 Abhorred that Cross and feared. A Baptist new 
 In that Herodian court had Laurence stood, 
 Commanding, ' Put the evil thing away 1 ' 
 Since then the woman's to the monarch's hate 
 Had added strength the serpent's poison-bag 
 E 
 
5O The Penance of Saint Laurence. 
 
 Venoming the serpent's fang. ' Depart the realm ! ' 
 With voice scarce human thus the tyrant cried, 
 * Depart or die ; ; and gave the Church's goods 
 To clown and boor. 
 
 Upon the bank of Thames 
 Settled like ruin. Holy Sebert dead, 
 In that East Saxon kingdom monarch long, 
 Three sons unrighteous now their riot held. 
 Frowning into the Christian Church they strode, 
 Full-armed, and each, with far-stretched foot firm set 
 Watching the Christian rite. c Give us/ they cried, 
 While knelt God's children at their Paschal Feast, 
 ' Give us those circlets of your sacred bread : 
 Ye feed therewith your beggars ; kings are we ! ' 
 The Bishop answered, ' Be, like them, baptized, 
 Sons of God's Church, His Sacrament with man, 
 For that cause Mother of Christ's Sacraments, 
 So shall ye share her Feast/ With lightning speed 
 Their swords leaped forth; contemptuous next they 
 
 cried, 
 
 6 For once we spare to sweep a witless head 
 From worthless shoulders. Ere to-morrow's dawn 
 Hence, nor return ! ' He sped to Rochester : 
 Her bishop, like himself, was under ban : 
 The twain to Canterbury passed, and there 
 Resolved to let the tempest waste its wrath, 
 And crossed the seas. By urgency outworn, 
 
The Penance of Saint Laurence. 
 
 'Gainst that high judgment of his holier will 
 Laurence to theirs deferred, but tarried yet 
 For one day more to cast a last regard 
 On regions loved so long. 
 
 As compline ceased 
 
 He reached the abbey gates, and entered in : 
 Sadly the brethren looked him in the face, 
 Yet no one said, ' Take comfort ! ' Sad and sole 
 He passed to the Scriptorium : round he gazed, 
 And thought of happy days, when Gregory, 
 One time their Abbot, next their Pope, would send 
 Some precious volume to his exiled sons, 
 While they in reverence knelt, and kissed its edge, 
 And, kissing, heard once more, as if in dream, 
 Gregorian chants through Roman palm trees borne 
 With echoes from the Coliseum's wall 
 Adown that Coelian Hill ; and s'aw God's poor 
 At feast around that humble board which graced 
 That palace senatorial once. He stood : 
 He raised a casket from an open chest, 
 And from that casket drew a blazoned scroll, 
 And placed it on the window-sill up-sloped 
 Breast-high, and faintly warmed by sinking sun ; 
 Then o'er it bent a space. 
 
 With sudden hands 
 
 The old man raised that scroll ; aloud he read : 
 E 2 
 
52 The Penance of Saint Laurence. 
 
 1 I, Ethelbert the King, and all my Thanes, 
 Honouring the Apostle Peter, cede to God 
 This Abbey and its lands. If heir of mine 
 Cancel that gift, when Christ with angels girt 
 Makes way to judge the Nations of this world, 
 His name be cancelled from the Book of Life.' 
 The old man paused ; then read the signatures, 
 1 1, Ethelbert, of Kent the King.' Who next ? 
 1 I, Eadbald, his son;' to these succeeding, 
 * I, Hennigisil, Duke ; ' 'I, Hocca, Earl.' 
 ' Can such things be ? ' Around the old man's brow 
 The veins swelled out; dilated nostril, mouth 
 Working as mouth of him that tasteth death, 
 With what beside is wiselier unrevealed, 
 Witnessed that agony which spake no more ; 
 He dashed the charter on the pavement down ; 
 Then on it gazed a space. 
 
 Remembering soon 
 
 Whose name stood first on that dishonoured list, 
 Contrite he raised that charter to his breast, 
 And pressed it there in silence. Hours went by; 
 Then dark was all that room, and dark around 
 The windy corridors and courts stone-paved ; 
 And bitter blew the blast : his unlooped cloak 
 Fell loose : the cold he noted not. At last 
 A brother passed the door with lamp in hand : 
 
The Penance of Saint Laurence. 53 
 
 Dazzled, he started first: then meekly spake, 
 ' Beseech the brethren that they strew my bed 
 Within the church. Until the second watch 
 There must I fast, and pray.' 
 
 The brethren heard, 
 
 And strewed his couch within the vast, void nave, 
 A mat and deer-skin, and, more high, that stone 
 The old head's nightly pillow. Echoes faint 
 Ere long of their receding footsteps died 
 While from the dark fringe of a rainy cloud 
 An ice-cold moon, ascending, streaked the church 
 With gleam and gloom alternate. On his knees 
 Meantime that aged priest was creeping slow 
 From stone to stone, as when on battle-plain, 
 The battle lost, some warrior wounded sore, 
 By all forsaken, or some war-horse maimed, 
 Drags a blind bulk along the field in search 
 Of thirst-assuaging spring. Glittered serene 
 That light before the Sacrament of Love : 
 Thither he bent his way, and long time prayed : 
 Thence onward crept to where King Ethelbert 
 Slept, marble-shrined his ashes, not the King, 
 Yet ashes kingly since God's temple once, 
 And waiting God's great day. Before that tomb, 
 Himself as rigid, with lean arms outspread, 
 Thus made the man his moan : 
 
54 The Penance of Saint Laurence. 
 
 6 King Ethelbert ! 
 
 Hear'st thou in glory? Ofttimes on thy knees 
 Thou mad'st confession of thine earthly sins 
 To me, a wounded worm this day on earth : 
 Now comforted art thou, and I brought low : 
 Yet, though I see no more that beaming front, 
 And haply for my sins may see it never, 
 Yet inwardly I gladden, knowing this 
 That thou art glad. Perchance thou hear'st me not, 
 For thou wert still a heedless man of mirth, 
 Though sage as strong at need. If this were so, 
 Not less thy God would hear my prayer to thee, 
 And grant it in thy reverence. Ethelbert ! 
 Thou hadst thy trial time, since, many a year 
 All shepherdless thy well-loved people strayed 
 What time thyself, their shepherd, knew'st not Christ, 
 Sole shepherd of man's race. King Ethelbert ! 
 Reniemberest thou that day in Thanet Isle ? 
 That day the Bride of God on English shores 
 Set her pure foot ; and thou didst kneel to kiss it : 
 Thou gav'st her meat and drink in kingly wise ; 
 Gav'st her thy palace for her bridal bower ; 
 This Abbey build'dst her fortress ! O those days 
 Crowned with such glories, with such sweetness winged! 
 Thou saw'st thy realm made one with Christ's : thou 
 saw'st 
 
The Penance of Saint Laurence. 55 
 
 Thy race like angels ranging courts of Heaven : 
 This day, behold, thou seest the things thou seest ! 
 If there be any hope, King Ethelbert, 
 Help us this day with God ! ' 
 
 Upon his knees 
 
 Then crept that exile old to Bertha's tomb, 
 And there made moan : ' Thou tenderest Queen and 
 
 sweetest, 
 
 Whom no man ever gazed on save with joy, 
 Or spake of, dead, save weeping ! Well I know 
 That on thee in thy cradle Mary flung 
 A lily whiter from her hand, a rose 
 Warm from her breath and breast, for all thy life 
 Was made of Chastities and Charities 
 This hour thine eyes are on that Vision bent 
 Whereof the radiance, ere by thee beheld, 
 Gave thee thine earthly brightness. Mirrored there, 
 Seest thou, like moat in sunbeam well-nigh lost, 
 Our world of temporal anguish ? See it not ! 
 For He alone, the essential Peace Eterne, 
 Could see it unperturbed. In Him rejoice ! 
 Yet, 'mid thy heavenly triumph, plead, O plead 
 For hearts that break below ! ' 
 
 Upon the ground 
 
 Awhile that man sore tried his forehead bowed ; 
 Then raised it till the frore and foggy beam 
 
56 The Penance of Saint Laurence. 
 
 Mixed with his wintry hair. Once more he crept 
 Upon his knees through shadow reached at length 
 His toilsome travel's last and dearest bourn, 
 The grave of Saint Augustine. O'er it lay 
 The Patriarch's statued semblance as in sleep : 
 He knew it well, and found it, though to him 
 In darkness lost and veil beside of tears, 
 With level hands grazing those upward feet 
 Oft kissed, yet ne'er as now. 
 
 * Farewell forever ! 
 Farewell, my Master, arid farewell, my friend ! 
 
 Since ever thou in heaven abid'st and I 
 
 Gregory the Pontiff from that Roman Hill 
 
 Sent thee to work a man's work far away, 
 
 And manlike didst thou work it. Prince, yet child, 
 
 Men saw thee, and obeyed thee. O'er the earth 
 
 Thy step was regal, meekness of thy Christ 
 
 Weighted with weight of conquerors and of kings : 
 
 Men saw a man who toiled not for himself, 
 
 Yet never ceased from toil ; who warred on Sin ; 
 
 Had peace with all beside. In happy hour 
 
 God laid His holy hand upon thine eyes : 
 
 I knelt beside thy bed : I leaned mine ear 
 
 Down to thy lips to catch their last ; in vain : 
 
 Yet thou perchance wert murmuring in thy heart : 
 
 " I leave my staff within no hireling's hand ] 
 

 The Penance of Saint Laurence. 57 
 
 Therefore my work shall last." Ah me ! Ah me ! 
 
 There was a Laurence once on Afric's shore : 
 
 He with his Cyprian died. I too, methinks, 
 
 Had shared how gladly shared my Bishop's doom. 
 
 Father, with Gregory pray this night ! That God 
 
 Who promised, " for my servant David's sake," 
 
 Even yet may hear thy prayer.' 
 
 Thus wept the man, 
 
 Till o'er him fell half slumber. Soon he woke, 
 And, from between that statue's marble feet 
 Lifting a marble face, in silence crept 
 To where far off his bed was strewn, and drew 
 The deer-skin covering o'er him. With its warmth 
 Deep sleep, that solace of lamenting hearts 
 Which makes the waking bitterer, o'er him sank, 
 Nor wholly left him, though in sleep he moaned 
 When from the neighbouring farm, an hour ere dawn, 
 The second time rang out that clarion voice 
 Which bids the Christian watch. 
 
 As thus he lay 
 
 T'wards him there moved in visions of the Lord 
 A Venerable Shape, compact of light, 
 And loftier than our mortal. . Near arrived, 
 That mild, compassionate Splendour shrank his beam, 
 Or healed with strengthening touch the gazer's eyes 
 Made worthier of such grace ; and Laurence saw 
 
58 The Penance of Saint Laurence. 
 
 Princedom not less than his, the Apostles' Chief, 
 To whom the Saviour answered, ' Rock art thou, 1 
 And later crowning Love, not less than Faith 
 4 Feed thou My Sheep, My Lambs!' He knew that 
 
 shape, 
 
 For oft, a child 'mid catacombs of Rome, 
 And winding ways girt by the martyred dead, 
 His eyes had seen it. Pictured on those vaults 
 Stood Peter, Moses of the Christian Law, 
 Figured in one that by the Burning Bush 
 Unsandalled knelt, or drew with lifted hand 
 The torrent from the rock, yet wore not less 
 In aureole round his head the Apostle's name 
 ' Petros,' and in his hand sustained the Keys 
 Such shape once more he saw. 
 
 6 And comest thou then 
 Long-waited, or with sceptre-wielding hand 
 Earthward to smite the unworthiest head on earth, 
 Or with the darker of those Keys thou bearest 
 Him from the synod of the Saints to shut 
 Who fled as flies the hireling ? Let it be ! 
 Not less in that bright City by whose gate 
 Warder thou sitt'st, my Master thou shalt see 
 Pacing the diamond terraces of God 
 And bastions jacinth-veined, my great Augustine, 
 When all who wrought the ill have passed to doom, 
 
Tke Penance of Saint Laurence. 59 
 
 And all who missed the good. Nor walks he sole : 
 
 By him forever and forever pace 
 
 My Ethelbert, my Bertha ! Who can tell 
 
 But in the on-sweeping centuries thrice or twice 
 
 These three may name my name ?' He spake and wept. 
 
 To whom the Apostolic Splendour thus : 
 1 Live, and be strong : for those thou lovest in Christ 
 Not only in far years shall name thy name ; 
 This day be sure that name they name in Christ : 
 Else wherefore am I here ? Not thou alone, 
 Much more in griefs bewilderment than fear, 
 Hast from the right way swerved. Was I not strong ? 
 I, from the first Elect, and named anew? 
 I who received, at first, divine command 
 The Brother-band to strengthen ; last to rule ? 
 I who to Hebrew and to Gentile both 
 Flung wide the portals of the heavenly realm ? 
 Was I not strong ? Behold, thou know'st my fall ! 
 A second fall was near. At Rome the sword 
 Against me raged. Forth by the Appian Way 
 I fled ; and, past the gateway, face to face, 
 Him met, Who up the steep of Calvary, bare 
 For man's behoof the Cross. "Where goest thou, 
 
 Lord?" 
 
 I spake ; then He : " I go to Rome, once more 
 To die for him who fears for me to die." 
 
60 The Penance of Saint Laurence. 
 
 To Rome returned I ; and my end was peace. 
 Return thou too. Thy brethren have not sinned : 
 They fled, consentient with the Will Supreme : 
 Their names are written in the Book of Life : 
 Enough that He Who gives to each his part 
 Hath sealed thy sons and thee to loftier fates ; 
 Therefore more sternly tries. Be strong ; be glad : 
 For strength from joyance comes.' 
 
 The Vision passed : 
 
 The old man, seated on his narrow bed, 
 Rolled thrice his eyes around the vast, dim church, 
 Desiring to retain it. Vain the quest ! 
 Yet still within his heart that Radiance lived : 
 The sweetness of that countenance fresh from God 
 Would not be dispossessed, but kindled there 
 Memorial dawn of brightness, more and more 
 Growing to perfect day : inviolate peace, 
 Such peace as heavenly visitants bequeath, 
 O'er-spread his spirit, gradual, like a sea : 
 Forth from the bosom of that peace upsoared 
 Hope, starry- crowned, and winged, that liberates oft 
 Faith, unextinct, though bound by Powers accursed 
 That o'er her plant the foot, and hold the chain 
 Terror and Sloth. To noble spirits set free 
 Delight means gratitude. Thus Laurence joyed : 
 But soon, remembering that unworthy past, 
 
The Penance of Saint Laurence. 61 
 
 Remorse succeeded, sorrow born of love, 
 
 Consoled by love alone. ' Ah ! slave/ he cried, 
 
 That, serving such a God, could'st dream of flight : 
 
 How many a babe, too weak to lift his head, 
 
 Is strong enough to die ! ' While thus he mused 
 
 The day-dawn reaching to his pallet showed 
 
 That Discipline, wire-woven, in ancient days 
 
 Guest of monastic bed. He snatched it thence : 
 
 Around his bending neck and shoulders lean 
 
 In dire revenge he hurled it. Spent at last, 
 
 Though late, those bleeding hands down dropped : the 
 
 cheek 
 
 Sank on the stony pillow. Little birds, 
 Low-chirping ere their songs began, attuned 
 Slumber unbroken. In a single hour 
 He slept a long night's sleep. 
 
 The rising sun 
 
 Woke him : but in his heart another sun, 
 New-risen serene with healing on its wings, 
 Outshone that sun in brightness. 'Mid the choir 
 His voice was loudest while they chanted lauds : 
 Brother to brother whispered, issuing forth, 
 * He walks in stature higher by a head 
 Than in the month gone by ! ' 
 
 That day at noon 
 King Eadwald, intent to whiten theft 
 
62 The Penance of Saint Laurence. 
 
 And sacrilege with sanctitudes of law, 
 
 Girt by his warriors and his Witena, 
 
 Enthroned sat. ' What boots it ? ' laughed a thane ; 
 
 ' Laurence has fled ! we battle with dead men ! ' 
 
 ' Ay, ay/ the King replied, ' I told you oft 
 
 Sages can brag ; your dreamer weaves his dream : 
 
 But honest flesh rules all ! 7 While thus they spake 
 
 Confusion filled the hall : through guarded gates 
 
 A priest advanced with mitre and with Cross, 
 
 A monk that seemed not monk, but prince disguised : 
 
 It was Saint Laurence. As he neared the throne 
 
 The fashion of the tyrant's face was changed : 
 
 6 Dar'st thou ? ' he cried, ' I deemed thee fled the realm 
 
 What seek'st thou here ? ' The Saint made answer, 
 
 ' Death.' 
 
 Calmly he told his tale ; then ended thus : 
 1 To me that sinful past is sin of one 
 Buried in years gone by. All else is dream 
 Save that last look the Apostle on me bent 
 Ere from my sight he ceased. I saw therein 
 The reflex of that wondrous last Regard 
 Cast by the sentenced Saviour of mankind 
 On one who had denied Him, standing cold 
 Beside the High Priest's gate. Like him, I wept ; 
 His countenance wrought my penance, not his hand : 
 I scarcely felt the scourge.' 
 
The Penance of Saint Laurence. 63 
 
 King Eadbald 
 
 Drave back the sword half drawn, and round him stared ; 
 Then sat as one amazed. He rose ; he cried, 
 1 Ulf ! Kathnar ! Strip his shoulders bare ! If true 
 His tale, the brand remains ! ' 
 
 Two chiefs stepped forth : 
 
 They dragged with trembling hand, and many a pause, 
 The external garb pontific first removed, 
 Dark, blood-stained garment from the bleeding flesh, 
 The old man kneeling. Once, and only once, 
 The monarch gazed on that disastrous sight, 
 Muttering, ' and yet he lives ! ' A time it was 
 Of swift transitions. Hearts, how proud soe'er, 
 Made not that boast consistency in sin, 
 Though dark and rough accessible to Grace 
 As earth to vernal showers. With hands hard-clenched 
 The King upstarted : thus his voice rang out : 
 6 Beware, who gave ill counsel to their King ! 
 The royal countenance is against them set, 
 111 merchants trafficking with his lesser moods ! 
 Does any say the King wrought well of late, 
 Warring on Christ, and chasing hence his priests ? 
 The man that lies shall die ! This day, once more 
 I ratify my Father's oath, and mine, 
 To keep the Church in peace : and though I sware 
 To push God's monks from yonder monastery 
 
64 The Penance of Saint Laurence, 
 
 And lodge therein the horses of the Queen, 
 
 Those horses, and the ill-persuading Queen, 
 
 Shall flee my kingdom, and the monks abide ! 
 
 Brave work ye worked, my loose-kneed Witena, 
 
 This day, Christ's portion yielding to my wrath ! 
 
 See how I prize your labours ! ' With his sword 
 
 He clave the red seal from their statute scroll 
 
 And stamped it under foot. Once more he spake, 
 
 Gazing with lion gaze from man to man : 
 
 1 The man that, since my Father, Ethelbert, . 
 
 Though monarch, stooped to common doom of men, 
 
 Hath filched from Holy Church fee-farm, or grange, 
 
 Sepulchral brass, gold chalice, bell or book, 
 
 See he restore it ere the sun goes down ; 
 
 If not, he dies ! Not always winter reigns ; 
 
 May-breeze returns, and bud-releasing breath, 
 
 When hoped the least : -'tis thus with royal minds ! ' 
 
 He spake : from that day forth in Canterbury 
 
 Till reigned the Norman, crowned on Hastings' field, 
 
 God's Church had rest. In many a Saxon realm 
 
 Convulsion rocked her cradle : altars raised 
 
 By earlier kings by later were o'erthrown : 
 
 One half the mighty Roman work, and more, 
 
 Fell to the ground : Columba's Irish monks 
 
 The ruin raised. From Canterbury's towers, 
 
 ' Rome of the North ' long named, from them alone 
 
TJie Penance of Saint Laurence. 65 
 
 Above sea-surge still shone that vestal fire 
 
 By tempest fanned, not quenched; and at her 
 
 breast 
 
 For centuries six were nursed that Coelian race, 
 The Benedictine Primates of the Land. 
 
66 
 
 KING SIGEBERT OF EAST ANGLIA, AND 
 HEIDA THE PROPHETESS. 
 
 Sigebert, King of East Anglia, moved by what he has heard 
 from a Christian priest, consults the Prophetess Heida. In the 
 doctrine he reports Heida recognises certain sacred traditions from 
 the East, originally included in the Northern religion, and affirms 
 that the new Faith is the fulfilment of the great Voluspa prophecy, 
 the earliest record of that religion, which foretold the destruction 
 both of the Odin- Gods and the Giant race, the restoration of all 
 things, and the reign of Love. 
 
 LONG time upon the late-closed door the King 
 Kept his eyes fixed. The wondrous guest was gone ; 
 Yet, seeing that his words were great and sage, 
 Compassionate for the sorrowful state of man. 
 Yet sparing not man's sin, their echoes lived 
 Thrilling large chambers in the monarch's breast 
 Silent for many a year. Exiled in France 
 The mystery of the Faith had reached his ear 
 In word but not in power. The westering sun 
 
King Sigebert of East Anglia, etc. 67 
 
 Lengthened upon the palace floor its beam, 
 
 Yet the strong hand which propped that thoughtful head 
 
 Sank not, nor moved. Sudden, King Sigebert 
 
 Arose and spake : ' I go to Heida's Tower : 
 
 Await ye my return/ 
 
 The woods ere long 
 
 Around him closed. Upon the wintry boughs 
 An iron shadow pressed ; and as the wind 
 Increased beneath their roofs, an iron sound 
 Clangoured funereal. Down their gloomiest aisle, 
 With snow flakes white, the monarch strode, till now 
 Before him, and not distant, Heida's Tower, 
 The Prophetess by all men feared yet loved, 
 Smit by a cold beam from the yellowing west, 
 
 Shone like a tower of brass. Her ravens twain 
 
 Crested the turrets of its frowning gate, 
 
 Unwatched by warder. Sigebert passed in : 
 
 Beneath the stony vault the queenly Seer 
 
 Sat on her ebon throne. 
 
 With pallid lips 
 
 The King rehearsed his tale ; how one with brow 
 
 Lordlier than man's, and visionary eyes 
 
 Which, wander where they might, saw Spirits still, 
 
 Had told him many marvels of some God 
 
 Mightier than Odin thrice. He paused awhile : 
 
 A warning shadow came to Heida's brow : 
 
68 King Sigebert of East Anglia, and 
 
 Nathless she nothing spake. The King resumed : 
 6 He spake that stranger of the things he saw : 
 For he, his body tranced, it may be dead, 
 In spirit oft hath walked the Spirit-Land : 
 Thence, downward gazing, once he saw our earth, 
 A little vale obscure, and, o'er it hung, 
 Those four great Fires that desolate mankind : 
 The Fire of Falsehood first ; the Fire of Lust, 
 Ravening for weeds and scum ; the Fire of Hate, 
 Hurling, on war-fields, brother-man 'gainst man ; 
 The Fire of tyrannous Pride. While yet he gazed, 
 Behold, those Fires, widening, commixed, then soared 
 Threatening the skies. A Spirit near him cried, 
 " Fear nought ; for breeze-like pass the flames o'er him 
 In whom they won no mastery there below : 
 But woe to those who, charioted therein, 
 Rode forth triumphant o'er the necks of men, 
 And had their day on earth. Proportioned flames 
 Of other edge shall try their work and them ! " 
 Thus spake my guest : the frost wind smote his brows, 
 While on that moonlit crag we sat, ice-cold, 
 Yet down them, like the reaper's sweat at noon, 
 The drops of anguish streamed. Till then, methinks, 
 That thing Sin is I knew not. 
 
 Calm of voice 
 Again he spake. He told me of his God : 
 
Heida the Prophetess. 69 
 
 That God, like Odin, is a God of War : 
 
 Who serve Him wear His armour day and night : 
 
 The maiden, nay, the child, must wield the sword ; 
 
 Yet none may hate his neighbour. Thus he spake, 
 
 That Prophet from far regions : " Wherefore wreck 
 
 Thy brother man ? upon his innocent babes 
 
 Drag down the ruinous roof? Seek manlier tasks ! 
 
 The death in battle is the easiest death : 
 
 Be yours the daily dying ; lifelong death ; 
 
 Death of the body that the soul may live : 
 
 War on the Spirits unnumbered and accurst 
 
 Which, rulers of the darkness of this world, 
 
 Drive, hour by hour, their lances through man's soul 
 
 That wits not of the wounding ! " 
 
 Heida turned 
 
 A keen eye on the King : ' Whence came your guest ? 
 Not from those sun-bright southern shores, I ween ? ' 
 He answered, ( Nay, from western isle remote 
 That Prophet came.' Then Heida's countenance fell : 
 1 The West ! the West ! it should have been the East ! 
 Conclude your tale : what saith your guest of God ? ' 
 The King replied : ' His God so loved mankind 
 That, God remaining, he became a man ; 
 So hated sin that, sin to slay, He died. 
 One tear of His had paid the dreadful debt : 
 Not so He willed it : thus He willed, to wake 
 
 
7o King Sigebert of East Anglia, and 
 
 In man, His lost one, quenchless hate of sin, 
 Proportioned to the death -pang of a God ; 
 Nor chose He lonely majesty of death : 
 'Twixt sinners paired He died/ 
 
 In Heida's eye 
 
 Trembled a tear. ' A dream was mine in youth, 
 When first the rose of girlhood warmed my cheek, 
 A dream of some great Sacrifice that claimed 
 Not praise not praise it only yearned to die 
 Helping the Loved. A maid alone, I thought, 
 Such sacrifice could offer.' As she spake, 
 She pressed upon the pale cheek, warmed once more, 
 Her cold, thin hand a moment. 
 
 6 Maiden-born 
 
 Was He, my guest revealed/ the King replied : 
 ' Then from that Angel's " Hail," and her response, 
 " So be it unto me/' when sinless doubt 
 Vanished in world-renewing, free consent, 
 He told the tale ; the Infant in the crib ; 
 The shepherds o'er him bowed ; ' (with widening eyes 
 Heida, bent forward, saw like them that Child) 
 
 ' The Star that led the Magians from the East ' 
 
 1 The East, the East ! It should have been the East ! ' 
 Once more she cried : ' our race is from the East : 
 The Persian worshipped t'ward the rising sun : 
 You said, but now, the West.' The King resumed : 
 
Heida the Prophetess. 7 1 
 
 ' God's priest was from the West ; but in the East] 
 
 The great Deliverer sprang. 7 Next, step by step, 
 
 Like herald panting forth in leaguered town 
 
 Tidings unhoped for of deliverance strange 
 
 Through victory on some battle field remote, 
 
 The King rehearsed his theme, from that first Word, 
 
 1 The Woman's Seed shall bruise the Serpent's head,' 
 
 Prime Gospel, ne'er forgotten in the East, 
 
 To Calvary's Cross, the Resurrection morn, 
 
 Lastly the great Ascension into heaven : 
 
 And ever as he spake on Heida's cheek 
 
 The red spot, deepening, spread : within her eyes 
 
 An unastonished gladness waxed more large : 
 
 Back to the marble woman came her youth : 
 
 Once more within her heaving breast it lived, 
 
 Once more upon her forehead shone, as when 
 
 The after-glow returns to Alpine snows 
 
 Left death-like by dead day. Question at times 
 
 She made, yet seemed the answer to foreknow. 
 
 That tale complete, low-toned at last she spake : 
 
 * Unhappy they to whom these things are hard ! ' 
 
 Then silent sat, and by degrees became 
 
 Once more that dreaded prophet, stern and cold. 
 
 The silence deeper grew : the sun, not set, 
 
 Had sunk beneath the forest's western ridge ; 
 
 And jagged shadows tinged that stony floor 
 
72 King Sigebert of East Anglia, and 
 
 Whereon the monarch knelt. Slowly therefrom 
 He raised his head ; then slowly made demand : 
 4 Is he apostate who discards old Faith ? ' 
 
 Long time in musings Heida sat, then spake : 
 
 ' Yea, if that Faith discarded be the Truth : 
 
 Not so, if it be falsehood. God is Truth; 
 
 God-taught, true hearts discern that Truth, and guard: 
 
 Whom God forsakes forsake it. O thou North, 
 
 That beat'st thy brand so loud against thy shield, 
 
 Hearing nought else, what Truth one day was thine ! 
 
 Behold within corruption's charnel vaults 
 
 It sleeps this day. What God shall lift its head ? 
 
 We came from regions of the rising sun : 
 
 Scorning the temples built by mortal hand, 
 
 We worshipp'd God one God the Immense, All-Just: 
 
 That worship was the worship of great hearts : 
 
 Duty was worship then : that God received it : 
 
 I know not if benignly He received ; 
 
 If God be Love I know not. This I know, 
 
 God loves not priest that under roofs of gold 
 
 Lifts, in his right hand held, the Sacrifice; 
 
 The left, behind him, fingering for the dole. 
 
 King of East Anglia's realm, the primal Truths 
 
 Are vanished from our Faith: the ensanguined rite, 
 
 The insane carouse survive ! ' 
 
, 
 Heida the Prophet!^ fl 7 I T Y j 
 
 ke, 
 
 Heida, the strong one by the strong ones feared; ' 
 Heida, the sad one by the mourners loved; 
 Heida, the brooder on the sacred Past, 
 The nursling of a Prophet House, the child 
 Of old traditions sage ! 
 
 She paused, and then 
 
 Milder, resumed : l What moved thee to believe ? * 
 And Sigebert made answer thus : ' The Sword : 
 For as a sword that Truth the stranger preached 
 Ran down into my heart.' Heida to him, 
 ' Well saidst thou " as a Sword : " a Sword is 
 
 Truth ; 
 
 As sharp a sword is Love : and many a time 
 In youth, but not the earliest, happiest youth, 
 When first I found that grief was in the world, 
 Had learned how deep its root, an infant's wail 
 Went through me like a sword. Man's cry it seemed, 
 The blindfold, crowned creature's cry for Truth, 
 His spirit's sole deliverer.' 
 
 Once again 
 
 She mused, and then continued, ' Truth and Love 
 Are gifts too great to give themselves for nought ; 
 Exacting Gods. Within man's bleeding heart, 
 If e'er to man conceded, both shall lie 
 Crossed, like two swords 
 
 
74 King Sigebert of East Anglia, and 
 
 Behold thine image, crowned Humanity ! 
 Better such dower than life exempt from woe : 
 Our Fathers knew to suffer; joyed in pain ; 
 They knew not this how deep its root ! ' 
 
 Once more 
 
 The Prophetess was mute : again she spake : 
 ' How named thy guest his God ? ' The King replied : 
 ' The Warrior God, Who comes to judge the world ; 
 The Lord of Love ; the God Who wars on Sin, 
 And ceases not to war.' ' Ay, militant,' 
 Heida rejoined, with eyes that shone like stars: 
 ( The Persian knew Him. Ormuzd was His name : 
 Unpitying Light against the darkness warred; 
 Against the Light the Darkness. Could the Light 
 Remit, one moment's length, to pierce that gloom, 
 Himself in gloom were swallowed. 7 
 
 Yet again 
 
 In silence Heida sat ; then cried aloud, 
 ' Odin, and all his radiant ^Esir Gods 
 Forth thronging daily from the golden gates 
 Of Asgard City, their supernal house, 
 War on that giant brood of Jotiinheim, 
 Lodged 'mid their mountains of eternal ice 
 Which circles still that sea surrounding earth, 
 Man's narrow home. I know that mystery now ! 
 That warfare means the war of Good on 111 : 
 
Heida the Prophetess. 75 
 
 We shared that warfare once ! This day, depraved, 
 
 Warring, we war alone for rage and hate ; 
 
 Men fight as fight the lion and the pard : 
 
 For them the sanctity of war is lost, 
 
 Lost like the kindred sanctity of Love, 
 
 Our household boast of old. The Father-God 
 
 Vowed us to battle but as Virtue's proof, 
 
 High test of softness scorned. His warrior knew 
 
 Twas Odin o'er the battle field who sent 
 
 Pure-handed maiden Goddesses, the Norns, 
 
 Not vulture-like, but dove-like, mild as dawn, 
 
 To seal the foreheads of his sons elect, 
 
 Seal them to death, the bravest with a kiss : 
 
 His warrior, arming, cried aloud, " This day 
 
 I speed five Heroes to ValhaUa's Hall: 
 
 To-morrow night in love I share their Feast ! " 
 
 He honoured whom he slew.' 
 
 To her the King : 
 
 1 That Stranger with severer speech than thine, 
 Sharp flail and stigma, charged the world with sin, 
 The vast, wide world, and not one race alone : 
 Each nation, he proclaimed, from Man's great stem 
 Issuing, had with it borne one Word divine 
 Rapt from God's starry volume in the skies, 
 Each word a separate Truth, that, angel-like, 
 Before them winging, on their faces flung 
 
 
76 King Sigebert of East Anglia, and 
 
 Splendour of destined morn, and led man's race 
 
 Triumphant long on virtue's road. Themselves 
 
 Had changed that True to False. The Judge had come; 
 
 That Power Who both beginning is and end 
 
 Had stooped to earth to judge the earth with fire; 
 
 A fire of Love, He came to cleanse the just ; 
 
 A fire of Vengeance, to consume the impure : 
 
 His fan is in His hand : the chaff shall burn; 
 
 The grain be garnered. " Fall, high palace roofs," 
 
 He cried, " for ye have sheltered dens of sin: 
 
 Fall, he that, impious, scorned the First and Last ; 
 
 Fall, he that bowed not to the hoary head ; 
 
 Fall, he that loosed by fraud the maiden zone; 
 
 Fall, he that lusted for the poor man's field ; 
 
 Fall, rebel Peoples ; fall, disloyal Kings ; 
 
 And fall " dread Mother, is the word offence ? 
 
 "False Gods, long served ; for God Himself is nigh." ' 
 
 The monarch ceased : on Heida's face that hour 
 He feared to look ; but when she spake, her voice 
 Betrayed no passion of a soul perturbed: 
 Austere it was ; not wrathful ; these her words : 
 6 Son, as I hearkened to thy tale this day, 
 Memory returned to me of visions three 
 That lighted three great junctures of my life : 
 And thrice thy words were echoes strange of words 
 
Heida the Prophetess. 77 
 
 That shook my tender childhood, slumbering half, 
 Half- waked by matin beams "The Gods must die." 
 Three times that awful sound was in mine ear : 
 Later I learned that voice was nothing new. 
 My Son, the earliest record of our Faith, 
 So sacred that on Runic stave or stone 
 None dared to grave it, lore from age to age 
 Transmitted by white lips of trembling seers, 
 Spared not to wing, like arrow sped from God, 
 That word to man, " Valhalla's Gods must die ! " 
 The Gods and Giant Race that strove so long, 
 Met in their last and mightiest battle field, 
 Must die, and die one death. That prophet-voice 
 The Gods have heard. Therefore they daily swell 
 Valhalla's Hall with heroes rapt from earth 
 To aid them in that fight.' 
 
 On Heida's face 
 
 At last the King, his head uplifting, gazed : 
 There where the inviolate calm had dwelt alone 
 A million thoughts, each following each, on swept, 
 That calm beneath them still, as when some grove, 
 O'er- run by sudden gust of summer storm, 
 With inly-working panic thrills at first, 
 Then springs to meet the gale, while o'er it rush 
 Shadows with splendours mixed. Upon her breast 
 Came down the fire divine. With lifted hands 
 
78 King Sigebert of East Anglia, and 
 
 She stood: she sang a death-song centuries old, 
 The dirge prophetic both of Gods and men : 
 
 * The iron age shall make an iron end : 
 The men who lived in hate, or impious love, 
 Shall meet in one red battle field. That day 
 The forests of the earth, blackening, shall die ; 
 The stars down-fall ; the Winged Hound of Heaven, 
 That chased the Sun from age to age, shall close 
 O'er it at last ; the Ash Tree, Ygdrasil, 
 Whose boughs o'er-roof the skies, whose roots descend 
 To Hell, whose leaves are lives of men, whose boughs 
 The destined empires that o'er-awe the world, 
 Shall drop its fruit unripe. The Midgard Snake, 
 Circling that sea which girds the orb of earth, 
 Shall wake, and turn, and ocean in one wave 
 O'er-sweep all lands. Thereon shall Naglfar ride, 
 The skeleton ship all ribbed with bones of men, 
 Whose sails are woven of night, and by whose helm 
 Stand the Three Fates. When heaves that ship in sight, 
 Then know the end draws nigh. ; 
 
 She ceased; then spake : 
 ' If any doubt, the Voluspa tells all, 
 The song the mystic maiden, Vola, sang ; 
 Our first of prophets she, as I the last : 
 She sang that song no Prophet dared to write.' 
 
Heida the Prophetess. 79 
 
 But Sigebert made answer where he knelt, 
 Old Faith back rushing blindly on his heart : 
 ' Though man's last nation lay a wreath of dust, 
 Though earth were sea, not less in heaven the Gods 
 Would hold their revels still; Valhalla's Halls 
 Resound the heroes' triumph ! ' 
 
 Once again 
 
 Heida arose: once more her pallid face 
 Shone lightning-like, wan cheeks and flashing eyes ; 
 Once more she sang : ' The Warder of the Gods, 
 Soundeth the Gjallar Trumpet, never heard 
 Before by Gods or mortals : from their feast 
 The everlasting synod of the Gods 
 Rush forth, gold-armed, with chariot and with horse : 
 First rides the Father of the flock divine, 
 Odin, our King, and, at his right hand, Thor 
 Whose thunder hammer splits the mountain crags 
 And level lays the summits of the world ; 
 Heimdall and Bragi, Uller, Njord, and Tyr, 
 Behind them throng; with these the concourse huge 
 Of lesser Gods, and Heroes snatched from earth, 
 Since man's first battle, part to bear with Gods 
 In this their greatest. From their halls of ice 
 To meet them stride the mighty Giant-Brood, 
 The moving mountains of old Jotunheim, 
 Strong with all strengths of Nature, flood or fire, 
 
8o King Sigebert of East Anglia, and 
 
 Glacier, or stream volcanic from red hills 
 
 Cutting through grass-green billows; on they throng 
 
 Topping the clouds, and, leagues before them, flinging 
 
 Huge shade, like shade of mountains cast o'er wastes 
 
 When sets the sun.' A little time she ceased ; 
 
 Then fiercelier sang : ' Flanking that Giant-Brood 
 
 I see two Portents, terrible as Sin : 
 
 The Midgard Snake primeval at the right, 
 
 With demon-crest as haughtily upheaved 
 
 As though all ocean curled into one wave : 
 
 A million rainbows braid that glooming arch ; 
 
 And Death therein is mirrored. At the left, 
 
 On moves that brother Terror, wolf in shape, 
 
 Which, bound till now by craft of prescient Gods, 
 
 Weltered in HelFs abyss. Till came the hour 
 
 A single hair inwoven by heavenly hand 
 
 Sufficed to chain that monster to his rock; 
 
 His fast is over now; his dusky jaws 
 
 At last the Eternal Hunger lifts distent 
 
 As far as heaven from earth.' 
 
 The Prophetess 
 
 One moment pressed her palms upon her eyes, 
 Then flung them wide. * The Father of the Gods, 
 Our Odin, at that Portent hurls his lance ; 
 And Thor, though bleeding fast, with hammer raised 
 Deals with that Serpent's scales.' 
 
Heida the Prophetess. 8 1 
 
 'The Gods shall win,* 
 Shouted the King, forgetting at that hour 
 All save the strife, while on his brow there burned 
 Hue of the battle at the battle's height 
 When no man staunches wound. With voice serene 
 (The storm had left her) Heida made reply : 
 6 If any doubt, the Voluspa tells all. 
 Ere yet Valhalla's lower heaven was shaped 
 Muspell, the great Third Heaven immeasurable, 
 Above it towered, throne of that God Supreme, 
 Who knew beginning none, and knows no end : 
 High on its southern cliff that dread One sits, 
 Nor ever from the South withdraws His gaze, 
 Nor ever drops that bright, sky-pointing Sword 
 Whose splendour dims the noontide sun. That God 
 He, and the Spirit- Host that wing His light, 
 When shines the Judgment Sign, shall stand on earth, 
 And judge the earth with fire. Nor men nor Gods 
 Shall face that fire and live.' 
 
 As Heida spake 
 
 The broad full moon above the forest soared, 
 And changed her form to light. With hands out-stretched 
 She sang her last of songs : ' The Hour is come : 
 Bifrost, the rainbow-bridge 'twixt heaven and earth 
 Shatters ; the crystal walls of heaven roll in: 
 Above the ruins ride the Sons of Light. 
 
 G 
 
82 King Sigebert of East Anglia, and 
 
 That dread One first 
 
 Forth from His helm the intolerable beam 
 
 Strikes to the battle-field; the Giant-Brood 
 
 Die in that flame; and Odin, and his Gods : 
 
 Valhalla falls, and with it Jotunheim, 
 
 Its ice-piled mountains melting into waves: 
 
 In fire are all things lost ! ' 
 
 Then wept the King : 
 ' Alas for Odin and his brethren Gods 
 That in their great hands stayed the northern land ! 
 Alas for man ! ' But Heida, with fixed face 
 Whereon there sat its ancient calm, replied : 
 ' Nothing that lived but shall again have life, 
 Such life as virtue claims. Ill-working men 
 With Loki and with Hela, evil Gods, 
 Shall dwell far down in Nastrond's death-black pile 
 Compact of serpent scales, whose thousand gates 
 Face to the North, blinded by endless storm : 
 But from the sea shall rise a happier earth, 
 Holier and happier. There the good and true 
 Secure shall gladden, and the fiery flame 
 Harm them no more. Another Asgard there 
 Where stood that earlier, ere our fathers left 
 Their native East, shall lift sublimer towers 
 Dawn-lighted by a loftier Ararat : 
 Just men and pure shall pace its palmy steeps 
 With him of race divine yet human heart, 
 
Heida the Prophetess. 83 
 
 Baldur, upon whose beaming front the Gods 
 Gazing, exulted; from whose lips mankind 
 Shall gather counsel. Hand in hand with him 
 Shall stand the blind God, Hodur, now not blind, 
 That, witless, slew him with the .mistletoe, 
 Yet loved him well. Others, both men and Gods, 
 That dread Third Heaven attained, shall make abode 
 With Him Who ever is, and ever was, 
 Enthroned like Him upon its southern cliff, 
 Drinking the light immortal. From beneath, 
 Like winds from flowery wildernesses borne, 
 The breath of all good deeds and virtuous thoughts, 
 Their own, or others', since the worlds were made, 
 All generous sufferings, o'er their hearts shall hang, 
 Fragrance perpetual; and, where'er they gaze, 
 The Vision of their God shall on them shine.' 
 
 Thus Heida spake, and ceased ; then added, ' Son, 
 Our Faith shall never suffer wreck : fear nought ! 
 Fulfilment, not Destruction, is its end. 
 But thou return, and bid thy herald guest 
 Who sought thee, wandering from his westward Isle, 
 Approach my gates at dawn, and in mine ear 
 Divulge his message to this land. Farewell !.' 
 
 Then from his knees the monarch rose, and took 
 Through the huge moonlit woods his homeward way. 
 
KING SIGEBERT OF ESSEX, OR A 
 ERIEND AT NEED. 
 
 Sigebert, King of Essex, labours with Cedd the Bishop for the con- 
 version of his people ; but he feasts with a certain impious kinsman ; 
 and it is foretold to him that for that sin, though pardoned, he shall 
 die by that kinsman's hand. This prophecy having been accom- 
 plished, Cedd betakes himself to Lastingham, there to pray with his 
 three brothers for the king's soul. His prayer is heard, and in a few 
 days he dies. Thirty of Cedd's monks, issuing from Essex to pray 
 at his grave, die also, and are buried in a circle round it. 
 
 i AT last resolve, my brother, and my friend ! 
 Fling from you, as I fling this cloak, your Gods, 
 And cleave to Him, the Eternal, One and Sole, 
 The All-Wise, All-Righteous and Illimitable, 
 Who made us, and will judge/ Thus Oswy spake 
 To Sigebert, his friend, of Essex King, 
 Essex once Christian. Royal Sebert dead, 
 The Church of God had sorrow by the Thames : 
 Three Pagan brothers in his place held sway : 
 They warred upon God's people ; for which cause 
 
King Sigebert of Essex. 85 
 
 God warred on them, and by the Wessex sword 
 In one day hewed them down. King Sigebert, 
 Throned in their place, to Oswy thus replied : 
 ' O friend, I saw the Truth, yet saw it not ! 
 'Twas like the light forth flashed from distant oar, 
 Now vivid, vanished now. Not less, methinks, 
 Thy Christ ere now had won me save for this ; 
 I feared that in my bosom love for thee, 
 Not Truth alone, prevailed. I left thy court j 
 I counselled with my wisest ; by degrees, 
 Though grieving thus to outrage loyal hearts, 
 Reached my resolve : henceforth I serve thy God : 
 My kingdom may renounce me if it will.' 
 Then came the Bishop old, and nigh that Wall 
 Which spans the northern land from sea to sea 
 Baptized him to the God Triune. At night 
 The King addressed him thus : ( My task is hard ; 
 Yield me four priests of thine from Holy Isle 
 To shape my courses.' Finan gazed around 
 And made election Cedd and others three ; 
 He consecrated Cedd with staff and ring ; 
 And by the morning's sunrise Sigebert 
 Rode with them, face to south. 
 
 The Spring, long checked, 
 Fell, like God's Grace, or fire, or flood, at once 
 O'er all the land : it swathed the hills in green ; 
 
86 King Sigebert of Essex, or 
 
 It fringed with violets cleft and rock ; illumed 
 
 The stream with primrose tufts : but mightier far 
 
 That Spring which triumphed in the monarch's breast, 
 
 All doubt dispelled. That smile which knew not cause 
 
 Looked like his angel's mirrored on his face : 
 
 At times he seemed with utter gladness dazed ; 
 
 At times he laughed aloud. ' Father/ he cried, 
 
 4 That darkness from my spirit is raised at last : 
 
 Ah fool ! ah fool ! to wait for proof so long ! 
 
 Unseal thine eyes, and all things speak of God : 
 
 The snows on yonder thorn His pureness show ; 
 
 Yon golden iris bank His love. But now 
 
 I marked a child that by its father ran : 
 
 Some mystery they seemed of love in heaven 
 
 Imaged in earthly love.' With sad, sweet smile 
 
 The old man answered : ' Pain there is on earth 
 
 Bereavement, sickness, death.' The King replied : 
 
 ' It was by suffering, not by deed, or word, 
 
 God's Son redeemed mankind.' Then answered Cedd : 
 
 ' God hath thee in His net ; and well art thou ! 
 
 That Truth thou seest this day, and feelest, live ! 
 
 So shall it live within thee. If, more late, 
 
 Rebuke should come, or age, remember then 
 
 This day-spring of thy strength, and answer thus, 
 
 " With me God feasted in my day of youth : 
 
 So feast He now with others ! " ' 
 
a Friend at need. 
 
 Years went by, 
 
 And Cedd in work and word was mighty still, 
 And throve with God. The strong East Saxon race 
 Grew gentle in his presence : they were brave, 
 And faith is courage in the things divine, 
 Courage with meekness blent. The heroic heart 
 Beats to the spiritual cognate, paltering not 
 Fraudulent with truth once known. Like winds from 
 
 God 
 
 God's message on them fell. Old bonds of sin, 
 Snapt by the vastness of the growing soul, 
 Burst of themselves ; and in the heart late bound 
 Virtue had room to breathe. As when that Voice 
 Primeval o'er the formless chaos rolled, 
 And, straight, confusions ceased, the greater orb 
 Ruling the day, the lesser, night ; even so, 
 Born of that Bethlehem Mystery, order lived : 
 Divine commandments fixed a firmament 
 Betwixt man's lower instincts and his mind : 
 From unsuspected summits of his spirit 
 The morning shone. The nation with the man 
 Partook the joy : from duty freedom flowed ; 
 And there where tribes had roved a people lived. 
 A pathos of strange beauty hung thenceforth 
 O'er humblest hamlet : he who passed it prayed 
 6 May never sword come here ! ' Bishop and King 
 
88 ( King Sigebert of Essex, or 
 
 Together laboured : well that Bishop's love 
 Repaid that royal zeal. If random speech 
 Censured the King, though justly, sudden red 
 Circling the old man's silver-tressed brow 
 Showed, though he spake not, that in saintly breast 
 The human heart lived on. 
 
 In Ithancester 
 
 He dwelt, and toiled : not less to Lindisfarne, 
 His ancient home, in spirit oft he yearned, 
 Longing for converse with his God alone ; 
 And made retreat there often, not to shun 
 Labour allotted, but to draw from heaven 
 Strength for his task. One year, returning thence, 
 Deira's King addressed him as they rode : 
 * My father, choose the richest of my lands 
 And build thereon a holy monastery ; 
 So shall my realm be blessed, and I, and mine.' 
 He answered : ' Son, no wealthy lands for us ! 
 Spake not the prophet : " There where dragons roamed, 
 In later days the grass shall grow the reed " ? 
 I choose those rocky hills that, on our left, 
 Drag down the skiey waters to the woods : 
 Such loved I from my youth : to me they said, 
 " Bandits this hour usurp our heights, and beasts 
 Cumber our caves : expel the seed accurst. 
 And yield us back to God 1" ' 
 
a Friend at need. 89 
 
 The King gave ear ; 
 
 And Cedd within those mountains passed his Lent, 
 Driving with prayer and fast the spirits accurst 
 With ignominy forth. Foundations next 
 He laid with sacred pomp. Fair rose the walls : 
 All day the March sea blew its thunder blasts 
 Through wide-mouthed trumpets of ravine or rift 
 On winding far to where in wooden cell 
 The old man prayed, while o'er hrm rushed the cloud 
 Storm-borne from crag to crag. Serener breeze, 
 With alternation soft in Nature's course, 
 Following ere long, great Easter's harbinger, 
 Thus spake he : ' I must keep the Feast at home ; 
 My children there expect me.' Parting thence, 
 He left his brothers three to consummate 
 His work begun, Celin, and Cynabil, 
 And Chad, at Lichfield Bishop ere he died. 
 Thus Lastingham had birth. 
 
 Beside the Thames 
 
 Meantime dark deeds were done. There dwelt two thanes, 
 The kinsmen of the King, his friends in youth, 
 Of meanest friend unworthy. Far and wide 
 They ravined, and the laws of God and man 
 Despised alike. Three times, in days gone by, 
 A warning hand their Bishop o'er them raised ; 
 The fourth like bolt from heaven on them it fell, 
 
go King Sigebert of Essex, or 
 
 And clave them from God's Church. They heeded not ; 
 And now the elder kept his birthday feast, 
 Summoning his friends around him, first the King. 
 Doubtful and sad, the o'er-gentle monarch mused : 
 6 To feast with sinners is to sanction sin, 
 A deed abhorred ; the alternative is hard : 
 Must then their sovereign shame with open scorn 
 Kinsman and friend ? I think they mourn the past, 
 And, were our Bishop here, would pardon sue.' 
 Boding, yet self-deceived, he joined that feast : 
 Thereat he saw scant sign of penitence : 
 Ere long he bade farewell. 
 
 That self-same hour 
 
 Cedd from his northern pilgrimage returned ; 
 The monarch met him at the offenders' gate, 
 And, instant when he saw that reverend face, 
 His sin before him stood. Down from his horse 
 Leaping, he told him all, and penance prayed. 
 Long time the old man on that royal front 
 Fixed a sad eye. ' Thy sin was great, my son, 
 Shaming thy God to spare a sinner's shame : 
 That sin thy God forgives, and I remit : 
 But those whom God forgives He chastens oft : 
 My son, I see a sign upon thy brow ! 
 Ere yonder lessening moon completes her wane 
 Behold, the blood-stained hand late clasped in thine 
 
a Friend at need. 9 1 
 
 Shall drag thee to thy death/ The King replied : 
 ' A Sigebert there lived, East Anglia's King, 
 Whose death was glorious to his realm. May mine, 
 Dark and inglorious, strengthen hearts infirm, 
 And profit thus my land.' 
 
 A time it was 
 
 When Christian mercy, judged by Pagan hearts, 
 Not virtue seemed but sin. That sin's reproach 
 The King had long sustained. Ere long it chanced 
 That, near the stronghold of that impious feast, 
 A vanquished rebel, long in forests hid, 
 Drew near, and knelt to Sigebert for grace, 
 And won his suit. The monarch's kinsmen twain, 
 Those men of blood, forth-gazing from a tower, 
 Saw all \ heard all. Upon them fury fell, 
 As when through cloudless skies there comes a blast 
 From site unknown, that, instant, finds its prey, 
 Circling some white-sailed bark, or towering tree, 
 And, with a touch, down- wrenching ; all things else 
 Unharmed, though near. They snatched their daggers up, 
 And rushed upon their prey, and, shouting thus, 
 * White-livered slave, that mak'st thy throne a jest, 
 And mock'st great Odin's self, and us, thy kin, 
 To please thy shaveling,' struck him through the heart ; 
 Then, spurring through the woodlands to the sea, 
 Were never heard of more. 
 
92 King Sigebert of Essex, or 
 
 Throughout the land 
 
 Lament was made ; lament in every house, 
 As though in each its eldest-born lay dead ; 
 Lament far off and near. The others wept : 
 Cedd, in long vigils of the lonely night, 
 Not wept alone, but lifted strength of prayer 
 And, morn by morn, that Sacrifice Eterne, 
 Mightier tenfold in impetrative power 
 Than prayers of all man's race, from Adam's first 
 To his who latest on the Judgment Day 
 Shall raise his hands to God. Four years went by : 
 That mourner's wound they staunched not. Oft in 
 
 sleep 
 
 He murmured low, ' Would I had died for thee ! ' 
 Arrd once, half-waked by rush of morning rains, 
 ' Why saw I on his brow that fatal sign ? 
 He might have lived till now ! ' Within his heart 
 At last there rose a cry, * To Lastingham ! 
 Pray with thy brothers three, for saints are they : 
 So shall thy friend, who resteth in the Lord 
 With perfect will submiss, the waiting passed, 
 Gaze on God's Vision with an eye unsealed, 
 In glory everlasting.' At that thought 
 Peace on the old man settled. Staff in hand 
 Forth on his way he fared. Nor horse he rode 
 Nor sandals wore. He walked with feet that bled, 
 
a Friend at need. 93 
 
 Paying, well pleased, that penance for his King ; 
 And murmured oft times, * Not my blood alone ! 
 Nay, but my life, my life ! ' 
 
 Yet penance pain, 
 
 Like pain of suffering Souls at peace with God, 
 Quelled not that gladness which, from secret source 
 Rising, overflowed his heart. Old times returned : 
 Once more beside him rode his King in youth 
 Southward to where his realm his duty lay, 
 Exulting captive of the Saviour Lord, 
 With face love-lit. As then, the vernal prime 
 Hourly with ampler respiration drew 
 Delight of purer green from balmier airs : 
 As then the sunshine glittered. By their path 
 Now hung the woodbine ; now the hare-bell waved; 
 Rivulets new-swoll'n by melted snows, and birds 
 'Mid echoing boughs with rival rapture sang : 
 At times the monks forgat their Christian hymns, 
 By humbler anthems charmed. They gladdened more 
 Beholding oft in cottage doors cross-crowned 
 Angelic faces, or in lonely ways ; 
 Once as they passed there stood a little maid, 
 Some ten years old, alone 'mid lonely pines, 
 With violets crowned and primrose. Who were those, 
 The forest's white-robed guests, she nothing knew ; 
 Not less she knelt. With hand uplifted Cedd 
 
94 King Sigebert of Essex, or 
 
 Signed her his blessing. Hand she kissed in turn ; 
 Then waved, yet ceased not from her song, * Alone 
 ' Two lovers sat at sunset.' 
 
 Every eve 
 
 Some village gave the wanderers food and rest, 
 Or half-built convent with its church thick-walled 
 And polished shafts, great names in after times, 
 Ely, and Croyland, Southwell, Medeshamstede, 
 Adding to sylvan sweetness holier grace, 
 Or rising lonely o'er morass and mere 
 With bowery thickets isled, where dogwood brake 
 Retained, though late, its red. To Boston near, 
 Where Ouse, and Aire, and Derwent join with Trent, 
 And salt sea waters mingle with the fresh, 
 They met a band of youths that o'er the sands 
 Advanced with psalm, cross-led. The monks rejoiced, 
 Save one from Ireland Dicul. He, quick-eared, 
 Had caught that morn a war-cry on the wind, 
 And, sideway glancing from his Office-book, 
 Descried the cause. From Mercia's realm a host 
 Had crossed Northumbria's bound. His thin, worn face 
 O'er-flamed with sudden anger, thus he cried : 
 * In this, your land, men say, " Who worketh prays ; " 
 In mine we say, " Well prays who fighteth well : " 
 A Pagan race treads down your homesteads ! Slaves, 
 That close not with their throats ! ' 
 
a Friend at need. 95 
 
 Advancing thus, 
 
 On the tenth eve they came to Lastingham : 
 Forth rushed the brethren, watching long far off, 
 To meet them, first the brothers three of Cedd, 
 Who kissed him, cheek and mouth. Gladly that night 
 Those foot- worn travellers laid them down, and slept, 
 Save one alone. Old Cedd his vigil made, 
 And, kneeling by the tabernacle's lamp, 
 Prayed for the man he mourned for, ending thus : 
 1 Thou Lord of Souls, to Thee the Souls are dear ! 
 Thou yearn'st toward them as they yearn to Thee ; 
 Behold, not prayer alone for him I raise : 
 I offer Thee my life.' When morning's light 
 In that great church commingled with its gloom, 
 The monks, slow-pacing, by that kneeler knelt, 
 And prayed for Sigebert, beloved of God ; 
 And lastly offered Mass : and it befell 
 That when, the Offering offered, and the Dead 
 Rightly remembered, he who sang that Mass 
 Had reached the l Nobis quoque famulis,' 
 There came to Cedd an answer from the Lord 
 Heard in his heart ; and he beheld his King 
 Throned 'mid the Saints Elect of God who keep 
 Perpetual triumph, and behold that Face 
 Which to its likeness hourly more compels 
 Those faces t'ward It turned. That function o'er, 
 
96 King Sigebert of Essex, or 
 
 Thus spake the Bishop: 'Brethren, sing " Te Deum ; "' 
 They sang it ; while within him he replied, 
 c Lord, let Thy servant now depart in peace.' 
 
 A week went by with gladness winged and prayer. 
 
 In wonder Cedd beheld those structures new 
 
 From small beginnings reared, though many a gift, 
 
 Sent for that work's behoof, had fed the poor 
 
 In famine time laid low. Moorlands he saw 
 
 By cornfields vanquished ; marked the all-beauteous 
 
 siege 
 
 Of pasture yearly threatening loftier crags 
 Loud with the bleat of lambs. Their shepherd once 
 Had roved a bandit ; next had toiled a slave ; 
 Now with both hands he poured his weekly wage 
 Down on his young wife's lap, his pretty babes 
 Gambolling around for joy. A hospital 
 Stood by the convent's gate. With moistened eye, 
 Musing on Him Who suffers in His sick, 
 The Bishop paced it. There he found his death : 
 That year a plague had wasted all the land : 
 It reached him. Late that night he said, * ; Tis well ! ' 
 In three days more he lay with hands death-cold 
 Crossed on a peaceful breast. 
 
 Like winter cloud 
 Borne through dark air, that portent feared of man, 
 
a Friend at need. 97 
 
 111 tidings, making way with mystic speed, 
 Shadowed ere long the troubled bank of Thames, 
 And spread a wailing round its Minsters twain, 
 Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's. Saint Alban's caught 
 That cry, and northward echoed. Southward soon 
 Forlorn it rang 'mid towers of Rochester ; 
 Then seaward died. But in that convent pile, 
 Wherein so long the Saint had made abode, 
 A different grief there lived, a deeper grief, 
 That grief which part hath none in sobs or tears 
 Which needs must act. There thirty monks arose, 
 And, taking each his staff, made vow thenceforth 
 To serve God's altar where their father died, 
 Or share his grave. Through Ithancestor's gate 
 As forth they paced between two kneeling crowds, 
 A little homeless boy, who heard their dirge 
 (Late orphaned, at its grief he marvelled not), 
 So loved them that he followed, shorter steps 
 Doubling 'gainst theirs. At first the orphan wept : 
 That mood relaxed : before them now he ran 
 To pluck a flower ; as oft he lagged behind, 
 The wild bird's song so aptly imitating 
 That, by his music drawn, or by his looks, 
 That bird at times forgat her fears, and perched 
 Pleased on his arm. As flower and bird to him 
 Such to those monks the child. Better each day 
 
 H 
 
98 King Sigebert of Essex, or 
 
 He loved them ; yet, revering, still he mocked, 
 
 And though he mocked, he kissed. The westering sun 
 
 On the eighth eve from towers of Lastingham 
 
 Welcomed those strangers. In another hour, 
 
 Well-nigh arrived, they saw that grave they sought 
 
 Sole on the church's northern slope. As when, 
 
 Some father, absent long, returns at last, 
 
 His children rush loud-voiced from field to house, 
 
 And cling about his knees ; and they that mark 
 
 Old reaper, bent no more, with hook in hand, 
 
 Or ploughman, leaning 'gainst the old blind horse 
 
 Beholding wonder not ; so to that grave 
 
 Rushed they ; so clung. Around that grave ere long 
 
 Their own were ranged. That plague which smote 
 
 the sire 
 
 Spared not his sons. With ministering hand 
 From pallet still to pallet passed the boy, 
 Now from the dark spring wafting colder draught, 
 Now moistening fevered lips, or on the brow 
 Spreading the new-bathed cincture. Him alone 
 The infection reached not. When the last was gone 
 He felt as though the earth, man's race yea, God 
 Himself were dead. Around he gazed, and spake, 
 ' Why then do I remain ? ' 
 
 From hill to hill 
 (The monks on reverend offices intent) 
 
 
a Friend at need. 99 
 
 All solitary oft that boy repaired, 
 From each in turn forth gazing, fain to learn 
 If friend were t' wards him nighing. Many a hearth 
 More late, bereavement's earlier anguish healed, 
 Welcomed the creature : many a mother held 
 The milk-bowl to his mouth, in both hands stayed, 
 With smile the deeper for the draught prolonged, 
 And lodged, as he departed, in his hand 
 Her latest crust. With children of his age 
 Seldom he played. That convent gave him rest j 
 Nor lost he aught, surviving thus his friends, 
 Since childhood's sacred innocence he kept, 
 While life remained, unspotted. When mature 
 Five years he lived there monk, and reverence drew 
 To that high convent through his saintly ways ; 
 Then died. Within that cirque of thirty graves 
 They laid him, close to Cedd. In later years, 
 Because they ne'er could learn his name or race, 
 Nor yet forget his gentle looks, the name 
 Of Deodatus graved they on his tomb. 
 
 H 2 
 
IOO 
 
 KING OSWALD OF NORTHUMBRIAN OR 
 
 THE BRITON'S REVENGE. 
 
 Northumbria having been subdued by Pagan Merc.ia, Oswald 
 raises there again the Christian standard. Penda wages war 
 against him, in alliance with Cadwallon, a Cambrian prince who 
 hates the Saxon conquerors the more bitterly when become 
 Christians. Encouraged by St. Columba in a vision, Oswald with 
 a small force vanquishes the hosts of Cadwallon, who is slain. 
 He sends to lona for monks of St. Columba's order, converts 
 his country to the Faith, and dies for her. The earlier British 
 race expiates its evil revenge. 
 
 THE agony was over which but late 
 
 Had shook to death Northumbrians realm new-raised 
 
 By Edwin, dear to God. The agony 
 
 At last was over ; but the tear flowed on : 
 
 The Faith of Christ had fallen once more to dust, 
 
 That Faith which spoused with golden marriage ring 
 
 The land to God, when Coiffi, horsed and mailed, 
 
 Chief Priest himself, hurled at the Temple's wall 
 
 His lance, and quivering left it lodged therein. 
 
King Oswa Id of Northiimbria. i o i 
 
 The agony had ceased ; yet Rachael's cry 
 Still pierced the childless region. Penda's sword 
 Had swept it, Mercians Christian-hating King ; 
 Fiercelier Cadwallon's, Cambria's Christian Prince, 
 Christian in vain. The British wrong like fire 
 Burned in his heart. Well-nigh two hundred years 
 That British race, they only of the tribes 
 By Rome subdued, sustained unceasing war 
 'Gainst those barbaric hordes that, nursed long since 
 'Mid Teuton woods, when Rome her death- wound felt, 
 And '' Habet ' shrilled from every trampled realm, 
 Rushed forth in ruin o'er her old domain : 
 That race against the Saxon still made head ; 
 Large remnant yet survived. The Western coast 
 Was theirs ; old sea-beat Cornwall's granite cliffs, 
 And purple hills of Cambria ; northward thence 
 Strathclyde, from towered Carnegia's winding Dee 
 To Morecombe's shining sands, and those fair vales, 
 Since loved by every muse, where silver meres 
 Slept in the embrace of yew-clad mountain walls ; 
 With tracts of midland Britain and the East. 
 Remained the memory of the greatness lost ; 
 The Druid circles of the olden age ; 
 The ash- strewn cities radiant late with arts 
 Extinct this day ; bath, circus, theatre 
 Mosaic -paved ; the Roman halls defaced ; 
 
IO2 King Oswald of Northumbrian, or 
 
 The Christian altars crushed. That last of wrongs 
 The vanquished punished with malign revenge : 
 Never had British priest to Saxon preached ; 
 And when that cry was heard, ' The Saxon King 
 Edwin hath bowed to Christ/ on Cambrian hills 
 Nor man nor woman smiled. 
 
 They had not lacked 
 
 The timely warning. From his Kentish shores 
 Augustine stretched to them paternal hands : 
 Later, he sought them out in synod met, 
 Their custom, under open roof of heaven. 
 ' The Mother of the Churches,' thus he spake, 
 ' Commands implores you ! Seek from her, and win 
 The Sacrament of Unity Divine ! 
 Thus strengthened, be her strength ! With her con- 
 joined, 
 
 Subdue your foe to Christ ! ' He sued in vain. 
 The British bishops hurled defiance stern 
 Against his head, while Cambrian peaks far off 
 Darkened, and thunder muttered. From his seat, 
 Slowly and sadly as the sun declined 
 At last, though late, that Roman rose and stretched 
 A lean hand t'ward that circle, speaking thus : 
 6 Hear then the sentence of your God on sin ! 
 Because ye willed not peace, behold the sword ! 
 Because ye grudged your foe the Faith of Christ, 
 
the Britons Revenge. 103 
 
 Nor holp to lead him on the ways of life, 
 For that cause from you by the Saxon hand 
 Your country shall be taken ! ' 
 
 Edwin slain, 
 
 Far off in exile dwelt his nephews long, 
 Oswald and Oswy. Alba gave them rest, 
 Alba, not yet called Scotland. Ireland's sons, 
 Then Scoti named, had warred on Alba's Picts : 
 Columba's Gospel vanquished either race ; 
 Won both to God. It won not less those youths, 
 In boyhood Oswald, Oswy still a child. 
 That child was wild and hot, and had his moods, 
 Despotic now, now mirthful. Mild as Spring 
 Was Oswald's soul, majestic and benign ; 
 Thoughtful his azure eyes, serene his front ; 
 He of his ravished sceptre little recked ; 
 The shepherds were his friends ; the mountain deer 
 Would pluck the ivy fearless from his hand : 
 In gladness walked he till Northumbria's cry 
 Smote on his heart. ' Why rest I here in peace,' 
 Thus mused he, ' while my brethren groan afar ? ' 
 By night he fled with twelve companion youths, 
 Christians like him, and reached his native land. 
 Too fallen it seemed to aid him. On he passed ; 
 The ways were desolate, yet evermore 
 A slender band around his footsteps drew, 
 
IO4 King Oswald of Northumbria, or 
 
 Less seeking victory than an honest death. 
 Oft gazed their King upon them ; murmured oft, 
 * Few hands true hearts ! ' Sudden aloud he cried, 
 1 Plant here the royal Standard, friends, and hence 
 Let sound the royal trumpet.' 
 
 Stern response 
 
 Reached him ere long : not Mercia's realm alone j 
 Cambria that heard the challenge joined the war : 
 Cambria, upon whose heart the ancestral woe, 
 For ever with the years, like letters graved 
 On growing pines, grew larger and more large ; 
 To Penda forth she stretched a hand blood-red ; 
 Christian with Pagan joined, an unblest bond, 
 A league accursed. The indomitable hate 
 Compelled that league. Still from his cave the Seer 
 Admonished, ' Set the foe against the foe ; 
 Slay last the conqueror ! ' and from rock and hill 
 The Bard cried, 4 Vengeance ! ' In the bardic clan 
 That hatred of their country's ancient bane 
 Lived like a faith. One night it chanced a tarn, 
 Secreted high 'mid cold and moonless hills, 
 Bursting its bank down burst. That valley's Bard 
 Clomb to the church-roof from his buried house : 
 Thence rang his song, 'twas ' Vengeance ! Vengeance ; 
 
 still ! 
 That torrent reached the roof : he clomb the tower : 
 
the Britons Reve\ 
 
 The torrent mounted : on the bleak h 
 
 All night the dalesmen, wailing o'er their 
 
 Amid the roar of winds and downward rocks, 
 
 Still heard that war-song, ' Vengeance ! Blood for blood ! ' 
 
 At last the tower fell flat, and winter morn 
 
 Shone on the waters only. 
 
 Three short weeks 
 
 Dinned with alarums passed ; in Mercia still 
 Lay Penda, sickness- struck, when, face to face, 
 The Cambrian host and Oswald's little band 
 Exulting met at sunset near a height 
 Then ' Heaven-Field ' named, but later ' Oswald's Field/ 
 Backed by that Wall the Roman built of old 
 His fence from sea to sea. There Oswald stood : 
 There raised with hands outstretched a mighty Cross, 
 Strong-based, and deep in earth : his comrades twelve 
 Around it heaped the soil, while priests white-stoled 
 Chanted ' Vexilla Regis.' Work and rite 
 Complete, the King knelt down and made his prayer : 
 1 True God Eternal, look upon this Cross, 
 The sole now standing on Northumbria's breast, 
 And help Thine own, though few, who trust in Thee ! * 
 
 That night before his tent the wanderer sate 
 
 Listening the circling sentinel, or bay 
 
 Of wakeful hound remote, or downward course 
 
io6 King Oswald of Northmnbria, or 
 
 Of streams from moorland hills. Before his view 
 
 His whole life rose : his father's angry brow ; 
 
 The eyes all-wondrous, and all-tender hand 
 
 Of her, his mother, striving evermore 
 
 To keep betwixt her husband and her sire 
 
 Unbroken bond : his exiled days returned, 
 
 The kind that pitied them, the rude that jeered ; 
 
 Lastly, that monk whose boast was evermore 
 
 Columba of lona, Columkille ; 
 
 That monk who made him Christian. 'Come what may/ 
 
 Thus Oswald mused, ' I have not lived in vain : 
 
 Lose I or win, a kingdom there remains ; 
 
 Though not on earth ! ' A tear the vision dimmed 
 
 As thus he closed, * My mother will be there ! ' 
 
 Then sank his lids in slumber. 
 
 On his sleep 
 
 Was this indeed but dream ? a glory brake : 
 Columba, dear to Oswald from his youth, 
 Columba, clad in glory as the sun, 
 Beside him stood, and spake : ' Be strong ! On earth 
 There lives not who can guess the might of prayer : 
 What then is prayer on high ? ' The saintly Shape 
 Heavenward his hands upraised, while rose to heaven 
 His stature, towering ever high and higher, 
 Warlike and priestly both. As morning cloud 
 Blown by a mighty wind his robe ran forth, 
 
the Britons Revenge. 107 
 
 Then stood, a golden wall that severance made 
 
 'Twixt Oswald's band and that unnumbered host. 
 
 Again he spake, ' Put on thee heart of man 
 
 And fight : though few, thy warriors shall not die 
 
 In darkness of an unbelieving land, 
 
 But live, and live to God. ; The vision passed : 
 
 By Oswald's seat his warriors stood and cried, 
 
 1 The Bull-horn ! Hark ! ' The monarch told them all : 
 
 They answered, ' Let thy God sustain thy throne : 
 
 Thenceforth our God is He/ 
 
 The sun uprose : 
 
 Ere long the battle joined. Three dreadful hours 
 Doubtful the issue hung. Fierce Cambria's sons 
 With chief and clan, with harper and with harp, 
 Though terrible yet mirthful in their mood, 
 Rushed to their sport. Who mocked their hope that day ? 
 Did Angels help the just ? Their falling blood, 
 Say, leaped it up once more, each drop a man 
 Their phalanx to replenish ? Backward driven, 
 Again that multitudinous foe returned 
 With clangour dire ; futile, again fell back 
 Down dashed, like hailstone showers from palace halls 
 Where princes feast secure. Astonishment 
 Smote them at last. Through all those serried ranks, 
 Compact so late, sudden confusions ran 
 Like lines divergent through a film of ice 
 
io8 King Oswald of Northumbria, or 
 
 Stamped on by armed heel, or rifts on plains - 
 Prescient of earthquake underground. Their chiefs 
 Sounded the charge ; in vain : Distrust, Dismay, 
 111 Gods, the darkness lorded of that hour : 
 Panic to madness turned. Cadwallon sole 
 From squadron on to squadron speeding still 
 As on a winged steed his snow-white hair 
 Behind him blown a mace in either hand 
 Stayed while he might the inevitable rout ; 
 Then sought his death, and found. Some fated Power 
 Mightier than man's that hour dragged back his hosts 
 Against their will and his ; as when the moon, 
 Shrouded herself, drags back the great sea- tides 
 That needs must follow her receding wheels 
 Though wind and wave gainsay them, breakers wan 
 Thundering indignant down nocturnal shores, 
 And city-brimming floods against their will 
 Down drawn to river-mouths. 
 
 In after days 
 
 Who scaped made oath that in the midmost fight 
 The green earth sickened with a brazen glare 
 While darkness held the skies. They saw besides 
 On Heaven-Field height a Cross, and, at its foot, 
 A sworded warrior vested like a priest, 
 Who still in stature high and higher towered 
 As raged the battle. Higher far that Cross 
 
the Britons Revenge. 109 
 
 Above him rose, barring with black the stars 
 That bickered through the eclipse's noonday night, 
 And ever from its bleeding arms sent forth 
 Thick- volleyed lightnings, azure fork and flame, 
 Through all that headlong host. 
 
 At eventide. 
 
 Where thickest fight had mingled, Oswald stood 
 With raiment red as his who treads alone 
 The wine-vat when the grapes are all pressed out, 
 Yet scathless and untouched. His mother's smile 
 Was radiant on his pure and youthful face, 
 Joyous, but not exulting. At his foot 
 Cadwallon lay, with four-score winters white, 
 A threatening corse : not death itself could shake 
 The mace from either rigid hand close-clenched, 
 Or smooth his brow. Above him Oswald bent, 
 Then spake : ' He also loved his native land : 
 Bear- him with honour hence to hills of Wales, 
 And lay him with his Fathers/ 
 
 Thus was raised 
 
 In righteousness King Oswald's throne. But he, 
 Mindful in victory of Columba's word, 
 Thus mused, c The Master is as he that serves : 
 How shall I serve this people?' O'er the waves 
 Then sent he of his Twelve the eldest three : 
 They to lona sailed, and standing there 
 
i ro King Oswald of Northumbrian or 
 
 In full assembly of lona's saints 
 
 Addressed them : ' To Columba Oswald thus : 
 
 Let him that propped the King on Heaven-Field's height, 
 
 That held the battle-balance high that day, 
 
 Unite my realm to Christ ! ' The monks replied, 
 
 4 Such mission should be Aidan's.' Aidan went. 
 
 With gladness Oswald met him, and with gifts : 
 
 But Aidan said, ' Entreat me not to dwell 
 
 There where Paulinus dwelt, the man of God, 
 
 In thy chief city, York. Thy race is fierce ; 
 
 And meekness only can subdue the proud : 
 
 Thy people first I want ; through them the great. 
 
 Grant me some island 'mid the raging main, 
 
 Humble and low, not cheered by smiling meads, 
 
 Where with my brethren I may watch with God, 
 
 Henceforth my only aid/ Oswald replied, 
 
 1 Let Lindisfarne be thine. That rock-based keep 
 
 Built by my grandsire Ida o'er it peers : 
 
 I shall be near thee though I see thee not.' 
 
 Then Aidan on the Isle of Lindisfarne 
 Upreared that monastery which ruled in Christ 
 So long the Northern realm. A plain rock -girt 
 Level it lies and low : nor flower nor fruit 
 Gladdens its margin : thin its sod, and bleak : 
 Twice, day by day, the salt sea hems it round : 
 

 the Britons Revenge. \ \ \ 
 
 And twice a day the melancholy sands, 
 
 O'er-wailed by sea-bird, and with sea-weed strewn, 
 
 Replace the lonely ocean. Sacred Isles 
 
 That westward, eastward, guard the imperial realm, 
 
 lona ! Lindisfarne ! With you compared 
 
 How poor that lilied Delos of old Greece, 
 
 For all its laurel bowers and nightingales ! 
 
 England's great hands were ye to God forth stretched 
 
 Through adverse climes, beneath the Boreal star, 
 
 That took His Stigmata. In sanctity 
 
 Were her foundations laid. Her later crowns 
 
 Of Freedom first, of Science, and of Song 
 
 She owes them all to you ! 
 
 In Lindisfarne 
 
 Aidan, and his, rejoicing dwelt with God : 
 Amid the winter storm their anthems rose ; 
 And from their sanctuary lamp the gleam 
 Far shone from wave to wave. On starless nights 
 From Bamborough's turret Oswald watched it long, 
 Before his casement kneeling first alone. 
 Companioned later. Kineburga there 
 Beside him knelt ere long, his tender bride, 
 Young, beauteous, modest, noble. * Not for them,' 
 Thus spake the newly wedded, ' not for them, 
 For man's sake severed from the world of men, 
 In ceaseless vigil warring upon sin, 
 
ii2 King Oswald of Nor thumbria, or 
 
 Ah, not for them the flower of life, the harp, 
 High feast, or bridal torch ! ' Purer perchance 
 Their bridal torch burned on because from far 
 That sacred lamp had met its earliest beam ! 
 
 There Aidan lived, and wafted, issuing thence, 
 
 O'er wilds Bernician and fierce battle-fields 
 
 The strength majestic of his still retreat, 
 
 The puissance of a soul whose home was God. 
 
 4 What man is this.' the warriors asked, 'that moves 
 
 Unarmed among us ; lifts his crucifix, 
 
 And says, " Ye swords, lie prone " ? ' The revelling crew 
 
 Rose from their cups : ' He preaches abstinence : 
 
 Behold, the man is mortified himself: 
 
 The moonlight of his watchings and his fasts 
 
 He carries on his face.' When Princes forced 
 
 Largess upon him, he replied, * I want 
 
 Not yours but you ; ' and with their gifts redeemed 
 
 The orphan slave. The poor were as his children : 
 
 He to the beggar stinted not his hand 
 
 Nor, giving, said ' Be brief/ Such seed bare fruit : 
 
 God in the dark, primeval woods had reared 
 
 A race whose fierceness had its touch of ruth ; 
 
 Brave, cordial, chaste, and simple. Reverence 
 
 That race preserved : Reverence advanced to Love : 
 
 The ties of life it honoured : lit from heaven 
 
the Britons Revenge. 113 
 
 They wore a meaning new. The Faith of Christ 
 Banished the bestial from the heart of man ; 
 Restored the Hope divine. 
 
 In all his toils 
 
 Oswald with Aidan walked. Impartial law, 
 Not licence, not despotic favour, stands 
 To Truth auxiliar true. Such laws were his : 
 Yet not through such alone he worked for Truth ; 
 Function he claimed more high. When Aidan preached ; 
 In forest depths when thousands girt him round ; 
 When countless eyes, a clinging weight, were bent 
 Upon his lips all knew they spake from God, 
 The King, with monks from Ireland knit of old, 
 Beside the Bishop stood ; each word he spake 
 Changed to the Saxon tongue. 
 
 Earth were not earth, 
 
 If reign like Oswald's lasted. Penda lived ; 
 Nor e'er from Oswald turned for eight long years 
 An eye like some swart planet feared of man, 
 Omen of wars or plague. Cadwallon's fate, 
 Ally ill-starred, that fought without his aid, 
 O'er-flushed old hatred with a fiery shame : 
 Cadwallon nightly frowned above his dreams. 
 The tyrant watched his time. At Maserfield 
 The armies met. There on Northumbria's day 
 Settled what seemed, yet was not, endless night 
 
 i 
 
H4 King Oswald of Northumbria, or 
 
 There Faith and Virtue, deathless, seemed to die : 
 There holy Oswald fell. For God he fought, 
 Fought for his country. Walled with lances round, 
 A sheaf of arrows quivering in his breast, 
 One moment yet he stood. ' Preserve/ he cried, 
 ' My country, God ! ' then added, gazing round, 
 4 And these my soldiers : make their spirits thine ! ' 
 
 Thus perished good King Oswald, King and Saint ; 
 Saint by acclaim of nations canonised 
 Ere yet the Church had spoken. Year by year 
 The Hexham monks to Heaven-Field > where of old 
 Had stood that ' Cross which conquered,' made repair, 
 With chanted psalm ; and pilgrims daily prayed 
 Where died the just and true. Not vain their vows : 
 In righteousness foundations had been laid : 
 The earthquake reached them not. The Dane passed by 
 High up the Norman glittered : but beneath, 
 On Faith profounder based, and gentler Law 
 The Saxon realm lived on. 
 
 But never more 
 
 From Heaven-Field's wreck the Briton raised his head 
 Britain thenceforth was England. His the right ; 
 The land was his of old ; and in God's House 
 His of the island races stood first-born : 
 Not less he sinned through hate, esteeming more 
 Memories of wrong than forward-looking hopes 
 
the Britons Revenge. 115 
 
 And triumphs 'of the Truth. For that cause God 
 His face in blessing to the younger turned, 
 More honouring Pagans who in ignorance erred, 
 Than those who, taught of God, concealed their gift, 
 Divorcing Faith from Love. Natheless they clung, 
 That remnant spared, to rocky hills of Wales 
 With eagle clutch, whoe'er in England ruled, 
 From Horsa's day to Edward's. Centuries eight 
 In gorge or vale sea-lulled they held their own, 
 By native monarchs swayed, while native harps 
 Rang out from native cliffs defiant song 
 Wild as their singing pines. Heroic Land ! 
 Freedom was thine; the torrent's plunge ; the peak ; 
 The pale mist past it borne ! Heroic Race ! 
 Caractacus was thine, and Galgacus, 
 And Boadicea, greater by her wrongs 
 Than by her lineage. Battle-axe of thine 
 Rang loud and long on Roman helms ere yet 
 Hengist had trod the island. Thine that King 
 World-famed, who led to fifty war-fields forth 
 'Gainst Saxon hosts his sinewy, long-haired race 
 Unmailed, yet victory-crowned; that King who left 
 Tintagel, Camelot, and Lyonnesse, 
 Immortal names, though wild as elfin notes 
 From phantom rocks echoed in fairy land 
 Great Arthur 1 Year by year his deeds were sung, 
 
1 1 6 King Oswald of Northumbria, etc. 
 
 While he in Glastonbury's cloister slept, 
 
 First by the race he died for, next by those 
 
 Their children, exiles in Armoric Gaul, 
 
 By Europe's minstrels then, from age to age ; 
 
 But ne'er by ampler voice, or richlier toned 
 
 Than England lists to-day. < Race once of Saints ! 
 
 Thine were they, Ninian thine and Kentigern, 
 
 Iltud and Beino, yea and David's self, 
 
 Thy crown of Saints, and Winifred, their flower, 
 
 Who fills her well with healing virtue still. 
 
 Cadoc was thine, who to his Cambrian throne 
 
 Preferred that western convent at Lismore, 
 
 Yet taught the British Princes thus to sing : 
 
 1 None loveth Song that loves not Light and Truth: 
 
 None loveth Light and Truth that loves not Justice : 
 
 None loveth Justice if he loves not God : 
 
 None loveth God that lives not blest and great.' 
 
CEADMON THE COWHERD, THE FIRST 
 ENGLISH POET. 
 
 Ceadmon, a cowherd, being at a feast, declares when the harp 
 reaches him, that he cannot sing. As he sleeps, a divine Voice 
 commands him to sing. He obeys, and the gift of song is imparted 
 to him. Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, enrolls him among her monks ; 
 and in later years he sings the revolt of the Fallen Angels, and 
 many Christian mysteries, thus becoming the first English poet. 
 
 ALONE upon the pleasant bank of Esk 
 Ceadmon the Cowherd stood. The sinking sun 
 Reddened the bay, and fired the river-bank, 
 And flamed upon the ruddy herds that strayed 
 Along the marge, clear-imaged. None was nigh : 
 For that cause spake the Cowherd, * Praise to God ! 
 He made the worlds ; and now, by Hilda's hand 
 Planteth a crown on Whitby's holy crest: 
 Daily her convent towers more high aspire : 
 Daily ascend her Vespers. Hark that strain ! 
 
1 1 8 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 He stood and listened. Soon the flame-touched 
 
 herds 
 
 Sent forth their lowings, and the cliffs replied, 
 And Ceadmon thus resumed : * The music note 
 Rings through their lowings dull, though heard by 
 
 few ! 
 
 Poor kine, ye do your best ! Ye know not God, 
 Yet man, his likeness, unto you is God, 
 And him ye worship with obedience sage, 
 A grateful, sober, much-enduring race 
 That o'er the vernal clover sigh for joy, 
 With winter snows contend not. Patient kine, 
 What thought is yours, deep-musing ? Haply this, 
 " God's help ! how narrow are our thoughts, and few! 
 Not so the thoughts of that slight human child 
 Who daily drives us with her blossomed rod 
 From lowland valleys to the pails long-ranged ! " 
 Take comfort, kine! God also made your race ! 
 If praise from man surceased, from your broad chests 
 That God would perfect praise, and, when ye died, 
 Resound it from yon rocks that gird the bay : 
 God knoweth all things. Let that thought suffice ! ' 
 
 Thus spake the ruler of the deep-mouthed kine : 
 They were not his; the man and they alike 
 A neighbour's wealth. He was contented thus : 
 
the First English Poet. 119 
 
 Humble he was in station, meek of soul, 
 Unlettered, yet heart- wise. His face was pale; 
 Stately his frame, though slightly bent by age : 
 Slow were his eyes, and slow his speech, and slow 
 His musing step; and slow his hand to wrath ; 
 A massive hand, but soft, that many a time 
 Had succoured man and woman, child and beast, 
 And yet could fiercely grasp the sword. At times 
 As mightily it clutched his ashen goad 
 When like an eagle on him swooped some thought : 
 Then stood he as in dream, his pallid front 
 Brightening like eastern sea-cliffs when a moon 
 Unrisen is near its rising. 
 
 Round the bay 
 
 Meantime, as twilight deepened, many a fire 
 Up-sprang, and horns were heard. Around the steep 
 With bannered pomp and many a tossing plume 
 Advancing slow a cavalcade made way. 
 Oswy, Northumbria's king, the foremost rode, 
 Oswy triumphant o'er the Mercian host, 
 Invoking favour on his sceptre new ; 
 With him an Anglian prince, student long time 
 In Bangor of the Irish, and a monk 
 Of Frankish race far wandering from the Marne : 
 They came to look on Hilda, hear her words 
 Of far-famed wisdom on the Interior Life ; 
 
1 20 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 For Hilda thus discoursed : ' True life of man 
 
 Is life within: inward immeasurably 
 
 The being winds of all who walk the earth ; 
 
 But he whom sense hath blinded nothing knows 
 
 Of that wide greatness : like a boy is he, 
 
 A boy that clambers round some castle's wall 
 
 In search of nests, the outward wall of seven, 
 
 Yet nothing knows of those great courts within, 
 
 The hall where princes banquet, or the bower 
 
 Where royal maids discourse with lyre and lute, 
 
 Much less its central church, and sacred shrine 
 
 Wherein God dwells alone.' Thus Hilda spake ; 
 
 And they that gazed upon her widening eyes 
 
 Low whispered, each to each, i She speaks of things 
 
 Which she hath seen and known.' 
 
 On Whitby's height 
 
 The royal feast was holden : far below, 
 A noisier revel dinned the shore; therein 
 The humbler guests made banquet. Many a tent 
 Gleamed on the yellow sands by ripples kissed ; 
 And many a savoury dish sent up its steam ; 
 The farmer from the field had brought his calf ; 
 Fishers that increase scaled which green-gulfed seas 
 From womb crystalline, teeming, yield to man ; 
 And Jock, the woodsman, from his oaken glades 
 The tall stag, arrow-pierced. In gay attire 
 
the First English Poet. 121 
 
 Now green, now crimson, matron sat and maid : 
 Each had her due : the elder, reverence most, 
 The lovelier that and love. Beside the board 
 The beggar lacked not place. 
 
 When hunger's rage, 
 
 Sharpened by fresh sea-air, was quelled, the jest 
 Succeeded, and the tale of foreign lands ; 
 Yet, boast who might of distant chief renowned, 
 His battle-axe, or fist that felled an ox, 
 The Anglian's answer was ' our Hilda ' still : 
 ' Is not her prayer trenchant as sworded hosts ? 
 Her insight more than wisdom of the seers ? 
 What birth like hers illustrious ? Edwin's self, 
 Deira's exile, next Northumbria's king, 
 Her kinsman was. Together bowed they not 
 When he of holy hand, missioned from Rome, 
 Paulinus, o'er them poured the absolving wave 
 And joined to Christ ? Kingliest was she, that maid 
 Who spurned earth-crowns ! ' More late the miller 
 
 rose 
 
 He ruled the feast, the miller old, yet blithe 
 And cried, ' A song ! ' So song succeeded song, 
 For each man knew that time to chant his stave, 
 But no man yet sang nobly. Last the harp 
 Made way to Ceadmon, lowest at the board : 
 He pushed it back, answering, <I cannot sing: ' 
 
122 Ceadmon the Coivherd, 
 
 The rest around him flocked with clamour, < Sing ! ' 
 And one among them, voluble and small, 
 Shot out a splenetic speech: 'This lord of kine, 
 Our herdsman, grows to ox ! Behold, his eyes 
 Move slow, like eyes of oxen ! ' 
 
 Slowly rose 
 
 Ceadmon, and spake: ' I note full oft young men 
 Quick-eyed, but small-eyed, darting glances round 
 Now here, now there, like glance of some poor bird, 
 That light on all things and can rest on none : . 
 As ready are they with their tongues as eyes ; 
 But all their songs are chirpings backward blown 
 On winds that sing God's song, by them unheard : 
 My oxen wait my service : I depart/ 
 Then strode he to his cow-house in the mead, 
 Displeased though meek, and muttered, ' Slow of eye ! 
 My kine are slow : if rapid I, my hand 
 Might tend them worse.' Hearing his step, the kine 
 Turned round their horned fronts; and angry thoughts 
 Went from him as a vapour. Straw he brought, 
 And strewed their beds; and they, contented well, 
 Laid down ere long their great bulks, breathing deep 
 Amid the glimmering moonlight. He, with head 
 Propped on a favourite heifer's snowy flank, 
 Rested, his deer-skin o'er him drawn. Hard days 
 Bring slumber soon. His latest thought was this : 
 
. the First English Poet. 123 
 
 ' Though witless things we are, my kine and I, 
 Yet God it was who made us/ 
 
 As he slept, 
 
 Beside him stood a Man Divine, and spake : 
 ' Ceadmon, arise, and sing/ Ceadmon replied, 
 ' My Lord, I cannot sing, and for that cause 
 Forth from the revel came I. Once, in youth, 
 I willed to sing the bright face of a maid, 
 And failed, and once a gold-faced harvest-field, 
 And failed, and once the flame-eyed face of war, 
 And failed again.' To him the Man Divine, 
 ' Those themes were earthly. Sing ! ' And Ceadmon 
 
 said, 
 
 ' What shall I sing, my Lord ? ' Then answer came, 
 6 Ceadmon, stand up, and sing thy song of God/ 
 
 At once obedient, Ceadmon rose, and sang; 
 And help was with him from great thoughts of old 
 Yearly within his silent nature stored, 
 That swelled, collecting like a flood which bursts 
 In spring its icy bar. The Lord of all 
 He sang ; that God beneath whose hand eterne, 
 Then when He willed forth-stretched athwart the 
 
 abyss, 
 
 Creation like a fiery chariot ran, 
 Forth-borne on wheels of ever-living stars : 
 
1 24 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 Him first he sang. The builder, here below, 
 
 From fair foundations rears at last the roof ; 
 
 But Song, a child of heaven, begins with heaven, 
 
 The archetype divine, and end of all ; 
 
 More late descends to earth. He sang that hymn, 
 
 1 Let there be light, and there was light ; ' and lo ! 
 
 On the void deep came down the seal of God 
 
 And stamped immortal form. Clear laughed the 
 
 skies ; 
 
 From circumambient deeps the strong earth brake, 
 Both continent and isle ; while downward rolled 
 The sea-surge summoned to his home remote. 
 Then came a second vision to the man 
 There standing 'mid his oxen. Darkness sweet, 
 He sang, of pleasant frondage clothed the vales, 
 And purple glooms ambrosial cast from hills 
 Now by the sun deserted, which the moon, 
 A glory new-created in her place, 
 Silvered with virgin beam, while sang the bird 
 Her first of love-songs on the branch first-flower'd 
 Not yet the lion stalked. And Ceadmon sang 
 O'er-awed, the Father of all humankind 
 Standing in garden planted by God's hand, 
 And girt by murmurs of the rivers four, 
 Between the trees of Knowledge and of Life, 
 With eastward face. In worship mute of God, 
 
the First English Poet. i 2 5 
 
 Eden's Contemplative he stood that hour, 
 Not her Ascetic, since, where sin is none, 
 No need for spirit severe. 
 
 And Ceadmon sang 
 
 God's Daughter, Adam's Sister, Child, and Bride, 
 Our Mother Eve. Lit by the matin star, 
 That nearer drew to earth and brighter flashed 
 To meet her gaze, that snowy Innocence 
 Stood up with queenly port : she turned ; she saw 
 Earth's King, mankind's great Father : taught by 
 
 God, 
 
 Immaculate, unastonished, undismayed, 
 In love and reverence to her Lord she drew, 
 And, kneeling, kissed his hand : and Adam laid 
 That hand, made holier, on that kneeler's head. 
 And spake ; ' For this shall man his parents leave, 
 And to his wife cleave fast.' 
 
 When Ceadmon ceased, 
 
 Thus spake the Man Divine : ' At break of day 
 Seek out some prudent man, and say that God 
 Hath loosed thy tongue ; nor hide henceforth thy gift.' 
 Then Ceadmon turned, and slept among his kine 
 Dreamless. Ere dawn he stood upon the shore 
 In doubt : but when at last o'er eastern seas 
 The sun, long wished for, like a god upsprang, 
 Once more he found God's song upon his mouth 
 
126 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 Murmuring high joy ; and sought an ancient friend, 
 
 And told him all the vision. At the word 
 
 He to the Abbess with the tidings sped, 
 
 And she made answer, * Bring me Ceadmon here.' 
 
 Then clomb the pair that sea-beat mount of God 
 Fanned by sea-gale, nor trod, as others used, 
 The curving way, but faced the abrupt ascent, 
 And halted not, so worked in both her will, 
 Till now between the unfinished towers they stood 
 Panting and spent. The portals open stood : 
 Ceadmon passed in alone. Nor ivory decked, 
 Nor gold, the walls. That convent was a keep 
 Strong 'gainst invading storm or demon hosts, 
 And naked as the rock whereon it stood, 
 Yet, as a church, august. Dark, high-arched roofs 
 Slowly let go the distant hymn. Each cell 
 Cinctured its statued saint, the peace of God 
 On every stony face. Like caverned grot 
 Far off the western window frowned : beyond, 
 Close by, there shook an autumn-blazoned tree : 
 No need for gems beside of storied glass. 
 
 He entered last that hall where Hilda sat 
 Begirt with a great company, the chiefs 
 Far ranged from end to end. Three stalls, cross-crowned. 
 
the First English Poet. 1 27 
 
 Stood side by side, the midmost hers. The years 
 
 Had laid upon her brows a hand serene ; 
 
 There left alone a blessing. Levelled eyes 
 
 Sable, and keen, with meditative might 
 
 Conjoined the instinct and the claim to rule : 
 
 Firm were her lips and rigid. At her right 
 
 Sat Finan, Aidan ; s successor, with head 
 
 Snow-white, and beard that rolled adown a breast 
 
 Never by mortal passion heaved in storm, 
 
 A cloister of majestic thoughts that walked, 
 
 Humbly with God. High in the left-hand stall 
 
 Oswy was throned, a man in prime, with brow 
 
 Less youthful than his years. Exile long past, 
 
 Or deepening thought of one disastrous deed, 
 
 Had left a shadow in his eyes. The strength 
 
 Of passion held in check looked lordly forth 
 
 From head and hand : tawny his beard ; his hair 
 
 Thick-curled and dense. Alert the monarch sat 
 
 Half turned, like one on horseback set that hears, 
 
 And he alone, the advancing trump of war. 
 
 Down the long gallery strangers thronged in mas-s, 
 
 Dane or Norwegian, huge of arm through weight 
 
 Of billows oar-subdued, with stormy looks 
 
 Wild as their waves and crags ; Southerns keen-browed ; 
 
 Pure Saxon youths, fair-fronted, with mild eyes, 
 
 These less than others strove for nobler place,. 
 
128 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 And Pilgrim travel-worn. Behind the rest, 
 And higher-ranged in marble- arched arcade, 
 Sat Hilda's sisterhood. Clustering they shone, 
 White-veiled, and pale of face, and still and meek, 
 An inly-bending curve, like some young moon 
 Whose crescent glitters o'er a dusky strait 
 In front were monks dark-stoled : for Hilda ruled, 
 Though feminine, two houses, one of men : 
 Upon two chasm-divided rocks they stood, 
 To various service vowed, though single Faith : 
 Not ever, save at rarest festival, 
 Their holy inmates met. 
 
 ' Is this the man 
 
 Favoured, though late, with gift of song ? ' thus spake 
 Hilda with gracious smile. Severer then 
 She added : ' Son, the commonest gifts of God 
 He counts His best, and oft temptation blends 
 With ampler boon. Yet sing ! That God who lifts 
 The violet from the grass could draw not less 
 Song from the stone hard by. That strain thou 
 
 sang'st, 
 Once more rehearse it* 
 
 Ceadmon from his knees 
 Arose and stood. With princely instinct first 
 The strong man to the Abbess bowed, and next 
 To that great twain, the bishop and the king, 
 
the First English Poet. 129 
 
 Last to that stately concourse each side ranged % 
 
 Down the long hall ; then, dubious, answered thus : 
 
 ' Great Mother, if that God who sent the song 
 
 Vouchsafe me to recall it, I will sing ; 
 
 But I misdoubt it lost.' Slowly his face 
 
 Down -drooped, and all his body forward bent 
 
 While brooding memory, step by step, retraced 
 
 Its backward way. Vainly long time it sought 
 
 The starting-point. Then Ceadmon's large, soft hands 
 
 Opening and closing worked ; for wont were they, 
 
 In musings when he stood, to clasp his goad, 
 
 And plant its point far from him, thereupon 
 
 Propping his stalwart weight. Customed support 
 
 Now rinding not, unwittingly those hands 
 
 Reached forth, and on Saint Finan's crosier-staff 
 
 Settling, withdrew it from the old bishop's grasp ; 
 
 And Ceadmon leant thereon, while passed a smile 
 
 From chief to chief to see earth's meekest man 
 
 The spiritual sceptre claim of Lindisfarne. 
 
 They smiled ; he triumphed : soon the Cowherd found 
 
 That first fair corner-stone of all his song ; 
 
 Thence rose the fabric heavenward. Lifting hands, 
 
 Once more his lordly music he rehearsed, 
 
 The void abyss at God's command forth-flinging 
 
 Creation like a Thought : where night had reigned, 
 
 The universe of God. 
 
 K 
 
130 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 The singing stars 
 
 Which with the Angels sang when earth was made 
 Sang in his song. From highest shrill of lark 
 To ocean's moaning under cliffs low-browed, 
 And roar of pine- woods on the storm-swept hills, 
 No tone was wanting : while to them that heard 
 Strange images looked forth of worlds new-born, 
 Fair, phantom mountains, and, with forests plumed 
 Heaven-topping headlands, for the first time glassed 
 In waters ever calm. O'er sapphire seas 
 Green islands laughed. Fairer, the wide earth's flower, 
 Eden, on airs unshaken yet by sighs 
 From bosom still inviolate forth poured 
 Immortal sweets that sense to spirit turned. 
 In part those noble listeners made that song ! 
 Their flashing eyes, their hands, their heaving breasts, 
 Tumult self-stilled, and mute, expectant trance, 
 'Twas these that gave their bard his twofold might 
 That might denied to poets later born 
 Who, singing to soft brains and hearts ice-hard, 
 Applauded or contemned, alike roll round 
 A. vainly-seeking eye, and, famished, drop 
 A hand clay-cold upon the unechoing shell, 
 Missing their inspiration's human half. 
 
 Thus Ceadmon sang, and ceased. Silent awhile 
 
the First English Poet. 131 
 
 The concourse stood, for all had risen, as though 
 
 Waiting from heaven its echo. Each on each 
 
 Gazed hard and caught his hands. Fiercely ere long 
 
 Their gratulating shout aloft had leaped 
 
 But Hilda laid her finger on her lip, 
 
 Or provident lest praise might stain the pure, 
 
 Or deeming song a gift too high for praise. 
 
 She spake : * Through help of God thy song is sound : 
 
 Now hear His Holy Word, and shape therefrom 
 
 A second hymn, and worthier than the first.' 
 
 She spake, and Finan standing bent his head 
 Above the sacred tome in reverence stayed 
 Upon his kneeling deacon's hands and brow, 
 And sweetly sang five verses, thus beginning, 
 4 Cum esset desponsataj and was still ; 
 And next rehearsed them in the Anglian tongue : 
 Then Ceadmon took God's Word into his heart, 
 And ruminating stood, as when the kine, 
 Their flowery pasture ended, ruminate ; 
 And was a man in thought. At last the light 
 Shone from his dubious countenance, and he spake : 
 * Great Mother, lo ! I saw a second Song ! 
 TVards me it sailed ; but with averted face, 
 And borne on shifting winds. A man am I 
 Sluggish and slow, that needs must muse and brood ; 
 
 K 2 
 
132 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 Therefore those verses till the sun goes down 
 Will I revolve. If song from God be mine 
 Expect me here at morn.' 
 
 The morrow morn 
 
 In that high presence Ceadmon stood and sang 
 A second song, and worthier than his first ; 
 And Hilda said, ' From God it came, not man ; 
 Thou therefore live a monk among my monks, 
 And sing to God.' Doubtful he stood ' From youth 
 My place hath been with kine ; their ways I know, 
 And how to cure their griefs.' Smiling she spake, 
 * Our convent hath its meads, and kine ; with these 
 Consort each morn : at noon to us return. 7 
 Then Ceadmon knelt, and bowed, and said, l So be it : ' 
 And aged Finan, and Northumbrian king 
 Oswy, approved ; and all that host had joy. 
 
 Thus in that convent Ceadmon lived, a monk, 
 Humblest of all the monks, save him that knelt 
 In cell close by, who once had been a prince. 
 Seven times a day he sang God's praises, first 
 When earliest dawn drew back night's sable veil 
 With trembling hand, revisiting the earth 
 Like some pale maid that through the curtain peers 
 Round her sick mother's bed, misdoubting half 
 If sleep lie there, or death ; latest when eve 
 
the First English Poet. 133 
 
 Through nave and chancel stole from arch to arch, 
 
 And laid upon the snowy altar-step 
 
 At last a brow of gold. In later years, 
 
 By ancient yearnings driven, through wood and vale 
 
 He tracked Deirean or Bernician glades 
 
 To holy Ripon, or late-sceptred York, 
 
 Not yet great Wilfred's seat, or Beverley : 
 
 The children gathered round him, crying. ( Sing ! ' 
 
 They gave him inspiration with their eyes, 
 
 And with his conquering music he returned it. 
 
 Oftener he roamed that strenuous eastern coast 
 
 To Jarrow and to Wearmouth, sacred sites 
 
 The well-beloved of Bede, or northward more 
 
 To Bamborough, Oswald's keep. At Coldingham 
 
 His feet had rest ; there where St. Ebba's Cape 
 
 That ends the lonely range of Lammermoor, 
 
 Sustained for centuries o'er the wild sea-surge 
 
 In region of dim mist and flying bird, 
 
 Fronting the Forth, those convent piles far-kenned, 
 
 The worn-out sailor's hope. 
 
 Fair English shores, 
 
 Despite those blinding storms of north and east, 
 Despite rough ages blind with stormier strife, 
 Or froz'n by doubt, or sad with worldly care, 
 A fragrance as of Carmel haunts you still 
 Bequeathed by feet of that forgotten Saint 
 
134 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 Who trod you once, sowing the seed divine ! 
 
 Fierce tribes that kenned him distant round him flocked; 
 
 On sobbing sands the fisher left his net, 
 
 His lamb the shepherd on the hills of March, 
 
 Suing for song. With wrinkled face all smiles, 
 
 Like that blind Scian circling Grecian coasts, 
 
 If God the song accorded, Ceadmon sang ; 
 
 If God denied it, after musings deep 
 
 He answered, ' I am of the kine and dumb ; ' 
 
 The man revered his art, and fraudful song 
 
 Esteemed as fraudful coin. 
 
 Music denied, 
 
 He solaced them with tales wherein, so seemed it, 
 Nature and Grace, inwoven, like children played, 
 Or like two sisters o'er one sampler bent, 
 Braided one text. Ever the sorrowful chance 
 Ending in joy, the human craving still, 
 Like creeper circling up the Tree of Life, 
 Lifted by hand unseen, witnessed that He, 
 Man's Maker, is the Healer too of man, 
 And life His school parental. Parables 
 He shewed in all things. ' Mark,' one day he cried, 
 6 Yon silver-breasted swan that stems the lake 
 Taking nor chill nor moisture ! Such the soul 
 That floats o'er waters of a world corrupt, 
 Itself immaculate still.' 
 
the First English Poet. 135 
 
 Better than tale 
 
 They loved their minstrel's harp. The songs he sang 
 Were songs to brighten gentle hearts ; to fire 
 Strong hearts with holier courage ; hope to breathe 
 Through spirits despondent, o'er the childless floor 
 Or widowed bed, flashing from highest heaven 
 A beam half faith, half vision. Many a tear, 
 His own, and tears of those that listened, fell 
 Oft as he sang that hand, lovely as light, 
 Forth stretched, and gathering from forbidden boughs 
 That fruit fatal to man. He sang the Flood, 
 Sin's doom that quelled the impure, yet raised to height 
 Else inaccessible, the just. He sang 
 That patriarch facing at divine command 
 The illimitable waste then, harder proof, 
 Lifting his knife o'er him, the seed foretold : 
 He sang of Israel loosed, the ten black seals 
 Down pressed on Egypt's testament of woe, 
 Covenant of pride with penance j sang the face f 
 
 Of Moses glittering from red Sinai's rocks, 
 The Tables twain, and Mandements of God. 
 On Christian nights he sang that jubilant star 
 Which led the Magians to the Bethlehem crib 
 By Joseph watched, and Mary. Pale, in Lent, 
 Tremulous and pale, he told of Calvary, 
 Nor added word, but, as in trance, rehearsed 
 
136 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 That Passion fourfold of the Evangelists, 
 Which, terrible and swift not like a tale 
 With speed of things which must be done, not said, 
 A river of bale, from guilty age to age 
 Along the astonied shores of common life 
 Annual makes way, the history of the world, 
 Not of one day, one People. To its fount 
 That stream he tracked, that primal mystery sang 
 Which, chanted later by a thousand years, 
 Music celestial, though with note that jarred, 
 Some wandering orb troubling its starry chime, 
 Amazed the nations, ' There was war in heaven : 
 Michael and they, his angels, warfare waged 
 With Satan and his angels/ Brief that war, 
 That ruin total. Brief was Ceadmon's song : 
 Therein the Eternal Face was undivulged : 
 Therein the Apostate's form no grandeur wore : 
 The grandeur was elsewhere. Who hate their God 
 Change not alone to vanquished but to vile. 
 On Easter morns he sang the Saviour Risen, 
 Eden Regained. Since then on England's shores 
 Though many sang, yet no man sang like him. 
 
 O holy House of Whitby ! on thy steep 
 Rejoice, howe'er the tempest, night or day, 
 Afflict thee, or the hand of Time to earth 
 
the First English Poet. 1 3 7 
 
 Drag down thine airy arches long suspense ; 
 
 Rejoice, for Ceadmon in thy cloisters knelt, 
 
 And singing paced beside thy sounding sea ! 
 
 Long years he lived ; and with the whitening hair 
 
 More youthful grew in spirit, and more meek ; 
 
 Yea, those that saw him said he sang within 
 
 Then when the golden mouth but seldom breathed 
 
 Sonorous strain, and when that fulgent eye 
 
 No longer bright still on his forehead shone 
 
 Not flame but purer light, like that last beam 
 
 Which, when the sunset woods no longer burn, 
 
 Maintains high place on Alpine throne remote, 
 
 Or utmost beak of promontoried cloud, 
 
 And heavenward dies in smiles. Esteem of men 
 
 Daily he less esteemed, through single heart 
 
 More knit with God. To please a sickly child 
 
 He sang his latest song, and, ending, said, 
 
 1 Song is but body, though 'tis body winged : 
 
 The soul of song is love : the body dead, 
 
 The soul should thrive the more/ That Patmian Sage 
 
 Whose head had lain upon the Saviour's breast, 
 
 Who in high vision saw the First and Last, 
 
 Who heard the harpings of the Elders crowned, 
 
 Who o'er the ruins of the Imperial House 
 
 And ashes of the twelve great Caesars dead 
 
 Witnessed the endless triumph of the Just, 
 
138 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 To humbler life restored, and, weak through age, 
 But seldom spake, and gave but one command, 
 The great f Mandatum Novum ' of his Lord, 
 ' My children, love each other ! ' Like to his 
 Was Ceadmon's age. Weakness with happy stealth 
 Increased upon him : he was cheerful still : 
 He still could pace, though slowly, in the sun, 
 Still gladsomely converse with friends who wept, 
 Still lay a broad hand on his well-loved kine. 
 
 The legend of the last of Ceadmon's days : 
 That hospital wherein the old monks died 
 Stood but a stone's throw from the monastery : 
 1 Make there my couch to-night/ he said, and smiled : 
 They marvelled, yet obeyed. There, hour by hour, 
 The man, low -seated on his pallet-bed, 
 In silence watched the courses of the stars, 
 Or casual spake at times of common things, 
 And three times played with childhood's days, and twice 
 His father named. At last, like one that, long 
 Compassed with good, is smit by sudden thought 
 Of greater good, thus spake he : ' Have ye, sons, 
 Here in this house the Blessed Sacrament ? ' 
 They answered, wrathful, ' Father, thou art strong ; 
 Shake not thy children ! Thou hast many days ! ' 
 * Yet bring me here the Blessed Sacrament,' 
 
the First English Poet. 139 
 
 Once more he said. The brethren issued forth 
 
 Save four that silent sat waiting the close. 
 
 Ere long in grave procession they returned, 
 
 Two deacons first, gold-vested ; after these 
 
 That priest who bare the Blessed Sacrament, 
 
 And acolytes behind him, lifting lights. 
 
 Then from his pallet Ceadmon slowly rose 
 
 And worshipped Christ, his God, and reaching forth 
 
 His right hand, cradled in his left, behold ! 
 
 Therein was laid God's Mystery. He spake : 
 
 ' Stand ye in flawless charity of God 
 
 T'ward me, my sons ; or lives there in your hearts 
 
 Memory the least of wrong ? ' The monks replied : 
 
 * Father, within us lives nor wrong, nor wrath, 
 
 But love, and love alone.' And he : * Not less 
 
 Am I in charity with you, my sons, 
 
 And all my sins of pride, and other sins, 
 
 Humbly I mourn.' Then, bending the old head 
 
 O'er the old hand, Ceadmon received his Lord 
 
 To be his soul's viaticum, in might 
 
 Leading from life that seems to life that is ; 
 
 And long, unpropped by any, kneeling hung 
 
 And made thanksgiving prayer. Thanksgiving made, 
 
 He sat upon his bed, and spake : ' How long 
 
 Ere yet the monks begin their matin psalms ? ' 
 
 ' That hour is nigh,' they answered ; he replied, 
 
140 Ceadmon the Cowherd, 
 
 4 Then let us wait that hour,' and laid him down 
 With those kine-tending and harp-mastering hands 
 Crossed on his breast, and slept. 
 
 Meanwhile the monks, 
 
 The lights removed in reverence of his sleep, 
 Sat mute nor stirred such time as in the Mass 
 Between ' Orate Fratres ' glides away, 
 And f Hoc est Corpus Meum? Northward far 
 The great deep, seldom heard so distant, roared 
 Round those wild rocks half way to Bamborough 
 
 Head; 
 
 For now the mightiest spring-tide of the year, 
 Following the magic of a maiden moon, 
 Approached its height. Nearer, that sea which sobbed 
 In many a cave by Whitby's winding coast, 
 Or died in peace on many a sandy bar 
 From river- mouth to river-mouth outspread, 
 They heard, and mused upon eternity % 
 That circles human life. Gradual arose 
 A softer strain and sweeter, making way 
 O'er that sea-murmur hoarse ; and they were ware 
 That in the black far-shadowing church whose bulk 
 Up-towered between them and the moon, the monks 
 Their matins had begun. A little sigh 
 That moment reached them from the central gloom 
 Guarding the sleeper's bed ; a second sigh 
 
the First English Poet. 141 
 
 Succeeded : neither seemed the sigh of pain : 
 And some one said, * He wakens.' Large and bright 
 Over the church-roof sudden rushed the moon, 
 And smote the cross above that sleeper's couch, 
 And smote that sleeper's face. The smile thereon 
 Was calmer than the smile of life. Thus died 
 Ceadmon, the earliest bard of English song. 
 
142 
 
 KING OSWY OF NORTHUMBRIA, OR 
 THE WIFE'S VICTORY. 
 
 Oswy, King of Bernicia, being at war with his kinsman Oswin, 
 slays him unarmed. He refuses to repent of this sin ; yet at last, 
 subdued by the penitence, humility, and charity of Eanfleda, his 
 wife, repents likewise, and builds a monastery over the grave of 
 Oswin. Afterwards he becomes a great warrior and dies a saint. 
 
 YOUNG, beauteous, brave the bravest of the brave 
 Who loved not Oswin ? All that saw him loved : 
 Aidan loved most, monk of lona's Isle, 
 Northumbria's bishop next, from Lindisfarne 
 Ruling in things divine. One morn it chanced 
 That Oswin, noting how with staff in hand 
 Old Aidan roamed his spiritual realm, footbare, 
 Wading deep stream, and piercing thorny brake, 
 Sent him a horse his best. The Saint was pleased ; 
 But, onward while he rode, and, musing, smiled 
 To think of these his honours in old age, 
 A beggar claimed his alms. i Gold have I none/ 
 
King Oswy of Northumbria. 143 
 
 Aidan replied ; ' this horse be thine ! ' The King, 
 
 Hearing the tale, was grieved. ' Keep I, my lord, 
 
 No meaner horses fit for beggar's use 
 
 That thus my best should seem a thing of naught ? ' 
 
 The Saint made answer : ' Beggar's use, my King ! 
 
 What was that horse ? The foal of some poor mare ! 
 
 The least of men the sinner is God's child ! ' 
 
 Then dropped the King on both his knees, and cried : 
 
 ' Father, forgive me ! ' As they sat at meat 
 
 Oswin was mirthful, and at jest and tale 
 
 His hungry thanes laughed loud. But great, slow 
 
 tears 
 
 In silence trickled down old Aidan's face : 
 These all men marked ; yet no man question made. 
 At last to one beside him Aidan spake 
 In Irish tongue, unknown to all save them, 
 * God will not leave such meekness long on earth.' 
 
 Who loved not Oswin ? Not alone his realm, 
 Deira, loved him, but Bernician lords 
 Whose monarch, Oswy, was a man of storms, 
 Fierce King albeit in youth baptized to Christ ; 
 At heart half pagan. Swift as northern cloud 
 Through summer skies, he swept with all his host 
 Down on the rival kingdom. Face to face 
 The armies stood. But Oswin, when he marked 
 
144 King Oswy of Northiimbria, or 
 
 His own a little flock 'mid countless wolves, 
 
 Addressed them thus : ' Why perish, friends, for me ? 
 
 From exile came I : for my people's sake 
 
 To exile I return, or gladlier die : 
 
 Depart in peace/ He rode to Gilling Tower ; 
 
 And waited there his fate. Thither next day 
 
 King Oswy marched, and slew him. 
 
 Twelve days passed ; 
 
 Then Aidan, while through green Northumbrians woods 
 Pensive he paced, steadying his doubtful steps, . 
 Felt death approaching. Giving thanks to God, 
 The old man laid him by a church half raised 
 Amid great oaks and yews, and, leaning there 
 His head against the buttress, passed to God. 
 They made their bishop's grave at Lindisfarne ; 
 But Oswin rested at the mouth of Tyne 
 Within a wave-girt, granite promontory 
 Where sea and river meet. For many an age 
 The pilgrim from far countries came in faith 
 To that still shrine they called it ' Oswin's Peace,' 
 Thither the outcast fled for sanctuary : 
 The sick man there found health. Thus Oswin lived, 
 Though dead, a benediction in the land. 
 
 What gentlest form kneels on the rain-washed 
 ground 
 
the Wifes Victory. 145 
 
 From Gilling's keep a stone's- throw? Whose those hands 
 
 Now pressed in anguish on a bursting heart, 
 
 Now o'er a tearful countenance spread in shame ? 
 
 What purest mouth, but roseless for great woe, 
 
 With zeal to youthful lovers never known 
 
 Presses a new-made grave, and through the blades 
 
 Of grass wind-shaken breathes her piteous prayer ? 
 
 Save from remorse came ever grief like hers ? 
 
 Yet how could ever sin, or sin's remorse, 
 
 Find such fair mansion ? Oswin's grave it is ; 
 
 And she that o'er it kneels is Eanfleda, 
 
 Kinswoman of the noble dead, and wife 
 
 To Oswin's murderer Oswy. 
 
 Saddest one 
 
 And sweetest ! Lo, that cloud which overhung 
 Her cradle swathes once more in deeper gloom 
 Her throne late won, and new-decked bridal bed. 
 This was King Edwin's babe, whose natal star 
 Shone on her father's pathway doubtful long, 
 Shone there a line of light, from pagan snares 
 Leading to Christian baptism. Penda heard 
 Penda, that drew his stock from Odin's loins, 
 Penda, that drank his wine from skulls of foes, 
 Penda, fierce Mercians king. He heard, and fell 
 In ruin on the region. Edwin dead, 
 
 L 
 
146 King Oswy of Northumbria, or 
 
 Paulinus led the widow and her babe 
 
 Back to that Kentish shore whereon had reigned 
 
 Its grandsire Ethelbert. 
 
 The infant's feet 
 
 Pattered above the pavement of that church 
 In Canterbury by Augustine raised ; 
 The child grew paler when Gregorian chants 
 Shook the dim roofs. Gladly the growing girl 
 Hearkened to stories of her ancestress 
 Clotilda, boast of France, but weeping turned 
 From legends whispered by her Saxon nurse 
 Of Loke, the Spirit accursed that slanders gods, 
 And Sinna, Queen of Hell. The years went by ; 
 The last had brought King Oswy's embassage 
 With suit obsequious, ' Let the princess share 
 With me her father's crown/ To simple hearts 
 Changes come gently. Soon, all trust, she stood 
 Before God's altar with her destined lord :. 
 Adown her finger while the bride-ring ran 
 So slid into her heart a true wife's love : 
 Rooted in faith, it ripened day by day 
 And now the end was this ! 
 
 There as she knelt 
 
 A strong foot clanged behind her. ' Weeping still ! 
 Up, wife of mine ! If Oswin had not died 
 His gracious ways had filched from me my realm, 
 
the Wife's Victory. 147 
 
 The base so loved his meekness ! ' Turning not 
 She answered low : ' He died an unarmed man : ' 
 And Oswy : ' Fool that fought not when he might j 
 At least his slaughtered troop had decked his grave ! 
 I scorned him for his grief that men should die ; 
 And, scorning him, I hated ; yea, for that 
 His blood is on my sword ! ' 
 
 The priests of God 
 
 Had faced the monarch and denounced his crime : 
 They might as well have preached to ocean waves : 
 He felt no anger : he but deemed them mad, 
 And smiling went his way. Thus autumn passed : 
 The queen he knew it when alone wept on : 
 Near him the pale face smiled ; the voice was sweet ; 
 Loving the service ; the obedience full : 
 Neither by words, by silence, nor by looks 
 She chid him. Like some penitent she walked 
 That mourns her own great sin. 
 
 Yet Oswy's heart, 
 
 Remorseless thus, had moods of passionate love : 
 A warrior of his host, Tosti by name, 
 Lay low, plague-stricken : kith and kin had fled : 
 Whole days the king sustained upon his knees 
 The sufferer's head, and cheered his heart with songs 
 Of Odin, strangely blent with Christian hymns, 
 While ofttimes stormy bursts of tears descended 
 L 2 
 
148 King Oswy of Northumbria, or 
 
 Upon that face upturned. Ministering he sat 
 Till death the vigil closed. 
 
 One winter night 
 
 From distant chase belated he returned, 
 And passed by Oswin's grave. The snow, new-fallen, 
 Whitened the precinct. In the blast she knelt, 
 While coldly glared the broad and bitter moon 
 Upon those flying flakes that on her hair 
 Settled, or on her thin, light raiment clung. 
 She heard him not draw nigh. She only beat . 
 Her breast, and, praying, wept : ' Our sin, our sin ! ' 
 There as the monarch stood a change came o'er him : 
 Old, exiled days in Alba as a dream 
 Redawned upon his spirit, and that look 
 In Aidan's eyes when, binding first that cross 
 Long by his pupil craved, around his neck, 
 He whispered: c He who serveth Christ, his Lord, 
 Must love his fellow-man/ As when a stream, 
 The ice dissolved, grows audible once more, 
 So came to him those words. They dragged him down : 
 He knelt beside his wife, and beat his breast, 
 And said, ' My sin, my sin ! ' Till earliest morn 
 Glimmered through sleet that twain wept on, prayed 
 
 on : 
 
 Was it the rising sun that lit at last 
 The fair face upward lifted ; kindled there 
 
the Wifes Victory. 149 
 
 A lovelier dawn than o'er it blushed when first 
 
 Dropped on her bridegroom's breast? Aloud she cried : 
 
 4 Our prayer is heard : our penitence finds grace : ' 
 
 Then added: * Let it deepen till we die ! 
 
 A monastery build we on this grave : 
 
 So from this grave, while fleet the years, that prayer 
 
 Shall rise both day and night, till Christ returns 
 
 To judge the world a prayer for him who died ; 
 
 A prayer for one who sinned, but sins no more. 7 
 
 Where Gilling's long and lofty hill overlooks 
 For leagues the forest-girdled plain, ere long 
 A monastery stood. That self-same day 
 In tears the penitential work began 
 In tears the sod was turned. The rugged brows 
 Of March relaxed 'neath April's flying kiss : 
 Again the violet rose, the thrush was loud ; 
 Mayday had come. Around that hallowed spot 
 Full many a warrior met ; some Christians vowed ; 
 Some muttering low of Odin. Near to these 
 Stood one of lesser stature, keener eye, 
 More fiery gesture. Splenetic, he marked, 
 Christian albeit himself, those Christian walls 
 By Saxon converts raised: he was a Briton. 
 Invisibly that morn a dusky crape 
 O'erstretched the sky and slowly swayed the bough 
 
150 King Oswy of Northumbria, or 
 
 Heavy with midnight rains. Through mist the woods 
 Let out the witchery of their young fresh green 
 Backed by the dusk of ruddy oaks that still 
 Reserved at heart the old year's stubbornness, 
 Yet blent it with that purple distance glimpsed 
 Beyond the forest alleys. 
 
 In a tent 
 
 Finan sang Mass : his altar was that stone 
 Which told where Oswin died. Before it knelt 
 The king, the queen : alone their angels know 
 Their thoughts that hour ! The sacred rite complete, 
 They raised their brows, and, hand-in-hand, made way 
 To where, beyond the portal, shone blue skies, 
 Nature's long- struggling smile at last divulged. 
 The throng with passion it had prayed for each 
 Divided as they passed. In either face 
 They saw the light of that conceded prayer, 
 The peace of souls forgiven. 
 
 From that day forth 
 
 Hourly in Oswy's spirit soared more high 
 The one true greatness. Flaming heats of soul, 
 Through faith subjected to a law divine, 
 Like fire, man's vassal, mastering iron ore, 
 Learned their true work. The immeasurable strength 
 Had found at once its master and its end, 
 And, balanced thus while weighted, soared to God. 
 
the Wifes Victory. 151 
 
 In all his ways he prospered, work and word 
 
 Yoked to one end. Till then the Kingdoms Seven, 
 
 Opposed in interests as diverse in name, 
 
 Had looked on nothing like him. Now, despite 
 
 Mercia that frowned, they named him king of kings, 
 
 Bretwalda ; and the standard of the Seven 
 
 In peace foreran his feet. The Spirits of might 
 
 Before his vanguard winged their way in war, 
 
 Scattering the foe ; and in his peacefuller years 
 
 Upon the aerial hillside high and higher 
 
 The golden harvest clomb, waving delight 
 
 On eyes upraised from winding rivers clear 
 
 That shone with milky sails. His feet stood firm, 
 
 For with his growing greatness ever grew 
 
 His penitence. Still sang the cloistered choir, 
 
 Year after year pleading o'er Oswin's tomb, 
 
 ' To him who perished grant thy Vision, Lord ; 
 
 To him the slayer, penitence and peace; 
 
 Let Oswin pray for Oswy : ' Oswin prayed. 
 
 What answered Penda when the tidings came 
 Of Oswy glorying in the yoke of Christ, 
 Of Oswy's victories next ? Grinding his teeth, 
 He spake what no man heard. Then rumour rose 
 Of demon-magic making Oswy's tongue 
 Fell as his sword * Within the sorcerer's court/ 
 
152 King Oswy of Northwnbria, or 
 
 It babbled, * stood the brave East Saxon king: 
 Upon his shoulder Oswy laid a hand 
 Accursed and whispered in his ear. The king, 
 Down sank, perforce, a Christian ! ' Lightning flashed 
 From under Pen da's gray and shaggy brows ; 
 'Forth to Northumbria, son,' he cried, ' and back; 
 And learn if this be true.' 
 
 That son obeyed, 
 
 Peada, to whose heart another's heart, 
 Alcfrid's, King Oswy's son, was knit long since 
 As David's unto Jonathan's. One time 
 A tenderer heart had leaned, or seemed to lean, 
 Motioning that way, Alfleda's, Alcfrid's sister, 
 Younger than he six years. 'Twas so no more : 
 No longer on Peada's eyes her eyes 
 Rested well-pleased : not now the fearless hand 
 Tarried in his contented. ' Sir and king/ 
 Peada thus to Oswy spake, ' of old 
 Thy child then child indeed would mount my knee; 
 Now, when I seek her, like a swan she fleets 
 That arches back its neck 'twixt snowy wings, 
 And, swerving, sideway drifts. My lord and king, 
 The child is maiden : give her me for wife ! ' 
 Oswy made answer : ' He that serves not Christ 
 Can wed no child of mine.' Alfleda then 
 Dropping her broidery lifted on her sire 
 
the Wifes Victory. 153 
 
 Gently the dewy light of childlike eyes 
 
 And spake, ' But he in time will worship Christ ! ' 
 
 Then, without blush or tremor, to her work 
 
 Softly returned. Silent her mother smiled. 
 
 That moment, warned of God, from Lindisfarne 
 
 Finan, unlocked for, entered. Week by week 
 
 Reverend and mild he preached the Saviour-Lord: 
 
 Grave-eyed, with listening face and forehead bowed, 
 
 The prince gave ear, not like that trivial race 
 
 Who catch the sense ere spoken, smile assent, 
 
 And in a moment lose it. On his brow 
 
 At times the apprehension dawned, at times 
 
 Faded. Oft turned he to his Mercian lords : 
 
 'How trow ye, friends? He speaks of what he 
 
 knows ! 
 
 Good tidings these ! Each evening while I muse 
 Distinct they shine like yonder mountain range ; 
 Each morning, mists conceal them/ Passed a month ; 
 Then suddenly, as one that wakes from dream, 
 Peada rose: < Far rather would I serve 
 Thy Christ,' he said, < and thus Alfleda lose, 
 Than win Alfleda, and reject thy Christ.' 
 He spake : old Finan first gave thanks to God, 
 Who grants the pure heart valour to believe, 
 Then took his hand and led him to that Cross 
 On Heaven-Field raised beneath the Roman Wall, 
 
154 King Oswy of Northumbria, or 
 
 That cross King Oswald's standard in the fight, 
 
 That cross Cadwallon's sentence as he fell, 
 
 4 That cross which conquered ;' there to God baptized; 
 
 Likewise his thanes and earls. 
 
 Meantime, far off 
 
 In Penda's palace-keep the revel raged, 
 High feast of rites impure. At banquet sat 
 The monarch and his chiefs ; chant followed chant 
 Bleeding with wars foregone. The day went by, 
 And, setting ere its time, a sanguine sun 
 Dipped into tumult vast of gathering storm 
 That soon incumbent leant from tower to tower 
 And shook them to their base. As high within 
 The gladness mounted, meeting storm with storm, 
 Till cried that sacrificial priest whose knife 
 Had pierced the warrior victim's willing throat 
 That morn, * Already with the gods we feast ! 
 Hark ! round Valhalla swell the phantom wars ! ' 
 Ere ceased the shout applausive, from his seat 
 Uprose the warrior Saxo, in his hand 
 The goblet, in the other Alp, his sword, 
 Pointing to heaven. ' To Odin health ! ' he cried ; 
 * Would that this hour he rode into this hall ! 
 He should not hence depart till blood of his 
 Had reddened Sleipner's flank, his snow-white steed : 
 This sword would shed that blood ! ' Warriors sixteen 
 
the Wifes Victory. 155 
 
 Leaped up in wrath, and for a moment rage 
 Rocked the huge hall. But Saxo waved his sword, 
 And, laughing, shouted, * Odin's sons, be still ! 
 Count it no sin to battle with high gods ! 
 Great-hearted they ! They give the blow and take ! 
 To Odin who was ever leal as I ? ' 
 As sudden as it rose the tumult fell : 
 So ceased the storm without : but with it ceased 
 The rapture and the madness, and the shout : 
 The wine-cup still made circuit ; but the song 
 Froze in mid-air. Strange shadow hung o'er all : 
 Neighbour to neighbour whispered : courtiers slid 
 Through doors scarce open. Rumour had arrived, 
 If true or false none knew. 
 
 The moiTow morn 
 
 From Penda's court the bravest fled in fear, 
 Questioning with white lips, 'Will he slay his son?' 
 Or skulked at distance. Penda by the throat 
 Catching a white- cheeked courtier, cried : < The truth ! 
 What whisper they in corners ? ' On his knees 
 That courtier made confession. Penda then, 
 ' Live, since my son is yet a living man ! 
 A Christian, say'st thou ? Let him serve his Christ ! 
 That man whom ever most I scorned is he 
 Who vows him to the service of some god, 
 Yet breaks his laws ; for that man walks, a lie. 
 
156 King Oswy of Northumbrian or 
 
 My son shall live, and after me shall reign : 
 Northumbria's realm shall die ! ' 
 
 Thus Penda spake 
 
 And sent command from tower and town to blow 
 Instant the trumpet of his last of wars, 
 Fanning from Odin's hall with airs ice-cold 
 Of doom the foes of Odin. l Man nor child/ 
 He sware, 'henceforth shall tread Northumbrian soil, 
 Nor hart nor hind : I spare the creeping worm : 
 My scavenger is he. 7 The Mercian realm 
 Rose at his call, innumerable mass 
 Of warriors iron-armed. East Anglia sent 
 Her hosts in aid. Apostate Ethelwald, 
 Though Oswy's nephew, joined the hostile league, 
 And thirty chiefs beside that ruled by right 
 Princedom or province. Mightier far than these 
 Old Cambria, brooding o'er the ancestral wrong, 
 The Saxon's sin original, met his call, 
 And vowed her to the vengeance. 
 
 Bravest hearts 
 
 Hate most the needless slaughter. Oswy mused : 
 < Long since too much of blood is on this hand : 
 Shall I for pride or passion risk once more 
 Northumbria, my mother ; rudely stain 
 Her pretty babes with blood ? ' To Penda then, 
 Camped on the confines of the adverse realms, 
 
the Wife's Victory. 157 
 
 He sent an embassage of reverend men, 
 
 Warriors and priests. Before them, staff in hand, 
 
 Peaceful, with hoary brows and measured tread, 
 
 Twelve heralds paced. Twelve caskets bare they heaped 
 
 With gems and gold, and thus addressed the King : 
 
 6 Lord of the Mercian realm, renowned in arms ! 
 
 Our lord, Northumbrian monarch, bids thee hail : 
 
 He never yet in little thing or great 
 
 Hath wronged thy kingdom ; yet thy peace he woos : 
 
 Accept the gifts he sends thee, and, thus crowned, 
 
 Depart content.' Penda with backward hand 
 
 Waved them far from him, and vouchsafed no word. 
 
 In sadness they returned : but Oswy smiled 
 
 Hearing their tale, and said : ' My part is done : 
 
 Let God decide the event.' He spake, and took 
 
 The caskets twelve, and placed them, side by side, 
 
 Before the altar of his chiefest church, 
 
 And vowed to raise to God twelve monasteries, 
 
 In honour of our Lord's Apostles Twelve, 
 
 On greenest upland, or in sylvan glade 
 
 Where purest stream kisses the richest mead. 
 
 His vow recorded, sudden through the church 
 
 Ran with fleet foot a lady mazed with joy, 
 
 Crying, ' A maiden babe ! and lo, the queen 
 
 Late dying lives and thrives ! ' That eve the king 
 
 Bestowed on God the new-born maiden babe, 
 
158 King Oswy of Northumbria, or 
 
 Laying her cradled ; mid those caskets twelve, 
 Six at each side ; and said : ' For her nor throne 
 Nor marriage bower ! She in some holy house 
 Shall dwell the Bride of Christ. But thou, just God, 
 This day avenge my people ! ' 
 
 Windwaed field 
 
 Heard, distant still, that multitudinous foe 
 Trampling the darksome ways. With pallid face 
 Morning beheld their standards, raven-black 
 Penda had thus decreed, before him sending 
 Northumbrians sentence. On a hill, thick-set 
 Stood Osw}'s army, small, yet strong in faith, 
 A wedge-like phalanx, fenced by rocks and woods ; 
 A river in its front. His standards white 
 Sustained the Mother-Maid and Babe Divine : 
 From many a crag his altars rose, choir-girt, 
 And crowned by incense wreath. 
 
 An hour ere noon, 
 
 That river passed, in thunder met the hosts ; 
 But Penda, straitened by that hilly tract, 
 Could wield not half his force. Sequent as waves 
 On rushed they : Oswy's phalanx like a cliff 
 Successively down dashed them. Day went by : 
 At last the clouds dispersed : the westering sun 
 Glared on the spent eyes of those Mercian ranks 
 Which in their blindness each the other smote, 
 
the Wifes Victory. 159 
 
 Or, trapped by hidden pitfalls, fell on stakes, 
 
 And died blaspheming. Little help that day 
 
 Gat they from Cambria. She on Heaven-Field height 
 
 Had felt her death-wound, slow albeit to die. 
 
 The apostate Ethelwald in panic fled : 
 
 The East Anglians followed. Swollen by recent rains, 
 
 And choked with dead, the river burst its bound, 
 
 And raced along the devastated plain 
 
 Till cry of drowning horse and shriek of man 
 
 Rang far and farther o'er that sea of death, 
 
 A battle-field but late. This way and that 
 
 Briton or Mercian where he might escaped 
 
 Through flood or forest. Penda scorned to fly : 
 
 Thrice with extended arms he met and cursed 
 
 The fugitives on rushing. As they passed 
 
 He flung his crowned helm into the wave, 
 
 And bit his brazen shield, above its rim 
 
 Levelling a look that smote with chill like death 
 
 Their hearts that saw it. Yet one moment more 
 
 He sat like statue on some sculptured horse 
 
 With upraised hand, close-clenched, denouncing Heaven : 
 
 Then burst his mighty heart. As stone he fell 
 
 Dead on the plain. Not less in after times 
 
 Mercian to Mercian said, * Without a wound 
 
 King Penda died, although on battle-field, 
 
 Therefore with Odin Penda shares not feast.' 
 
 
1 60 King Oswy of Northumbria, or 
 
 Thus pagan died old Penda as he lived : 
 
 Yet Penda's sons were Christian, kindlier none ; 
 
 His daughters nuns ; and lamb-like Mercia's House, 
 
 Lion one while, made end. King Oswy raised 
 
 His monasteries twelve : benigner life 
 
 Around them spread : wild waste, and robber bands 
 
 Vanished : the poor were housed, the hungry fed : 
 
 And Oswy sent his little new-born babe 
 
 Dewed with her mother's tear-drops, Eanfleda, 
 
 Like some young lamb with fillet decked and flower, 
 
 Yet dedicated not to death, but life, 
 
 To Hilda sent on Whitby's sea-washed hill, 
 
 Who made her Bride of Christ. The years went by, 
 
 And Oswy, now an old king, glory-crowned, 
 
 His country from the Mercian thraldom loosed 
 
 And free from north to south, in heart resolved 
 
 A pilgrim, Romeward faring with bare feet, 
 
 To make his rest by Peter's tomb and Paul's. 
 
 God willed not thus : within his native realm 
 
 The sickness unto death clasped him with hold 
 
 Gentle but firm. Long sleepless, t'ward the close 
 
 Amid his wanderings smiling, from the couch 
 
 He stretched a shrivelled hand, and pointing said, 
 
 ' Who was it fabled she had died in age ? 
 
 In all her youthful beauty holy and pure, 
 
 Lo, where she kneels upon the wintry ground, 
 
the Wifes Victory. 161 
 
 The snow-flakes circling round her, yet with face 
 Bright as a star ! ' so spake the king, and taking 
 Into his heart that vision, slept in peace. 
 His daughter, abbess then on Whitby's height, 
 Within her church interred her father's bones 
 Beside her grandsire's, Edwin. Side by side 
 They rested, one Bernicia's king, and one 
 Deira's great Northumbria's sister realms ; 
 Long foes, yet blended by that mingling dust. 
 
 M 
 
l62 
 
 THE VENGEANCE OF THE MONKS OF 
 BARDENEY. 
 
 Osthryda, Queen of Mercia, translates the relics of her uncle, 
 Oswald of Northumberland, to the Abbey of Bardeney. The monks 
 refuse them admittance because King Oswald had conquered and 
 kept for one year Lindsay, a province of Mercia. Though hourly 
 expecting the destruction of their Abbey, they will yield neither to 
 threats nor to supplications, nor even to celestial signs and wonders. 
 At last, being convinced by the reasoning of a devout man, they 
 repent of their anger. 
 
 SILENT, with gloomy brows in conclave sat 
 The monks of Bardeney, nigh the eastern sea ; 
 Rumour, that still outruns the steps of ill, 
 Smote on their gates with news : ' Osthryda comes 
 To bury here her royal uncle's bones, 
 Northumbrian Oswald. 7 Oswald was a Saint ; 
 Had loosed from Pagan bonds that Christian land 
 His own by right. But Oswald had subdued 
 Lindsay, a Mercian province ; and the monks 
 Were sons of Mercia leal and true. Osthryda, 
 
The Vengeance of the Monks, etc. 163 
 
 Northumbrian born, had wedded Mercians King ; 
 Therefore the monks of Bardeney pondered thus : 
 * This Mercian Queen spurns her adopted country ! 
 Must Mercia therefore build her conqueror's tomb ? 
 Though earth and hell cried " Ay," it should not be ! ' 
 Thus mused the brethren till the sun went down : 
 Then lo ! beyond a vista in the woods 
 Drew nigh a Bier, black-plumed, with funeral train : 
 Thereon the stern monks gazed, and gave command 
 To close the Abbey's gate. Beside that gate 
 Tent-roofed that Bier remained. 
 
 Before them soon 
 
 Stood up the royal herald. Thus he spake : 
 ' Ye sacred monks of Bardeney's Abbey, hail ! 
 Osthryda, wife of Ethelred our King, 
 Prays that God's peace may keep this House forever. 
 The Queen has hither brought, by help of God, 
 King Oswald's bones, and sues for them a grave 
 Within this hallowed precinct.' Answer came : 
 4 King Oswald, living, was Northumbrian King ; 
 King Oswald, by the pride of life seduced, 
 Wrested from Mercia's sceptre Lindsay's soil ; 
 Therefore in Lindsay's soil King Oswald, dead, 
 May never find repose/ 
 
 Before them next 
 Three earls advanced full- armed, and spake loud-voiced : 
 
 M 2 
 
164 The Vengeance of the 
 
 < Our Queen is consort of the Mercian King ; 
 Ye, monks, are Mercian subjects ! Sirs, beware ! 
 Our King and Queen have loved you well till now, 
 And ranked your abbey highest in their realm : 
 But hearts ingrate can sour the mood of love ; 
 And Ethelred, though mild as summer skies 
 
 When mildly used, once angered ' Answer came : 
 
 ' We know it, and await our doom, content : 
 If Mercia's King contemns his realm, more need 
 That Mercia's priests her confessors should die : 
 In Bardeney's church King Oswald ne'er shall rest : 
 Ye have your answer, Earls ! ' 
 
 Through that dim hall 
 Ere long a gentler embassage made way, 
 Three priests ; arrived, they knelt, and, reverent, spake: 
 ' Fathers and brethren, Oswald was a Saint ! 
 He loosed his native land from pagan thrall : 
 Churches and convents everywhere he built : 
 His relics, year by year, grow glorious more 
 Through miracles and signs. Fathers revered, 
 Within this sanctuary beloved of God 
 Vouchsafe his dust interment ! ' They replied : 
 ' We know that Oswald is a Saint with God : 
 We know he freed his realm from pagan thrall ; 
 We know that churches everywhere he built ; 
 We know that from his relics Grace proceeds 
 
Monks of B ardency. 165 
 
 As light from sun and moon. In heaven a crown 
 Rests on Saint Oswald's head : yet here on earth 
 King Oswald's foot profaned our Mercian bound : 
 Therefore in Mercian earth he finds not grave/ 
 
 Silent those priests withdrew. An hour well-nigh 
 Went by in silence. Then with forehead crowned 
 And mourner's veil, and step of one that mourns, 
 The Queen advanced, a lady at each side, 
 And 'mid the circle stood, and thus implored : 
 ' Not as your Sovereign come I, holy Sirs, 
 Since all are equal in the House of God ; 
 Nor stand I here a stranger. Many a day 
 In this your church, I knelt, while yet a child ; 
 Then too, as now, within my breast there lived 
 The tenderest of its ardours and the best, 
 Zeal for my kinsman's fame. That time how oft 
 I heard my Father, Oswy, cry aloud, 
 " O Brother, had I walked but in thy ways 
 My foot had never erred ! " In maiden youth 
 I met with one who shared my loyal zeal, 
 Mercian himself : 'twas thus he won my heart : 
 My royal husband shared it ; shares this hour 
 My trust that 'mid the altars reared by us 
 To grace this chiefest Minster of our realm 
 May rest the relics of our household Saint 
 To spurn them from your threshold were to shame.' 
 
 
1 66 The Vengeance of the 
 
 She spake : benign and soft the answering voice : 
 ' Entreat us not, thou mourner true and kind, 
 Lest we, by pity from the straight path drawn, 
 Sin more than thou. Thou know'st what thing love is, 
 Thus loving one who died before thy birth ! 
 Up to the measure of high love and fit 
 Thou lov'st him for this cause, because thy heart 
 Hath never rested on base love and bad : 
 Lady, a sterner severance monks have made : 
 Not base and bad alone do they reject, 
 But lesser good for better and for best : 
 Therefore what yet remains they love indeed : 
 A single earthly love is theirs unblamed, 
 Their Country ! Lo, the wild-bird loves her nest, 
 Lions their caves : to us God gave a Country. 
 What heart of man but loves that mother-land 
 Whose omnipresent arms are round him still 
 In vale and plain ; whose voice in every stream ; 
 
 Whose breath his forehead cools ; whose eyes with 
 joy 
 
 Regard her offspring issuing forth each morn 
 
 On duteous tasks ; to rest each eve returning ? 
 
 And who that loves her but must hate her foes ? 
 
 Lady, accept God's Will, nor strive by prayer 
 
 To change it. In our guest-house rest this night, 
 
 Thou, and thy train.' 
 
Monks of B ardency. 167 
 
 Severe the Queen replied : 
 ' Yea, in thy guest-house I will lodge this night, 
 Unvanquished, undiscouraged, not to cease 
 From prayer : of that be sure. I make henceforth 
 My prayer to God, not man. To Him I pray, 
 That Lord of all, Who changes at His will 
 The stony heart to flesh/ 
 
 She spake : then turned 
 On those old faces, keenlier than before, 
 Her large slow eyes ; and instant in her face 
 The sadness deepened : but the wrath was gone. 
 That sadness said, ' Love then as deep as mine, 
 And grief like mine, in other breasts may spring 
 From source how different ! ' Long she gazed, like 
 
 child 
 
 That knows not she is seen to gaze, with looks 
 As though she took that hoary-headed band 
 Into her sorrowing heart. Silent she sighed ; 
 Then passed into the guest-house with her train : 
 There prayed all night for him, that Saint in heaven 
 Ill-honoured upon earth. 
 
 Within their church 
 
 Meantime the monks the ' Dies Irse ' sang, 
 The yellow tapers ranged as round a corse, 
 And Penitential Psalms in order due. 
 Their rite was for the living : ere the time 
 
1 68 The Vengeance of the 
 
 They sang the obsequies of sentenced men, 
 Foreboding -wrath to come. Sad Fancy heard 
 The flames up-rushing o'er their convent home, 
 The ruin of their church late-built, the wreck 
 It might be of their Order. Fierce they knew 
 That Mercian royal House ! Against their King 
 They hurled no ban : venial they deemed his crime : 
 ' He moves within the limits of his right, 
 Though wrongly measuring right. He sees but this, 
 His subjects break his laws. Some sin of youth 
 It may be hides from him a right more high : ' 
 Thus spake they in their hearts. 
 
 While rival thus 
 
 The brethren and the Queen sent up their prayer, 
 And sacred night hung midway in her course, 
 Behold, there fell from God tempest and storm 
 Buffeting that abbey's walls. The woods around, 
 Devastated by stress of blast on blast, 
 Howled like the howling of wild beasts when fire 
 Invests their ambush, and their cubs late-born 
 Blaze in red flame. Trembling, the strong-built towers 
 Echoed the woodland moans. All night the Queen, 
 Propped by those two fair Seraphs, Faith and Love, 
 Prayed on in hope, or hearing not that storm, 
 Or mindful that where danger most abounds 
 There God is nearest still. Meantime the Tent 
 
Monks o t 
 
 Covering that royal Bier, unshaken st< 
 Beside the unyielding abbey-gates close-barred, 
 Like something shielded by a heavenly charm : 
 When morning came, shattered all round it lay 
 Both trunk and bough ; but in the rising sun 
 The storm-drop shook not on that snowy shrine. 
 
 Things wondrous more that Legend old records : 
 An hour past sunrise from the meads and moors 
 Came wide-eyed herdsmen thronging, with demand, 
 ' What means this marvel ? All the long still night, 
 While heaven and earth were dark, and peaceful sleep 
 Closed in her arms the wearied race of men, 
 Keeping our herds on meads and moorlands chill, 
 We saw a glittering Tent beside your gates : 
 Above it, and not far, a pillar stood, 
 All light, and high as heaven ! ' The abbot answered, 
 ' Fair Sirs, ye dreamed a dream ; and sound your sleep 
 Untroubled by the terror of the storm 
 Whereof those woodland fragments witness still, 
 And many a forest patriarch prostrate laid : 
 There rose no pillar by our gates : yon Tent 
 Stood there, and stood alone.' In two hours' space 
 Shepherds arrived, from hills remoter sped, 
 Making the same demand. With eye ill pleased 
 Thus answered brief the prior : ' Friends, ye jest ! ' 
 
170 The Vengeance of the 
 
 And they in wrath departed. Once again 
 
 Came foresters from Lindsay's utmost bound, 
 
 On horses blown, and spake : * O'er yonder Tent, 
 
 Through all the courses of the long still night, 
 
 Behold, a shining pillar hovering stood : 
 
 It rained a glory on your convent walls : 
 
 It flung a trail of splendour o'er your woods : 
 
 We watched it hour by hour. Like Oswald's Cross 
 
 On Heaven-Field planted in the days of old, 
 
 It waxed in height : the stars were quenched.' Replied 
 
 With reddening brows the youngest of those monks, 
 
 6 Sirs, ye have had your bribe, and told your tale : 
 
 Depart ! ' and they departed great in scorn. 
 
 Long time the brethren sat ; discoursed long time 
 Each with his neighbour. ' Craft of man would force 
 Dishonest deed on this our holy House, 
 By miracles suborned ; ' thus spake the first : 
 The second answered, ' Ay, confederates they ! 
 The good Queen knew not of it : ' then the third, 
 ' Not so ! these men are simple folks, I ween : 
 Nor time for fraud had they. What sail is yon 
 So weather-worn that nears the headland ? ' Soon 
 A pilot stood before them ; at his side 
 A priest, long years an inmate of their House, 
 But late a pilgrim in the Holy Land. 
 

 Monks of Bardeney. 171 
 
 Their greetings over, greetings warm and kind, 
 
 Thus spake the Pilgrim : ' Brothers mine, rejoice ; 
 
 Our God is with us ! For our House I prayed 
 
 Three times with forehead on the Tomb of Christ ; 
 
 Last night there came to me, in visible form, 
 
 An answer to that prayer. All day our ship, 
 
 Before a great wind rushed t'ward Mercian shores : 
 
 To them I turned not : on the East I gazed : 
 
 " O happy East," I mused, " O Land, true home 
 
 Of every Christian heart ! The Saviour's feet 
 
 Thy streets, thy cornfields trod ! With these compared 
 
 Our country's self seems nothing ! " In my heart 
 
 Imaged successive, rose once more those sites 
 
 Capernaum, Nain, Bethsaida, Bethlehem 
 
 Where'er my feet had strayed. At midnight, cries 
 
 Of wonder rang around me, and I turned : 
 
 I saw once more our convent on its hill : 
 
 I saw beside its gate a Tent snow-white ; 
 
 I saw a glittering pillar o'er that Tent 
 
 'Twixt heaven and earth suspense ! Serene it shone, 
 
 Such pillar as led forth the Chosen Race 
 
 By night from Egypt's coasts. From wave to wave 
 
 Moon-like it paved a path ! I cried, "Thank God ! 
 
 For who shall stay yon splendour till it reach 
 
 That Syrian shore ? England," I said, " my country, 
 
 Shall lay upon Christ's Tomb a hand all light, 
 
172 The Vengeance of the 
 
 Whatever tempest shakes the world of men, 
 Thenceforth His servant vowed ! " ' 
 
 When ceased that voice 
 There fell upon the monks a crisis strange ; 
 And where that Pilgrim looked for joy, behold, 
 Doubt, wrath, and anguish ! Faces old long since 
 Grew older, stricken as by hectic spasm, 
 So fierce a pang had clutched them by the throat ; 
 While drops of sweat on many a wrinkled brow 
 Hung large like dewy beads condensed from mist 
 On cliffs by torrents shaken. Mute they sat ; 
 Then sudden rose, uplifting helpless hands, 
 As when from distant rock sore- wounded men, 
 Who all day long have watched some dreadful fight, 
 Behold it lost, or else foresee it lost, 
 And with it lost their country's hearths and homes. 
 And yet can bring no succour. Thus with them 
 They knew themselves defeated ; deemed the stars 
 Of heaven had fought against them in their course ; 
 Yet still believed, and could not but believe 
 Their cause the cause of Justice, and its wreck 
 The wreck of priestly honour, patriot faith : 
 At last the youngest of the brethren spake : 
 ' Come what come may, God's monks must guard the 
 
 Right/ 
 Death-like a silence on that conclave fell 
 
Monks of Bardeney. 173 
 
 Then rose a monk white-headed, well-nigh blind, 
 
 Esteemed a Saint, who had not uttered speech 
 
 Since came the tidings of the Queen's resolve : 
 
 Low-voiced he spake, with eyes upon the ground 
 
 And inward smile that dimly reached his lips : 
 
 ' Brethren, -be wary lest ye strive with God 
 
 Through wrath, that blind incontinence of age, 
 
 For what He wills He works. By passion warped 
 
 Ye deem this trial strange, this conflict new, 
 
 Yourselves doomed men that stand between two Fates, 
 
 On one side right, on one side miracles ! 
 
 Brethren, the chief of miracles is this, 
 
 That knowing what ye know ye know no more : 
 
 Ye know long since that Oswald is a Saint : 
 
 Ye know the sins of Saints are sins forgiven : 
 
 What then ? Shall man revenge where God forgives ? 
 
 Be wroth with those He loves ? Ye, seeing much, 
 
 See not the sun at noontide ! God last night 
 
 Sent you in love a miracle of love 
 
 To quell in you a miracle of wrath : 
 
 Discern its import true ! 
 
 Sum up the past ! 
 
 Thus much is sure : we heard those thunder peals 
 Unheard by hind or shepherd, near or far : 
 'Tis sure not less that light the shepherds saw 
 We saw not ; neither we nor yet the Queen 
 
174 The Vengeance of the 
 
 What then ? Is God not potent to divulge 
 
 The thing He wills, or hide it ? Brethren, God 
 
 Shrouding from us that beam far dwellers saw 
 
 Admonished us perchance that far is near ; 
 
 That ofttimes distance makes intelligible 
 
 What, nigh at hand, is veiled. This too He taught, 
 
 That when Northumbrian foot our Mercia spurned 
 
 The men who saw that ruin saw not all : 
 
 The light of Christ drew near us in that hour ; 
 
 His pillar o'er us stood, and in our midst : 
 
 The pang, the shame, were transient. See the whole ! ' 
 
 The old man paused a space, and then resumed : 
 * Brethren, that day our country suffered wrong : 
 One day she may inflict it. Years may bring 
 The aggressor of past time a penitent grief; 
 The wronged may meet her penitence with scorn 
 Guiltier through malice than her foe's worst rage : 
 Were it not well to leave that time unborn 
 Magnanimous ensample ? Hard it were 
 To lay in Mercian earth the unforgiven : 
 Wholly to pardon that I deem not hard. 
 My voice is this : forgive we Oswald's sin, 
 And lay his relics in our costliest shrine ! ' 
 
 Thus spake the aged man. That self-same eve, 
 The western sun descending, while the church, 
 Grey shaft transfigured by the glow divine, 
 
Monks of B ardency. 175 
 
 Grey wall in flame of light pacific washed, 
 Shone out all golden like that flower all gold 
 Which shoots through sunset airs an arrowy beam, 
 In charity perfected moved the monks, 
 No longer sad, a long procession forth, 
 With foreheads smoothed as by the kiss of death 
 And eyes like eyes of Saints from death new risen, 
 Bearing the relics of Northumbria's King, 
 Oswald, the man of God. Behind them paced 
 Warriors and chiefs ; Osthryda last, the Queen, 
 With face whereon that great miraculous light, 
 By her all night unseen, appeared to rest, 
 And foot that might have trod the ocean waves 
 Unwetted save its palm. A shrine gem-wrought 
 Received the royal relics. O'er them drooped 
 Northumbria's standard, guest of Mercian airs 
 Through which it once had sailed, a portent dire : 
 And whosoe'er in after centuries knelt 
 On Oswald's grave, and, praying, wooed his prayer, 
 Departed, in his heart the peace of God, 
 Passions corrupt expelled, and demon snares, 
 Irreverent love, and anger past its bound. 
 
7 6 
 
 HOW SAINT CUTHBERT KEPT HIS 
 PENTECOST AT CARLISLE. 
 
 Saint Cuthbert while a boy wanders among the woods of Nor- 
 thumbria, bringing solace to all. Later he lives alone in the island 
 of Farne. Being made bishop, many predict that he will be able 
 neither to teach his people nor to rule his diocese. His people flock 
 to him gladly, but require that he should teach them by parable and 
 tale. This he does, and likewise rules his diocese with might. He 
 discourses concerning common life. Keeping his Pentecost at 
 Carlisle, he preaches on that Feast and the Resurrection from the 
 Dead. Herbert, an eremite, beseeching him that the two may die 
 the same day, he prays accordingly, and they die the same hour. 
 
 SAINT CUTHBERT, yet a youth, for many a year 
 Walked up and down the green Northumbrian vales 
 Well loving God and man. The rockiest glens 
 And promontories shadowing loneliest seas, 
 Where lived the men least cared for, most forlorn, 
 He sought, and brought to each the words of peace. 
 Where'er he went he preached that God all Love ; 
 
How Saint Cuthbert, etc. 177 
 
 For, as the sun in heaven, so flamed in him 
 
 That love which later fired Assisi's Saint : 
 
 Yea, rumour ran that every mountain beast 
 
 Obeyed his loving call ; that when all night 
 
 He knelt upon the frosty hills in prayer, 
 
 The hare would couch her by his naked feet 
 
 And warm them with her fur. To manhood grown, 
 
 He dwelt in Lindisfarne ; there, year by year, 
 
 Prospering yet more in vigil and in fast ; 
 
 And paced its shores by night, and blent his hymns 
 
 With din of waves. Yet ofttimes o'er the strait 
 
 He passed, once more in search of suffering men, 
 
 Wafting them solace still. Where'er he went, 
 
 Those loved as children first, again he loved 
 
 As youth and maid, and in them nursed that Faith 
 
 Through which pure youth passes o'er passion's waves, 
 
 Like Him Who trod that Galilean sea : 
 
 He clasped the grey-grown sinner in his arms, 
 
 d won from him repentance long delayed, 
 Then with him shared the penance he enjoined. 
 O heart both strong and tender ! offering Mass,. 
 Awe-struck he stood as though on Calvary's height : 
 The men who marked him shook. 
 
 Twelve winters passed : 
 Then mandate fell upon the Saint from God, 
 Or breathed upon him from the heavenly height, 
 
 N 
 
 An, 
 
 TV 
 
1 78 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 Or haply from within. It drave him forth 
 
 A hermit into solitudes more stern. 
 
 ' Farewell/ he said, * my brethren and my friends ! 
 
 No holier life than yours, pure Coenobites 
 
 Pacing one cloister, sharing one spare meal, 
 
 Chanting to God one hymn ! yet I must forth 
 
 Farewell, my friends, farewell ! ' On him they gazed, 
 
 And knew that God had spoken to his soul, 
 
 And silent stood, though sorrowing. 
 
 Long that eve, 
 
 The brethren grieved, noting his vacant stall, 
 Yet thus excused their sadness : ' Well for him, 
 And high his place in heaven ; but woe to those 
 Henceforth of services like his amerced ! 
 Here lived he in the world ; here many throng ; 
 To him in time some lesser bishopric 
 Might well have fallen, behoof of countless souls ! 
 Such dream is past forever ! ' 
 
 Forth he fared 
 
 To Fame, a little rocky islet nigh, 
 Where man till then had never dared to dwell, 
 By dreadful rumours scared. In narrow cave 
 Worn from the rock, and roughly walled around, 
 The anchoret made abode, with lonely hands 
 Raising from one poor strip his daily food, 
 Barley thin-grown, and coarse. He saw by day 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 1 79 
 
 The clouds on-sailing, and by night the stars ; 
 
 And heard the eternal waters. Thus recluse 
 
 The man lived on in vision still of God 
 
 Through contemplation known : and as the shades 
 
 Each other chase all day o'er steadfast hills, 
 
 Even so, athwart that Vision unremoved, 
 
 Forever rushed the tumults of this world, 
 
 Man's fleeting life, the rise and fall of states, 
 
 While changeless measured change ; the spirit of prayer 
 
 Fanning that wondrous picture oft to flame 
 
 Until the glory grew insufferable. 
 
 Long years thus lived he. As the Apostle Paul, 
 
 Though raised in raptures to the heaven of heavens, 
 
 Not therefore loved his brethren less, but longed 
 
 To give his life his all for Israel's sake, 
 
 So Cuthbert, loving God, loved man the more, 
 
 His wont of old. To him the mourners came, 
 
 And sinners bound by Satan. At his touch 
 
 Their chains fell from them light as summer dust : 
 
 Each word he spake was as a Sacrament 
 
 Clothed with God's grace ; beside his feet they sat, 
 
 And in their perfect mind ; thence through the world 
 
 Bare their deliverer's name. 
 
 So passed his life : 
 
 There old he grew, and older yet appeared, 
 By fasts outworn, though ever young at heart ; 
 
 N 2 
 
1 80 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 When lo ! before that isle a barge there drew 
 Bearing the royal banner. Egfrid there 
 With regal sceptre sat, and many an earl, * 
 
 And many a mitred bishop at his side. 
 Northumbria's see was void : a council's voice 
 Joined with a monarch's called him to its throne : 
 In vain he wept, and knelt, and sued for grace : 
 Six months' reprieve alone he won ; then ruled 
 In Lindisfarne, chief Bishop of the North. 
 
 But certain spake who deemed that they were wise, 
 Fools all beside : ' Shall Cuthbert crosier lift? 
 A child, 'tis known he herded flocks for hire, 
 Housed in old Renspid's hut, his Irish nurse, 
 Who told him tales of Leinster Kings, his sires, 
 And how her hands, their palace wrecked in war, 
 Had snatched him from its embers. Yet a boy 
 He rode to Melrose and its wondering monks, 
 A mimic warrior, in his hand a lance, 
 With shepherd youth for page, and spake : " Tis 
 
 known 
 
 Christ's kingdom is a kingdom militant : 
 A son of Kings I come to guard His right 
 And battle 'gainst his foes ! " For lance and sword 
 A book they gave him ; and they made him monk : 
 Savage since then he couches on a rock, 
 As fame reports, with birds' nests in his beard ! 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 
 
 181 
 
 Can dreamers change to Bishops ? Vision-dazed, 
 Move where he may, that slowly wandering eye 
 Will see in man no more than kites or hawks ; 
 Men, if they note, will flee him.' Thus they buzzed, 
 Self-praised, and knowing not that simpleness 
 Is sacred soil, and sown with royal seed, 
 The heroic seed and saintly. 
 
 Mitred once 
 
 Such gibes no more assailed him : one short month 
 Sufficed the petty cavil to confute ; 
 One month well chronicled in book which verse 
 Late born, alas, in vain would emulate. 
 At once he called to mind the days that were ; 
 His wanderings in Northumbrian glens ; the hearths 
 That welcomed him so joyously ; at once 
 Within his breast the heart parental yearned ; 
 He longed to see his children, scattered wide 
 From Humberts bank to Tweed, from sea to sea, 
 And cried to those around him : ' Let us forth, 
 And visit all my charge ; and since Carlisle 
 Remotest sits upon its western bound, 
 Keep there this year our Pentecost ! ' Next day 
 He passed the sands, left hard by ebbing tide, 
 His cross-bearer and brethren six in front, 
 And trod the mainland. Reverent, first he sought 
 His childhood's nurse, and 'neath her humble roof 
 
1 82 How Saint Cuthberi kept 
 
 Abode one night. To Melrose next he fared 
 Honouring his master old. 
 
 Southward once more 
 
 Returning, scarce a bow-shot from the woods 
 There rode to him a mighty thane, one-eyed, 
 With warriors circled, on a jet-black horse, 
 Barbaric shape and huge, yet frank as fierce, 
 Who thus made boast : ' A Jute devout am I ! 
 What raised that convent-pile on yonder rock ? 
 This hand ! I wrenched the hillside from a foe 
 By force, and gave it to thy Christian monks 
 To spite yet more those Angles ! Island Saint, 
 Unprofitable have I found thy Faith ! 
 Behold, those priests, thy thralls, are savage men, 
 Unrighteous, ruthless ! For a sin of mine 
 They laid on me a hundred days of fast ! 
 A man am I keen-witted : friend ard liege 
 I summoned, shewed my wrong, and ended thus : 
 " Sirs, ye are ninety -nine, the hundredth I ; 
 I counsel that we share this fast among us ! 
 To-morrow from the dawn to evening's star 
 No food as bulky as a spider's tongue 
 Shall pass our lips j and thus in one day's time 
 My hundred days of fast shall stand fulfilled." 
 Wrathful they rose, and sware by Peter's keys 
 That fight they would, albeit 'gainst Peter's self; 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 
 
 But fast they would not save for personal sins. 
 Signal I made : then backward rolled the gates, 
 And, captured thus, they fasted without thanks, 
 Cancelling my debt a hundred days in one ! 
 Beseech yon, Father, chide your priests who breed 
 Contention thus 'mid friends ! ' The Saint replied, 
 ' Penance is irksome, Thane : to 'scape its scourge 
 Ways are there various ; and the easiest this, 
 Keep far from mortal sin.' 
 
 Where'er he faced, 
 
 The people round him pressed the sick, the blind, 
 Young mothers sad because a babe was pale ; 
 Likewise the wives of fishers, praying loud 
 Their husbands' safe return. Rejoiced he was 
 To see them, hear them, touch them ; wearied never : 
 Whate'er they said delighted still he heard : 
 The rise and fall of empires touched him less, 
 The book rich-blazoned, or the high-towered church : 
 ' We have,' he said, ' God's children, and their God : 
 The rest is fancy's work.' Him too they loved ; 
 Loved him the more because, so great and wise, 
 He stumbled oft in trifles. Once he said, 
 ' How well those pine-trees shield the lamb from wind ! ' 
 A smile ran round ; at last the boldest spake, 
 ' Father, these are not pine-trees these are oaks.' 
 And Cuthbert answered, * Oaks, good sooth, they are ! 
 
184 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 In youth I knew the twain apart : the pine 
 Wears on his head the Cross.' Instruction next 
 He gave them, how the Cross had vanquished sin : 
 Then first abstruse to some appeared his words. 
 * Father,' they answered, ' speak in parables ! 
 For pleasant is the tale, and, onward passed, 
 Keeps in our hearts thy lesson.' 
 
 While they spake, 
 
 A youth rich-vested tossed his head and cried : 
 4 Father, why thus converse with untaught hinds ? 
 Their life is but the life of gnats and flies : 
 They think but of the hour. Behold yon church ! 
 I reared it both for reverence of thy Christ, 
 And likewise that through ages yet to come 
 My name might live in honour ! ' At that word 
 Cuthbert made answer : ' Hear the parable 1 
 My people craved for such. 
 
 A monk there lived 
 Holiest of men reputed. He was first 
 On winter mornings in the freezing stall ; 
 Meekest when chidden ; fervent most in prayer : 
 And, late in life, when heresies arose, 
 That book he wrote, like tempest winged from God, 
 Drave them to darkness back. Grey-haired he died ; 
 With honour was interred. The years went by ; 
 His grave they opened. Peacefully he slept, 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 185 
 
 Unchanged, the smile of death upon his lips : 
 O'er the right hand alone, for so it seemed, 
 Had Death retained his power : five little lines, 
 White ashes, showed where once the fingers lay. 
 All saw it simple, learned, rich and poor : 
 None might divine the cause. That night, behold ! 
 A Saintly Shape beside the abbot stood, 
 Bright like the sun except one lifted palm 
 Thereon there lay a stain. < Behold that hand ! ' 
 The Spirit spake, * that, toiling twenty years, 
 Sent forth that book which pacified the world ; 
 For it the world would canonise me Saint ! 
 See that ye do it not ! Inferior tasks 
 I wrought for God alone. Building that book 
 Too oft I mused, " Far years will give thee praise." 
 I expiate that offence. 7 
 
 Another day 
 A sweet-faced woman raised her voice, and cried, 
 
 * Father ! those sins denounced by God I flee ; 
 Yet tasks imposed by God too oft neglect : 
 Stands thus a soul imperilled ? ' Cuthbert spake : 
 
 * Ye sued for parables ; I speak in such, 
 Though ill, a language strange to me, and new. 
 There lived a man who shunned committed sin, 
 Yet daily by omission sinned and knew it : 
 
 In his own way, not God's, he served his God ; 
 
1 86 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 And there was with him peace ; yet not God's peace. 
 
 So passed his youth. In age he dreamed a dream : 
 
 He dreamed that, being dead, he raised his eyes, 
 
 And saw a mountain range of frozen snows, 
 
 And heard, " Committed sins innumerable 
 
 Though each one small so small thou knew'st them 
 
 not 
 
 Uplifted, flake by flake as sin by sin, 
 Yon barrier 'twixt thy God and thee ! Arise, 
 Remembering that of sins despair is worst : 
 Be strong, and scale it ! " Fifty years he scaled 
 Those hills ; so long it seemed. A cavern next 
 Entering, with mole-like hands he scooped his way, 
 And reached at last the gates of morn. Ah me ! 
 A stone's cast from him rose the Tree of Life : 
 He heard its sighs ecstatic : Full in view 
 The Beatific River rolled ; beyond 
 All-glorious shone the City of the Saints 
 Clothed with God's light ! And yet from him that realm 
 Was severed by a gulf! Not wide that strait ; 
 It seemed a strong man's leap twice told no more ; 
 But, as insuperably soared that cliff, 
 Unfathomably thus its sheer descent 
 Walled the abyss. Again he heard that Voice : 
 " Henceforth no place remains for active toils, 
 Penance for acts perverse. Inactive sloth 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 187 
 
 Through passive suffering meets its due. On earth 
 That sloth a nothing seemed ; a nothing now 
 That chasm whose hollow bars thee from the Blest, 
 Poor slender film of insubstantial air. 
 Self-help is here denied thee ; for that cause 
 A twofold term thou need'st of pain love-taught 
 To expiate Love that lacked." That term complete 
 An angel caught him o'er that severing gulf : 
 Thenceforth he saw his God/ 
 
 With such discourse 
 
 Progress, though slow and interrupted oft, 
 The Saint of God, by no delay perturbed, 
 Made daily through his sacred charge. One eve 
 He walked by pastures arched along the sea, 
 With many companied. The on-flowing breeze 
 Glazed the green hill-tops, bending still one way 
 The glossy grasses : limitless below 
 The ocean mirror, clipped by cape or point 
 With low trees inland leaning, lay like lakes 
 Flooding rich lowlands. Southward far, a rock 
 Touched by a rainy beam, emerged from mist, 
 And shone, half green, half gold. That rock was Fame : 
 Though strangers, those that kenned it guessed its name : 
 * Doubtless 'twas there/ they said, ' our Saint abode ! ' 
 Then pressed around him, questioning : ' Rumour goes, 
 Father beloved, that in thine island home 
 
1 88 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 Thou sat'st all day with hammer small in hand, 
 Shaping, from pebbles veined, miraculous beads 
 That save their wearers still from sword and lance : 
 Are these things true ? ' Smiling the Saint replied : <- 
 4 True, and not true ! That isle in part is spread 
 With pebbles divers-fashioned, some like beads : 
 I gathered such, and gave to many a guest, 
 Adding, " Such beads shall count thy nightly prayers ; 
 Pray well ; then fear no peril ! " ' 
 
 Others came 
 
 And thus demanded : ( Rumour fills the world, 
 Father, that birds miraculous crowned thine isle, 
 And awe-struck let thee lift them in thy hand, 
 Though scared by all beside.' Smiling once more 
 The Saint made answer, ' True, and yet not true ! 
 Sea-birds elsewhere beheld not throng that isle ; 
 A breed so loving and so firm in trust 
 That, yet unharmed by man, they flee not man ; 
 Wondering they gaze ; who wills may close upon them 
 I signed a league betwixt that race and man, 
 Pledging the mariners who sought my cell 
 To reverence still that trust/ He ended thus : 
 ' My friends, ye seek me still for parables ; 
 Seek them from Nature rather : here are two ! 
 Those pebble-beads are words from Nature's lips 
 Exhorting man to pray ; those fearless birds 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 189 
 
 Teach him that trust to innocence belongs 
 By right divine, and more avails than craft 
 To shield us from the aggressor.' Some were glad 
 Hearing that doctrine ; others cried, ' Not so ! 
 Our Saint all know it makes miraculous beads ; 
 But. being humble, he conceals his might : ' 
 And many an age, when slept that Saint in death, 
 Passing his isle by night the sailor heard 
 Saint Cuthbert's hammer clinking on the rock ; 
 And age by age men cried, ' Our Cuthbert's birds 
 Revere the Saint's command.' 
 
 While thus they spake 
 
 A horseman over moorlands near the Tweed 
 Made hasty way, and thus addressed the Saint : 
 ' Father, Queen Ermenburga greets thee well, 
 And this her message : " Queen am I forlorn, 
 Long buffeted by many a storm of state, 
 And worn at heart besides ; for in our house 
 Peace lived not inmate, but a summer guest ; 
 And now, my lord, the King is slain in fight ; 
 And changed the aspect now things wore of old : 
 Thou therefore, man of God, approach my gates 
 With counsel sage. This furcher I require ; 
 Thy counsel must be worthy of a Queen, 
 Nor aught contain displeasing." ' Cuthbert spake : 
 ' My charge requires my presence at Carlisle ; 
 
1.90 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 Beseech the Queen to meet me near its wall 
 On this day fortnight/ 
 
 Thitherwards thenceforth 
 Swiftlier he passed, while daily from the woods 
 The woodmen flocked, and shepherds from the hills, 
 Concourse still widening. These among there moved 
 A hermit meek as childhood, calm as eld, 
 Long years Saint Cuthbert's friend. Recluse he lived 
 Within a woody isle of that fair lake 
 By Derwent lulled and Greta. Others thronged 
 Round Cuthbert's steps \ that hermit stood apart 
 With large dark eyes upon his countenance fixed, 
 And pale cheek dewed with tears. The name he bore 
 Was ' Herbert of the Lake/ 
 
 Two weeks went by, 
 
 And Cuthbert reached his journey's end. Next day 
 God sent once more His Feast of Pentecost 
 To gladden men ; and all His Church on earth 
 Shone out, irradiate as by silver gleams 
 Flashed from her whiter Sister in the skies ; 
 And every altar laughed, and every hearth ; 
 And many a simple hind in spirit heard 
 The wind which through that ' upper chamber ' swept 
 Careering through the universe of God, 
 New life through all things poured. Cuthbert that day, 
 Borne on by winged winds of rapturous thought, 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 191 
 
 Forth from Carlisle had fared alone, and reached 
 
 Ere long a mead tree-girded ; in its midst 
 
 Swift-flowing Eden raced from fall to fall, 
 
 Showering at times her spray on flowers as fair 
 
 As graced that earlier Eden ; flowers so light 
 
 Each feeblest breath impalpable to man 
 
 Now shook them and now swayed. Delighted eye 
 
 The Saint upon them fixed. Ere long he gazed 
 
 As glad on crowds thronging the river's marge, 
 
 For now the high-walled city poured abroad 
 
 Her children rich and poor. At last he spake : 
 
 1 Glory to Him Who made both flowers and souls ! 
 
 He doeth all things well ! A few weeks past 
 
 Yon river rushed by wintry banks forlorn ; 
 
 What decks it thus to-day ? The voice of Spring ! 
 
 She called those flowers from darkness forth : she 
 
 flashed 
 
 Her life into the snowy breast of each : 
 This day she sits enthroned on each and all : 
 The thrones are myriad ; but the Enthroned is One ! ' 
 He paused ; then, kindling, added thus : * O friends ! 
 'Tis thus with human souls through faith re-born : 
 One Spirit calls them forth from darkness ; shapes 
 One Christ, in each conceived, its life of life ; 
 One God finds rest enthroned on all. Once more 
 The thrones are many ; but the Enthroned is One ! ' 
 
 
1 92 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 Again he paused, and mused : again he spake : 
 
 ' Yea, and in heaven itself, a hierarchy 
 
 There is that glories in the name of " Thrones : " 
 
 The high cherubic knowledge is not theirs ; 
 
 Not theirs the fiery flight of Seraph's love, 
 
 But all their restful beings they dilate 
 
 To make a single, myriad throne for God 
 
 Children, abide in unity and love ! 
 
 So shall your lives be one long Pentecost, 
 
 Your hearts one throne for God ! ' 
 
 As thus he spake 
 
 A breeze, wide-wandering through the woodlands near, 
 Illumed their golden roofs, while louder sang 
 The birds on every bough. Then horns were heard 
 Resonant from stem to stem, from rock to rock, 
 While moved in sight a stately cavalcade 
 Flushing the river's crystal. Of that host 
 Foremost and saddest Ermenburga rode, 
 A Queen sad-eyed, with large imperial front 
 By sorrow seamed : a lady rode close by ; 
 Behind her earls and priests. Though proud to man 
 Her inborn greatness made her meek to God : 
 She signed the Saint to stay not his discourse, 
 And placed her at his feet. 
 
 His words were great : 
 He spake of Pentecost ; no transient grace, 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 193 
 
 No fugitive act, consummated, then gone, 
 
 But God's perpetual presence in that Church 
 
 O'er-shadowed still, like Mary, by His Spirit, 
 
 Fecundated in splendour by His Truth, 
 
 Made loving through His Love. The reign of Love 
 
 He showed, though perfected in Christ alone, 
 
 Not less co-eval with the race of man : 
 
 For what is man ? Not mind : the beasts can think : 
 
 Not passions ; appetites : the beasts have these : 
 
 Nay, but Affections ruled by Laws Divine : 
 
 These make the life of man. Of these he spake ; 
 
 Proclaimed of these the glory. These to man 
 
 Are countless loves revealing Love Supreme : 
 
 These and the Virtues, warp and woof, enweave 
 
 A single robe that sacrificial garb 
 
 Worn from the first by man, whose every act 
 
 Of love in spirit was self-sacrifice, 
 
 And prophesied the Sacrifice Eterne : 
 
 Through these the world becomes one household vast ; 
 
 Through these each hut swells to a universe 
 
 Traversed by stateliest energies wind-swift, 
 
 And planet-crowned, beneath their Maker's eye. 
 
 All hail, Affections, angels of the earth ! 
 
 Woe to that man who boasts of love to God, 
 
 And yet his neighbour scorns ! While Cuthbert spake 
 
 A young man whispered to a priest, ' Is yon 
 
 
1 94 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 That Anchoret of the rock ? Where learned he then 
 This loving reverence for the hearth and home ? 
 Mark too that glittering brow ! ' The priest replied : 
 ' What ! shall a bridegroom's face alone be bright ? 
 He knows a better mystery ! This he knows, 
 That, come what may, all o'er the earth forever 
 God keeps His blissful Bridal-feast with man : 
 Each true heart there is guest ! ' 
 
 Once more the Saint 
 
 Arose and spake : ' O loving friends, my children, 
 Christ's sons, His flock committed to my charge ! 
 I spake to you but now of humbler ties, 
 Not highest, with intent that ye might know 
 How pierced are earthly bonds by heavenly beam ; 
 Yet, speaking with lame tongue in parables, 
 I shewed you but similitudes of things 
 Twilight, not day. Make question then who will ; 
 So shall I mend my teaching.' 
 
 Prompt and bright 
 As children issuing forth to holyday, 
 Then flocked to Cuthbert's school full many a man 
 Successive : each with simpleness of heart 
 His doubt propounded ; each his question asked, 
 Or, careless who might hear, confessed his sins, 
 And absolution won. Among the rest, 
 A little seven years' boy, with sweet, still face, 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 195 
 
 Yet strong not less, and sage, drew softly near, 
 
 His great calm eyes upon the patriarch fixed, 
 
 And silent stood. From Wessex came that boy : 
 
 By chance Northumbrian guest. Meantime a chief 
 
 Demanded thus : ' Of all the works of might, 
 
 What task is worthiest ? ' Cuthbert made reply : 
 
 ' His who to land barbaric fearless fares, 
 
 And open flings God's palace gate to all, 
 
 And cries " Come in ! " ' That concourse thrilled for 
 
 joy: 
 
 Alone that seven years 7 child retained the word : 
 The rest forgat it. ' Winifrede ' that day 
 Men called him ; later centuries, ' Boniface/ 
 Because he shunned the ill, and wrought the good : 
 In time the Teuton warriors knew that brow 
 Their great Apostle he : they knew that voice : 
 And happy Fulda venerates this day 
 Her martyr's gravestone. 
 
 Next, to Cuthbert drew 
 Three maidens hand in hand, lovely as Truth, 
 Trustful, though shy : their thoughts, when hidden most, 
 Wore but a semilucid veil, as when 
 Through gold-touched crystal of the lime new-leaved 
 On April morns the symmetry looks forth 
 Of branch and bough distinct. Smiling, they put 
 At lasfc their question : ' Tell us, man of God, 
 
 O 2 
 
196 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 What life, of lives that women lead, is best ; 
 Then show us forth in parables that life ! ' 
 
 He answered : c Three ; for each of these is best : 
 First comes the Maiden's : she who lives it well 
 Serves God in marble chapel white as snow, 
 His priestess His alone. Cold flowers each morn 
 She culls ere sunrise by the stainless stream, 
 And lays them on that chapel's altar-stone, 
 And sings her matins there. Her feet are swift 
 All day in labours 'mid the vales below, 
 Cheering sad hearts : each evening she returns * 
 To that high fane, and there her vespers sings ; 
 Then sleeps, and dreams of heaven.' 
 
 With witching smile 
 
 The youngest of that beauteous triad cried : 
 ' That life is sweetest ! I would be that maid ! ' 
 Cuthbert resumed : ' The Christian Wife comes next : 
 She drinks a deeper draught of life : round her 
 In ampler sweep its sympathies extend : 
 An infant's cry has knocked against her heart, 
 Evoking thence that human love wherein 
 Self-love hath least. Through infant eyes a spirit 
 Hath looked upon her, crying, " I am thine ! 
 Creature from God dependent yet on thee ! " 
 Thenceforth she knows how greatness blends with weak- 
 ness : 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 197 
 
 Reverence, thenceforth, with pity linked, reveals 
 
 To her the pathos of the life of man, 
 
 A thing divine, and yet at every pore 
 
 Bleeding from crowned brows. A heart thus large 
 
 Hath room for many sorrows. What of that ? 
 
 Its sorrow is its dowry's noblest part. 
 
 She bears it not alone. Such griefs, so shared 
 
 Sickness, and fear, and vigils lone and long, 
 
 Waken her heart to love sublimer far 
 
 Than ecstasies of youth could comprehend ; 
 
 Lift her perchance to heights serene as those 
 
 The Ascetic treadeth.' 
 
 c I would be that wife ! ' 
 
 Thus cried the second of those maidens three : 
 Yet who that gazed upon her could have guessed 
 Creature so soft could bear a heart so brave ? 
 She seemed that goodness which was beauteous too ; 
 Virtue at once, and Virtue's bright reward ; 
 Delight that lifts, not lowers us ; made for heaven ; 
 Made too to change to heaven some brave man's hearth. 
 She added thus : ' Of lives that women lead 
 Tell us the third ! ' 
 
 Gently the Saint replied : 
 ' The third is Widowhood a wintry sound ; 
 And yet, for her who widow is indeed, 
 That winter something keeps of autumn's gold, 
 
198 How Saint C^Uhbert kept 
 
 Something regains of Spring's first flower snow-white, 
 
 Snow-cold, and colder for its rim of green. 
 
 She feels no more the warmly-greeting hand ; 
 
 The eyes she brightened rest on her no more ; 
 
 Her full-orbed being now is cleft in twain : 
 
 Her past is dead : daily from memory's self 
 
 Dear things depart ; yet still she is a wife, 
 
 A wife the more because of bridal bonds 
 
 Lives but their essence, waiting wings in heaven ; 
 
 More wife ; and yet, in that great loneliness, 
 
 More maiden too than when first maidenhood 
 
 Lacked what it missed not. Like that other maid 
 
 She too a lonely Priestess serves her God ; 
 
 Yea, though her chapel be a funeral vault, 
 
 Its altar black like Death ; the flowers thereon, 
 
 Tinct with the Blood Divine. Above that vault 
 
 She hears the anthems of the Spouse of Christ, 
 
 Widowed, like her, though Bride.' 
 
 * O fair, O sweet, 
 
 O beauteous lives all three ; fair lot of women ! ' 
 Thus cried again the youngest of those Three, 
 Too young to know the touch of grief or cause it 
 A plant too lightly leaved to cast a shade. 
 The eldest with pale cheek, and lids tear-wet, 
 Made answer sad : ' I would not be a widow.' 
 
 Then Cuthbert spake once more with smile benign 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 1 99 
 
 V 
 
 * I said that each of these three lives is best : 
 There are who live those three conjoined in one : 
 The nun thus lives ! What maid is maid like her 
 Who, free to choose, has vowed a maidenhood 
 Secure 'gainst chance or choice ? What bride like her 
 Whose Bridegroom is the spouse of vestal souls ? 
 What widow lives in such austere retreat, 
 Such hourly thought of him she ne'er can join 
 Save through the gate of death ? If those three lives 
 In separation lived are fair and sweet, 
 How show they, blent in one ? ' 
 
 Of those who heard 
 
 The most part gladdened ; those who knew how high 
 Virtue, renouncing all besides for God, 
 Hath leave to soar on earth. Yet many sighed, 
 Jealous for happy homesteads. Cuthbert marked 
 That shame-faced sadness, and continued thus : 
 ' To praise the nun reproaches not, O friends, 
 But praises best that life of hearth and home 
 At Cana blessed by Him who shared it not. 
 The uncloistered life is holy too, and oft 
 Through changeful years in soft succession links 
 Those three fair types of woman ; holds, diffused, 
 That excellence severe which life detached 
 Sustains in concentration.' Long he mused ; 
 Then added thus : ' When last I roved these vales 
 
2OO How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 There lived, not distant far, a blessed one 
 Revered by all : her name was Ethelreda : 
 I knew her long, and much from her I learned. 
 Beneath her Pagan father's roof there sat 
 Ofttimes a Christian youth. With him the child 
 Walked, calling him "her friend." He loved the 
 
 maid : 
 
 Still young, he drew her to the fold of Christ ; 
 Espoused her three years later; died in war 
 Ere three months passed. For her he never died ! 
 Immortalised by faith that bond lived on ; 
 And now close by, and now 'mid Saints of heaven 
 She saw her husband walk. She never wept ; 
 That fire which lit her eye and flushed her cheek 
 Dried up, it seemed, her tears : the neighbours round 
 Called her " the lady of the happy marriage." 
 She died long since, I doubt not.' Forward stepped 
 A slight, pale maid, the daughter of a bard, 
 And answered thus : ' Two months ago she died/ 
 Then Cuthbert : ' Tell me, maiden, of her death ; 
 And see you be not chary of your words, 
 For well I loved that woman/ Tears unfelt 
 Fast streaming down her pallid cheek, the maid 
 Replied yet often paused : 6 A sad, sweet end ! . 
 A long night's pain had left her living still : 
 I found her on the threshold of her door : 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 201 
 
 Her cheek was white ; but, trembling round her lips, 
 
 And dimly o'er her countenance spread, there lay 
 
 Something that, held in check by feebleness, 
 
 Yet tended to a smile. A cloak tight-drawn 
 
 From the cold March wind screened her, save one hand 
 
 Stretched on her knee, that reached to where a beam. 
 
 Thin slip of watery sunshine, sunset's last, 
 
 Slid through the branches. On that beam, methought, 
 
 Rested her eyes half-closed. It was not so : 
 
 For when I knelt, and kissed that hand ill-warmed, 
 
 Smiling she said : " The small, unwedded maid 
 
 Has missed her mark ! You should have kissed the 
 
 ring! 
 
 Full forty years upon a widowed hand 
 It holds its own. It takes its latest sunshine." 
 She lived through all that night, and died while dawned 
 Through snows Saint Joseph's morn. 7 
 
 The Queen, with hand 
 
 Sudden and swift, brushed from her cheek a tear ; 
 And many a sob from that thick-crowding host 
 Confessed what tenderest love can live in hearts 
 Defamed by fools as barbarous. Cuthbert sat 
 In silence long. Before his eyes she passed, 
 The maid, the wife, the widow, all in one ; 
 With these, through these he saw once more the child, 
 Yea, saw the child's smile on the lips of death, 
 
2O2 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 That magic, mystic smile ! O heart of man, 
 What strange capacities of grief and joy 
 Are thine ! How vain, how ruthless such, if given 
 For transient things alone ! O life of man ! 
 What wert thou but some laughing demon's scoff, 
 If prelude only to the eternal grave ! 
 * Deep cries to deep ' ay, but the deepest deep 
 Crying to summits of the mount of God 
 Drags forth for echo, ' Immortality.' 
 It was the Death Divine that vanquished death ! 
 Shorn of that Death Divine the Life Divine, 
 Albeit its feeblest tear had cleansed all worlds, 
 Cancelled all guilt, had failed to reach and sound 
 The deepest in man's nature, Love and Grief, 
 Profoundest each when joined in penitent woe ; 
 Failed thence to wake man's hope. The loftiest light 
 Flashed from God's Face on Reason's orient verge 
 Answers that bird-cry from the Heart of man 
 Poor Heart that, darkling, kept so long its watch 
 The auspice of the dawn. 
 
 Like one inspired 
 
 The Saint arose, and raised his hands to God ; 
 Then to his people turned with such discourse 
 As mocks the hand of scribe. No more he spake 
 In parables ; adumbrated no more 
 ' Dimly as in a glass ' his doctrine high, 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 203 
 
 But placed it face to face before men's eyes, 
 
 Essential Truth, God's image, meet for man, 
 
 Himself God's image. Worlds he showed them new, 
 
 Worlds countless as the stars that roof our night, 
 
 Fair fruitage of illimitable boughs, 
 
 Pushed from that Tree of Life from Calvary sprung 
 
 That over-tops and crowns the earth and man ; 
 
 Preached the Resurgent, the Ascended God 
 
 Dispensing ' gifts to men.' The tongue he spake 
 
 Seemed Pentecostal grace of that high Feast 
 
 For all who heard, the simple and the sage, 
 
 Heard still a single language sounding forth 
 
 To all one Promise. From that careworn Queen, 
 
 Who doffed her crown, and placed it on the rock, 
 
 Murmuring, ' Farewell forever, foolish gaud, 1 
 
 To him the humblest hearer, all made vow 
 
 To live thenceforth for God. The form itself 
 
 Of each was changed to saintly and to sweet ; 
 
 Each countenance beamed as though with rays cast down 
 
 From fiery tongues, or angel choirs unseen. 
 
 Thus like high gods on mountain-tops of joy 
 Those happy listeners sat. The body quelled 
 With all that body's might usurped to cramp 
 Through ceaseless, yet unconscious, weight of sense 
 Conceptions spiritual, might more subtly skilled 
 Than lusts avowed, to sap the spirit's life 
 
204 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 In every soul its nobler Powers released 
 Stood up, no more a jarring crowd confused 
 Each trampling each and oft the worst supreme, 
 Not thus, but grade o'er grade, in order due, 
 And pomp hierarchical. Yet hand in hand, 
 Not severed, stood those Powers. To every Mind 
 That truth new learned was palpable and dear, 
 Not abstract nor remote, with cordial strength 
 Enclasped as by a heart ; through every Heart 
 Serene affections swam 'mid seas of light, 
 Reason's translucent empire without bound, 
 Fountained from God. Silent those listeners sat 
 Parleying in wordless thought. For them the world 
 Was lost and won ; its sensuous aspects quenched ; 
 Its heavenly import grasped. The erroneous Past 
 Lay like a shrivelled scroll before their feet ; 
 And sweet as some immeasurable rose, 
 Expanding leaf on leaf, varying yet one, 
 The Everlasting Present round them glowed. 
 Dead was desire, and dead not less was fear 
 The fear of change of death. 
 
 An hour went by ; 
 
 The sun declined : then rising from his seat, 
 Herbert, the anchoret of the lonely lake, 
 Made humble way to Cuthbert's feet with suit : 
 1 O Father, and O friend, thou saw'st me not ; 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 205 
 
 Yet day by day thus far I tracked thy steps 
 
 At distance, for my betters leaving place, 
 
 The great and wise that round thee thronged ; the young 
 
 Who ne'er till then had seen thy face ; the old 
 
 Who saw it then, yet scarce again may see. 
 
 Father, a happier lot was mine, thou know'st, 
 
 Or had been save for sin of mine : each year 
 
 I sought thy cell, thy words of wisdom heard; 
 
 Yet still, alas ! lived on like sensual men 
 
 Who yield their hearts to creatures fixing long 
 
 A foolish eye on gold-touched leaf, or flower 
 
 Not Him, the great Creator. Father and Friend, 
 
 The years run past. I crave one latest boon : 
 
 Grant that we two may die the self-same day ! ' 
 
 Then Cuthbert knelt, and prayed. At last he spake : 
 
 ' Thy prayer is heard ; the self-same day and hour 
 
 We two shall die.' 
 
 That promise was fulfilled ; 
 For two years only on exterior tasks 
 God set His servant's hands the man who ' sought 
 In all things rest/ nor e'er had ceased from rest 
 Then when his task was heaviest. Two brief years 
 He roamed on foot his spiritual realm : 
 The simple still he taught : the sad he cheered : 
 Where'er he went he founded churches still, 
 And convents ; yea, and, effort costlier far, 
 
 
206 How Saint Cuthbert kept 
 
 Spared not to scan defect with vigilant eye : 
 
 That eye the boldest called not ' vision-dazed ' ; 
 
 That Saint he found no * dreamer : ' sloth or greed 
 
 'Scaped not his vengeance : scandals hid he not, 
 
 But dragged them into day, and smote them down : 
 
 Before his face he drave the hireling priest, 
 
 The bandit thane : unceasing cried, ' Ye kings, 
 
 Cease from your wars ! Ye masters, loose your slaves ! ' 
 
 Two years sufficed ; for all that earlier life 
 
 Had trained the Ascetic for those works of might 
 
 Beyond the attempt of all but boundless love, 
 
 And in him kept unspent the fire divine. 
 
 Never such Bishop walked till then the North, 
 
 Nor ever since, nor ever, centuries fled, 
 
 So lived in hearts of men. Two years gone by, 
 
 His strength decayed. He sought once more his cell 
 
 Sea-lulled ; and lived alone with God ; and saw 
 
 Once more, like lights that sweep the unmoving hills, 
 
 God's providences girdling all the world, 
 
 With glory following glory. Tenderer-souled 
 
 Herbert meantime within his isle abode, 
 
 At midnight listening Derwent's gladsome voice 
 
 Mingling with deep-toned Greta's, c Mourner ' named ; 
 
 Pacing, each day, the shore ; now gazing glad 
 
 On gold-touched leaf, or bird that cut the mere, 
 
 Now grieved at wandering thoughts. For men he prayed ; 
 
his Pentecost at Carlisle. 207 
 
 And ever strove to raise his soul to God ; 
 
 And God, Who venerates still the pure intent, 
 
 Forgat not his ; and since his spirit and heart 
 
 Holy albeit, were in the Eyes Divine 
 
 Less ripe than Cuthbert's for the Vision Blest, 
 
 Least faults perforce swelling where gifts are vast, 
 
 That God vouchsafed His servant sickness-pains 
 
 Virtue to perfect in a little space, 
 
 That both might pass to heaven the self- same hour. 
 
 It came : that sun which flushed the spray up-hurled 
 In cloud round Cuthbert's eastern rock, while he 
 Within it dying chanted psalm on psalm, 
 Ere long enkindled Herbert's western lake : 
 The splendour waxed ; mountain to mountain laughed, 
 And, brightening, nearer drew, and, nearing, clasped 
 That heaven-dropp'd beauty in more strict embrace : 
 The cliffs successive caught their crowns of fire ; 
 Blencathara last. Slowly that splendour waned ; 
 And from the glooming gorge of Borrodale, 
 Her purple cowl shadowing her holy head 
 O'er the dim lake twilight with silent foot 
 Stepped like a spirit. Herbert from his bed 
 Of shingles watched that sunset till it died ; 
 And at one moment from their distant isles 
 Those friends, by death united, passed to God. 
 
208 
 
 SAINT FRIDESWIDA, OR THE FOUNDA- 
 TIONS OF OXFORD. 
 
 Frideswida flies from the pursuit of a wicked king, invoking the 
 Divine aid and the prayers of St. Catherine and St. Cecilia. She 
 escapes ; and at the hour of her death those Saints reveal to her 
 that in that place, near the Isis, where she has successively opened 
 a blind man's eyes and healed a leper, God will one day raise up a 
 seat of Learning, the light and the health of the realm. 
 
 ' ONE love I ; One : within His bridal bower 
 
 My feet shall tread : One love I, One alone : 
 
 His Mother is a Virgin, and His Sire 
 
 The unfathomed fount of pureness undefiled : 
 
 Him love I Whom to love is to be chaste : 
 
 Him love I touched by Whom my forehead shines : 
 
 Whom she that clasps grows spotless more and more : 
 
 Behold, to mine His spirit He hath joined : 
 
 And His the blood that mantles in my cheek : 
 
 His ring is on my finger. 1 
 
Saint Frideswida. 209 
 
 Thus she sang ; 
 
 Then walked and plucked a flower : she sang again : 
 ' That which I longed for, lo, the same I see : 
 That which I hoped for, lo, my hand doth hold : 
 At last in heaven I walk with Him conjoined 
 Whom, yet on earth, I loved with heart entire.' 
 
 Thus carolled Frideswida all alone, 
 Treading the opens of a wood far spread 
 Around the upper waters of the Thames. 
 Christian almost by instinct, earth to her 
 Was shaped but to sustain the Cross of Christ. 
 Her mother lived a saint : she taught her child, 
 From reason's dawn, to note in all things fair 
 Their sacred undermeanings. ' Mark, my child, 
 In lamb and dove, not fleshly shapes, 7 she said, 
 ' But heavenly types : upon the robin's breast 
 Revere that red which bathed her from the Cross 
 With slender bill striving to loose those Nails ! ' 
 Dying, that mother placed within her hand 
 A book of saintly legends. Thus the maid 
 Grew up with mysteries clothed, with marvels fed, 
 A fearless creature swift as wind or fire : 
 But fires of hers were spirit-fires alone, 
 All else like winter moon. The Wessex King 
 Had gazed upon the glory of her face, 
 And deemed that face a spirit's. He had heard 
 P 
 
2io Saint Frideswida, or 
 
 Her voice ; it sounded like an angel's song ; 
 
 But wonder by degrees declined to love, 
 
 Such love as Pagans know. The unworthy suit, 
 
 She scorned, from childhood spoused in heart to Christ : 
 
 She fled : upon the river lay a boat : 
 
 She rowed it on through forests many a mile ; 
 
 A month had passed since then. 
 
 Midsummer blazed 
 
 On all things round : the vast, unmoving groves 
 Stretched silent forth their immemorial arms 
 Arching a sultry gloom. Within it buzzed 
 Feebly the insect swarm : the dragon- fly 
 Stayed soon his flight : the streamlet scarce made way : 
 In shrunken pools, panting, the cattle stood, 
 Languidly browsing on the dried- up sprays : 
 No bird-song shook the bower. Alone that maid 
 Glided light-limbed, as though some Eden breeze, 
 Hers only, charioted the songstress on, 
 Like those that serve the May. Beneath a tree 
 Low-roofed at last she sank, with eyes up-raised 
 On boughs that, ivy-twined and creeper-trailed, 
 Darkened the shining splendour of the sky : 
 Between their interspaces, here and there, 
 It flashed in purple stars. 
 
 Enraptured long, 
 For admiration was to her as love, 
 
the Foundations of Oxford. 2 1 1 
 
 The maiden raised at last her mother's book, 
 And lit upon her childhood's favourite tale, 
 Catherine in vision wed to Bethlehem's Babe 
 Who from His Virgin-Mother leaning, dropped 
 His ring adown her finger. Princely pride, 
 And pride not less of soaring intellect, 
 At once in her were changed to pride of love : 
 In vain her country's princes sued her grace ; 
 Kingdoms of earth she spurned. Around her seat 
 The far-famed Alexandrian Sages thronged, 
 Branding her Faith as novel. Slight and tall, 
 'Mid them, keen-eyed the wingless creature stood 
 Like daughter of the sun on earth new-lit : 
 That Faith she shewed of all things first and last ; 
 All lesser truths its prophets. Swift as beams 
 Forth flashed such shafts of high intelligence 
 That straight their lore sophistic shrivelled up, 
 And Christians they arose. The martyr's wheel 
 Was pictured in the margin, dyed with red, 
 And likewise, azure- tinct on golden ground, 
 Her queenly throne in heaven. ' Ah shining Saint ! ' 
 Half weeping, smiling half, the virgin cried ; 
 ' Yet dear not less thy sister of the West ; 
 For never gaze I on that lifted face, 
 Or mark that sailing angel near her stayed, 
 But straight her solemn organs round me swell ; 
 p 2 
 
212 Saint Frideswida, or 
 
 All discords cease.' Then with low voice she read 
 Of Rome's Cecilia, her who won to Christ, 
 (That earlier troth inviolably preserved) 
 Her Roman bridegroom, wondering at that crown 
 Invisible itself, that round her breathed 
 Rose-breath celestial ; her that to the Church 
 Gave her ancestral house ; and, happier gift, 
 Devotion's heavenliest instrument of praise ; 
 Her that, unfearing, dared that Roman sword ; 
 And when its work was done, for centuries lay 
 Like marble, 'mid the catacombs, unchanged, 
 In sleep-resembling death. 
 
 From earliest dawn 
 
 That maiden's eyes had watched : wearied at noon 
 Their silver curtains closed. Huge mossy roots 
 Pillowed her head, that slender book wide-leaved 
 In stillness, like some brooding, white-winged dove, 
 Spread on her bosom : 'gainst its golden edge 
 Rested, gold-tinged, the dimpled ivory chin 
 Loud thunders broke that sleep ; the tempest blast 
 Came up against the woods, while bolt on bolt 
 Ran through them sheer. She started up : she saw 
 That Pagan prince and many a sworded serf 
 Rushing towards her. Fleeter still she fled ; 
 But, as some mountain beast tender and slight, 
 That, pasturing spring-fed lilies of Cashmere, 
 
the Foundations of Oxford. 2 1 3 
 
 Or slumbering where its rock-nursed torrents fall, 
 
 Sudden not distant hears the hunter's cry 
 
 And mocks pursuit at first, but slackens soon 
 
 Breathless and spent, so failed her limbs ere long ; 
 
 A horror of great faintness o'er her crept ; 
 
 More near she heard their shout. She staggered on : 
 
 To threat'ning phantoms all things round were changed ; 
 
 About her towered in ruin hollow trunks 
 
 Of spiked and branchless trees, survivors sole 
 
 Of woods that, summer- scorched, then lightning-struck 
 
 A century past, for one short week had blazed 
 
 And blackened ever since. She knelt : she raised 
 
 Her hands to God : she sued for holier prayer 
 
 Saint Catherine, Saint Cecilia. At that word 
 
 Behind her close a cry of anguish rang : 
 
 Silence succeeded. As by angels' help 
 
 She reached a river's bank : sun-hardened clay 
 
 Retained the hoof-prints of the drinking herd ; 
 
 And, shallower for long heats, the oxen's ford 
 
 Challenged her bleeding feet. She crossed unharmed, 
 
 And soon in green -gold pastures girt by woods 
 
 Stood up secure. Then forth she stretched her hands, 
 
 Like Agnes praising God amid the flame : 
 
 ' Omnipotent, Eternal, Worshipful, 
 
 One God, Immense, and All-compassionate, 
 
 Thou from the sinner's snare hast snatched the feet 
 
214 Saint Frideswida, or 
 
 Of her that loved Thee. Glory to Thy name/ 
 
 Thenceforth secure she roamed those woods and meads ; 
 The dwellers in that region brought her bread, 
 Upon that countenance gazing, some with awe 
 But all with love. To her the maidens came : 
 ' Tell us,' they said, ' what mystery hast thou learned 
 So sweet and good ; thy Teacher, who was he ; 
 Grey-haired, or warrior young ? ' To them in turn 
 Ceaseless she sang the praises of her Christ, 
 His Virgin Mother and His heavenly court, 
 Warriors on earth for justice. They for her 
 Renounced all else, the banquet and the dance, 
 And nuptial rites revered. A low-roofed house 
 Inwoven of branches 'mid the woods they raised ; 
 There dwelt, and sang her hymn, and prayed her prayer, 
 And loved her Saviour-Sovereign. Year by year 
 More high her bright feet scaled the heavenly mount 
 Of lore divine and knowledge of her God, 
 And with sublimer chant she hymned His praise ; 
 While oft some bishop, tracking those great woods 
 In progress to his charge, beneath their roof 
 Baptizing or confirming made abode, 
 And all which lacked supplied, nor discipline 
 Withheld, nor doctrine high. The outward world 
 To them a nothing, made of them its boast : 
 A Saint, it said, within that forest dwelt, 
 
the Foundations of Oxford. 215 
 
 A Saint that helped their people. Saint she was, 
 
 And therefore wrought for heaven her holy deeds ; 
 
 Immortal stand they on the heavenly roll ; 
 
 Yet fewest acts suffice for heavenly crown ; 
 
 And two of hers had consequence on earth, 
 
 Like water circles widening limitless, 
 
 For man still helpful. Hourly acts of hers, 
 
 Interior acts invisible to men, 
 
 Perchance were worthier. Humblest faith and prayer 
 
 Are oft than miracle miraculous more : 
 
 To us the exterior marks the interior might : 
 
 These two alone record we. 
 
 Years had passed : 
 
 One day when all the streams were dried by heat 
 And rainless fields had changed from green to brown, 
 T'wards her there drew, by others led, a man 
 Old, worn, and blind. He knelt, and wept his prayer : 
 ' Help, Saint of God ! That impious King am I, 
 That King abhorred, his people's curse and bane, 
 Who chased thee through these woods with fell resolve, 
 Worst vengeance seeking for insulted pride : 
 Rememberest thou that, near thee as I closed, 
 Kneeling thou mad'st thy prayer ? Instant from God 
 Blindness fell on me. Forward still I rushed, 
 Ere long amid those spiked and branded trunks 
 To lie as lie the dead. If hope remains, 
 
2 1 6 Saint Frideswida, or 
 
 For me if any hope survives on earth, 
 
 It rests with thee ; thee only ! ' On her knees 
 
 She sank in prayer ; her fingers in the fount 
 
 She dipped ; then o'er him signed the Saviour's cross, 
 
 And thrice invoked that Saviour. At her word 
 
 Behold, that sightless King arose, and saw, 
 
 And rendered thanks to God. 
 
 The legend saith 
 
 Saint Catherine by her stood that night, and spake : 
 1 Once more I greet thee on thy dying day.' 
 
 Again the years went by. That sylvan lodge 
 Had changed to convent. Beautiful it stood 
 Not far from Isis, though on loftier ground : 
 Sad outcasts knew it well : whate'er their need 
 There found they solace. One day toward it moved, 
 Dread apparition and till then unknown, 
 Like one constrained, with self-abhorrent steps, 
 A leper, long in forest caverns hid. 
 Back to their cells the nuns had shrunk, o'erawed : 
 Remained but Frideswida. Thus that wretch 
 With scarce organic voice, and aiding sign, 
 Wailed out the supplication of despair : 
 * Fly not, O saintly virgin ! Yet, ah me ! 
 What help though thou remain est? Warned from 
 
 heaven, 
 
the Foundations of Oxford. 217 
 
 I know that not thy fountain's healing wave 
 
 Could heal my sorrow : not those spotless hands : 
 
 Not even thy prayer. To me the one sole aid 
 
 Were aid impossible a kiss of thine/ 
 
 A moment stood she : not in doubt she stood : 
 
 First slowly, swiftly then to where he knelt 
 
 She moved : with steadfast hand she raised that cloth 
 
 Which veiled what once had been a human face : 
 
 O'er it she signed in faith the cross of Christ : 
 
 She wept aloud, ' My brother ! ' Folding then 
 
 Stainless to stained, with arms about him wound, 
 
 In sacred silence mouth to mouth she pressed, 
 
 A long, long sister's kiss. Like infant's flesh 
 
 The blighted and the blasted back returned : 
 
 That leper rose restored. 
 
 The legend saith 
 
 That Saint Cecilia by her stood that night : 
 6 Once more I greet thee on thy dying day. 1 
 
 It came at last, that day. Her convent grew 
 In grace with God and man : the pilgrim old 
 Sought it from far ; the gifts of kings enlarged : 
 It came at last, that day. There are who vouch 
 The splendour of that countenance never waned : 
 Thus much is sure ; it waxed to angels' eyes : 
 Welcomed it came, that day desired, not feared. 
 
2 1 8 Saint Frideswida, or 
 
 By humbleness like hers those two fair deeds 
 Were long forgotten : each day had its task : 
 Not hardest that of dying. Why should sobs 
 Trouble the quiet of a holy house 
 Because its holiest passes ? Others wept ; 
 The sufferer smiled : ' Ah, little novices, 
 How little of the everlasting lore 
 Your foolish mother taught you if ye shrink 
 From trial light as this ! ' She spake ; then sank 
 In what to those around her seemed but sleep, 
 The midnoon August sunshine on her hair 
 In ampler radiance lying than that hour 
 When, danger near her yet to her unknown, 
 Beneath that forest tree her eyelids closed 
 Her book upon her bosom. 
 
 Near her bed 
 
 Not danger now but heralds ever young, 
 Saint Catherine, Saint Cecilia, stood once more, 
 Linked hand in hand, with aureoles interwreathed : 
 One gazing stood as though on radiance far 
 With widening eyes : a listener's look intent 
 The other's, soft with pathos more profound. 
 The Roman sister spake : ( Rejoice, my child, 
 Rejoice, thus near the immeasurable embrace 
 And breast expectant of the unnumbered Blest 
 That swells to meet thee ! Yea, and on the earth 
 
the Foundations of Oxford. 2 1 9 
 
 For thee reward remaineth. Happy thou 
 
 Through prayer his sight restoring to thy foe, 
 
 Sole foe that e'er thou knew'st though more his own ! 
 
 Child ! darkness is there worse than blindness far, 
 
 Wherein erroneous wanders human Pride ; 
 
 That prayer of thine from age to age shall guard 
 
 A realm against such darkness. Where yon kine 
 
 Stand in mid ford, quenching their noontide thirst, 
 
 Thy footsteps crossed of old the waters. God 
 
 In the unerasing current sees them still ! 
 
 Close by, a nation from a purer flood 
 
 Shall quench a thirst more holy, quaffing streams 
 
 Of Knowledge loved as Truth. Majestic piles 
 
 Shall rise by yonder Isis, honouring, each, 
 
 My clear-eyed sister of the sacred East 
 
 That won to Christ the Alexandrian seers, 
 
 Winning, herself, from chastity her lore : 
 
 Upon their fronts, aloft in glory ranged 
 
 With face to East, and cincture never loosed, 
 
 All Sciences shall stand, daughters divine 
 
 Of Kim that Truth eterne and boon to man, 
 
 Holding in spotless hand, not lamp alone, 
 
 But lamp and censer both, and both alike 
 
 From God's great Altar lighted.' 
 
 Spake in turn 
 That Alexandrian with the sunlike eyes : 
 
22O Saint Frideswida, or 
 
 1 Beside those Sciences shall stand a choir 
 
 As fair as they ; as tall ; those sister Arts, 
 
 High daughters of celestial Harmony, 
 
 Diverse yet one, that bind the hearts of men 
 
 To steadfast Truth by Beauty's sinuous cords ; 
 
 She that to marble changes mortal thought ; 
 
 She that with rainbow girds the cloud of life ; 
 
 She that above the streaming mist exalts 
 
 Rock-rooted domes of prayer ; and she that rears 
 
 With words auguster temples. Happy thou 
 
 Healing that leper with thy virgin kiss ! 
 
 A leprosy there is more direful, child ! 
 
 Therein the nations rot when flesh is lord 
 
 And spirit dies. Such ruin Arts debased 
 
 Gender, or, gendered long, exasperate more. 
 
 But thou, rejoice ! From this pure centre Arts 
 
 Unfallen shall breathe their freshness through the land, 
 
 With kiss like thine healing a nation's wound 
 
 Year after year successive ; listening, each, 
 
 My sister's organ music in the skies, 
 
 Prime Art that, challenging not eye but ear, 
 
 To Faith is nearest, and of Arts on earth 
 
 For that cause, living soul/ 
 
 That prophecy 
 
 Found its accomplishment. In later years, 
 There where of old the Oxen had their Ford, 
 
the Foundations of Oxford. 221 
 
 The goodliest city England boasts arose, 
 
 Mirrored in sacred Isis ; like that flood 
 
 Its youth for aye renewing. Convents first 
 
 Through stately groves levelled their placid gleam, 
 
 With cloisters opening dim on garden gay 
 
 Or moonlit lawn dappled by shadowing deer : 
 
 Above them soared the chapel's reverent bulk 
 
 With storied window whence, in hues of heaven, 
 
 Martyrs looked down, or Confessor, or Saint 
 
 On tomb of Founder with its legend meek 
 
 ' Pro anima orate/ Night and day 
 
 Mounted the Church's ever-varying song 
 
 Sustained on organ harmonies that well 
 
 Might draw once more to earth, with wings outspread 
 
 And heavenly face made heavenlier by that strain, 
 
 Cecilia's Angel. Of those convents first 
 
 Was Frideswida's, ruled in later years 
 
 By Canons Regular, later yet rebuilt 
 
 By him of York, that dying wept, alas, 
 
 ' Had I but served my Maker as my king ! ' 
 
 To colleges those convents turned ; yet still 
 
 The earlier inspiration knew not change : 
 
 The great tradition died not : near the bridge 
 
 From Magdalen's tower still rang the lark-like hymn 
 
 On May-day morn : high ranged in airy cells, 
 
 Facing the East, all Sciences, all Arts, 
 
222 Saint Frideswida, etc. 
 
 Yea, and with these all Virtues, imaged stood, 
 
 Best imaged stood in no ideal forms, 
 
 Craft unhistoric of some dreamer's brain, 
 
 But life-like shapes of plain heroic men 
 
 Who in their day had fought the fight of Faith, 
 
 Warriors and sages, poets, saints, and kings, 
 
 And earned their rest : the long procession paced, 
 
 Up winding slow the college-girded street 
 
 To where in high cathedral slept the Saint, 
 
 Singing its * Alma Redemptoris Mater/ 
 
 On August noons, what time the Assumption Feast 
 
 From purple zenith of the Christian heaven 
 
 Brightened the earth. That hour not bells alone 
 
 Chiming from countless steeples made reply : 
 
 Laughed out that hour high-gabled roof and spire ; 
 
 Kindling shone out those Sciences, those Arts 
 
 Pagan one time, now confessors white-robed ; 
 
 And all the holy City gave response, 
 
 1 Deus illuminatio mea est.' * 
 
 1 The motto of the University of Oxford. 
 
223 
 
 THE BANQUET HALL OF WESSEX, OR 
 THE KING WHO COULD SEE. 
 
 Kenwalk, King of Wessex, is a Pagan, but refuses to persecute 
 Christians. He is dethroned by the Mercian King, and lives an 
 exile in a Christian land. There he boasts that he never accords 
 faith to what he hears, and believes only what he sees ; yet, his eye 
 being single, he sees daily more of the Truth. Wessex is delivered, 
 and a great feast held at which the Pagan nobles, priests, and bards 
 all conspire for the destruction of the Faith. Birinus, the bishop, 
 having withstood them valiantly, Kenwalk declares himself a 
 Christian. Birinus prophesies of England's greatest King. 
 
 KING CYNEGILS lay dead, who long and well 
 
 Had judged the realm of Essex. By his bier 
 
 The Christians standing smote their breasts, and said, 
 
 ' III day for us : ' but all about the house 
 
 Clustering in smiling knots of twos and threes , 
 
 The sons of Odin whispered, or with nods 
 
 Gave glad assent. Christ's bishop sent from Rome, 
 
 Birinus, to the king had preached for years 
 
. 
 
 224 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 The Joyous Tidings. Cynegils believed, 
 And with him many ; but the most refrained : 
 With these was Kenwalk ; and, his father dead, 
 Kenwalk was king. 
 
 A valiant man was he, 
 A man of stubborn will, but yet at heart 
 Magnanimous and just. To one who said, 
 ' Strike, for thine hour is come ! ' the king new-crowned 
 Made answer, ' Never ! Each man choose his path ! 
 My father chose the Christian Odin's I. 
 I crossed my father oft a living man ; 
 I war not on him dead.' 
 
 That giant hand 
 
 Which spared Religion ruled in all beside : 
 He harried forth the robbers from the woods, 
 And wrecked the pirates' ships. He burned with fire 
 A judge unjust, and thrice o'er Severn drave 
 The invading Briton. Lastly, when he found 
 That woman in his house intolerable, 
 From bed and realm he hurled her forth, though 
 
 crowned, 
 Ensuing thence great peace. 
 
 Not long that peace : 
 
 The Mercian king, her brother, heard her tale 
 With blackening brow. The shrill voice stayed at last, 
 Doubly incensed the monarch made reply : 
 

 the King who could see. 225 
 
 * Sister, I never loved you ; who could love ? 
 But him who spurned you from his realm I hate : 
 Fear nought ! your feast of vengeance shall be full ! ' 
 He spake ; then cried, 4 To arms ! ' 
 
 In either land, 
 
 Like thunders low and far, or windless plunge 
 Of waves on coasts long silent that proclaim. 
 Though calm the sea for leagues, tempest far off 
 That shoreward swells, thus day by day was heard 
 The direful preparation for a war 
 Destined no gladsome tournament to prove, 
 But battle meet for ancient foes resolved 
 To clear old debts ; make needless wars to come. 
 Not long that strife endured ; on either side 
 Valour was equal ; but on one, conjoined, 
 The skill most practised, and the heavier bones : 
 The many fought the few. On that last field 
 'Twas but the fury of a fell despair, 
 Not hope, that held the balance straight so long : 
 Ere sunset all was over. From the field 
 A wounded remnant dragged their king, half dead : 
 The Mercian host pursued not. 
 
 Many a week 
 
 Low lay the broken giant nigh to death : 
 At last, like creeping plant down-dragged, not crushed, 
 That, washed by rains, and sunshine- warmed, once more 
 
 Q 
 
226 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 Its length uplifting, feels along the air, 
 And gradual finds its 'customed prop, so he, 
 Strengthening each day, with dubious eyes at first 
 Around him peered, but raised at length his head, 
 And, later, question made. His health restored, 
 He sought East Anglia, where King Anna reigned, 
 His chief of friends in boyhood. Day by day 
 A spirit more buoyant to the exile came 
 And winged him on his way : his country's bound 
 Once passed, his darker memories with it sank : 
 Through Essex hastening, stronger grew his step ; 
 East Anglian breezes from the morning sea 
 Fanned him to livelier pulse : wild April growths 
 Gladdened his spirit with glittering green. More fresh 
 He walked because the sun outfaced him not, 
 Veiled, though not far. That shrouded sun had ta'en 
 Its passion from the wild-bird's song, but left 
 Quiet felicities of notes low-toned 
 That kept in tune with streams too amply brimmed 
 To chatter o'er their pebbles. Kenwalk's soul 
 Partook not with the poet's. Loveliest sights, 
 Like music brightening those it fails to charm,. 
 Roused but his mirthful mood. To each that passed 
 He tossed his jest : he scanned the labourer's task ; 
 Reviled the luckless boor that ploughed awry, 
 And beat the smith that marred the horse's hoof : 
 
the King who could see. 2 2 \ 
 
 At times his fortunes thus he moralised : 
 1 Here walk I, crownless king, and exiled man : 
 My Mercian brother lists his sister's tongue : 
 Say, lark ! which lot is happiest ? ' 
 
 Festive streets, 
 
 Tapestries from windows waving, banners borne 
 By white-clad children chanting anthems blithe ; 
 With these East Anglia's king received his friend 
 Entering the city gate. In joyous sports 
 That day was passed. At banquet Christian priests 
 Sat with his thanes commingled. Anna's court 
 Was Christian, and, for many a league around, 
 His kingdom likewise. As the earth in May 
 Glistens with vernal flowers, or as the face 
 Of one whose love at last has found return 
 Irradiate shines, so shone King Anna's house, 
 A home of Christian peace. Fair sight it was 
 Justice and Love, the only rivals there, 
 O'er-ruled it, and attuned. Majestic strength 
 Looked forth in every glance of Anna's eye, 
 Too great for pride to dwell there, Tender-souled 
 As that first streak, the harbinger of dawn 
 Revealed through cloudless ether, such the queen, 
 All charity, all humbleness, all grace, 
 All womanhood. Harmonious was her voice, 
 Dulcet her movements, undisguised her thoughts, 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 As though they trod an Eden land unfallen, 
 And needed raiment none. Some heavenly birth 
 Their children seemed, blameless in word and act, 
 The sisters as their brothers frank, and they, 
 Though bolder, not less modest. Kenwalk marked, 
 And marking, mused in silence, * Contrast strange 
 These Christians with the pagan races round ! 
 Something those pagans see not these have seen : 
 Something those pagans hear not these have heard : 
 Doubtless there's much in common. What of that ? 
 'Tis thus 'twixt man and dog ; yet knows the dog 
 His master walks in worlds by him not shared 
 Perchance for me too there are worlds unknown ! ' 
 
 Thus God to Kenwalk shewed the things that bear 
 Of God true witness, seeing in his soul 
 Justice and Judgment, and, with these conjoined, 
 Valour and Truth : for as the architect 
 On tower four-square and solid plants his spire, 
 And not on meads below, though gay with flowers, 
 On those four virtues God the fabric rears 
 Of virtues loftier yet those three, heaven-born, 
 And pointing heavenward. 
 
 To those worlds unknown, 
 
 Kenwalk ere long stood nigh. In three short months 
 The loveliest of those children, and last born, 
 
the King who could see. 229 
 
 Lay cold in death. Old nurses round her wailed : 
 The mighty heart of Kenwalk shook for dread 
 Entering the dim death-chamber. On a bier 
 The maiden lay, the cross upon her breast : 
 Beside her sat her mother, pale as she, 
 Yet calm as pale. When Kenwalk near her drew 
 She lifted from that bier a slender book 
 And read that record of the three days' dead 
 Raised by the Saviour from that death-cave sealed, 
 A living man. Once more she read those words, 
 ' I am the Resurrection and the Life/ 
 Then added, low, with eyes up cast to heaven, 
 ' With Him my child awaits me/ Kenwalk saw ; 
 And, what he saw, believing, half believed 
 Not more the things he heard. 
 
 Yes, half believed ; 
 Yet, call it obduracy, call it pride, 
 C#ll it self- fear, or fear of priestly craft, 
 He closed his ear against the Word Divine : 
 The thing he saw he trusted ; nought beyond. 
 Three years went by. Once, when his friend had named 
 The Name all-blessed, Kenwalk frowned. Since then 
 That Name was named no more. O'er hill and dale 
 They chased the wild deer ; on the billow breathed 
 Inspiring airs ; in hall of joyance trod 
 The mazes of the dance. Then war broke out : 
 
230 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 Reluctant long King Anna sought the field ; 
 Hurled back aggression. Kenwalk, near him still, 
 Watched him with insight keener than his wont, 
 And, wondering, marked him least to pagans like 
 Inly, when like perforce in outward deed. 
 The battle frenzy took on him no hold : 
 Severe his countenance grew ; austere and sad ; 
 Fatal, not wrathful. Vicar stern he seemed 
 Of some dread, judgment-executing Power, 
 Against his yearnings ; not despite his will. 
 Once, when above the faithless town far off 
 The retributive smoke leaped up to heaven, 
 He closed with iron hand on Ken walk's arm 
 And slowly spake a whisper heard afar 
 ' See you that town ? Its judgment is upon it ! 
 I gave it respite twice. This day its doom 
 Is irreversible.' 
 
 The invader quelled, 
 
 Anna and Kenwalk on their homeward way 
 Rode by the grave of saintly Sigebert, 
 King Anna's predecessor. Kenwalk spake : 
 ' Some say the people keep but memory scant 
 Of benefits : I trust the things I see : 
 I never passed that tomb but round it knelt 
 A throng of supplicants ! King Sigebert 
 Conversed, men say, with prophet and with seer: 
 
the King who could see. 23 1 
 
 I never loved that sort : who wills can dream 
 Yet what I see I see.' 
 
 ' They pray for him/ 
 
 Anna replied, ' who perished for their sake : 
 Long years he lived recluse at Edmondsbury, 
 A tonsured monk : around its walls one day 
 Arose that cry, " The Mercian, and his host ! 
 Forth, holy King, and lead, as thou wert wont, 
 Thy people to the battle, lest they die ! " 
 Again I see him riding at their head, 
 Lifting a cross, not sword. The battle lost, 
 Again I see him fall/ With rein drawn tight 
 King Kenwalk mused ; then smote his hands, and 
 
 cried 
 
 4 My father would have died like Sigebert ! 
 He lacked but the occasion ! ' After pause, 
 Sad-faced, with bitter voice he spake once more : 
 * Such things as these I might have learned at home ! 
 I shunned my father's house lest fools might say, 
 ' He thinks not his own thoughts.' 
 
 Thus month by month, 
 
 Though Faith which ' comes by hearing ' had not come 
 To Kenwalk yet, not less since sight he used 
 In honest sort, and resolute to learn, 
 God shewed him memorable things and great 
 Which sight unblest discerns not, tutoring thus 
 
232 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 A kingly spirit to a kingly part : 
 Before him near it lay. 
 
 The morrow morn 
 
 Great tidings came : in Wessex war was raised : 
 Kenwalk, departing thus to Anna spake, 
 To Anna, and his consort : ' Well I know 
 What thanks are those the sole your hearts could prize : ' 
 With voice that shook he added : ' Man am I 
 That make not pledge : yet, if my father's God 
 
 Sets free my father's realm ' again he paused ; 
 
 Then westward rode alone. 
 
 Well planned, fought well 
 (For Kenwalk, of the few reverse makes wise, 
 From him had put his youth's precipitance) 
 That virtuous warfare triumphed. Swift as fire 
 The news from Sherburne and from Winbourne flashed 
 To Sarum, Chertsey, Malmsbury. That delight 
 On earth the nearest to religious joy, 
 The rapture of a trampled land set free, 
 Swelled every breast : the wounded in their wounds 
 Rejoiced, not grieved : the sick forgat their pains : 
 The mourner dashed away her tear and cried, 
 ' Wessex is free ! ' Remained a single doubt : 
 Christians crept forth from cave and hollow tree : 
 Once more the exiled monk was seen ; and one 
 Who long in minstrel's garb, with harp in hand, 
 
the King who coidd see. 233 
 
 Old, poor, half blind, had sat beside a bridge, 
 And, charming first the wayfarer with song, 
 Had won him next with legends of the Cross, 
 Stood up before his altar. Rumour ran 
 ' Once more Birinus lifts his crosier-staff ! ' 
 Then muttered priests of Odin, < Cynegils 
 We know was Christian. Kenwalk holds or held, 
 Ancestral Faith, yet warred not on the new : 
 Tolerance means still connivance.' 
 
 Peace restored, 
 
 Within King Ken walk's echoing palace hall, 
 The hall alike of council and of feast, 
 The Great Ones of the Wessex realm were met : 
 Birinus sat among them, eyed from far 
 With anger and with hatred. Council o'er, 
 Banquet succeeded, and to banquet song, 
 The Saxon's after-banquet. Many a harp 
 That day by flying hand entreated well 
 Divulged its secret, amorous, or of war ; 
 And many a warrior sang his own great deeds 
 Or dirge of ancient friend Valhalla's guest ; 
 Nor stinted foeman's praise. Silent meanwhile 
 Far down the board a son of Norway sat, 
 Ungenial guest with clouded brows and stern, 
 And eyes that flashed beneath them : bard was he, 
 Warrior and bard. Not his the song for gold ! 
 
234 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 He sang but of the war-fields and the gods ; 
 He lays of love despised. ' Thy turn is come, 
 Son of the ice-bound North,' thus spake a thane : 
 6 Sing thou ! The man who sees that face, already 
 Half hears the tempest singing through the pines 
 That shade thy gulfs hill-girt/ The stranger guest 
 Answered, not rising : < Yea, from lands of storm 
 And seas cut through by fiery lava floods 
 I come, a wanderer. Ye, meantime, in climes 
 Balm-breathing, gorge the fat, and smell the sweet : 
 Ye wed the maid whose sire ye never slew, 
 And bask in unearned triumph. Feeble spirits ! 
 Endless ye deem the splendours of this hour, 
 And call defeat opprobrious ! Sirs, our life 
 Is trial. Victory and Defeat are Gods 
 That toss man's heart, their plaything, each to each : 
 Great Mercia knows that truth of all your realms 
 Faithfullest to Odin far ! ' 
 
 6 Nay, minstrel, sing,' 
 
 Once more, not wroth, they clamoured. He replied 
 4 Hear then my song ; but not those songs ye sing : 
 I have against you somewhat, Wessex men ! 
 Ye are not as your fathers, when, in youth, 
 I trod your coasts. That time ye sang of Gods, 
 Sole theme for manlike song. On Iceland's shores 
 We keep our music's virtue undefiled : 
 
the King who could see. 235 
 
 While summer lasts we fight ; by winter hearths, 
 Or ranged in sunny coves by winter seas, 
 Betwixt the snow-plains and the hills of fire, 
 Singing we feed on legends of the Gods : 
 Ye sing but triumphs of the hour that fleets ; 
 Ye build you kingdoms : next ye dash them down : 
 Ye bow to idols ! O that song of mine 
 Might heal this people's wound ! ' 
 
 Then rose the bard, 
 
 And took his harp, and smote it like a man ; 
 And sang full-blooded songs of Gods who spurn 
 Their heaven to war against that giant race 
 Throned 'mid the mountains of old Jotunheim 
 That girdle still the unmeasured seas of ice 
 With horror and strange dread. Innumerable, 
 In ever-winding labyrinths, glacier-thronged, 
 Those mountains raise their heads among the stars, 
 That palsied glimmer 'twixt their sunless bulks, 
 O'er-shadowing seas and lands. O'er Jotunheim 
 The glittering car of day hath never shone : 
 There endless twilight broods. Beneath it sit 
 The huge Frost- Giants, sons of Orgelmir, 
 Themselves like mountains, solitary now, 
 Now grouped, with knees drawn up, and heads low bent 
 Plotting new wars. Those wars the Northman sang ; 
 And thunder-like rang out the vast applause. 
 
236 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 That hour Birinus whispered one close by : 
 ' Not casual this ! Ill spirits, be sure, this day, 
 And impious men will launch their fiercest bolts 
 To crush Christ's Faith for ever ! ' 
 
 Jocund songs 
 
 The bard sang next : how Thor had roamed disguised 
 Through Jotunheim, and found the giant-brood 
 Feasting ; and how their king gave challenge thus : 
 ' Sir, since you deign us visit, show us feats ! 
 Behold yon drinking horn ! with us a child 
 Drains it at draught.' The God inclined his head 
 And swelled his lips ; and three times drank : yet lo ! 
 Nigh full that horn remained, the dusky mead 
 In mockery winking ! Spake once more the king : 
 4 Behold my youngest daughter's chief delight, 
 Yon wild-cat grey ! She lifts it : lift it thou ! ' 
 The God beneath it slipped his arm and tugged, 
 And tugging, ever higher rose and higher ; 
 The wild cat arched her back and with him rose ; 
 But one foot left the ground ! Last, forward stept 
 A haggard, lame, decrepid, toothless crone, 
 And cried, ' Canst wrestle, friend ? ' He closed upon 
 
 her: 
 
 Firm stood she as a mountain : she in turn 
 Closed upon Thor, and brought him to one knee : 
 Lower she could not bend him. Thor for rage 
 
the King who could see. 237 
 
 Clenched both his fists until his finger-joints 
 Grew white as snow late fallen ! 
 
 Loud and long 
 
 The laughter rose : the minstrel frowned dislike : 
 ' I have against you somewhat, Wessex men ! 
 In laughter spasms ye reel, or shout applause, 
 Music surceased. Like rocks your fathers sat ; 
 In every song they knew some mystery lay, 
 Mystery of man or nature. Greater God 
 Is none than Thor, whom, witless, thus ye flout. 
 That giant knew his greatness, and, at morn, 
 While vexed at failure through the gates he passed, 
 Addressed him reverent : ' Lift thy head, great Thor ! 
 Disguised thou cam'st ; not less we knew thee well : 
 Brave battle fought'st thou, seeming still to fail : 
 Thy foes were phantoms ! Phantasies I wove 
 To snare thine eyes because I feared thy hand, 
 And pledged thy strength to tasks impossible. 
 That horn thou could'st not empty was the sea ! 
 At that third draught such ebb-tide stripp'd the shore 
 As left whole navies stranded ! What to thee 
 Wild -cat appeared was Midgard's endless snake 
 Whose infinite circle clasps the ocean round : 
 Then when her foot thou liftedst, tremour went 
 From iron vale to vale of Jotunheim : 
 Hadst thou but higher raised it one short span, 
 
238 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 The sea had drowned the land ! That toothless crone 
 Was Age, that drags the loftiest head to earth : 
 She bent thy knee alone. Come here no more ! 
 On equal ground thou fighfst us in the light : 
 In this, our native land, the stronger we, 
 And mock thee by Illusions ! ' 
 
 After pause, 
 
 With haughty eye cast round, the minstrel spake : 
 ' Now hear ye mysteries of the antique song, 
 Though few shall guess their import ! ' Then he sang 
 Legends primeval of that Northern race, 
 And dread beginnings of the heavens and earth, 
 When, save the shapeless chaos, nothing was : 
 Of Ymer first, by some named Orgelmir, 
 The giant sire of all the giant brood : 
 Him for his sins the sons of Bor destroyed ; 
 Then fashioned of his blood the seas and streams, 
 And of his bones the mountains; of his teeth 
 The cliffs firm set against the aggressive waves ; 
 Last, of his skull the vast, o'er-hanging heaven ; 
 And of his brain the clouds. 
 
 'Sing on/ they cried : 
 
 Next sang he of that mystic shape, earth-born, 
 The wondrous cow, Auhumla. Herb that hour 
 Was none, nor forest growth ; yet on and on 
 She wandered by the vapour-belted seas, 
 
the King who could see. 239 
 
 And, wandering, from the stones and icebergs cold 
 That creaked forlorn against the grey sea-crags, 
 She licked salt spray, and hoary frost, and lived ; 
 And ever where she licked sprang up, full-armed, 
 Men fair and strong ! 
 
 Once more they cried, * Sing on ! ' 
 Last sang the minstrel of the Night and Day : 
 Car-borne they sweep successive through the heaven : 
 First rides the dusky maid by men called Night ; 
 Sleep -bringing, pain-assuaging, kind to man ; 
 With dream-like speed cleaving the starry sphere : 
 Hrimfaxi is her horse : his round complete 
 Foam from his silver bit bespangles earth, 
 And mortals call it ' Morn/ Day follows fast, 
 Her brother white : Skinfaxi is his horse : 
 When forth he flings the splendours from his mane 
 Both Gods and men rejoice. 
 
 Thus legends old 
 
 The Northman sang, till, fleeting from men's eyes, 
 The present lived no longer. In its place 
 He fixed that vision of the world new formed, 
 Which on the childhood of the Northern mind 
 Like endless twilight lay ; spaces immense ; 
 Unmeasured energies of fire and flood ; 
 Great Nature's forces, terrible yet blind, 
 In ceaseless strife alternately supreme, 
 
240 The Banquet Hall of Wessex^ or 
 
 Or breast to breast with dreadful equipoise 
 
 In conflict pressed. Once more o'er those that heard 
 
 He hung that old world's low, funereal sky : 
 
 Before their eyes he caused its cloud to stream 
 
 Shadowing infinitude. He spake no word 
 
 Like Heida of that war 'twixt Good and 111 ; 
 
 That peace which crowns the just ; that God unknown 
 
 Enough to him his Faith without its soul ! 
 
 With glorying eye he marked that panting throng ; 
 
 Then, sudden, changed his note. Again of war 
 
 He sang, but war no more of Gods on Gods ; 
 
 He sang the honest wars of man on man ; 
 
 Of Odin, king of men, ere yet, death past, 
 
 He flamed abroad in godhead. Field on field 
 
 He sang his battles ; traced from realm to realm 
 
 His conquering pilgrimage : then ended, fierce : 
 
 6 What God was this that God ye honoured once ? 
 
 What man was this your half-forgotten king ? 
 
 Your law-giver he was ! he framed your laws ! 
 
 Your poet he : he shaped your earliest song ! 
 
 Your teacher he : he taught you first your runes ! 
 
 Your warrior yours ! His warfare consummate, 
 
 For you he died ! Old age at last, sole foe 
 
 Unvanquished, found him throned in Gylfi's land : 
 
 Summoning his race around him thus he spake : 
 
 " My sons, I scorn that age should cumber youth ! 
 
the King who could see. 24 1 
 
 Ye have your lesson see ye keep it well ! 
 I taught you how to conquer ; how to live ; 
 Now learn to die ! " His dagger high he raised ; 
 Nine times he plunged it through his bleeding breast, 
 Then sheathed it in his heart. Ere from his lips 
 The kingly smile had vanished, he was dead ! ' 
 
 So sang the bard and ceased ; his work was done : 
 Abroad the tempest burst. 'Twas not his songs 
 Alone that raised it ! Memories which they waked, 
 Memories of childhood, fainter year by year, 
 Tripled his might. Meantime a Saxon priest 
 Potential there, bent low, with eye-brow arched, 
 O'er Eardulf 's ear, Eardulf old warrior famed, 
 And whispered long, and as he whispered glanced 
 Oft at Birinus. Keen of eye the King, 
 The action noting well, the aim divined, 
 And thus to Offa near him spake, low-toned : 
 * The full-fed priest of Odin sends a sword 
 To slay that naked babe he hates so sore, 
 The Faith of Christ ! ' 
 
 Rising with fiery face 
 
 And thundering hand that shook the banquet board 
 Eardulf began : ' " Ye are not what ye were ! " 
 So saith our stranger kinsman from the north, 
 A man plain-tongued ; I would that all were such ! 
 
 R 
 
242 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 Lords, and my King, this stranger speaks the truth ! 
 I tell you too, we are not what we were : 
 Nor lengthened trail he hunts who seeks the cause. 
 Lo, there the cause among us ! Man from Rome ! 
 I ask who sent thee hither? From the first 
 Rome and our native races stand at war ; 
 Her hope was this, to make our sons like hers 
 Liars and slaves, our daughters false and vile, 
 And, thus subverted, rule our land and us. 
 Frustrate in war, now sends she forth her priests 
 In peaceful gown to sap the manly hearts 
 Her sword but manlier made. Ho, Wessex men ! 
 Ye see your foe ! My counsel, Lords, is this : 
 The worm that stings us tread we to the earth, 
 Then spurn it from our coasts ! ' 
 
 Ere ceased the acclaim 
 Subdued and soft the Pagan pontiff rose, 
 And three times half retired, as one who yields 
 His betters place ; and thrice, answering the call, 
 Advanced, and leaning stood : at last he spake, 
 Sweet- voiced, not loud ; * Ye Wessex Earls and Thanes, 
 I stand here but as witness, not as judge ; 
 Ye are the judges. Late ye heard yea, twice 
 Words strange and new ; " Ye are not what ye were ! " 
 I witness this ; things are not what they were ; 
 For round me as I roll these sorrowing eyes, 
 
the King who could see. 243 
 
 Now old and dim perchance the fault is theirs 
 They find no longer, ranged along your walls 
 Amid the deep-dyed trophies of old time, 
 That chiefest of your Standards, lost, men say, 
 In that ill-omened battle lost which wrecked 
 But late our Wessex kingdom. Odin's wrath 
 I spare to task your time and patience, Lords, 
 Enforcing truth which every urchin knows 
 'Twas Odin shamed his foe ! Ah Cynegils ! 
 What made thee Odin's foe? Our friend was he ! 
 Base tolerance first, connivance next, then worse, 
 Favoured that Faith perfidious ! Stood and stands 
 A bow-shot hence that church the strangers built ; 
 Their church, their font ! The strangers, who are they ? 
 Snake-like and supple, winding on and on 
 Through courtly chambers darkling still they creep, 
 Nor dare to face a people front to front ; 
 Let them stand up in light, and all is well ! 
 And who their converts ? Late, to please a king, 
 They donned his novel worship like a robe ; 
 When dead he lay they doffed it ! Earls and Thanes, 
 A nobler day is come ; a sager king ; 
 In him I trust ; in you ; in Odin most, 
 Our nation's strength, the bulwark of our throne. 
 I proffer nought of counsel. Ye have eyes : 
 The opprobrium sits among you ! ' 
 
 R 2 
 
244 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 From the floor 
 
 The storm of iron feet rang loud, and swords 
 Leaped flashing from their sheaths. In silence some 
 Waited the event : the larger part by far 
 Clamoured for vengeance on the outlandish Faith, 
 The loudest they, the apostates of past time. 
 Then stately from his seat Birinus rose, 
 And stood in calm marmorean. Long he stood, 
 Not eager, though expectant. By degrees 
 That tumult lessening, with a quiet smile 
 And hand extended, noticing for peace, 
 Thus he addressed that concourse. 
 
 ' Earls and Thanes, 
 Among so many here I stand alone, 
 Why peaceful ? why untroubled ? In your hands 
 I see a hundred swords against me bent : 
 Sirs, should they slay me, Truth remains unpierced. 
 A thousand wheat ears swayed by summer gust 
 Affront one oak ; it slights the mimic threat : 
 So slight I, strong in faith, those swords that err 
 Your ignorance, not your sin. The truth of God, 
 The heart of man against you fight this day, 
 And, with his heart, his hope. In every land, 
 Through all the unnumbered centuries yet to come, 
 The cry of women wailing for their babes 
 Restored through Christ alone, the cry of men 
 
the King who could 
 
 Who know that all is lost if earth is a 
 The cry of children still unstained by 
 The sinner's cry redeemed from yoke of sin, 
 Thunder against you. Pass to lesser themes. 
 
 1 Eardulf, that raged against me, told you, Lords, 
 That Rome was still the hater of your race, 
 And warred thereon. She warred much more on mine, 
 Roman but Christian likewise ! Ye were foes ; 
 Warring on you she warred on hostile tribes : 
 In us she tore her proper flesh and blood : 
 Mailed men were you that gave her blow for blow ; 
 We were her tender children ; on her hearths 
 We dwelt, or delved her fields and dressed her vines, 
 What moved her hatred ? that we loved a God 
 All love to man. With every God beside 
 Rome made her traffic : fellowship with such 
 Unclean we deemed : thenceforth Rome saw in us 
 Her destined foe. 
 
 Three centuries, Earls and Thanes, 
 Her hand was red against us. Vengeance came : 
 Who wrought it ? Who avenged our martyred Saints 
 That, resting 'neath God's altar, cried, " How long?" 
 Alaric, and his, the Goths ! And who were they ? 
 Your blood, your bone, your spirit, and your soul ! 
 They with your fathers roamed four hundred years 
 
246 The Banquet Hall of W ess ex, or 
 
 The Teuton waste ; they swam the Teuton floods, 
 They pointed with the self- same hand of scorn 
 At Rome, their common foe ! In Odin's loins 
 Together came ye from the shining East : 
 True man was he : ye changed him to false god ! 
 That Odin, when the destined hour had pealed, 
 Beckoned to Alaric, marched by Alaric's side 
 Invisibly to Rome ! 
 
 Ye know the tale : 
 
 Her senate-kings their portals barred ; they deemed 
 That awe of Rome would drive him back amazed ; 
 And sat secure at feast. But he that slew 
 Remus, his brother, on the unfinished wall, 
 A bitter expiation paid that night ! 
 The wail went up : the Goths were lords of Rome ! 
 Alaric alone in that dread hour was just, 
 And with his mercy tempered justice. Why ? 
 Alaric that day was Christian : of his host 
 The best and bravest Christian. Senators 
 In purple nursed lived on, 'tis true, in rags ; 
 To Asian galleys and Egyptian marts 
 The rich were driven ; the mighty. Gold in streams 
 Ran molten from the Capitolian roofs : 
 The idol statues choked old Tyber's wave : 
 But life and household honour Alaric spared ; 
 And round the fanes of Peter and of Paul 
 
the King who could see. 247 
 
 His soldiers stood on guard. Upon the grave 
 
 Of that bad Empire sentenced, nay of all 
 
 The Empires of this world absorbed in one, 
 
 In one condemned, they throned the Church of Christ ; 
 
 His Kingdom's seat established. 
 
 Since that hour 
 
 That Kingdom spreads o'er earth. In Eastern Gaul 
 . Long since your brave Burgundians kneel to Christ ; 
 Pannonia gave Him to the Ostro- Goths, 
 Barbaric named ; and to the Suevi Spain : 
 The Vandals o'er the Mauritanian shores 
 Exalt His Cross with joy. Your pardon, sirs : 
 These lands to you are names ; but Odin knew them ; 
 A living man he trod them in his youth ; 
 Hated their vices ; bound his race to spurn 
 Their bait, their bond ! That day he saw hath dawned ; 
 O'er half a world the vivifying airs 
 Launched from your northern forests chaste and cold 
 Have blown, and blow this hour ! The Saxon race 
 Alone its destiny knows not. Ye have won 
 Here in this Isle the old Roman heritage : 
 Perfect your victory o'er that Pagan Rome 
 With Christian Rome partaking ! 
 
 Earls and Thanes, 
 
 But one word more. Your pontiff late averred 
 That kings to us are gods ; through them we conquer : 
 
248 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 I answer thus : That Kingdom God hath raised 
 Is sovereign and is one ; kingdoms of earth, 
 How great soe'er, to it are provinces 
 In spiritual things. If princes turn to God 
 They save their souls. If kingdoms war on God 
 Their choice is narrow, and their choice is this : 
 To break, like that which falleth on a stone ; 
 Or else, like that whereon that stone doth fall, 
 To crumble into dust* 
 
 The Pagan priest 
 
 Whispered again to Eardulf, ' Praise to Thor ! 
 He flouts our king ! The boaster's chance is gone ! ' 
 Then rose that king and spake in careless sort : 
 ' Earls and my Thanes, I came from exile late : 
 It may be that to exile I return : 
 Not less my arm is long ; my sword is sharp : 
 Let him that hates me fear me ! 
 
 Earls and Thanes, 
 
 I passed that exile in a Christian realm : 
 There of the Christian greatness, Christian right, 
 I somewhat heard, and hearing, disbelieved ; 
 Saw likewise somewhat, and believed in part : 
 Saw more, till nigh that part had grown to whole : 
 I saw that war itself might be a thing 
 Though stern, yet stern in mercy ; saw that peace 
 Might wear a shape dearest to manliest heart, 
 
the King who could see. 249 
 
 Peace based on fearless justice militant 
 
 'Gainst wrong alone and riot. Earls and Thanes, 
 
 Returned, this day and in this regal hall 
 
 A spectacle I saw, if grateful less, 
 
 Not therefore less note- worthy countless swords 
 
 In judgment drawn against a man unarmed ; 
 
 Yea, and a man unarmed with brow unmoved 
 
 Confronting countless swords. These things I saw ; 
 
 Fair sight that tells me how to act, and when ; 
 
 For I was minded to protract the time, 
 
 Which strangles oft best purpose. At the font 
 
 Of Christ it stands a bow-shot from this spot, 
 
 As late we learned at daybreak I and mine 
 
 Become henceforth Christ's lieges. 
 
 Earls and Thanes, 
 
 I heard but late a railer who affirmed 
 That kings were tyrants o'er the faiths of men 
 Flexile to please them : thus I make reply ; 
 The meanest of my subjects, like his king, 
 Shall serve his God in freedom : if the chief 
 Questions the equal freedom of his king 
 That man shall die the death ! Through Christian 
 
 Faith 
 
 I hide not this one danger threats the land : 
 It threats as much, nay more, my royal House : 
 That danger must be dared since truth is truth : 
 
250 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 That danger ye shall learn tomorrow noon : 
 Till comes that hour, farewell ! ' 
 
 The matin beam, 
 
 God's winged messenger from loftier worlds, 
 Through the deep window of the baptistery 
 Glittered on eddies of the bath-like font 
 Not yet quiescent since its latest guest 
 Had thence arisen ; beside its marge the king 
 In snowy raiment stood ; upon his right, 
 Alfred, his first-born, boy of seven years old, 
 And, close beside, in wonder not in dread, 
 Mildrede, his sister, younger by one year, 
 Holding her brother's hand. From either waist 
 Flowed a white kirtle to the small snow feet 
 With roses tinged. Above it all was bare, 
 And with the fontal dew-drops sparkling still; 
 While from each head with sacred unction sealed 
 Floated the chrismal veil. That eye is blind 
 Which sees not beauty save on female brows : 
 On either face that hour the lustre lay ; 
 But hers was lustre passive, lustre pale ; 
 The boy's was active, daring, penetrating 
 The lily she ; but he the Morning Star, 
 Beaming thereon from heaven ! With dewy eyes 
 The strong king on them gazed, and inly mused, 
 
the King who could see. 251 
 
 ' To God I gave them up : yet ne'er till now 
 Seemed they so wholly mine ! ' 
 
 Birinus spake : 
 
 ( Ye have been washed in baptism, though no sin 
 Hath yet been yours save Adam's, and confirmed ; 
 And houselled ye shall be at Mass seven days, 
 Since Christ in infant bosoms loves to dwell. 
 Pray, day by day, that Christ would keep you pure : 
 Pray for your Father : likewise pray for me, 
 Old sinner soon to die.' Then raised those babes 
 Their baptism tapers high, and fixing eyes 
 That moved not on their backward-fluttering flames, 
 Led the procession to their palace home, 
 Their father pacing last. 
 
 That day at noon 
 
 The monarch sat upon his royal throne, 
 Birinus near him standing : at his feet 
 His children played ; while round him silent thronged 
 Warriors and chiefs. The king addressed them thus : 
 * Birinus, and the rest, I hold it meet 
 A king should hide his secret from his foes, 
 But with his friends be open. Yestereve 
 I, Christian now, unfaulteringly avouched 
 That in the victory of the Christian Faith, 
 True though it be, one danger I discerned : 
 
252 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 That danger, and its root, I now divulge. 
 
 Saw ye the scorn within that Northman's eye 
 
 Last eve, when, praising Thor, in balance stern 
 
 He weighed what now we are with what we were 
 
 When first he trod our shores ! He spake the truth : 
 
 His race and ours are kin ; but his retain 
 
 Stronglier their manly virtue, frost and snow 
 
 Like whetstones sharpening still that virtue's edge. 
 
 We soften with the years. Beggars this day 
 
 Sue us for bread ! Sirs, in a famine once 
 
 I saw, then young, a hundred at a time 
 
 That, linking hand in hand, loud singing rushed, 
 
 Like hunters chasing hart, to sea-beat cliffs, 
 
 And o'er them plunged ! Now cornes this Faith of 
 
 Christ ; 
 
 That Faith to which, because that Faith is true, 
 I pledged this morn my word, my seal, my soul, 
 The fate and fortunes of our native land 
 And all my royal House, well knowing this t 
 The king who loves his kingdom more than God, 
 Better than both loves self no king at heart. 
 Now comes this Christian Faith ! That Faith, be sure, 
 Is not a hardening faith : gentle it makes : 
 I told you, Lords, we soften day by day ; 
 I might have added that with growing years 
 Hardness we doubly need. When Rome was great 
 
the King who could see. 253 
 
 Our race, howev.er far diffused, was one, 
 
 Blended by hate of Rome. When Rome declined 
 
 That bond dissolved. A second bond remained 
 
 In Odin's Faith : Northmen alone retain it. 
 
 In them a new Rome rises ! Earls and Thanes ! 
 
 The truth be ours though for that truth we die ! 
 
 Hold fast that truth ; yet hide not what it costs. 
 
 Through fog and sea-mist of the days to come 
 
 I see huge navies with the raven flag 
 
 Steering to milder borders Christian half, 
 
 Brother 'gainst brother ranging. Kingdoms Seven 
 
 Of this still fair and once heroic land, 
 
 I say, beware that hour ! If come it must, 
 
 Then fall the thunder while I walk this earth, 
 
 Not when I skulk in crypts ! ' 
 
 The others mute, 
 
 From joy malicious some, some vexed with doubt, 
 Birinus made reply : ' My Lord and King, 
 Inly this day I gladden, certain now 
 That neither fancy- drawn, nor anger- spurred, 
 Nor seeking crowns, for others or thyself, 
 Nor shunning woes, the worst that earth can know, 
 For others or thyself, but urged by faith, 
 God's greatest gift to man, thou mad'st this day 
 Submission true to Christ. So be it, King ! 
 So rest content ! God with a finger's touch 
 
254 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 Could melt that cloud which threats thy realm well- 
 
 loved; 
 
 (That threat I deem nor trivial nor obscure) 
 Not thus He wills. Danger, distress, reverse, 
 Are heralds sent from God, like peace and joy, 
 To nations as to men. Happy that land 
 Which worketh darkling ; worketh without wage ; 
 And worketh still for God ! If God desired 
 A people for His sacrificial lamb, 
 Happiest of nations should that nation be 
 Which died His willing victim ! ' 
 
 * King, and Son/ 
 
 With voice a moment troubled he resumed, 
 ' Thy future rests with God ! Yet shake. Oh shake 
 One boding grief 'tis causeless from thy breast, 
 Deeming thy race less valiant than the North : 
 Faithfuller they stand and nearer to their sires ! 
 Remorseless less to others and to self 
 I grant them ; that implies not valiant less : 
 The brave are still in spirit the merciful \ 
 Far down within their being stirs a sense 
 Of more than race or realm. Some claim world- wide, 
 Whereof the prophet is the wailing babe, 
 Smites on their hearts a cradle decks therein 
 For Him they know not yet, the Bethlehem Babe. 
 That claim thy fathers felt ! Through Teuton woods 
 
the King who could see. 255 
 
 (Dead Rome's historian saw what he records *), 
 Moved forth of old in cyclic pilgrimage 
 Thick- veiled, the sacred image of the Earth, 
 All reverend Mother, crowned Humanity ! 
 Not war-steeds haled her car, but oxen meek ; 
 And, as it passed oppugnant bounds, the trump 
 Ceased from its blare ; the lance, the war-axe fell ; 
 Grey foes shook hands ; their children played together : 
 Beyond the limit line of dateless wars 
 Looked forth the vision thus of endless peace. 
 Think'st thou that here was lack of manly heart ? 
 King, this was manhood's self ! ' 
 
 While thus he spake, 
 
 Alfred, and Mildrede, children of the King, 
 That long time, by that voice majestic charmed, 
 Had turned from distant sports, upon their knees 
 Softly and slowly to Birinus crept, 
 Their wide eyes from his countenance moving not, 
 And so knelt on ; Alfred, the star-eyed boy 
 Supported by his father's sceptre -staff, 
 His plaything late, now clasped in hands high-held. 
 Him with a casual eye Birinus marked 
 At first; then stood, with upward brow, in trance 
 Sudden, as though with Pentecostal flame, 
 
 1 Tacitiu 
 
,256 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, or 
 
 His whole face brightened ; on him fell from God 
 Spirit Divine ; and thus the prophet cried : 
 
 < Who speaks of danger when the Lord of all 
 Decrees high triumph ? Victory's chariot winged 
 Up-climbs the frowning mountains of Dismay, 
 As when above the sea's nocturnal verge 
 
 Twin beams, divergent horns of orient light, 
 Announce the ascending sun. Whatever cloud 
 Protracts the conflict, victory comes at last. 
 
 ' What ho ! ye sons of Odin and the north ! 
 Far off your galleys tarry ! English air 
 Reafen, your raven standard, darkened long, 
 Woven of enchantments in the moon's eclipse : 
 It rains its plague no more ! The Kingdoms Seven 
 Ye came to set a ravening each on each : 
 Lo, ye have pressed and soldered them in one ! 
 
 < Behold, a Sceptre rises not o'er Kent 
 The first-born of the Faith ; nor o'er those vales 
 Northumbrian, trod so long by crowned saints ; 
 Nor Mercians plains invincible in war: 
 
 O'er Wessex, barbarous late, and waste, and small, 
 The Hand that made the worlds that Sceptre lifts ; 
 Hail tribe elect, the Judah of the Seven ! 
 
the King who could see, 257 
 
 ' Piercing the darkness of an age unborn, 
 I see a King that hides his royal robe ; 
 Assumes the minstrel's garb. Where meet the floods 
 That King abides his time. I see him sweep, 
 Disguised, his harp within the Northmen's camp ; 
 In fifty fights I see him victory-crowned ; 
 I see the mighty and the proud laid low, 
 The humble lifted. God is over all. 
 
 ' The ruined cities 'mid their embers thrill : 
 A voice went forth : they heard it. They shall rise, 
 Their penance done, and cities worthier far 
 With Roman vices ne'er contaminate. 
 These shall not boast mosaic floor gem-wrought, 
 And trod by sinners. In the face of heaven 
 Their minster turrets these shall lift on high, 
 Inviting God's great angels to descend 
 And chaunt with them God's City here on earth. 
 
 ' Who through the lethal forest cleaves a road 
 Healthful and fresh ? Who bridges stream high-swollen? 
 Who spreads the harvest round the poor man's cot ; 
 Sets free the slave ? On justice realms are built : 
 Who makes his kingdom great through equal laws 
 Not based on Pagan right, but rights in Christ, 
 First just, then free ? Who from her starry gates 
 
 s 
 
258 The Banquet Hall of Wessex, etc. 
 
 Beckons to Heavenly Wisdom her who played 
 Ere worlds were shaped, before the eyes of God ? 
 Who bids her walk the peopled fields of men, 
 The reverend street with college graced and church? 
 Who sings the latest of the Saxon songs ? 
 Who tunes to Saxon speech the Tome Divine ? 
 
 ' Sing, happy land ! The Isle that, prescient long, 
 Long waiting, hid her monarch in her heart, 
 Shall look on him and cry, " My flesh, my bone, 
 My son, my king ! " To him shall Cambria bow, 
 And Alba's self. His strength is in his God ; 
 The third part of his time he gives to prayer, 
 And God shall hear his vows ! Hail, mighty King ! 
 For aye thine England's glory ! As I gaze, 
 Methinks I see a likeness on thy brow, 
 Likeness to one who kneels beside my feet ! 
 The sceptre comes to him who sceptre spurned; 
 Through him it comes who sceptre clasped in sport; 
 From Wessex' soil shall England's hope be born 
 Two centuries hence ; and Alfred is his name ! ' 
 
259 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 BEDE'S LAST MAY. 
 
 Bede issues forth from Jarrow, and visiting certain villagers in 
 a wood, expounds to them the Beatitudes of Our Lord. Wherever he 
 goes he seeks records of past times, and promises in return that he 
 will bequeath to his fellow-countrymen translations from divers 
 Sacred Scriptures, and likewise a history of God's Church in their 
 land. Having returned to his monastery, he dies a most happy 
 death on the feast of the Ascension, while finishing his translation 
 of St. John's gospel. 
 
 THE ending of the Book of Saxon Saints. 
 
 With one lay-brother only blessed Bede, 
 
 In after times ' The Venerable ' named, 
 
 Passed from his convent, Jarrow. Where the Tyne 
 
 Blends with the sea, all beautiful it stood, 
 
 Bathed in the sunrise. At the mouth of Wear 
 
 A second convent, Wearmouth, rose. That hour 
 
260 Bedes Last May. 
 
 The self-same matin splendour gilt them both ; 
 And in some speech of mingling lights, not words, 
 Both sisters praised their God. 
 
 * Apart, yet joined ' 
 
 So mused the old man gazing on the twain : 
 Then onward paced, with head above his book, 
 Murmuring his office. Algar walked behind, 
 A youth of twenty years, with tonsured head, 
 And face, though young, forlorn. An hour had passed : 
 They reached a craggy height ; and looking back, 
 Beheld once more beyond the forest roof 
 Those two fair convents glittering at their feet 
 Those two clear rivers winding ! Bound by rule, 
 Again the monk addressed him to his book ; 
 Lection and psalm recited, thus he spake : 
 
 < Why placed our holy Founder thus so near 
 His convents ? Why, albeit a single rule, 
 At last a single hand, had sway o'er both, 
 Placed them at distance ? Hard it were to guess : 
 I know but this, that severance here on earth 
 Is strangely linked with union of the heart, 
 Union with severance. Thou hast lost, young friend, 
 But lately lost thy boyhood's dearest mate, 
 Thine earliest friend, a brother of thy heart, 
 True Christian soul though dwelling in the world ; 
 
Bedes Last May. 261 
 
 Fear not such severance can extinguish love 
 
 Here, or hereafter ! He whom most I loved 
 
 Was severed from me by the tract of years : 
 
 A child of nine years old was I, when first 
 
 Jarrow received me : pestilence ere long 
 
 Swept from that house her monks, save one alone, 
 
 Ceolfrid, then its abbot. Man and child, 
 
 We two the lonely cloisters paced ; we two 
 
 Together chaunted in the desolate church : 
 
 I could not guess his thoughts ; to him my ways 
 
 Were doubtless as the ways of some sick bird 
 
 Watched by a child. Not less I loved him well : 
 
 Me too he somewhat loved. Beneath one roof 
 
 We dwelt and yet how severed ! Save in God, 
 
 What know men, one of other ? Here on earth, 
 
 Perhaps 'tis wiser to be kind to all 
 
 In large goodwill of helpful love, yet free, 
 
 Than link to one our heart 
 
 Poor youth ! that love which walks in narrow ways 
 
 Is tragic love, be sure/ 
 
 With gentle face 
 
 The novice spake his gratitude. Once more, 
 His hand upon the shoulder of the youth, 
 (For now they mounted slow a bosky dell) 
 The old man spake yet not to him in voice 
 Scarce louder than the murmuring pines close by ; 
 
262 Bedes Last May. 
 
 For, by his being's law he seemed, like them, 
 
 At times when pensive memories in him stirred, 
 
 Vocal not less than visible : * How great 
 
 Was he, our Founder ! In that ample brow, 
 
 What brooding weight of genius ! In his eye, 
 
 How strangely was the pathos edged with light ! 
 
 How oft, his churches roaming, flashed its beam 
 
 From pillar on to pillar, resting long 
 
 On carven imagery of flower or fruit, 
 
 Or deep-dyed window whence the heavenly choirs 
 
 Gave joy to men below ! With what a zeal 
 
 He drew the cunningest craftsmen from all climes 
 
 To express his thoughts in form ; while yet his hand, 
 
 Like meanest hand among us, patient toiled 
 
 In garden and in bakehouse, threshed the corn, 
 
 Or drave the calves to milk-pail ! Earthly rule 
 
 Had proved to him a weight intolerable ; 
 
 In spiritual beauty, there and there alone, 
 
 Our Bennett Biscop found his native haunt, 
 
 The lucent planet of his soul's repose : 
 
 And yet O wondrous might of human love 
 
 One was there, one, to whom his heart was knit, 
 
 Siegfried, in all unlike him save in worth. 
 
 His was plain purpose, rectitude un warped, 
 
 Industry, foresight. On his friend's behalf 
 
 He ruled long years those beauteous convents twain, 
 
Bedes Last May. 263 
 
 Yet knew not they were beauteous ! An abyss 
 Severed in spirit those in heart so near : 
 More late exterior severance came : three years 
 In cells remote they dwelt, by sickness chained : 
 But once they met to die. I see them still : 
 The monks had laid them on a single bed ; 
 Weeping, they turned them later each to each : 
 I saw the snowy tresses softly mix , 
 I saw the faded lips draw near and meet ; 
 Thus gently interwreathed I saw them die 
 Strange strength of human love ! ' 
 
 Still walked they on : 
 
 As high the sun ascended, woodlands green 
 Shivered all golden ; and the old man's heart 
 Brightened like them. His ever active mind 
 Inquisitive took note of all it saw ; 
 And as some youth enamoured lifts a tress 
 Of her he loves, and wonders, so the monk, 
 Well loving Nature, loved her in detail, 
 Now pleased with nestling bird, anon with flower, 
 Now noting how the beech from dewy sheath 
 Pushed forth its silken leaflets fringed with down, 
 Exulting next because from sprays of lime 
 The little fledgeling leaves, like creatures winged, 
 Brake from their ruddy shells. Jesting, he cried : 
 ' Algar ! but hear those birds ! Men say they sing 
 
264 Bedes Last May. 
 
 To fire their young, night-bound, with gladsome news, 
 
 And bid them seek the sun ! ' Sadly the youth 
 
 With downward front, replied : ' My friend is dead ; 
 
 For me to gladden were to break a troth.' 
 
 Upon the brow of Bede a shadow fell ; 
 
 Silent he paced, then stopped : ' Forgive me, Algar ! 
 
 Old men grow hard. Yet boys and girls salute 
 
 The May : like them the old must have their maying ; 
 
 This is perchance my last.' 
 
 As thus he spake 
 
 They reached the summit of a grassy hill ; 
 Beneath there wound a stream, upon its marge 
 A hamlet nestling lonely in the woods : 
 Its inmates saw the Saint, and t'wards him sped 
 Eager as birds that, when the grain is flung 
 In fountained cloister- court of Eastern church, 
 From all sides flock, with sudden rush of wings, 
 Darkening the pavement. Youths and maids came first ; 
 Their elders followed : some his garments kissed, 
 And some his hands. The venerable man 
 Stretched forth his arms, as though to clasp them all : 
 Above them next he signed his Master's cross ; 
 Then, while the tears ran down his aged face, 
 Brake forth in grateful joy ; l To God the praise ! 
 When, forty years ago, I roamed this vale 
 A haunt it was of rapine and of wars ; 
 
Bedes Last May. 265 
 
 Now see I pleasant pastures, peaceful homes, 
 And faces peacefuler yet. That God Who walked 
 With His disciples 'mid the sabbath fields 
 While they the wheat-ears bruised, His sabbath keeps 
 Within your hearts this day ! His harvest ye ! 
 Once more a-hungered are His holy priests ; 
 They hunger for your souls ; with reverent palms 
 Daily the chaff they separate from the grain ; 
 Daily His Church within her heart receives you, 
 Yea, with her heavenly substance makes you one ; 
 Ye grow to be her eyes that see His truth ; 
 Her ears that hear His voice ; her hands that pluck 
 His tree of life ; her feet that walk His ways. 
 Honouring God's priests ye err not, O my friends, 
 Since thus ye honour God. In Him rejoice ! ' 
 
 So spake he, and his gladness kindled theirs ; 
 With it their courage. One her infant brought 
 And sued for him a blessing. One, bereaved, 
 Cried out : * Your promised peace has come at last ; 
 No more I wish him back to earth ! ' Again 
 Old foes shook hands ; while now, their fears forgot, 
 Children that lately nestled at his feet 
 Clomb to his knees. Then called from out that crowd 
 A blind man ; * Read once more that Book of God ! 
 For, after you had left us, many a month 
 
266 Bedes Last May. 
 
 I, who can neither see the sun nor moon, 
 
 Saw oft the God-Man walking farms and fields 
 
 Of that fair Eastern land ! ' He spake, and lo ! 
 
 All those around that heard him clamoured, * Read ! ' 
 
 Then Bede, the Sacred Scriptures opening, lit 
 Upon the ' Sermon on the Mount/ and read : 
 
 * The Saviour lifted up His holy eyes 
 On His disciples, saying, Blessed they ; ' 
 Expounding next the sense. ' Why fixed the Lord 
 His eyes on them that listened ? Friends, His eyes 
 Go down through all things, searching out the heart ; 
 He sees if heart be sound to hold His Word 
 
 And bring forth fruit in season, or as rock 
 Naked to bird that plucks the random seed. 
 Friends, with the heart alone we understand ; 
 Who doth His will shall of the doctrine know 
 If His it be indeed. When Jesus speaks 
 Fix first your eyes upon His eyes divine, 
 There reading what He sees within your heart : 
 If sin He sees, repent ! ' 
 
 With hands upheld 
 A woman raised her voice, and cried aloud, 
 
 * Could we but look into the eyes of Christ 
 
 Nought should we see but love ! ' And Bede replied : 
 ' From babe and suckling God shall perfect praise ! 
 
Bedes Last May. 267 
 
 Yea, from His eyes looks forth the Eternal Love, 
 
 Though oft, through sin of ours, in sadness veiled ; 
 
 But when He rests them on disciples true, 
 
 Not on the stranger, love is love alone ! 
 
 O great, true hearts that love so well your Lord ! 
 
 That heard so trustingly His tidings good, 
 
 So long, by trial proved, have kept His Faith, 
 
 To you He cometh cometh with reward 
 
 In heaven, and here on earth/ 
 
 With brightening face, 
 As one who flingeth largess far abroad, 
 Once more he raised the sacred tome, and read, 
 Read loud the Eight Beatitudes of Christ ; 
 Then ceased, but later spake : * In ampler phrase 
 Those Blessings ye shall hear once more rehearsed, 
 And deeplier understand them. Blessed they 
 The poor in spirit ; for to humble hearts 
 Belongs the kingdom of their God in heaven ; 
 Blessed the meek nor gold they boast, nor power ; 
 Yet theirs alone the sweetness of this earth ; 
 Blessed are they who mourn, for on their hearts 
 The consolation of their God shall fall ; 
 Blessed are they who hunger and who thirst 
 For righteousness ; they shall be satisfied ; 
 Blessed the merciful, for unto them 
 The God of mercy mercy shall accord ; 
 
268 Bedes Last May. 
 
 Blessed are they, the pure in heart ; their eyes 
 Shall see their God : Blessed the peacemakers ; 
 This title man shall give them Sons of God ; 
 Blessed are they who suffer for the cause 
 Righteous and just : a throne is theirs on high : 
 Blessed are ye when sinners cast you forth, 
 And brand your name with falsehood for my sake ; 
 Rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven.' 
 
 Once more the venerable man made pause, 
 Giving his Master's Blessings time to sink 
 Through hearts of those who heard. Anon with speech 
 Though fervent, grave, he shewed the glory and grace 
 Of those majestic Virtues crowned by Christ, 
 While virtues praised by worldlings passed unnamed ; 
 How wondrously consentient each with each, 
 Like flowers well sorted, or like notes well joined : 
 Then changed the man to deeper theme ; he shewed 
 How these high virtues, ere to man consigned, 
 Were warmed and moulded in the God-Man's heart ; 
 Thence born, and in its sacred blood baptized. 
 1 What are these virtues but the life of Christ ? 
 The poor in spirit ; must not they be lowly 
 Whose God is One that stooped to wear our flesh ? 
 The meek ; was He not meek Whom sinners mocked ? 
 The mourners ; sent not He the Comforter? 
 
Bedes Last May. 269 
 
 Zeal for the good ; was He not militant ? 
 
 The merciful ; He came to bring us mercy ; 
 
 The pure in heart ; was He not virgin-born ? 
 
 Peacemakers ; is not He the Prince of Peace ? 
 
 Sufferers for God ; He suffered first for man. 
 
 O Virtues blest by Christ, high doctrines ye ! 
 
 Dread mysteries ; royal records ; standards red 
 
 Wrapped by the warrior King, His warfare past, 
 
 Around His soldiers' bosoms ! Recognise, 
 
 O man, that majesty in lowness hid ! 
 
 Put on Christ's garments. Fools shall call them rags 
 
 Heed not their scoff ! A prince's child is man, 
 
 Born in the purple ; but his royal robes 
 
 None other are than those the Saviour dyed, 
 
 Treading His Passion's wine-press all alone : 
 
 Of such alone be proud ! ' 
 
 The old man paused ; 
 
 Then stretched his arms abroad, and said : < This day, 
 Like eight great angels making way from Heaven, 
 Each following each, those Eight Beatitudes, 
 Missioned to earth by Him who made the earth, 
 Have sought you out ! What welcome shall be theirs ? ' 
 In silence long he stood ; in silence watched, 
 With faded cheek now flushed and widening eyes, 
 The advance of those high tidings. As a man 
 Who, when the sluice is cut, with beaming gaze 
 
2 7O Bedes Last May. 
 
 Pursues the on-rolling flood from fall to fall, 
 Green branch adown it swept, and showery spray 
 Silvering the berried copse, so followed Bede 
 The progress of those high Beatitudes 
 Brightening, with visible beams of faith and love, 
 That host in ampler circles, speechless some 
 And some in passionate converse. Saddest brows 
 Most quickly caught, that hour, the glory-touch, 
 Reflected it the best. 
 
 In such discourse, 
 
 Peaceful and glad the hours went by, though Bede 
 Had sought that valley less to preach the Word 
 Than see once more his children. Evening nigh 
 He shared their feast ; and heard with joy like theirs 
 Their village harp ; and smote that harp himself. 
 In turn become their scholar, hour by hour 
 Forth dragged he records of their chiefs and kings, 
 Untangling ravelled evidence, and still 
 Tracking traditions upward to their source, 
 Like him, that Halicarnassean sage, 
 Of antique history sire. ( I trust, my friends, 
 To leave your sons, for lore by you bestowed 
 Fair recompense, large measure well pressed down, 
 Recording still God's kingdom in this land, 
 History which all may read, and gentle hearts 
 Loving, may grow in grace. Long centuries passed, 
 
Bedes Last May. 2 7 1 
 
 If wealth should make this nation's heart too fat, 
 
 And things of earth obscure the things of heaven, 
 
 Haply such chronicle may prompt high hearts 
 
 Wearied with shining nothings, back to cast . 
 
 Remorseful gaze through mists of time, and note 
 
 That rock whence they were hewn. From youth to age 
 
 Inmate of yonder convent on the Tyne, 
 
 I question every pilgrim, priest, or prince, 
 
 Or peasant grey, and glean from each his sheaf : 
 
 Likewise the Bishops here and Abbots there 
 
 Still send me deed of gift, or chronicle 
 
 Or missive from the Apostolic See : 
 
 Praise be to God Who fitteth for his place 
 
 Not only high but mean ! With wisdom's strength 
 
 He filled our mitred Wilfred, born to rule ; 
 
 To saintly Cuthbert gave the spirit of prayer ; 
 
 On me, as one late born, He lays a charge 
 
 Slender, yet helpful stilL' 
 
 Then spake a man 
 Burly and big, that last at banquet sat, 
 
 * Father, is history true ? ' and Bede replied ; 
 
 * The man who seeks for Truth like hidden gold, 
 And shrinks from falsehood as a leper's touch 
 Shall write true history : not the truth unmixed 
 With fancies, base or high ; not truth entire ; 
 Yet truth beneficent to man below. 
 
272 Bedes Last May. 
 
 One Book there is that errs not : ye this day 
 Have learned therefrom your Lord's Beatitudes : 
 That Book contains its histories like them none, 
 Since written none from standing point so high, 
 With insight so inspired, such measure just 
 Of good and ill ; high fruit of aid divine. 
 The slothful spurn that Book ; the erroneous warp : 
 But they who read its page, or hear it read, 
 Their guide, God's Spirit, and the Church of God, 
 Shall hear the voice of Truth for ever nigh, 
 Shall see the Truth, now sunlike, and anon 
 Like dagger-point of light from dewy grass 
 Flashed up, a word that yet confutes a life, 
 Pierces, perchance a nation's heart : shall see 
 Far more the Truth Himself in human form, 
 Walking not farms and fields of Eastern lands 
 Alone, but these our English fields and farms ; 
 Shall see Him on the dusky mount at prayer ; 
 Shall see Him in the street and by the bier ; 
 Shall see Him at the feast, and at the grave ; 
 Now from the boat discoursing, and anon 
 Staying the storm, or walking on its waves ; 
 Thus shall our land become a holy land 
 And holy those who tread her ! ' Lifting then 
 Heavenward that tome, he said, ' The Book of God ! 
 As stands God's Church, 'mid kingdoms of this world 
 
Bedes Last May. 1 73 
 
 Holy alone, so stands, 'mid books, this Book ! 
 Within the " Upper Chamber " once that Church 
 Lived in small space ; to-day she fills the world : 
 This Book which seems so narrow is a world : 
 It is an Eden of mankind restored ; 
 It is a heavenly city lit with God : 
 From it the Spirit and the Bride say " Come : " 
 Blessed who reads this Book ! ' 
 
 Above the woods 
 
 Meantime the stars shone forth ; and came that hour 
 When to the wanderer and the toiling man 
 Repose is sweet. Upon a leaf-strewn bed 
 The venerable man slept well that night : 
 Next morning young and old pursued his steps 
 As southward he departed. From a hill 
 O'er-looking far that sea-like forest tract 
 And many a church far-kenned through smokeless air, 
 He blessed that kneeling concourse, adding thus, 
 6 Pray still, O friends, for me, since spiritual foes 
 Threat most the priesthood : pray that holy death, 
 Due warning given, may close a life too blest ! 
 Pray well, since I for you have laboured well, 
 Yea, and will labour till my latest sigh ; 
 Not only seeking you in wilds and woods 
 Year after year, but in my cell at night 
 Changing to accents of your native tongue 
 
 T 
 
2 74 Bedes Last May. 
 
 God's Book Divine. Farewell, my friends, farewell ! ' 
 He left them ; in his heart this thought, ' How like 
 The great death-parting every parting seems ! ' 
 But deathless hopes were with him ; and the May ; 
 His grief went by. 
 
 So passed a day of Bede's ; 
 
 And many a studious year were stored with such ; 
 Enough but one for sample. Two glad weeks 
 He and his comrade onward roved. At eve 
 Convent or hamlet, known long since and loved, 
 Gladly received them. Bede with heart as glad 
 Renewed with them the memory of old times, 
 Recounted benefits by him received, 
 Then strong in youth, from just men passed away, 
 And preached his Master still with power so sweet 
 The listeners ne'er forgat him. Evermore, 
 Parting, he planted in the ground a cross, 
 And bade the neighbours till their church was built 
 Round it to pray. Meanwhile his youthful mate 
 Changed by degrees. The ever varying scene, 
 The biting breath and balmy breast of spring, 
 And most of all that old man's valiant heart 
 Triumphed above his sadness, fancies gay 
 Pushing beyond it like those sunnier shoots 
 That gild the dark vest of the vernal pine. 
 He took account of all things as they passed ; 
 
Bede's Last May. 275 
 
 He laughed ; he told his tale. With quiet joy 
 
 His friend remarked that change. The second week 
 
 They passed to Durham ; next to Walsingham ; 
 
 To Gilling then ; to stately Richmond soon 
 
 High throned above her Ouse ; to Ripon last : 
 
 Then Bede made pause, and spake ; ' Not far is York ; 
 
 Egbert who fills Paulinus' saintly seat 
 
 Would see me gladly : such was mine intent, 
 
 But something in my bosom whispers, " Nay, 
 
 Return to that fair river crossed by night, 
 
 The Tees, the fairest in this Northern land : 
 
 Beside its restless wave thine eye shall rest 
 
 On vision lovelier far and more benign 
 
 Than all it yet hath seen." ' Northward once more 
 
 They faced, and, three days travelling, reached at eve 
 
 Again those ivied cliffs that guard the Tees : 
 
 There as they stood a homeward dove, with flight 
 
 Softer for contrast with that turbulent stream, 
 
 Sailed through the crimson eve. ' No sight like that ! ' 
 
 Thus murmured Bede ; ' ever to me it seems 
 
 A Christian soul returning to its rest/ 
 
 A shade came o'er his countenance as he mused ; 
 
 Algar remarked that shade, though what it meant 
 
 He knew not yet. The old man from that hour 
 
 Seemed mirthful less, less buoyant, beaming less, 
 
 Yet not less glad. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 Bedes Last May. 
 
 At dead of night, while hung 
 The sacred stars upon their course half way, 
 He left his couch, and thus to Egbert wrote, 
 Meek man too meek the brother of the king, 
 With brow low bent, and onward sweeping hand, 
 Great words, world-famed : ' Remember thine account ! 
 The Lord's Apostles are the salt of earth ; 
 Let salt not lose its savour ! Flail and fan 
 Are given thee. Purge thou well thy threshing floor ! 
 Repel the tyrant ; hurl the hireling forth ; 
 That so from thy true priests true hearts may learn 
 True faith, true love, and nothing but the truth ! ' 
 
 Before the lark he rose the morrow morn, 
 And stood by Algar's bed, and spake : ' Arise ! 
 Playtime is past ; the great, good work returns ; 
 To Jarrow speed we ! ' Homeward, day by day, 
 Thenceforth they sped with foot that lagged no more, 
 That youth, at first so mournful, joyous now, 
 That old man oft in thought. Next day, while eve 
 Descended dim, and clung to Hexham's groves, 
 He passed its abbey, silent. Wonder-struck 
 Algar demanded, ' Father, pass you thus 
 That church where holy John l ordained you priest ? 
 Pass you its Bishop, Acca, long your friend ? 
 
 1 St. John of Beverley. 
 
Bedes Last May. 277 
 
 Yearly he woos your visit ; tells you tales 
 
 Of Hexham's saintly Wilfred \ shows you still 
 
 Chalice or cross new-won from distant shores : 
 
 Nor these alone : glancing from such last year 
 
 A page he read you of some Pagan bard 
 
 With smiles ; yet ended with a sigh, and said : 
 
 " Where is he now ? " The man of God replied : 
 
 4 Desire was mine to see mine ancient friend ; 
 
 For that cause came I hither : time runs short ' : 
 
 Then, Algar sighing, thus he added mild, 
 
 4 Let go that theme ; thy mourning time is past : 
 
 Thy gladsome time is now.' As on they walked, 
 
 Later he spake : ' It may be I was wrong ; 
 
 Old friends should part in hope/ 
 
 On J arrow's towers, 
 
 Bright as that sunrise while that pair went forth 
 The sunset glittered when, their wanderings past, 
 Bede and his comrade by the bank of Tyne 
 Once more approached the gates. Six hundred monks 
 Flocked forth to meet them. ' They had grieved, I know,* 
 Thus spake, low- voiced, the venerable man, 
 i If I had died remote. To spare that grief 
 Before the time intended I returned.' 
 Sadly that comrade looked upon his face, 
 Yet saw there nought of sadness. Silent each 
 Advanced they till they met that cowled host : 
 
278 Bedes Last May. 
 
 But three weeks later on his bed the boy 
 Remembered well those words. 
 
 Within a cell 
 
 To Algar's near that later night a youth 
 Wrote thus to one far off, his earliest friend : 
 ' O blessed man ! was e'er a death so sweet ! 
 He sang that verse, " A dreadful thing it is 
 To fall into the hands of God, All-Just ; " 
 Yet awe in him seemed swallowed up by love ; 
 And ofttimes with the Prophets and the Psalms 
 He mixed glad minstrelsies of English speech, 
 Songs to his childhood dear ! 
 
 ' O blessed man ! 
 
 The Ascension Feast of Christ our Lord drew nigh ; 
 He watched that splendour's advent ; sang its hymn : 
 " All-glorious King, Who, triumphing this day, 
 Into the heaven of heavens didst make ascent, 
 Forsake us not, poor orphans ! Send Thy Spirit, 
 The Spirit of Truth, the Father's promised Gift, 
 To comfort us, His children : Hallelujah." 
 And when he reached that word, " Forsake us not," 
 He wept not tears of grief. With him we wept ; 
 Alternate wept ; alternate read our rite ; 
 Yea, while we wept we read. So passed that day, 
 The sufferer thanking God with labouring breath, 
 " God scourges still the son whom He receives." 
 
Bedes Last May. 279 
 
 ' Undaunted, unamazed, daily he wrought 
 His daily task ; instruction daily gave 
 To us his scholars round him ranged, and said, 
 " I will not have my pupils learn a lie, 
 Nor, fruitless, toil therein when I am gone." 
 Full well he kept an earlier promise, made 
 Ofttimes to humble folk, in English tongue 
 Rendering the Gospels of the Lord. On these, 
 The last of these, the Gospel of Saint John, 
 He laboured till the close. The days went by, 
 And still he toiled, and panted, and gave thanks 
 To God with hands uplifted ; yea, in sleep 
 He made thanksgiving still. When Tuesday came 
 Suffering increased ; he said, * My time is short ; 
 How short it is I know not." Yet we deemed 
 He knew the time of his departure well 
 
 ' On Wednesday morn once more he bade us write : 
 We wrote till the third hour, and left him then 
 To pace, in reverence of that Feast all-blest, 
 Our cloister court with hymns. Meantime a youth, 
 Algar by name, there was who left him never ; 
 The same that hour beside him sat and wrote : 
 More late he questioned : " Father well-beloved, 
 One chapter yet remaineth ; have you strength 
 To dictate more ? " He answered : " I have strength ; 
 
 ( 
 
280 Bede s Last May. 
 
 Make ready, son, thy pen, and swiftly write." 
 
 When noon had come he turned him round and said, 
 
 " I have some little gifts for those I love ; 
 
 Call in the Brethren ; " adding with a smile, 
 
 " The rich man makes bequests, and why not I ? " 
 
 Then gifts he gave, incense or altar-cloth, 
 
 To each, commanding, " Pray ye for my soul ; 
 
 Be strong in prayer and offering of the Mass, 
 
 For ye shall see my face no more on earth : 
 
 Blessed hath been my life ; and time it is 
 
 That unto God God's creature should return ; 
 
 Yea, I desire to die, and be with Christ." 
 
 Thus speaking, he rejoiced till evening's shades 
 
 Darkened around us. That disciple young 
 
 Once more addressed him, " Still one verse remains ; " 
 
 The master answered, " Write, and write with speed ; " 
 
 And dictated. The young man wrote ; then said, 
 
 " Tis finished now." The man of God replied : 
 
 " Well say'st thou, son, ' 'tis finished. 7 In thy hands 
 
 Receive my head, and move it gently round, 
 
 For comfort great it is, and joy in death, 
 
 Thus, on this pavement of my little cell, 
 
 Facing that happy spot whereon so oft 
 
 In prayer I knelt, to sit once more in prayer, 
 
 Thanking my Father." " Glory," then he sang, 
 
 " To God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; " 
 
Bedes Last May. 281 
 
 And with that latest Name upon his lips 
 Passed to the Heavenly Kingdom/ 
 
 Thus with joy 
 
 Died holy Bede upon Ascension Day 
 In Jarrow Convent. May he pray for us, 
 And all who read his annals of God's Church 
 In England housed, his great bequest to man ! 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Page xxxvi. The Irish Mission in England during the seventh 
 century was one of the great things of history. 
 
 THE following expressions of Dr. von Dollinger respecting the Irish 
 Church are more ardent than any I have ventured to use : 
 
 ' During the sixth and seventh centuries the Church of Ireland 
 stood in the full beauty of its bloom. The spirit of the Gospel oper- 
 ated amongst the people with a vigorous and vivifying power : troops 
 of holy men, from the highest to the lowest ranks of society, obeyed 
 the counsel of Christ, and forsook all things that they might follow 
 Him. There was not a country in the world, during this period, which 
 could boast of pious foundations or of religious communities equal 
 to those that adorned this far distant island. Among the Irish the 
 doctrines of the Christian religion were preserved pure and entire ; 
 the names of heresy or of schism were not known to them ; and in 
 the Bishop of Rome they acknowledged and venerated the Supreme 
 Head of the Church on earth, and continued with him, and through 
 him with the whole Church, in a never interrupted communion. 
 The schools in the Irish cloisters were at this time the most 
 celebrated in all the West. . . . The strangers who visited the 
 island, not only from the neighbouring shores of Britain, but also 
 from the most remote nations of the Continent, received from the 
 Irish people the most hospitable reception, a gratuitous entertain- 
 ment, free instruction, and even the books that were necessary for 
 the studies. ... On the other hand, many holy and learned Irish- 
 
284 
 
 Notes. 
 
 men left their own country to proclaim the Faith, to establish or 
 to reform monasteries in distant lands, and thus to become the 
 benefactors of almost every country in Europe. . . . The founda- 
 tion of many of the English Sees is due to Irishmen. . . . These 
 holy men served God, and not the world ; they possessed neither 
 gold nor silver, and all that they received from the rich passed 
 through their hands into the hands of the poor. Kings and nobles 
 visited them from time to time only to pray in their churches, or 
 to listen to their sermons ; and as long as they remained in the 
 cloisters they were content with the humble food of the brethren. 
 Wherever one of these ecclesiastics or monks came, he was received 
 by all with joy ; and whenever he was seen journeying across the 
 country, the people streamed around him to implore his benediction, 
 and to hearken to his words. The priests entered the villages only 
 to preach or to administer the Sacraments ; and so free were they 
 from avarice, that it was only when compelled by the rich and noble 
 that they would accept lands for the erection of monasteries. ' 
 
 Page xliii. For both countries that early time was a period of 
 wonderful spiritual greatness. 
 
 I cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting the following 
 passage illustrating the religious greatness both of the Irish and the 
 English at the period referred to : 
 
 ' The seventh and eighth centuries are the glory of the Anglo- 
 Saxon Church, as the sixth and seventh are of the Irish. As the 
 Irish missionaries travelled down through England, France, and 
 Switzerland, to Lower Italy, and attempted Germany at the peril 
 of their lives, converting the barbarian, restoring the lapsed, 
 encouraging the desolate, collecting the scattered, and founding 
 churches, schools, and monasteries as they went along ; so amid 
 the deep pagan woods of Germany, and round about, the English 
 Benedictine plied his axe, and drove his plough, planted his rude 
 dwelling, and raised his rustic altar upon the ruins of idolatry ; and 
 then, settling down as a colonist upon the soil, began to sing his 
 chants and to copy his old volumes, and thus to Jay the slow but 
 
Notes. 285 
 
 sure foundations of the new civilisation. Distinct, nay antagonistic, 
 in character and talents, the one nation and the other, Irish and 
 English the one more resembling the Greek, the other the Roman 
 open from the first perhaps to jealousies as well as rivalries, they 
 consecrated their respective gifts to the Almighty Giver, and, 
 labouring together for the same great end, they obliterated whatever 
 there was of human infirmity in their mutual intercourse by the 
 merit of their common achievements. Each by turn could claim 
 pre-eminence in the contest of sanctity and learning. In the schools 
 of science England has no name to rival Erigena in originality, or 
 St. Virgil in freedom of thought ; nor (among its canonised women) 
 any saintly virgin to compare with St. Bridget ; nor, although it 
 has 150 saints in its calendar, can it pretend to equal that Irish 
 multitude which the Book of Life alone is large enough to contain. 
 Nor can Ireland, on the other hand, boast of a doctor such as 
 St. Bede, or of an apostle equal to St. Boniface, or of a martyr 
 like St. Thomas ; or of so long a catalogue of royal devotees as 
 that of the thirty male or female Saxons who, in the course of two 
 centuries, resigned their crowns ; or as the roll of twenty-three kings, 
 and sixty queens and princes, who, between the seventh and the 
 eleventh centuries, gained a place among the saints.' Cardinal 
 Newman, Historic Sketches, ' The Isles of the North,' pp. 128-9. 
 
 Page 1 6. 
 
 Instant each navy at the other dashed 
 Like wild beast, instinct-taught. 
 
 This image will be found in the description of a Scandinavian 
 sea-fight in a remarkable book less known than it deserves to be, 
 The Invasion, by Gerald Griffin, author of The Collegians. 
 
 The Saxons were, however, in early times as much pirates as 
 the Danes were at a later. 
 
 Page 1 8. The achievement of Hastings had been rehearsed at 
 a much earlier period by Harald. 
 
 
286 Notes. 
 
 Page 39. At Ely, Elmham, and beside the Cam. 
 
 In the reign of Sigebert, Felix, Bishop of East Anglia, founded 
 schools respecting which Montalembert remarks : ' Plusieurs ont 
 fait remonter a ces ecoles monastiques 1'origine de la celebre 
 universite de Cambridge.' 
 
 ' 
 Page 44. How beautiful, O Sion, are thy courts ! 
 
 The following hymns are from the Office for the Consecration of 
 a Church. 
 . 
 
 St. Fursey. Page 67. 
 
 How one with brow 
 
 
 
 Lordlier than man's, and visionary eyes. 
 
 ' Whilst Sigebert still governed the kingdom there came out ot 
 Ireland a holy man named Fursey, renowned both for his words 
 and actions, and remarkable for singular virtues, being desirous to 
 live a stranger for Our Lord, wherever an opportunity should offer. 
 . . . He built himself the monastery (Burghcastle in Suffolk) 
 wherein he might with more freedom indulge his heavenly studies. 
 There falling sick, as the book about his life informs us, he fell 
 into a trance, and, quitting his body from the e veiling till the cock- 
 crow, he was found worthy to behold the choirs of angels, and 
 hear the praises which are sung in heaven. . . . He not only saw 
 the greater joys of the Blessed, but also extraordinary combats of 
 Evil Spirits.' Bede, Hist, book iii. cap. xix. ' C'etait un moine 
 irlandais nomme Fursey, de tres-noble naissance et celebre depuis 
 sa jeunesse dans son pays par sa science et ses visions. . . . Dans 
 la principale de ses visions Ampere et Ozanam se sont accordes a 
 reconnaitre une des sources poetiques de la Divine Conic die.' 
 Montalembert, Les Moines d" 1 Occident, tome iv. pp. 93-4. 
 
 Page 1 1 6. * None loveth Song that loves not Light and Truth.'' 
 This is one of the poetic aphorisms of Cadoc, a Cambrian 
 
Notes. 287 
 
 prince and saint, educated in the Irish monastery of Lismore, 
 and afterwards the founder of the great Welsh monastery of Llan- 
 carvan, in which he gave religious instruction to the sons of the 
 neighbouring princes and chiefs. 
 
 Page 1 20. 
 
 True life of man 
 Is life within. 
 
 This thought is taken from one of St. Teresa's beautiful works. 
 
 Page 141. Ceadmon, the earliest bard of English song. 
 
 * A part of one of Ceadmon's poems is preserved in King 
 Alfred's Saxon version of Bede's History.'' (Note to Bede's Eccle- 
 siastical History ', edited by Dr. Giles, p. 218.) 
 
 Page 1 80. Who told him tales of Leinster Kings, his sires. 
 
 ' L'origine irlandaise de Cuthbert est affirme sans reserve par 
 Reeves dans ses Notes sur Wattenbach, p. 5. Lanigan (c. iii. 
 p. 88) constate qu' Usher, Ware, Colgan, en ont eu la meme 
 opinion. . . . Beaucoup d'autres anciens auteurs irlandais et anglais 
 en font un natif de i'trlande.' Montalembert, Les Moines d* Occi- 
 dent, tome ii. pp. 391-2. 
 
 Page 191. 7'he thrones are myriad, but the Enthroned is One. 
 
 Oft as Spring 
 
 Decks on thy sinuous banks her thousand thrones. 
 Seats of glad instinct, and love's carolling.' 
 
 Wordsworth (addressed to the river Greta). 
 
 Page 208. Saint Frideswida* or the Foundations of Oxford. 
 
 Saint Frideswida died in the same year as the venerable Bede, 
 viz. A.D. 735. Her story is related by Montalembert, Les Moines 
 d^ Occident, vol. v. pp. 298-302, with the following references, viz. 
 
288 Notes. 
 
 Leland, Collectanea, ap. Dugdale, t. I. p. 173; cf. Holland, t. viii. 
 October, p. 535 a 568. I learn from a Catholic prayer book pub- 
 lished in 1720 that the Saint's Feast used to be kept on the iQth of 
 October. Her remains, as is commonly believed, still exist in the 
 Cathedral of Oxford. 
 
 Page 240. Your teacher he: he tazight you first your Runes. 
 
 * The Icelandic chronicles point out Odin as the most persuasive 
 of men. They tell us that nothing could resist the force of his 
 words ; that he sometimes enlivened his harangues with verses, 
 which he composed extempore ; and that he was not only a great 
 poet, but that it was he who first taught the art of poesy to the 
 Scandinavians. He was also the inventor of the Runic characters.' 
 Northern Antiquities, p. 83. Mallet asserts that it was to 
 Christianity that the Scandinavians owed the practical use of those 
 Runes which they had possessed for centuries: 'nor did they 
 during so many years ever think of committing to writing those 
 verses with which their memories were loaded ; and it is probable 
 that they only wrote down a small quantity of them at last. . . . 
 Among the innumerable advantages which accrued to the Northern 
 nations from the introduction of the Christian religion, that of 
 teaching them to apply the knowledge of letters to useful purposes 
 is not the least valuable. Nor could a motive less sacred have 
 eradicated that habitual and barbarous prejudice which caused them 
 to neglect so admirable a secret. ' P. 234. Mallet's statement re- 
 specting the Greek emigration of the Northern ' Barbarians ' from the 
 East is thus confirmed by Burke. * There is an unquestioned tradition 
 among the Northern nations of Europe importing that all that part 
 of the world had suffered a great and general revolution by a migra- 
 tion from Asiatic Tartary of a people whom they call Asers. These 
 everywhere expelled or subdued the ancient inhabitants of the Cel- 
 tick or Cimbrick original. The leader of this Asiatic army was 
 called Odin, or Wodin ; first their general, afterwards their tutelar 
 deity The Saxon nation believed themselves the descend- 
 
Notes. 289 
 
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i6 
 
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UNIX