New Poems

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SAINT BRANDAN. O 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...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SAINT BRANDAN. O 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 it?Christ ?a living form That furtive mien, that scowling eye, Of hair that red and tufted fell It is?Oh, 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...