Fame of St. Patrick goes ever before him, and men of goodwill believe gladly; but Milcho, a mighty merchant, and one given wholly to pride and greed, wills to disbelieve. St. Patrick sends him greeting and gifts; but he, discovering that the prophet welcomed by all had once been his slave, hates him the more. Notwithstanding, he fears that when that prophet arrives, he, too, may be forced to believe, though against his will. He resolves to set fire to his castle and all his wealth, and make new fortunes in far lands. The doom of Milcho, who willed to disbelieve. WHEN now at Imber Dea that precious bark Freighted with Erin’s future, touched the sands Just where a river, through a woody vale Curving, with duskier current clave the sea, Patrick, the Island’s great inheritor, His perilous voyage past, stept forth and knelt And blessed his God. The peace of those green meads Cradled ’twixt purple hills and purple deep, Seemed as the peace of heaven. The sun had set; But still those summits twinned, the “Golden Spears,” Laughed with his latest beam. The hours went by: The brethren paced the shore or musing sat, But still their Patriarch knelt and still gave thanks For all the marvellous chances of his life Since those his earlier years when, slave new-trapped, He comforted on hills of Dalaraide His hungry heart with God, and, cleansed by pain, In exile found the spirit’s native land. Eve deepened into night, and still he prayed: The clear cold stars had crowned the azure vault; And, risen at midnight from dark seas, the moon Had quenched those stars, yet Patrick still prayed on: Till from the river murmuring in the vale, Far off, and from the morning airs close by That shook the alders by the river’s mouth, And from his own deep heart a voice there came, “Ere yet thou fling’st God’s bounty on this land There is a debt to cancel. Where is he, Thy five years’ lord that scourged thee for his swine? Alas that wintry face! Alas that heart Joyless since earliest youth! To him reveal it! To him declare that God who Man became To raise man’s fall’n estate, as though a man, All faculties of man unmerged, undimmed, Had changed to worm and died the prey of worms, That so the mole might see!” Thus Patrick mused Not ignorant that from low beginnings rise Oftenest the works of greatness; yet of this Unweeting, that his failure, one and sole Through all his more than mortal course, even now Before that low beginning’s threshold lay, Betwixt it and that Promised Land beyond A bar of scandal stretched. Not otherwise Might whatsoe’er was mortal in his strength Dying, put on the immortal.