They sate them down together, and a sleep Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep. Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose, And from her brown-locked head the wimple throws, And takes it in her hand, and waves it over The blossomed thorn-tree and her sleeping lover. Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple round, And made a little plot of magic ground. And in that daisied circle, as men say, Is Merlin prisoner till the judgment-day; But she herself whither she will can rove-- For she was passing weary of his love. _SAINT BRANDAN._ Saint 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 steered; And now no bells, no convents more! The hurtling Polar lights are neared, 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 asked the passers-by for aid,_ _In Joppa, and thy charity_. “Then I remembered 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 fevered him fivefold. “He gazed upon me as I passed, And murmured, _Help me, or I die!_ To the poor wretch my cloak I cast, Saw him look eased, and hurried by. “O Brandan! think what grace divine, What blessing must full goodness shower, When fragment of it small, like mine, Hath such inestimable power! “Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I Did that chance act of good, that one! Then went my way to kill and lie, Forgot my good as soon as done.