Though raised in raptures to the heaven of heavens,
Not therefore loved his brethren less, but longed
To give his life--his all--for Israel's sake,
So Cuthbert, loving God, loved man the more,
His wont of old. To him the mourners came,
And sinners bound by Satan. At his touch
Their chains fell from them light as summer dust:
Each word he spake was as a Sacrament
Clothed with God's grace; beside his feet they sat,
And in their perfect mind; thence through the world
Bare their deliverer's name.
So passed his life:
There old he grew, and older yet appeared,
By fasts outworn, though ever young at heart;
When lo! before that isle a barge there drew
Bearing the royal banner. Egfrid there
With regal sceptre sat, and many an earl,
And many a mitred bishop at his side.
Northumbria's see was void: a council's voice
Joined with a monarch's called him to its throne:
In vain he wept, and knelt, and sued for grace:
Six months' reprieve alone he won; then ruled
In Lindisfarne, chief Bishop of the North.
But certain spake who deemed that they were wise,
Fools all beside: 'Shall Cuthbert crosier lift?
A child, 'tis known he herded flocks for hire,
Housed in old Renspid's hut, his Irish nurse,
Who told him tales of Leinster Kings, his sires,
And how her hands, their palace wrecked in war,
Had snatched him from its embers. Yet a boy
He rode to Melrose and its wondering monks,
A mimic warrior, in his hand a lance,
With shepherd youth for page, and spake: "'Tis known
Christ's kingdom is a kingdom militant:
A son of Kings I come to guard His right
And battle 'gainst his foes!" For lance and sword
A book they gave him; and they made him monk:
Savage since then he couches on a rock,
As fame reports, with birds' nests in his beard!
Can dreamers change to Bishops? Vision-dazed,
Move where he may, that slowly wandering eye
Will see in man no more than kites or hawks;
Men, if they note, will flee him.' Thus they buzzed,
Self-praised, and knowing not that simpleness
Is sacred soil, and sown with royal seed,
The heroic seed and saintly.
Mitred once
Such gibes no more assailed him: one short month
Sufficed the petty cavil to confute;
One month well chronicled in book which verse