There Aidan lived, and wafted, issuing thence, O'er wilds Bernician and fierce battle-fields The strength majestic of his still retreat, The puissance of a soul whose home was God. 'What man is this,' the warriors asked, 'that moves Unarmed among us; lifts his crucifix, And says, "Ye swords, lie prone"?' The revelling crew Rose from their cups: 'He preaches abstinence: Behold, the man is mortified himself: The moonlight of his watchings and his fasts He carries on his face.' When Princes forced Largess upon him, he replied, 'I want Not yours but you;' and with their gifts redeemed The orphan slave. The poor were as his children: He to the beggar stinted not his hand Nor, giving, said 'Be brief.' Such seed bare fruit:-- God in the dark, primeval woods had reared A race whose fierceness had its touch of ruth; Brave, cordial, chaste, and simple. Reverence That race preserved: Reverence advanced to Love: The ties of life it honoured: lit from heaven They wore a meaning new. The Faith of Christ Banished the bestial from the heart of man; Restored the Hope divine. In all his toils Oswald with Aidan walked. Impartial law, Not licence, not despotic favour, stands To Truth auxiliar true. Such laws were his: Yet not through such alone he worked for Truth; Function he claimed more high. When Aidan preached; In forest depths when thousands girt him round; When countless eyes, a clinging weight, were bent Upon his lips--all knew they spake from God,-- The King, with monks from Ireland knit of old, Beside the Bishop stood; each word he spake Changed to the Saxon tongue. Earth were not earth, If reign like Oswald's lasted. Penda lived; Nor e'er from Oswald turned for eight long years An eye like some swart planet feared of man, Omen of wars or plague. Cadwallon's fate, Ally ill-starred, that fought without his aid, O'er-flushed old hatred with a fiery shame: Cadwallon nightly frowned above his dreams. The tyrant watched his time. At Maserfield The armies met. There on Northumbria's day Settled what seemed, yet was not, endless night There Faith and Virtue, deathless, seemed to die: There holy Oswald fell. For God he fought, Fought for his country. Walled with lances round, A sheaf of arrows quivering in his breast, One moment yet he stood. 'Preserve,' he cried, 'My country, God!' then added, gazing round, 'And these my soldiers: make their spirits thine!' Thus perished good King Oswald, King and Saint; Saint by acclaim of nations canonised Ere yet the Church had spoken. Year by year The Hexham monks to Heaven-Field, where of old Had stood that 'Cross which conquered,' made repair, With chanted psalm; and pilgrims daily prayed Where died the just and true.