SAINT BRANDAN sails the northern main; | |
| The brotherhoods of saints are glad. | |
| He greets them once, he sails again. | |
| So late!—such storms!—The Saint is mad! | |
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| He heard across the howling seas | 5 |
| Chime convent bells on wintry nights, | |
| He saw on spray-swept Hebrides | |
| Twinkle the monastery lights; | |
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| But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer’d; | |
| And now no bells, no convents more! | 10 |
| The hurtling Polar lights are near’d, | |
| The sea without a human shore. | |
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| At last—(it was the Christmas night, | |
| Stars shone after a day of storm)— | |
| He sees float past 1 an iceberg white, | 15 |
| And on it—Christ!—a living form! | |
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| That furtive mien, that scowling eye, | |
| Of hair that red 2 and tufted fell—— | |
| It is—Oh, where shall Brandan fly?— | |
| The traitor Judas, out of hell! | 20 |
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| Palsied with terror, Brandan sate; | |
| The moon was bright, the iceberg near. | |
| He hears a voice sigh humbly: ‘Wait! | |
| By high permission I am here. | |
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| ‘One moment wait, thou holy man! | 25 |
| On earth my crime, my death, they knew; | |
| My name is under all men’s ban; | |
| Ah, tell them of my respite too! | |
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| ‘Tell them, one blessed Christmas night— | |
| (It was the first after I came, | 30 |
| Breathing self-murder, frenzy, spite, | |
| To rue my guilt in endless flame)— | |
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| ‘I felt, as I in torment lay | |
| ’Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power, | |
| An angel touch mine arm, and say: | 35 |
| Go hence, and cool thyself an hour! | |
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| ‘“Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?” I said. | |
| The Leper recollect, said he, | |
| Who ask’d the passers-by for aid, | |
| In Joppa, and thy charity. | 40 |
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| ‘Then I remember’d how I went, | |
| In Joppa, through the public street, | |
| One morn, when the sirocco spent | |
| Its storms of dust, with burning heat; | |
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| ‘And in the street a Leper sate, | 45 |
| Shivering with fever, naked, old; | |
| Sand raked his sores from heel to pate, | |
| The hot wind fever’d him five-fold. | |
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| ‘He gazed upon me as I pass’d, | |
| And murmur’d: Help me, or I die!— | 50 |
| To the poor wretch my cloak I cast, | |
| Saw him look eased, and hurried by. | |
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| ‘Oh, Brandan, think what grace divine, | |
| What blessing must true goodness shower, | |
| If 3 semblance of it faint, like mine, | 55 |
| Hath such inestimable 4 power! | |
| |
| ‘Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I | |
| Did that chance act of good, that one! | |
| Then went my way to kill and lie— | |
| Forgot my good 5 as soon as done. | 60 |
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| ‘That germ of kindness, in the womb | |
| Of mercy caught, did not expire; | |
| Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom, | |
| And friends me in the pit of fire. | |
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| ‘Once every year, when carols wake, | 65 |
| On earth, the Christmas night’s repose, | |
| Arising from the sinners’ lake, | |
| I journey to these healing snows. | |
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| ‘I stanch with ice my burning breast, | |
| With silence balm my whirling brain. | 70 |
| O Brandan! to this hour of rest, | |
| That Joppan leper’s ease was pain!’—— | |
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| Tears started to Saint Brandan’s eyes; | |
| He bow’d his head; he breathed a prayer. | |
| When he look’d up—tenantless lies | 75 |
| The iceberg in the frosty air! | |
