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,'
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 Penda'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
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, unlooked 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,
That cross King Oswald's standard in the fight,
That cross Cadwallon's sentence as he fell,
'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
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 morrow 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.
My son shall live, and after me shall reign:
Northumbrian 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. 'Man nor child,'
He sware,'henceforth shall tread Northumbrian soil,
Nor hart nor hind: I spare the creeping worm:
My scavenger is he,' 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,
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:
'Lord of the Mercian realm, renowned in arms!
Our lord, Northumbria's 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,
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
Northumbria's sentence. On a hill, thick-set
Stood Oswy'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,
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.'
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 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 Northumbrian sister realms;
Long foes, yet blended by that mingling dust.
_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.' 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,
Northumbrian born, had wedded Mercia's 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:
'King Oswald, living, was Northumbria's 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:
'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
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.'
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.'
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 Irae' sang,
The yellow tapers ranged as round a corse,
And Penitential Psalms in order due.
Their rite was for the living: ere the time
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
Covering that royal Bier, unshaken stood
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!'
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,
'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.
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,
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--
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
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,
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.
_HOW SAINT CUTHBERT KEPT HIS PENTECOST AT CARLISLE._
Saint Cuthbert while a boy wanders among the woods of Northumbria,
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.