Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909.
Poems from Magazines, 18601866Saint Brandan
S
The brotherhoods of saints are glad.
He greets them once, he sails again.
So late!—such storms!—The Saint is mad!
Chime convent bells on wintry nights,
He saw on spray-swept Hebrides
Twinkle the monastery lights;
And now no bells, no convents more!
The hurtling Polar lights are near’d,
The sea without a human shore.
Stars shone after a day of storm)—
He sees float past an iceberg white,
And on it—Christ!—a living form!
Of hair that red and tufted fell——
It is—Oh, where shall Brandan fly?—
The traitor Judas, out of hell!
The moon was bright, the iceberg near.
He hears a voice sigh humbly: ‘Wait!
By high permission I am here.
On earth my crime, my death, they knew;
My name is under all men’s ban;
Ah, tell them of my respite too!
(It was the first after I came,
Breathing self-murder, frenzy, spite,
To rue my guilt in endless flame)—
’Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,
An angel touch mine arm, and say:
Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!
The Leper recollect, said he,
Who ask’d the passers-by for aid,
In Joppa, and thy charity.
In Joppa, through the public street,
One morn, when the sirocco spent
Its storms of dust, with burning heat;
Shivering with fever, naked, old;
Sand raked his sores from heel to pate,
The hot wind fever’d him five-fold.
And murmur’d: Help me, or I die!—
To the poor wretch my cloak I cast,
Saw him look eased, and hurried by.
What blessing must true goodness shower,
If semblance of it faint, like mine,
Hath such inestimable power!
Did that chance act of good, that one!
Then went my way to kill and lie—
Forgot my good as soon as done.
Of mercy caught, did not expire;
Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom,
And friends me in the pit of fire.
On earth, the Christmas night’s repose,
Arising from the sinners’ lake,
I journey to these healing snows.
With silence balm my whirling brain.
O Brandan! to this hour of rest,
That Joppan leper’s ease was pain!’——
He bow’d his head; he breathed a prayer.
When he look’d up—tenantless lies
The iceberg in the frosty air!