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o expiate Love that lacked." That term complete An angel caught him o'er that severing gulf:-- Thenceforth he saw his God.' With such discourse Progress, though slow and interrupted oft, The Saint of God, by no delay perturbed, Made daily through his sacred charge. One eve He walked by pastures arched along the sea, With many companied. The on-flowing breeze Glazed the green hill-tops, bending still one way The glossy grasses: limitless below The ocean mirror, clipped by cape or point With low trees inland leaning, lay like lakes Flooding rich lowlands. Southward far, a rock Touched by a rainy beam, emerged from mist, And shone, half green, half gold. That rock was Farne: Though strangers, those that kenned it guessed its name: 'Doubtless 'twas there,' they said, 'our Saint abode!' Then pressed around him, questioning: 'Rumour goes, Father beloved, that in thine island home Thou sat'st all day with hammer small in hand, Shaping, from pebbles veined, miraculous beads That save their wearers still from sword and lance:-- Are these things true? 'Smiling the Saint replied: 'True, and not true! That isle in part is spread With pebbles divers-fashioned, some like beads: I gathered such, and gave to many a guest, Adding, "Such beads shall count thy nightly prayers; Pray well; then fear no peril!"' Others came And thus demanded: 'Rumour fills the world, Father, that birds miraculous crowned thine isle, And awe-struck let thee lift them in thy hand, Though scared by all beside.' Smiling once more The Saint made answer, 'True, and yet not true! Sea-birds elsewhere beheld not throng that isle; A breed so loving and so firm in trust That, yet unharmed by man, they flee not man; Wondering they gaze; who wills may close upon them! I signed a league betwixt that race and man, Pledging the mariners who sought my cell To reverence still that trust.' He ended thus: 'My friends, ye seek me still for parables; Seek them from Nature rather:--here are two! Those pebble-beads are words from Nature's lips Exhorting man to pray; those fearless birds Teach him that trust to innocence belongs By right divine, and more avails than craft To shield us from the aggressor.' Some were glad
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