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THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN.

THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN.

PART I.

I.

• THE storm had ceased to rave: subsiding slow
• Lashed ocean heaved, and then lay calm and still;
• From the clear North a little breeze did blow
• Severing the clouds: high o’er a wooded hill
• The slant sun hung intolerably bright,
• And spanned the sea with a broad bridge of light.

II.

• Now St. Columba rose from where he sat
• Among his monkish crew; and lifting high
• His pale worn hands, his eagle glances met
• The awful glory which suffused the sky.
• As soars the lark, sweet singing from the sod,
• So prayer is wafted from his soul to God.

III.

• For they in their rude coracle that day
• Shuddered had climbed the crests of mountainous wave,
• To plunge down glassy walls of shifting spray,
• From which death roared as from an open grave;
• Till, the grim fury of the tempest o’er,
• Bursts on their ravished sight an azure shore.

IV.

• Ah! is this solid earth which meets their view,
• Or some still cloud‐land islanded on high?
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• Those crags are too aërially blue,
• Too soft those mountains mingling with the sky,
• And too ineffable their dewy gleam,
• For aught but fabric of a fleeting dream.

V.

• Entranced they gaze, and o’er the glimmering track
• Of seething gold and foaming silver row:
• Now to their left tower headlands, bare and black
• And blasted, with grey centuries of snow,
• Deep in whose echoing caves, with hollow sighs,
• Monotonous seas for ever ebb and rise.

VI.

• Rounding these rocks, they glide into a deep
• And tranquil bay, in whose translucent flood
• The shadows of the azure mountains sleep:
• High on a hill, amid green foliage, stood
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• A square and rough‐hewn tower, whose time‐bleached stone,
• Like some red beacon, with the sunset shone.

VII.

• A few more vigorous strokes, and the sharp keel
• Grates on the beach, on which, inclining low
• Their tonsured heads, the monks adoring kneel;
• While St. Columba, his pale face aglow
• With outward light and inward, lifts on high
• The Cross, swart outlined on the burning sky.

VIII.

• Impassive, though in silent wonder, stood
• The islesmen while these worshipped, on their shore,
• A thorn‐crowned figure nailed upon the wood,
• From whose pierced side the dark blood seemed to pour;
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• While on the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
• They loudly called as brow and breast they crost.

IX.

• Spoke now their Master, in a voice whose ring
• Was like the west wind’s in a twilight grove:
• “Glad tidings to this sea‐girt isle we bring,
• Good tidings of our heavenly Father’s love,
• Who sent His only Son,—oh, marvellous
• Deep love!—to die that He might ransom us.”

X.

• “Come! listen to the story of our Lord!
• Sweet Jesus Christ, a child of lowly birth,
• Whom in the manger the wise kings adored,
• For well they knew Him Lord of Heaven and Earth,
• With myrrh and spice they journeyed from the far
• Prophetic East, led by the Pilgrim Star:

XI.

• “And when the star stood still, and mildly shone
• Above a shed where lay the new‐born child,
• They hailed Him God’s only‐begotten Son,
• Saviour of sinners and Redeemer mild;
• Eve’s promised seed, when she with streaming eyes
• Saw the bright sword wave her from Paradise.

XII.

• “For we are children of a fallen race,
• Our sins are grievous in the Father’s sight,
• Death was our doom, but that by heavenly grace
• God sent His Son to be a steadfast light,
• Which calmly shining o’er life’s troubled wave,
• The storm‐tossed souls of erring men might save.

XIII.

• “Go unto Him, all ye that toil and weep,
• Ye that are weary with the long day’s load;
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• He is the Shepherd watching o’er His sheep,
• He leads His flock along the narrow road;
• And when He hears the bleating lamb’s alarm
• He folds the weak one in His sheltering arm.

XIV.

• “Ah, tender Shepherd, who didst love us so,
• Choosing to die that we Thy flock might live;
• What bitter anguish, ah! what heavy woe
• To think, O Lord! that mortal hands should give
• This wound that cleaves Thy side, that mortal scorn
• In mockery crowned Thee with the barren thorn!”

XV.

• Sad was Columba’s face, his words were slow
• As though reluctant to the piteous tale—
• But now his eyes with sacred rapture glow,
• And his wan features kindle, like a pale
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• Dissolving cloud through which the moon is shed:
• He speaks of Christ re‐risen from the dead.

XVI.

• He ceased, then cried: “Glory unto the Lord
• Whose mercy is as boundless as the sea;
• Fruitful to‐day makes He my feeble word,
• For with faith’s eye an ancient chief I see,
• Whose bark o’er the blue deep is drawing nigh,
• He comes to be baptised before he die.”

XVII.

• Scarce had he ended when towards the land
• A wicker boat sped swiftly o’er the bay;
• There by the Pictish chieftain, hand in hand,
• Her golden locks entangled with his grey,
• His grandchild sat, lit by the level rays;
• The loveliest and the last of all her race.

XVIII.

• They hailed the Chief as to a sea‐worn stone
• Two fishers bore him; and his muffled sense
• Struggled with feeble eld to seize the tone
• Of the Saint’s voice, as he in words intense
• Proclaimed the saving truth of gospel lore,
• Then with his hands baptised the Chieftain hoar.

XIX.

• And when the holy dew had wet his brow,
• And his wan lips tasted the sacrament,
• His head against Columba’s breast sank low,
• And o’er his face a smile of rapt content
• Played softly, smoothing out the lines of care
• Which joy and grief and toil had planted there.

XX.

• Then on the spot where he has breathed his last
• They lay him, letting dust to dust return;
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• Then one by one, as solemnly they cast
• A little earth upon his grave, they turn
• To the benighted heathen, look above,
• And chaunt: “His soul is God’s, and God is love.”

XXI.

• A piteous cry and terrible then rung
• Even like a very echo to the word
• Upon the startled hearers, whom it wrung
• With answering grief, as when along the chord
• Of palpitating harp the breezes sigh
• Each string responsive wails in sympathy.

XXII.

• A maiden with wild eyes and streaming hair
• And features white with horror rose aghast,
• Unconscious of the pitying people’s stare,
• And on the new‐made grave herself she cast
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• In utter desolation, till her frame
• Convulsed by sobs shook like a wind‐blown flame.

XXIII.

• “Oh father, father,” she at last made moan,
• “My father’s father, last of all our race,
• Hast thou gone too, and left me here alone
• So helpless as I am, so weak to face
• The dreadful shifts of war with all its woes,
• Cold, hunger, shame, fear of insulting foes.”

XXIV.

• “Nay, child, blaspheme not in thine agony!
• Art thou not in our heavenly Father’s care?
• He who upholds the everlasting sky
• Throughout the ages, suffers not a hair
• Of thine to fall but that it is His will;
• Bless Him for joy, for sorrow bless Him still.

XXV.

• “Yea! clasp thine unused hands in prayer, and lift
• Thy still down‐drooping eyes to Him above.
• Is not the giver greater than His gift?
• Must not His love contain all lesser love
• Of father, mother, brother, husband, wife—
• The Alpha He and Omega of life?”

XXVI.

• Thus spake Columba, burning to allay
• The pains of earthly love with saving truth;
• But she, who deemed confusedly that they
• With their sad rites had slain her sire, forsooth,
• Was deaf to him, and ever made her moan,
• “Hast thou gone too, and left me here alone!”

XXVII.

• At last—when all his words and prayers had failed
• To comfort or assuage the orphan’s woe,
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• Who prostrate on the grave still wept and wailed,—
• Columba muttered as he turned to go:
• “Nay, sooner parley with the roaring main
• Than with a woman maddening in her pain.”

XXVIII.

• So thus they left her, as she would not come,
• Left her to night and a few firstling stars
• That here and there from the celestial dome
• Peered brightly through the narrow cloudy bars,
• As though some great white seraph’s lidless eyes
• Were looking down on her from Paradise.

XXIX.

• But one there was who could not rest in peace,
• For pity of that maiden’s lonely pain!
• Was there no balm in Gilead to appease
• Her wounded spirit?—yea, might not he gain
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• That soul benighted to eternal bliss,
• By teaching her God’s love through grief like this?

XXX.

• Thus Oran mused, the youngest and most fair
• Of that devoted zealous little band
• That now for many a laborious year
• Followed Columba’s lead from land to land,
• Daring the danger of the narrow seas
• To plant the Cross among the Hebrides.

XXXI.

• Young, but most fervid of their brotherhood,
• Fair Oran was, whose faith leaped like a sword
• From out the sheath, and could not be subdued
• When brandished in the service of the Lord,
• To whom—as sparks leap upward from a fire—
• His soaring thoughts incessantly aspire.

XXXII.

• Yea, he must save her soul, that like a bark
• Drifting without a rudder, rudely tossed
• On life’s rough sea, might founder in the dark,
• In the abysm of hell engulfed and lost.
• Thus musing, he retraced his steps once more
• Towards the grave beside the sounding shore.

XXXIII.

• “Arise, and let the dead bury their dead!”
• He said to her still shedding stanchless tears.
• Affrighted by his voice, she raised her head
• With eyes dilated like a startled deer’s;
• With lovely, longing, melancholy eyes,
• She looked up at him with a dumb surprise.

XXXIV.

• “Come unto Jesus, He will give thee rest, ” ’
• Oran began, but stammered as he spoke:
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• Why throbbed his heart so loudly in his breast,
• As if impatient of the heavy yoke
• Of faith, that curbed desire as soon as born,
• That nipped the rose, but left its piercing thorn?

XXXV.

• A moment has undone the work of years!
• A single glance o’erthrown an austere saint!
• And the clear faith, achieved with stripes and tears
• And midnight fasts and vigils, now grows faint,
• And like a star lost in the new‐born light
• Flickers awhile, then fades into the night.

XXXVI.

• Still Oran wrestles with the fiend within,
• Striving to teach the gospel to the maid;
• He tells her of man’s fall through deadly sin,
• And of the Saviour who our ransom paid:
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• She, with her eyes now bent upon the ground,
• Listens like one by strong enchantment bound.

XXXVII.

• It was a clear and cloudless summer night,
• Stars without number clustered in the blue,
• Some like mere sparks of evanescent light
• Receding infinite from mortal view,
• Some with a steadier lustre softly glow,
• Like golden flames or silver flakes of snow.

XXXVIII.

• But lo! like some lost soul from heaven’s height
• Hurled headlong, shivering to its awful doom,
• A wingèd star shoots dazzling through the night,
• And vanishes in some stupendous gloom:
• Thus once the brightest of the angels fell
• Through yawning space into profoundest hell.

XXXIX.

• And trembling for his own soul, Oran prayed:
• “Oh blessed Virgin, whom the angelic quire
• Rapturous adore! immaculate Mother‐maid!
• Pure Queen! make pure my heart of every fire
• Which is not kindled on thy sacred shrine,
• Of every thought not wholly, solely thine!”

XL.

• Even while suppliant’s lips devoutly move,
• A heavenly face, though not the Virgin’s, filled
• His eyes with beauty, and his heart with love,
• Till with dread rapture all his pulses thrilled:
• A face whose heavenly innocence might well
• Eradicate the very thought of hell.

XLI.

• Perplexed, bewildered, breathless Oran stood,
• Torn by the passions he had still suppressed
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• With macerations of the flesh and blood;
• But now this idol which enthralled his breast
• With subtle witchcraft, snake‐like seemed to hiss,
• “Thine immortality for one long kiss!”

XLII.

• “Get thee behind me, Satan!” wildly cries
• The monk, and flees in horror from the place.
• Did not the devil tempt him through those eyes
• Burning like two fair lights in that fair face,
• Till moth‐like drawn in ever‐narrowing rings
• Towards the flame, his soul must scorch her wings?

XLIII.

• Far o’er the moorland through the starlit night
• He rushed, like one who flies in mortal fear
• Of some dread enemy that dogs his flight,
• And who, whate’er his speed, still draweth near:
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• Yea, though he shall outspeed the wingèd wind,
• How fly the haunting thought of his own mind?

XLIV.

• At last he knelt all breathless on the sod,
• And gathered up his whole soul in one prayer,
• Yea,—even as Jacob wrestled before God
• While angels hovered on the heavenly stair,
• He wrestled,—loudly calling on the Lord
• To keep him from the sin his soul abhorred.

XLV.

• When his long prayer was done, and the pale priest
• Rose cold with clinging vapour, one by one
• The flickering stars went out, and in the East
• The dim air kindled with the coming sun,
• While in illimitable sheer delight
• The holy larks rose worshipping the light.

PART II.

I.

• THERE was a windless mere, on whose smooth breast
• A little island, flushed with purple bloom,
• Lay gently cradled like a moorhen’s nest:
• It glowed like some rich jewel ’mid the gloom
• Of sluggish leagues of peat and black morass,
• Without or shrub or tree or blade of grass.

II.

• But on the isle itself the birch was seen
• With its ethereal foliage, like some haze
• Floating among the rowan’s vivid green;
• The ground with fern all feathered, and ablaze
• With heath’s and harebell’s hyacinthine hue,
• Was mirrored in the wave’s intenser blue.

III.

• This was the immemorial isle of graves,
• Here, under nameless mound and dateless stone,
• The generations, like successive waves,
• Had rolled one o’er the other, and had gone
• As these go, indistinguishably fused
• Their separate lives in common death confused.

IV.

• And here amid the dead Columba chose
• To found God’s holy house and sow His word;
• Already here and there the walls arose,
• Built from the stones imbedded in the sward;
• These did the natives without mortar pile,
• As was the ancient custom of their isle.

V.

• For many of them to the work were won
• By reverence for the saint, and thus apace
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• The chapel grew which they had first begun
• As dedicate to God’s perpetual praise;
• So many of the monks again were free
• To give thought wholly to their ministry.

VI.

• And ever first in hastening to his task
• St. Oran was, though last to seek repose;
• Columba’s best beloved, he still would ask
• For heaviest share of duty, while he chose
• Rude penances, till shadow‐like he grew
• With fasts and vigils that the flesh subdue.

VII.

• Yet there was that which would not be subdued—
• A shape, a presence haunting every dream;
• Fair as the moon that shines above a flood,
• And ever trembles on the trembling stream;
• Sweet as some gust of fragrance, unaware
• Stealing upon us on the summer air.

VIII.

• Even so it stole upon his ravished heart,
• Suffusing every fibre with delight,
• Till from his troubled slumber he would start,
• And, as with ague shivering and affright,
• Catch broken speech low murmuring in his ears,
• And feel his eyelids ache with unshed tears.

IX.

• But it befell one windy afternoon,
• While monks and men were busied with the roof,
• Laying the beams through which the sun and moon
• Might shed their light as yet without reproof,
• That there came one across the lonely waste
• Toward these men of God, crying in haste,—

X.

• “Ye say ye came to save us, save us then!
• Save us if ye spake truth, and not a lie!
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• Famine and fever stalk among us,—men,
• Women, and children are struck down and die!
• For lo, the murrain smites our cowering sheep,
• The fishers haul no fish from out the deep.

XI.

• “Ye tell us that your God did multiply
• A few small fishes, wherewithal He fed
• A multitude; in sooth, if ’tis no lie,
• Then come, ye holy men, and give us bread!
• For they are starving by the waterside,—
• Come then, and give us bread,” he loudly cried.

XII.

• He was a man inspiring dread surprise,
• Half‐naked, with long glibs of bristling hair
• In fiery meshes tumbling o’er his eyes,
• Which, like a famished wolf’s from out its lair,
• Glanced restlessly; his dog behind him came,
• Whose lolling tongue hung down like scarlet flame.

XIII.

• “Let me arise, and go to them withal!”
• Cried Oran, flinging down his implement:
• “This heavy tribulation is a call
• From the Most High; a blessed instrument
• To compass their salvation: let me go
• Teach them what mercy worketh in their woe.”

XIV.

• “Go then, my son, and God go with thee still,
• While I abide to speed His temple here,”
• Said St. Columba; “and thy basket fill
• With herbs and cordials, also wine to cheer
• And bread to feed the poor, so that their days
• May still endure to God’s eternal praise.”

XV.

• Then Oran and that wild man forth did fare,
• And o’er the little lake they rowed in haste,
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• And mounting each a small and shaggy mare,
• They ambled o’er that solitary waste,
• Then through a sterile glen their road did lie
• Whose shrouded peaks loomed awfully on high.

XVI.

• When for a mile or two they thus had gone,
• The mountains opened wide on either hand,
• And lo, amid those labyrinths of stone
• The sea had got entangled in the land,
• And turned and twisted, struggling to get free,
• And be once more the immeasurable sea.

XVII.

• It was a sorcerous, elemental place,
• O’er which there now came rushing from the plain—
• Like some dark host whom yelling victors chase—
• A moving pillar of resistless rain
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• Shivering the gleaming lances in its flight
• Against the bastions of each monstrous height.

XVIII.

• Fast, fast it raced before the roaring gale,
• With shrieks and frenzied howlings that did shake
• The very stones with long‐resounding wail,
• And in outlying gorges would it wake
• The startled echo’s sympathetic scream,
• Then whirling on would vanish like a dream,—

XIX.

• Would vanish dream‐like, whither no man knows,
• Fading afar in vaporous gulfs of light,
• While the wet mountain‐tops flushed like a rose,
• And following the spent tempest in its flight
• Its hues ethereal mantling o’er the gloom,
• There glowed the rainbow’s evanescent bloom.

XX.

• And while that rain still drenched him to the skin,
• St. Oran, unappalled, intoned a psalm,
• And lifting up his voice amidst the din,
• He sang, “We laud Thee, Lord, through storm and calm,
• In the revolving stars we see Thine hand,
• The sun and moon rise as Thou dost command.

XXI.

• “We laud Thee for the evening and the morn,
• And the prolific seasons’ changing boon,
• For singing‐birds, and flowers, and ripening corn,
• For tides that rise and fall beneath the moon;
• As in a mirror darkling do we see
• The shadow that Thou castest on the sea.”

XXII.

• Up many a wild ascent, down many a steep
• Clothed with scant herbage, rode that battered pair,
• Where lay the bleaching bones of mangled sheep,
• And carrion crows wheeled hoarsely in the air;
• At last through mist and darkness they espied
• Small lights that twinkled by the waterside.

XXIII.

• There in dark turf‐built hovels close to earth
• Lay the poor sufferers on their beds of heath,
• Gnawed to the very bone by cruel dearth,
• Cold to the marrow with approaching death;
• Thither came Oran like some vision bright,
• And ministered to each one through the night.

XXIV.

• And so dispensing alms he went and came,
• Stooping to enter the last house of all;
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• There, by the peat‐fire’s orange‐coloured flame,
• Whose flashes fitfully did rise and fall
• On the smoke‐blackened rafters—sat a crone
• Ancient it might be as the lichened stone.

XXV.

• Fast through her bony fingers flies the thread,
• And as her foot still turns the whirring wheel,
• She seems to spin the yarn of quick and dead!
• But oh, what makes St. Oran’s senses reel?
• Whose is the shape clad in its golden hair
• That turns and tosses on the pallet there?

XXVI.

• Like some wan water lily veiled in mist
• When puffs of wind its tender petals shake,
• Whose chalice by the shining moonbeams kissed
• Sways to and fro upon the swelling lake,
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• So white—so wan—so wonderfully fair,
• Showed Mona tossing mid her golden hair.

XXVII.

• What should he do? Ah, whither should he turn?
• Why had God let this trial come again?
• Her beauty, half‐revealed, did straightly burn
• Through his hot eyeballs to his kindling brain.
• Was it his duty to go hence or stay?
• He wavered—gazed on her—then turned away.

XXVIII.

• • But that old woman tottered to the door
  • And clutched his cassock with a shaking hand,
  • And mumbled, “Priest, ah! dost thou shun the poor?
  • They say that ye go bragging through the land
  • Of some new God called Christian Charity;
  • But in our need ye turn from us and fly.”
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• XXIX.

  • So spake the crone, but Oran bowed his head
  • And murmured, “If thou bid’st me, I abide.”
  • With downcast eyes he turned towards the bed
  • In fervent prayer low kneeling by its side:
  • At last he rose, pale, cold, and deadly still,
  • With heart subdued to his stern Maker’s will.

• XXX.

  • Thus through her fever did he tend the maid,
  • Who babbled wildly in delirious trance
  • Of her lost home, and her loved kindred laid
  • In alien earth—and of a countenance
  • Fair as a spirit’s comforting her pain,
  • But soon withdrawn to its own heaven again.

• XXXI.

  • All this unflinching would the monk endure,
  • And having cured her body’s sickness, strove
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  • With double zeal her sicker soul to cure:
  • But when he told her of the Saviour’s love,
  • Of sin, and its atonement, and free grace,
  • She looked in puzzled wonder on his face.

• XXXII.

  • She could not understand his mournful creed,
  • Nor knew, poor child, of what she should repent,
  • Nor why her heart was wicked, and had need
  • That some poor pitying God should once have spent
  • His blood for her five hundred years ago—
  • Ancestral voices never told her so!

• XXXIII.

  • She could not understand, but she could feel!
  • And while she sat before him by the flame
  • The pathos of his pleading voice would steal
  • Sweeter than sweetest music through her frame,
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  • And as the ocean murmur in a shell
  • Through her dim soul his solemn accents swell.

• XXXIV.

  • He was the air she breathed—all living things
  • Were pale reflections of him—as the hart
  • In desert places thirsts for water‐springs,
  • Even thus for him she thirsted in her heart;
  • To her it seemed as if life’s aim and end
  • Were just to lay her hand within his hand.

• XXXV.

  • Her eyes were full of love as stars of light,
  • And pierced the cold obstructive atmosphere
  • Of his joy‐killing creed, and did ignite
  • His inmost spirit of sense with fire as clear
  • And radiant as their own—their beaming looks
  • Mingled as flames of fire or meeting brooks.
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• XXXVI.

  • Was he not young and beautiful?—in face
  • Like to that radiant god whose flame divine
  • The Druid worshipped in those younger days
  • Ere sin had stamped the green earth with its sign,
  • Had made the loveliness of flowers a snare,
  • And bid frail man of woman’s love beware.

• XXXVII.

  • Oh, not for him, through all the lonely years
  • Never for him a woman’s love might bloom;
  • Her smiles would never cheer him, nor her tears
  • Fall softly on his unlamented tomb;
  • Never till quenched in death’s supreme eclipse
  • His lips would know the sweetness of her lips.

• XXXVIII.

  • Oh God! would nothing quench that secret fire,
  • Nor yet assuage that hunger of the heart?
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  • To feel this flagellation of desire,
  • To be so near, yet evermore apart,
  • Never to clasp this woman as a wife—
  • This was the crowning penance of his life.

• XXXIX.

  • But lo! one day at dusk they were alone,
  • The rain was beating down on roof and wall,
  • The round of earth with solid rock and stone
  • Had turned phantasmal in its misty pall:
  • They were alone, but neither spake a word—
  • Only their hearts in throbbing might be heard.

• XL.

  • Whose is that low involuntary cry
  • That like a flash of lightning shook each frame
  • With thrill electric? Simultaneously
  • Their yearning lips had sobbed each other’s name!
  • With swift instinctive dread they move apart
  • While magnet‐like each draws the other’s heart.
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• XLI.

  • What boots it thus to struggle with his sin,
  • So much more sweet than all his virtues were?
  • Like a great flood let all her love roll in
  • And his soul stifle mid her golden hair!
  • And so he barters his eternal bliss
  • For the divine delirium of her kiss!

• XLII.

  • What cares he for his soul’s salvation now?
  • Let it go to perdition evermore
  • For breaking that accursed monastic vow
  • Which cankers a man’s nature to the core;
  • For he had striven as never mortal strove,
  • But than his Lord a mightier lord was Love.

PART III.

I.

• “A CURSE is on this work!” Columba cried;
• And with their dark robes flapping in the gale,
• The frightened monks came hurrying to his side,
• And looked at one another turning pale;
• For every night the work done in the day
• Strewn on the ground in wild confusion lay.

II.

• “A curse is on this work!” he cried again
• As his keen glances swept each face in turn:
• “Behold, God smites us in the hurricane,
• And in the lightning doth His anger burn.
• Brethren, some secret deadly sin there is
• Known to the Lord for which we suffer this.

III.

• “Why is it that the elements combine
• Against us, raging in relentless ire
• Against our humble wave‐encircled shrine?
• That air, that water, that consuming fire
• Inveterately war against this fane
• Which we would build, but ever build in vain?

IV.

• “Why is it that the billows of the deep
• Rise in revolt against the rock‐bound shore,
• Lashing themselves to fury on each steep,
• Till inland lakes, awakening at the roar,
• Now roar in mad response, and swell amain,
• Till broadening waters hide the drowning plain?

V.

• “One night, ye know, from out the imminent gloom,
• Shrouding the firmament as in a pall,
• page: 41
• The levin, like a spirit from the tomb,
• Leaped with a ghastly glare, and in its fall
• Struck the new roof‐tree with reverberate crash,
• And left a little heap of shrivelled ash.

VI.

• “Another night—why need I tell the tale?—
• The winds in legions thundered through the air,
• Battering the walls with sudden gusts of hail,
• They rushed with piercing shrieks and strident blare
• Athwart the cloisters and the roofless hall,
• Till stone by stone fell from the rocking wall.

VII.

• “And then the very water turned our foe,
• For in the dead of night it slowly crept,
• Soft wave on wave, till in its overflow
• It deluged all the basement while we slept;
• page: 42
• And where the convent yesterday did stand,
• There spreads the lake as level as my hand.

VIII.

• “And then, when slowly after many days
• The waters had subsided to the main,
• And through the toilsome hours we sought to raise
• Our ever‐shattered structure once again,
• Behold! the earth herself with stone and block
• Shudders convulsive and begins to rock.

IX.

• “For lo, the fiends let loose at God’s command
• Burrow and delve in subterranean gloom,
• Till like the troubled ocean all the land
• Heaves to and fro as tottering to its doom:
• The quiet graves themselves now bursting yawn,
• God’s holy house once more lies overthrown!

X.

• “And now hath come the hour of darkest need—
• The people have abandoned us! They wail
• That their dead fathers rage against our creed,
• That in dark rushing cloud and roaring gale
• The houseless spirits ride and fill the air
• With lamentations for the gods that were!

XI.

• “The Lord rebukes us in His wrath! I ask,
• Again I ask, what man among you all
• Living in deadly sin, yet wears the mask
• Of sanctity? Yea, let him cleanse his soul,
• Confessing all the crying guilt of it,
• Or go for ever to the burning pit!”

XII.

• Again his eagle glances swept each face,
• While the assembled monks, with anxious sigh,
• page: 44
• Asked with a thrill of horror and amaze,
• “Was it indeed a judgment from on high?”
• As with one voice then cried the saintly throng,
• “Not I—not I—know of that hidden wrong.”

XIII.

• And with uplifted arms they loudly prayed,
• “Oh Lord, if in our midst the traitor bides
• Who breaks the sacramental vow he made,
• And takes Thy name in vain, and basely hides
• His wicked ways from every eye save Thine—
• Let his dark sin stand forth, and make a sign.”

XIV.

• All day expectant, waiting on His will,
• The monks in reverential silence stand
• Beneath the rustling pine‐trees of the hill,
• Whence their eyes sweep across the level land:
• Lo, from afar the vision of a maid
• Comes o’er the shining pools the flood has made.

XV.

• Swiftly she came across the devious track,
• With glimmering waterways on either hand;
• Against the luminous vapour at her back
• Her dusky form looms mystically grand;
• While in the liquid crystal by her side
• The phantom of herself seems still to glide.

XVI.

• Was she a spirit risen from the grave
• When its foul depths lay open to the sky,
• Or ghost of Druid priestess wont to rave
• Her blasphemous oracles in times gone by,
• Who ventured thus upon the sacred isle
• For ever barred against a woman’s wile?

XVII.

• But no! as nearer and more near she draws,
• They see a maiden with the wild deer’s grace
• page: 46
• Bounding from stone to stone, whose beauty awes
• These Christian fathers, riveting their gaze;
• For like the full moon framed in amber air
• Her face shone mid the glory of her hair.

XVIII.

• Then in their midst all breathless did she stand,
• But paused bewildered and as one affrayed,—
• Even as a swift wave making for the strand
• With all its waters gathering to a head
• Delays, suspended with back‐fluttering locks,
• Then breaks in showers of brine upon the rocks.

XIX.

• So for a moment motionless she stood,
• From monk to monk her wildered glances stray;
• Immovable, like figures carved in wood,
• These waited what their master’s lips would say,
• But ever and anon, in mute appeal,
• Her piteous eyes to Oran’s face would steal.

XX.

• Only for one brief moment she delayed,
• Struck speechless at his cold averted mien,
• Then with a long low moan she blindly swayed
• With her fair arms towards him, and in keen
• Unutterable anguish cried aghast—
• “Is this a dream, or am I mad at last?

XXI.

• “Dost thou not know me, Oran—Oran mine?
• Look on me; I am Mona, I am she
• For whom thy soul so thirstily did pine!
• Nay, turn not from me! Say, art thou not he
• Whose mouth to my mouth yearningly was pressed,
• Whose dearest head lay pillowed on my breast?

XXII.

• “Dear, be not wroth with me in that I came;
• For our love’s sake look not so stern and grave;
• page: 48
• Ah, surely thou wilt think me free from blame
• For having dared to break the word I gave,
• When I have told thee what has brought me here,
• How sore distraught I was with grief and fear.

XXIII.

• Oh love, when night came swooping o’er the sea,
• And on the poor folk’s tired eyelids sleep
• Fell like a seabird’s feather, stealthily
• I climbed the jagged overhanging steep
• Whose giddy summit looks towards thy home,
• Wondering if haply I might see thee come.

XXIV.

• When, lo! the solid cliff began to shake
• As in an ague fit, and while I stood
• Trembling, methought the maddening sea would break
• Its everlasting limits, for the flood
• page: 49
• Came crashing in loud thunder o’er the land,
• And swept our huts like seaweed from the sand.

XXV.

• Then a great horror seized me, and I reeled
• And fell upon my face, and knew no more.
• When from that trance I woke, the sun had wheeled
• Far up the sky and shone upon the shore,
• And there beneath the bright and cloudless sky
• I saw a heap of mangled corpses lie.

XXVI.

• Shrieking I fled, and paused not in my fright
• Fleeing I knew not whither, but my feet
• Flew swift as ever arrow in its flight
• To thee, my love! Hast thou no smile to greet
• Thy Mona with,—no kiss? For pity’s sake,
• Speak to me, Oran, or my heart will break.”

XXVII.

• All held their breath when she had made her moan:
• All eyes were fixed on that pale monk, who stood
• Unnaturally quiet—like a stone
• Whose flinty sides are fretted by the flood—
• When St. Columba turned on him, and said,
• “I bid thee speak,—man, knowest thou this maid?”

XXVIII.

• Then answered him the other, but his words
• Rang hollow like the toll of funeral bell,
• And on his humid brows like knotted cords
• The livid veins and arteries seemed to swell,
• Facing the accusation of his eyes,
• “Master, I know her not—the woman lies!”

XXIX.

• A hum of indignation, doubt, alarm,
• Ran through their circle, but none durst to speak
• Before the Master, who with lifted arm
• And eyes whence fiery flashes seemed to break,
• Cried very loudly, “Is it even so,—
• Then help me God but I will rout this foe!

XXX.

• “Look, brethren, on this lovely maiden, fair
• As virginal white lilies newly blown,
• Fresh as the first breath of the vernal air,
• Pure as an incarnation of the dawn;
• Look on that golden glory of her hair,—
• It is a man‐trap, Satan’s deadliest snare.

XXXI.

• “Brethren, let the two eldest of you seize
• This fiend in angel’s garb, this beast of prey
• page: 52
• Which lies in wait behind that snowy fleece
• Lusting to take our brother’s name away,
• And blast his fame for purest sanctity
• With lies forged by our common enemy!

XXXII.

• “Seize her, and bear her to that frightful steep
• Where, bristling with huge pier and jagged spire,
• The spectre rock which overhangs the deep
• Pierces the ghastly clouds like frozen fire;
• There standing, fling her from its giddiest cone—
• Into the ocean fling her, like a stone.”

XXXIII.

• The sentence had gone forth; the monks obeyed;
• Two venerable brothers, deep in years,
• First crossed themselves, then seized the struggling maid
• In their stout arms; despite her prayers and tears,
• page: 53
• And wild appears on him she called her love,
• They with their burden now began to move.

XXXIV.

• But he, whose human flesh seemed petrified
• To marble, started from that rigid mood,
• And blindly running after them, he cried,
• “Hold! hold! stain not your hands with innocent blood;
• I broke my vow, I am the sinner, I
• Seduced the maid,—spare her, and let me die.”

XXXV.

• They halted midway, marvelling, aghast,
• When St. Columba thundered to them “Stay!”
• His voice was like a dreadful battle‐blast,
• And startled coveys rose and whirred away:
• “He broke his vow, he is the sinner; aye
• Do as he says—spare her, and let him die!

XXXVI.

• “Yea, well I saw the gnawing worm within,
• But wished to tear the mask from off his soul,
• That in the naked hideousness of sin
• He might stand pilloried before you all:
• This is a judgment on me from above
• For loving him with more than woman’s love.”

XXXVII.

• His voice here failed him and he hid his face;
• And as before some imminent storm all sound
• In earth, air, ocean ceases for a space,
• There fell a breathless silence on that mound;
• But when Columba raised his voice once more,
• It seemed the muffled thunder’s boding roar.

XXXVIII.

• “Oh perjured one! oh breaker of thy vow!
• Oh base, apostate monk, whose guilt abhorred
• page: 55
• Weighed down our walls and laid our chapel low!
• Thy life shall be an offering to the Lord,
• And with thy blood we will cement the fane
• Which for thy sin’s sake still was built in vain.

XXXIX.

• “Seize him, and bear him to that dolorous site
• Where mid our ruined cells the chapel stands
• Whose holy walls and columns every night
• Have fallen beneath the blow of dæmon hands;
• There, living, bury him beneath its sod,
• And so propitiate the Lord our God.”

PART IV.

I.

• It is the night: across the starless waste
• Of silent heaven the solitary moon
• Flits like a frightened maid who flies in haste,
• And wild with terror seems to reel and swoon,
• As in her rear the multitudinous clouds
• Follow like spectral huntsmen in their shrouds.

II.

• And sometimes the wild rout o’ertakes its prey,
• And holds her captive in the lowering sky,
• But ever and anon she bursts away,
• And her white orb floats lustrously on high,
• And with its lambent flame transmutes the haze
• Into a living halo for her face.

III.

• And far o’er black morass and barren moor
• The fitful splendour of the moonlight falls,
• Its broken eddies sweep across the floor,
• And dance in chequered silver on the walls,
• And flood the chapel’s grave‐encircled site
• With sudden flashes of unearthly light.

IV.

• And as the unquiet moonlight comes and flies
• Athwart the little roofless house of prayer,
• Like some lost spirit strayed from Paradise
• Or dæmon‐angel of the realms of air,
• A pallid shape flits through the open door
• And flings itself, low wailing, on the floor;

V.

• And wailing, wailing, lay there in its pain,
• When suddenly it snatched from the out the sod
• page: 58
• Some late‐forgotten spade, while tears like rain
• Poured from its eyes, enough to melt the clod,
• And digging hard the small breach grew apace,
• Till the soil lay like molehills round the place.

VI.

• But through the silence suddenly there swells
• Along the gusty breaths of midnight air
• The mellow tinkling sound of magic bells,
• Such as the pious brethren love to wear,
• To keep the fiends and goblins off that prowl
• For ever near to catch a tripping soul.

VII.

• And as the monks, chanting a solemn hymn,
• Draw nigh the chapel to perform their rite,
• That wailing shape flies far into the dim
• Recess behind the altar full of night;
• While they with burning torches move in file
• To consecrate afresh their sacred pile.

VIII.

• Three days, three nights have fled since in that spot,
• Where fiends and dæmons revelled unforbid,
• They buried that false monk who was a blot
• Upon their rule: but since the earth has hid
• His bones accursed, God’s sun has shone again,
• Nor has fresh ill assailed their prospering fane

IX.

• Which now they enter, singing hymns of praise,
• Columba at their head—when lo, behold
• The grave yawns open and a bloodless face,
• The face of him they knew, rose from the mould:
• Slowly he rose from the incumbent clay
• Lifting the white shroud in the moonlight grey.

X.

• Slowly his arm beneath the winding‐sheet
• He waved three times, as though to bid them hear;
• page: 60
• Then in the moonlight rose he to his feet
• Showing his shrunken body, and his sere
• Discoloured hair, and smouldering eyes that lie
• Sunk in their sockets, glaring hot and dry.

XI.

• Slowly he raised his voice—once rich in tone
• Like sweetest music, now a mournful knell
• With dull sepulchral sounds, as of a stone
• Cast down into a black unfathomed well—
• And murmured, “Lo, I come back from the grave,—
• Behold, there is no God to smite or save.

XII.

• “Poor fools! wild dreamers! No, there is no God;
• Yon heaven is deaf and dumb to prayer and praise;
• page: 61
• Lo, no almighty tyrant wields the rod
• For evermore above our hapless race;
• Nor fashioned us, frail creatures that we be,
• To bear the burden of eternity.

XIII.

• “Hear it, self‐torturing monks, and cease to wage
• Your mad, delirious, suicidal war;
• There is no devil who from age to age
• Waylays and tempts all souls of men that are;
• For ever seeking whom he may devour,
• And damn with wine and woman, gold and power.

XIV.

• “Deluded priests, ye think the world a snare,
• Denouncing every tender human tie!
• Behold, your heaven is unsubstantial air,
• Your future bliss a sick brain’s phantasy;
• There is no room amid the stars which gem
• The firmament for your Jerusalem.

XV.

• “Rejoice, poor sinners, for I come to tell
• To you who hardly dare to live for fright;
• There is no burning everlasting hell
• Where souls shall be tormented day and night:
• The fever ye call life ends with your breath;
• All weary souls set in the night of death.

XVI.

• “Then let your life on earth be life indeed!
• Nor drop the substance, snatching at a shade!
• Ye can have Eden here! ye bear the seed
• Of all the hells and heavens and gods ye made
• Within that mighty world‐transforming thought
• Which permeates the universe it wrought—

XVII.

• “Wrought out of stones and plants and birds and beasts,
• To flower in man, and know itself at last:
• page: 64
• Around, about you, see what endless feasts
• The spring and summer bountifully cast!
• “A vale of tears,” ye cry—“if ye were wise,
• The earth itself would change to Paradise.

XVIII.

• “The earth itself—the old despisèd earth,
• Would render back your love a thousandfold,
• Nor yet afflict the sons of men with dearth,
• Disease, and misery, and drought and cold;
• If you would seek a blessing in her sod,
• Instead of crying vainly on your God.

XIX.

• “Cast down the crucifix, take up the plough!
• Nor waste your breath which is the life in prayer!
• Dare to be men, and break you impious vow,
• Nor fly from woman as the devil’s snare!
• page: 64
• For if within, around, beneath, above
• There is a living God, that God is Love.”

XX.

• “The fool says in his heart, There is no God,”
• Cried St. Columba, white with Christian ire
• “Seize Oran, re‐inter him in the sod
• And may his soul awake in endless fire:
• Earth on his mouth—the earth he would adore,
• That his blaspheming tongue may blab no more.”

XXI.

• Then like swart ravens swooping on their prey
• These monks rushed upon Oran; when there came
• One gliding towards them in wild disarray
• With hair that streamed behind her like a flame
• And face dazed with the moon, who shrilly cried,
• “Let not death part the bridegroom from his bride.”

XXII.

• But deeming her some fiend in female guise,
• They drive her forth with threats, till, crazed with fear,
• Across the stones and mounded graves she flies
• Towards that lapping, moon‐illumined mere;
• And like a child seeking its mother’s breast
• She casts her life thereon, and is at rest.

XXIII.

• And while the waves close gurgling o’er her head,
• A grave is dug whence he may never stray,
• Or come back prophesying from the dead,—
• All shouting as they stifle him with clay:
• “Earth on his mouth—the earth he would adore,
• That his blaspheming tongue may blab no more.”