Thus in that convent Ceadmon lived, a monk, Humblest of all the monks, save him that knelt In cell close by, who once had been a prince. Seven times a day he sang God's praises, first When earliest dawn drew back night's sable veil With trembling hand, revisiting the earth Like some pale maid that through the curtain peers Round her sick mother's bed, misdoubting half If sleep lie there, or death; latest when eve Through nave and chancel stole from arch to arch, And laid upon the snowy altar-step At last a brow of gold. In later years, By ancient yearnings driven, through wood and vale He tracked Deirean or Bernician glades To holy Ripon, or late-sceptred York, Not yet great Wilfred's seat, or Beverley: The children gathered round him, crying, 'Sing!' They gave him inspiration with their eyes, And with his conquering music he returned it. Oftener he roamed that strenuous eastern coast To Jarrow and to Wearmouth, sacred sites The well-beloved of Bede, or northward more To Bamborough, Oswald's keep. At Coldingham His feet had rest; there where St. Ebba's Cape That ends the lonely range of Lammermoor, Sustained for centuries o'er the wild sea-surge In region of dim mist and flying bird, Fronting the Forth, those convent piles far-kenned, The worn-out sailor's hope. Fair English shores, Despite those blinding storms of north and east, Despite rough ages blind with stormier strife, Or froz'n by doubt, or sad with worldly care, A fragrance as of Carmel haunts you still Bequeathed by feet of that forgotten Saint Who trod you once, sowing the seed divine! Fierce tribes that kenned him distant round him flocked; On sobbing sands the fisher left his net, His lamb the shepherd on the hills of March, Suing for song. With wrinkled face all smiles, Like that blind Scian circling Grecian coasts, If God the song accorded, Ceadmon sang; If God denied it, after musings deep He answered, 'I am of the kine and dumb;'-- The man revered his art, and fraudful song Esteemed as fraudful coin. Music denied, He solaced them with tales wherein, so seemed it, Nature and Grace, inwoven, like children played, Or like two sisters o'er one sampler bent, Braided one text. Ever the sorrowful chance Ending in joy, the human craving still, Like creeper circling up the Tree of Life, Lifted by hand unseen, witnessed that He, Man's Maker, is the Healer too of man, And life His school parental. Parables He shewed in all things. 'Mark,' one day he cried, 'Yon silver-breasted swan that stems the lake Taking nor chill nor moisture! Such the soul That floats o'er waters of a world corrupt, Itself immaculate still.' Better than tale