SAINT BRANDAN
by: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
- aint 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!
- He heard, across the howling seas,
- Chime convent-bells on wintry nights;
- He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,
- Twinkle the monastery-lights.
- But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd
- And now no bells, no convents more!
- The hurtling Polar lights are near'd,
- The sea without a human shore.
- At last(it was the Christmas night;
- Stars shone after a day of storm)
- He sees float past an iceberg white,
- And on itChrist!a living form.
- That furtive mien, that scowling eye,
- Of hair that red and tufted fell
- It isOh, where shall Brandan fly?
- The traitor Judas, out of hell!
- 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.
- "One moment wait, thou holy man!
- On earth my crime, my death, they knew;
- My name is under all men's ban
- Ah, tell them of my respite too!
- "Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night
- (It was the first after I came,
- Breathing self-murder, frenzy, spite,
- To rue my guilt in endless flame)
- "I felt, as I in torment lay
- 'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,
- An angel touch mine arm, and say:
- Go hence and cool thyself an hour!
- "'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.
- "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;
- "And in the street a leper sate,
- Shivering with fever, naked, old;
- Sand raked his sores from heel to pate,
- The hot wind fever'd him five-fold.
- "He gazed upon me as I pass'd,
- And murmur'd: Help me, or I die!
- To the poor wretch my cloak I cast,
- Saw him look eased, and hurried by.
- "Oh, Brandan, think what grace divine,
- What blessing must full goodness shower,
- When fragment of it small, like mine,
- Hath such inestimable 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 as soon as done.
- "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.
- "Once every year, when carols wake,
- On earth, the Christmas-night's repose,
- Arising from the sinners' lake,
- I journey to these healing snows.
- "I stanch with ice my burning breast,
- With silence balm my whirling brain.
- O Brandan! to this hour of rest
- That Joppan leper's ease was pain."
- Tears started to Saint Brandan's eyes;
- He bow'd his head, he breathed a prayer
- Then look'd, and lo, the frosty skies!
- The iceberg, and no Judas there!
"Saint Brandan" is reprinted from Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold. Matthew Arnold. London: Macmillan and Co., 1905. |
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